April 2025 – Page 3

Riding Rail with Danez Smith & Jack Whitten

Just looking at the upcoming conversations in the Brooklyn Rail’s The New Social Environment series, and they are, as usual full of bangers. Me, I just booked into poet Danez Smith talking about their new book, Bluff, with Mananda Chaffa on Wednesday and a full-on roundtable on Jack Whitten with MoMA curator Michelle Kuo and assembled luminaries on Monday.

See the whole schedule and sign up for free. [brooklynrail.org]

I’m Not Afraid Of Correcting Mistakes

a dark, low-ceilinged gallery space with multiple rows of white steel columns cutting through it and a high gloss floor has at least five lightbox transparency artworks by donald moffett of photos overlaid with text on the left and back wall, but only the back wall is unobstructed enough to make out the content. and it is a white nude guy laying down who appears to be masturbating, with a blue background and a line of illegible white text. in the center foreground, spotlit from above, is a two foot high stack of red posters, which turned out to be a collaborative artwork between moffett and felix gonzalez-torres, which the latter later disavowed. moffett kept his text from the poster, though, which came from an earlier lightbox work. via the university of british columbia fine art gallery, found at the felix gonzalez torres foundation — installation view of Strange Ways: Here we come, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Donald Moffett, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Fine Art Gallery in November 1990, image via FG-T Fndn

Maybe it’s the passage of time, the advancement of discourse, the writing and thinking about it for so long, the engagement with the work and history of an artist who wrote so emphatically, that he’d always believed artists were allowed “to do whatever they please with their work.” Or maybe it’s the moment, when something I’ve seen and written about before looks different. And when something I’ve read a dozen times before finally sinks in, maybe because now I’ve had that same experience.

“I’m not afraid of making mistakes, I’m afraid of keeping them,” Felix Gonzalez Torres told Tim Rollins in 1993.

Andrea Rosen put that quote in context in her CR essay [pdf], and how Felix’s decision to not have a studio meant the first time he’d see a work realized was when he installed it in a gallery: “Putting the work in public immediately allowed him the opportunity to sense if he felt confident about his decisions. From time to time Felix would decide that he did not feel strongly enough about a piece to have it remain a work, even if it had already been exhibited.”

“Untitled” (The Neverending Self-Portrait)

a single line of pale silver painted text runs along the top of the wall at the national portrait gallery, picked out by a carefully aligned row of accent lighting. in the right corner a single swag of a lightstring arcs out of frame. felix gonzalez-torres' 1989 self-portrait, "untitled", in one of two simultaneous installations in the exhibit hilariously and falsely criticized for queer erasure — *“Untitled”* (1989), paint on wall, with exceptional accent lighting, at the National Portrait Gallery

We were in the neighborhood, and so we went back to see the Felix Gonzalez-Torres exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Which was the first time we spent time with “Untitled” (1989), a portrait work which appears twice, in two different configurations, in two different spots of the exhibition. [Technically, it’s in three spots: the work is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, where it’s been on view since December 2023.]

In the show it felt impossible to do more than sense the differences between the two installations. It seemed that, in the absence of a subject named in parentheses, this was a portrait of the artist himself, but the variety of posthumous additions made it non-obvious. So we left with questions: How was this portrait adapted for this dual/triple version? Besides the title, how [else] was it different from the others? If it was indeed a self-portrait, how did this portrait practice come to be?

Helpfully, the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation collects documentation of each version as it is installed. As the first portrait [sic] that was, indeed, a self-portrait, which was in Andrea Rosen’s collection [The AIC got it in 2002], “Untitled” (1989) may be one of the most frequently exhibited; the documentation for [at least] 42 versions runs to 17 pages [pdf].

Twombly Cinematic Universe

this sally mann photo of cy twombly's studio is from 2011, probably. a densely calligraphed white on deep blue painting sits in a thick, old carved giltwood frame on a dark easel, next to a work table cluttered with mail, books, posters, acrylic paint jars, and a five-tiered square wedding cake of a twombly sculpture made out of white boxes with what looks like a caketopper-like figure in a chair, but is probably a blob of plaster-soaked rag. on one of the plinths of the sculpture rests a black an dwhite polaroid photo. two thin stalk-like sculpture elemtns rise behind the table, and the whole scene is blown out and backlit by the light coming through the thin accordion style blinds in the background. sally mann is a professional photographer so this is an artistic choice. it's not like she was going to tell twombly to relight or restage his studio. we're lucky to have this — Sally Mann photo of Cy Twombly’s Lexington Studio from *Remembered Light*

Looked through Remembered Light: Cy Twombly in Lexington, Sally Mann’s 2016 book of photos of Twombly’s places, for the first time the other day, and saw this. A perfect little painting in a fat, baroque giltwood frame in his cluttered storefront studio.

