British painter Derek Guthrie has been described as the most influential art critic in the world. With a reputation that’s reached mythical status since his disappearance into the hills of Cornwall 12 years ago, Guthrie has reappeared in the United States for a lecture tour, presenting a talk called “Performing Monkeys and the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg: The Artist Dances for Postmodernism.” He speaks in Room 223 of Western Carolina University’s Fine and Performing Arts Center at 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 21. 227-3594.
In 1973 in Chicago, Guthrie co-founded with Jane Addams Allen a magazine called The New Art Examiner. It was the only publication willing to take on the hegemonies of the New York art market.
During an April 18 interview on the Dining Hall porch of the old Black Mountain College, Guthrie explained that the couple had no choice: “We were black-balled; the New York galleries didn’t like what we wrote about some of their ‘stars.’ The magazines stopped publishing our work.”
The New Art Examiner not only brought regional art into the mainstream of art discourse, it nourished some of the nation’s most competent critics.
Mountain Xpress: “What changes do you see in the art world in America after a 12-year absence?”
Derek Guthrie: “Profound pessimism. A paralysis has descended.”
MX: “Have you seen any art here that you found encouraging?”
DG: “Tom Nakashima is a terribly important artist. His exhibition at the Morris Museum is extraordinary. They show his period of formalism—his abstract color-field works, then move into the period when his concern was with ideas of sacred space, and [then] to his most recent collage works addressing in a profound way the broken natural world.”
MX: “What have you seen that you find least inspiring?”
DG: “A slide presentation at the National Gallery by William Dunlap. The work was banal, and the artist’s presentation was a mixture of Johnny Carson and Amos and Andy—Southern Gent style, of course!”
MX: “What about the Jasper Johns show at the National Gallery?”
DG: “Duchamp said that paintings have a shelf life of 25 years. The ‘shock of the new’ could be wearing off. I found the work gray and very sad—how strange to think of [Johns] being sad.”
MX: “You’ve given your talk at a number of schools at this point. What do you think of the students?”
DG: “They are in an impossible situation: The whole art school system is untenable. The other day, after faculty had left, three of them admitted to me that they admired [saccharine, franchised “painter of light”] Thomas Kinkade! Could you want more proof that art schools are failing? The students can’t tell the difference between popular culture and high culture. Regional schools don’t know if they should be embarrassed about not being in New York or if they should congratulate themselves on their purity.”
MX: “The New Art Examiner gave a great deal of attention to artist-run and non-profit spaces. Do you see a future for them?”
DG: “It is problematic. It is the great liberal conceit to beat up on the market, but the bourgeoisie want to be entertained, and it is getting harder and harder to keep their attention.”
Yeah, the art period we are in is pretty odd. Is it that artists are allowing their egos to get in the way of building upon the foundations of the past, creating the sensationalism we see in art today? Or are we in the midst of an artistic revolution, in which artists are using their emotions more than artistic talent to express their feelings and viewpoints of the “Banal”, “Sad”, “Paralyzed” and “WORSE” society we live in?
Well done Mr. Art Critic, go after Thomas Kinkade and art school students … ’cause they’re not easy targets.
I think it’s more telling that Guthrie is still insisting that there is a difference between pop culture and high culture. I mean, didn’t Warhol pretty much make a career proving the opposite?
In reading this interview, all I’m seeing is one more out-of-touch critic upset the world has moved on. I mean Nakashima? He’s a talented artist and all, but hardly revolutionary. He’s exploring the same ideas that Dali and Picasso did last century.
Instead, I’m seeing a man who appears to be afraid of actually looking for new art, and is instead content to go to the same major institutions and gripe that they’re not willing to bank their endowments on finding artists to shock him. Whatever dude.
It may be safe to lamblast Kincade, but Jasper Johns is a god! I haven’t seen the new Nakashima work,but from Gutherie’s discription, it is nothing like Dali or Picasso! Artist (some, anyway) do tend to change with the times, so please don’t dismiss the work out of hand because the artist is old,and you saw some of his work twenty five years ago!
Connie,
You make some good points, but I think I need to clarify my counter-argument.
I’m not dismissing Nakashima’s talent out of hand, and I’m not saying that artists like Dali or Picasso — or for that matter, Johns — aren’t important. Rather, my issue with Guthrie is that he’s falling into the exact same trap he’s lamenting in American art: He’s become predictable and safe.
Nakashima, for all his obvious talent, isn’t exploring anything new. If anything, he’s following the exact same path that most of the major players in 20th century art did. Explore an established — even traditional — artistic style, fuse it with a seemingly unlikely vocabulary or technique so as to create a theme, add a fish for symbolism. It’s practically a recipe.
It’s fitting that Guthrie name-drops Duchamp, because he blazed the trail that so many artists like Nakashima are currently strolling down. I’ll certainly give him credit for taking Johns down a peg, but, again, that’s a still rather safe choice on his part. Why? Because, god or not, Johns isn’t as culturally relevant as he once was. (And, to be fair to Johns, at 77 years old, I think you’re allowed to have your edgiest work behind you.)
The reality is that there are PLENTY of edgy, important, interesting American artists out there. If Guthrie isn’t willing to look for them, to meet them on their own cultural terms like he seemed so willing to do in the 1970s, I think he should own up to that rather than blame “American art” for not bringing itself to his hermit’s doorstep to be criticized. Particularly if he’s only willing to snoop around every dozen years or so.
Any critic can go to the major museums and galleries to pontificate on the merits of current collections, and any critic can snipe at art college students for having predictable tastes. And, if that’s what he’s really talking about doing — if those are the strict parameters by which he’s judging all modern American art — then perhaps it’s a fair assessment. But, that’s also an extraordinarily limited view of the art in America today.
What about the advent of digital media over the last 12 years? A lot of old timers can not come to terms with digital technology, leaving them prejudice against it’s possibilities and cultural influence. On the flip side I see a negative impact of the digital age being faster paced living and thinking, maybe even information and sensory overload. These feelings can definitely be felt in a lot of modern art. So I am wondering if it is possible that Mr. Guthrie missed the boat and is just now swimming to shore?
Jonathan: Probably something like that. Guthrie seems to be thinking about art by the standards of the 1960s and 1970s. By that yardstick, there’s really not all that much innovation these days, because few young and edgy artists are really all that interested in using the old metaphors and styles.
Of course, there’s plenty of innovation happening in Guthrie’s home turf of the U.K. and Europe, so there’s no excuse for him to have missed out on those movements. Maybe he’s just not seeing it in the U.S. because he’s looking in all the wrong places.
I would also guess that he’s not really thinking about digital media at all. Although I could be wrong, he’s probably still thinking in terms of last century’s “high art,” which I’d guess means painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and mixed-media, but which probably doesn’t extend to interactive Flash-based animation, for instance.
I like that old-time-a rock n’ roll.
I think this is another example of an old codger being upset because things aren’t exactly like they were when he was young.
Also Kent: that kind of music just soothes the soul.
I don’t know much about art – high or low. The trends in art are best critiqued immediately with passion or historically with time. I just think it’s so much easier, lazier and banal to complain about old trees being gone than it is to search for seeds.
“Actually, my artistic knowledge is so tiny it could fit into the brain of an art critic.”
– Michael Kilian
evidently none of you are aged enough to remember the New Art Examiner! Being of the old codger generation myself, I am somewhat startled to find Guthrie accused of saying that that there is nothing inovative or interesting going on today> He simply said there is DEPRESSION. Mostworking artists I know are a little depressed-can’t immagine why-can you?
Guthrie used the word banail to describe the work of ONE, I repete, ONE artist. Feel free to goggle him to see if you love the work
the difference between popular culture and high culture? could this guy be any more pretentious? one of the great characerizations of contemporary art is that the distinction between high and low has been, or is being, blurred. the time for elitism is over and we should welcome all forms of expression as valid, rather than trying to distinguish or criticize one from the other.
If you are interested in hearing one of Mr. Guthrie’s “lectures-in-progress”, here is a link to a streaming file on the East Tennessee State University site.
mms://etsumedia2.etsu.edu/guthrie
I say in progress because I believe it is changing somewhat as he speaks with people, as healthy discourse can. He mentioned wanting to include something about the treatment of adjunct faculty in future lectures, for example. In the spirit of full disclosure, I give the introduction to Derek’s lecture, and there should be a correction noted. At one point I say the New Art Examiner was sold by Jane Addams Allen and Derek Guthrie. This is incorrect. It was always a non-profit under their hand; it was not “sold”, but passed on or transferred.
I would focus on the many pressing questions Mr. Guthrie poses in his lecture.
Significant to me was the challenge to ask about the impact of digital media, photography, and the mechanically reproduced image on the art world we know today. Not deny it, but to try to begin to understand it in a historical context of visual arts.
Val
We have brains for a reason. Discernment could be one of them.
Val: Thanks for the URL. This topic has obviously stirred the pot for some of us, and I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to hear more of Guthrie’s thoughts on the matter of digital media. I’d be delighted to learn that I was, in fact, completely overreacting to his comments in Connie’s interview, and that he’s not saying that American art is — as we’re told by the title of this post — ‘“banal,” “sad,” “paralyzed” and worse!’