But this is not just any perfect painting. [I don’t actually know what painting it is, tbh.] I just know it was a major plot [sic] in Tacita Dean’s 2011 film, Edwin Parker.

a 12yo detail of a screenshot from tacita dean's 2011 film edwin parker is the interior of twombly's cluttered studio, where twombly, his back to the camera and wearing a camel colored corduroy jacket, is standing in front of a red green orange and black swagged painting which he's trying to reset in an old, carved giltwood frame sitting on an easel. A white guy in workwear and a baseball hat, twombly's driver and local assistant in lexington virginia whose name is literally butch, like, butch is his name, is standing to the left, not quite helping, but trying to be ready to help with some tape or whatever. a yellow measuring stick has been inserted behind the painting to wedge it into the frame, by nicola del roscio, twombly's companion or whatever, who understood that on the easel, there was nothing holding the painting in place.

Maybe plot is a little strong. In her quiet, attentive film Dean doesn’t follow Twombly around so much as just be where he is, and observe. And for most of the film, he’s in this little studio. The first action or narrative drama, such as it is, involves a painting that has fallen out of this picture frame, and Twombly tries to fix it. The two men with him—first, Butch, his local assistant, and then Nicola Del Roscio—alternately hover and jump in to help with tape and a tape measure.

a screenshot from tacita dean's 2011 film edwin parker which shows twombly's storefront studio after the three men have gone outside, on their way to lunch. the jury-rigged painting with the tape measure sticking out is in the center right middle ground. the clutter of a table, with books and boxes and bags and the tiny head of a porcelain frog from a yard sale are out of focus in the lower foreground. a couple of white painted sculptures or sculptures in progress stick up like lone buildings in this messy skyline. the pleated accordion shades probably bought at walmart are down, the light is better than sally mann's photo, at least stereotypically better. — detail of a screenshot from Tacita Dean’s *Edwin Parker*, 2011

When I had a review copy of Edwin Parker like ten years ago, I got kind of fixated on this painting, wondering what it was, where it was, and taking grainy screencaps so that I could track it down.

When the Hirshhorn was wrapped in his giant curtained scrim, the swag and slightly lurid colors made me worry Twombly’s painting was by Nicholas Party. When I was making Facsimile Objects about inaccessible Dürers in German museums, I wondered if it was the freely painted verso of something more mundane.

a google streetview screenshot of the back of a durer painting in the state museum in karlsruhe, germany, which is mounted on a white pedestal in a black and gold edged frame. the back of the painted panel is swirling red green pink blue, pale yellow, interpreted as a slice of agate, and I forget what's on the front. some devotional image of jesus [love him, don't get me wrong, but not the point rn] the gallery floor dominates the image; it is strip wood. the walls are pale grey with a dark grey stone baseboard. google streetview cruft and ui elements abound obv — gsv of a Dürer in Karlsruhe, via

Later in the film, Del Roscio is holding the blue & white painting up top, flipping it around, as Twombly says it’ll fit in the frame. It looks like it’s related to the series of paintings Twombly made for the Louvre in 2008, as part of his ceiling deal.

a woman in a black hijab walks with her phone outstretched, presumably filming or photographing as she walk along a series of cy twombly paintings on the white wall of the louvre abu dhabi. the paintings are vertical, larger than human scale, in deep dark blue with loose, thick gestural calligraphic loops and rows of marks in white. the nine paintings were bought by the louvre for the louvre abu dhabi, and then the louvre in paris had twombly make a blue ceiling mural for them. the image originally comes from cnn — installation view of Cy Twombly’s *Untitled I–IX*, 2008, at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, screenshot via CNN

So the plot, such as it is, involves the swapping out of one painting for another. Technically, this climax does not happen in Edwin Parker; Del Roscio is only shown setting the little painting carefully against the wall.

Whether that makes Mann’s photo a spoiler, a sequel, or just a post-credits teaser, I cannot say. All I know is now I have two little paintings to track down.

Cy Twombly Worked-On Paper

a screenshot of a photo of a clear plastic box filled with tiny balls of rolled up paper, sitting on its lid in a featureless ground, a 1953 sculpture by cy twombly, as published in katie nesin's 2014 book, cy twombly's things, the original photo taken by nicola del roscio himself, amazingly, for the cy twombly foundation — Twombly, Get me some tissue: Cy Twombly, *Untitled*, 1953, paper balls in plastic box, tape, 1 7/8 x 3 1/4 x 2 5/8 in., as published in Katie Nesin’s *Cy Twombly’s Things* (2014, Yale Univ. Press), photo: Nicola Del Roscio himself [!]

A lot of Twombly tabs open, as is the custom. After watching Art Institute curator Katie Nesin’s lecture about it, I checked out her 2014 book, Cy Twombly’s Things, an art historical close read of the artist’s sculptures.

Nesin examines at great length Twombly’s practice of painting his sculptures. It’s something Twombly referenced in one of his few artist statements, and which curators addressed, too. I know what they all mean, I really do, and so do you, but it is really hard to read statements coming straight outta Lexington like, “The reality of whiteness may exist in the duality of sensation (as the multiple anxiety of desire and fear). Whiteness can be the classic sttae of the intellect, or a neo-romantic idea of remembrance—or as the symbolic whiteness of Mallarmé. The exact implication may never be analyzed, but in that it persists as the landscape of my actions, it must imply more than mere selection.” And Kirk Varnedoe talking about “the increasing self-consciousness of his commitment to white,” and Nesin concluding “it is white’s susceptibility to contamination that remains the point,” in 2025 and think it all stays neatly contained in the art box.

Anywho, that’s a dissertation for another day. I mention it because Nesin traces the development of Twombly’s practice of painting his sculptures white with a picture of one of the few, early sculptures he didn’t paint white. Untitled (1953) is white on the inside. It’s a tiny plastic box filled with little rolled up balls of paper. Nesin argues that it’s also “derivative” because its size and nature refer to the scatole personali, the little fetish boxes, objects, and constructions Robert Rauschenberg showed in their two-person show in Florence in mid-March. [In a sharp detour from whiteness, Twombly showed geometric tapestries he constructed from textiles he bought in Tangier.] Which, yes, I see the connection.

robert rauschenberg's 1953 work Untitled Paper Painting was an 18 x 14 x 4 inch glass display case with a thin beveled wood base, filled with crumpled tissue paper that cy twombly said came from shoe boxes, sitting on a rough wood floor against a black background. the photo is from the rauschenberg foundation, the sculpture is lost or destroyed. perhaps by twombly tearing it up into little balls and putting it in his own box, who knows — Robert Rauschenberg, *Untitled (paper painting)*, 1953, 18x14x4 in., shoe box tissue paper, glass, wood base. lost or destroyed, or maybe rolled up into little balls in Twombly’s pocket

But there is a closer reference in 1953. In the then-couple’s Fulton Street studio, Robert Rauschenberg filled a glass case with tissue paper from shoe boxes and called it a paper painting. Did Twombly take some of Rauschenberg’s tissues and make them into balls he could keep in his pants? Did they make their his & his tissue boxes together? Whose personal fetish are we talking about, actually? While it’s impossible to say for sure who came first, it does seem likely these two came together.

Etel Adnan’s Language of Painting

a small etel adnan gouache painting of a dark red sphere, shaded in darker red and black along the lower and right edge to give it volume, in an unevenly watery square of light greens, in the center of an otherwise blank sheet of 10.5 by 14 inch paper, dated from the 1960s and signed Adnan in the lower left corner, it on view at galerie lelong in nyc until april 5, 2025 — Etel Adnan, Untitled (c. 1960s), Ink and gouache on paper. 10 ⅝ x 14 in., via Galerie Lelong

First things first, Galerie Lelong’s exhibition of Etel Adnan’s works on paper is on view for two more days, so get going.

I’ve been listening to Kaelen Wilson-Goldie’s interview about Adnan on Bulaq, the podcast of Ursula Lindsey and M Lynx Qualey (ArabLit editor), and right around 24:00 Wilson-Goldie turns the question back to her book-centric hosts, to ask what they think the complicatedly multilingual Adnan meant by her statement that she “painted in Arabic.”

I would love to know more of the context in which she first said that. Wilson-Goldie, Lindsey, and Qualey talk about Adnan’s shifts from writing in French to English as her perspective and contact with French and US colonialism changed. But also how her return to Lebanon in the 1970s included a mutual embrace with the new Arabic poetry communities of the day.

I can absolutely see the appeal of a painting language that did not carry with it the political baggage, while also making an affirmative assertion of solidarity. Or maybe that characterizing painting as a language separate from the ones she used for writing helped justify it, or at least made it make sense within/alongside her multi-faceted, text-based practice. Or maybe it just gave her the psychological and linguistic space she needed for a personal expression. I’m trying to think of many novelist/poets who were also recognized for their painting, but ngl, my head is not primed for unfettered rumination on poetry today [noon]. Wonder why.

In any case, I feel like I have to rethink my understanding of Adnan’s work a bit precisely because I’d always read it—or seen it presented— as being an Arabic-inflected modernism being subsumed into the larger modernist project. And I have to consider that that could be just how it looks from my perspective in the distended belly of that empire.

[listened to the end of the podcast update: OK, so Adnan had various complex takes on what it meant, and why she did not, in fact, learn Arabic. And I wonder what it means that this was the language she analogized to her painting.]

Etel Adnan on Paper: 1961-2021 runs through Apr 5, 2025 [galerielelong]
Bulaq | Etel Adnan: ‘I write what I see, paint what I am’ [sowt/bulaq]
Whoops, missed Etel Adnan centenary show at White Cube [whitecube]
ArtSeen | Ann McCoy on Etel Adnan [brooklynrail]

Heading To Bassano, Wish You Were Here

The startlingly beautiful hues of a tropical Florida Sunset are depicted here in all their splendor and completeness that Cy Twombly didn’t need to add anything, not even his signature, via Maison d’Art

It’s the little differences. Where Marcel Duchamp’s letters to his collector friend Katherine Dreier are all, “shipping is $34, please send me $34,” Cy Twombly’s letters to his collector friend Reiner Speck are like, “we await you in the summer castle.” I have read the Twombly correspondence with noted urologist and Proust expert Herr Dr. Reiner Speck in the catalogue for Maison d’Art’s current exhibition, and here’s the expanded tl;dr: