A campus lecture I attended as a student set the stage for Benjamin Butler's path to painting. In this article, which was specially written at the invitation of Basha Art, he recounts his pursuit and contemplation of the clarity and solemnity of Alex Katz's paintings. Generations of artists, such as Alex Katz and later generations of artists, continue the path in the studio in a tacit way.
Narrator: Benjamin Butler was born in 1975 in Westmoreland, Kansas, USA, graduated from Emporia State University (Kansas) in 1997, received a master's degree in fine arts from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000, and currently lives and works in Vienna, Austria.
Benjamin Butler has been presenting ongoing solo exhibitions around the world, such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Vienna, Basel and Berlin. In 2005 he also participated in the PS1/MoMA group exhibition "Greater New York".
Artist: Alex Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. Since the mid-1950s, his work has participated in many international group and solo exhibitions. Following the 1986 Whitney Museum retrospective and the 1988 Brooklyn Museum of Art print retrospective, he has held several major landscape and portrait exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Alex Katz has always maintained a prolific creative state, and his creative philosophy and style have inspired and inspired a large number of younger artists.
Alex Katz, Fall 2, oil on canvas, 121.9×243.8cm, 2004,
The May 13, 2015 Sotheby's Contemporary Art Day Auction in New York sold for $250,000 (estimated at $125,000-$175,000), courtesy of Sotheby's.
Sunny and majestic
[Wen · Benjamin Butler]
Around 1999, when I was studying for a master's degree at the Art Institute of Chicago, I had the privilege of observing an Alex Katz lecture. At that time, he used a large number of slides on the podium to elaborate on his rigorous and meticulous creative process, and even showed a video of himself swimming back and forth in the pool. For him, who was 72 years old at the time and continued to create, it was undoubtedly necessary to maintain his physical fitness. The way he speaks also creates a relaxed atmosphere, as if parallel to the sunny scenes in his paintings.
The feeling of that moment impressed me very much, and I sat downstage to watch such a famous artist so simple and intimate. Although at the same time I also felt that most of the audience did not feel the same as me. During the Q&A session at the end of the lecture, one student stood up and pointed out provocatively that Alex didn't seem to be really serious about painting.
Alex responded calmly: "I have been painting for more than 40 years, and I am very clear about the solemnity of my treatment of painting. ”
Alex Katz, Field Flowers I, oil on canvas, 121.9×168cm, 2011. The November 12, 2014 Sotheby's Contemporary Art Day Sale in New York sold for $185,000 (estimated at $200,000-$300,000) and image courtesy of Sotheby's.
One day two years later, my grandmother, who lives in Kansas, asked if I could paint a landscape for her. Her request made me realize that the readability of art was more important than I thought. This idea led me from the studio to a trail that I still walk on to this day.
I realized that my grandmother already had a sample in my mind from "The Joy of Painting," a PBS show that aired between 1983 and 1994, in which Bob Ross taught the viewer how to easily draw trees and snow-covered mountains that revealed pleasure with his fast, almost magical painting techniques. Ruth captures and soothes many viewers with his signature soothing tone and healing paintings, becoming an escape that we desperately need in this world.
I've even wondered if elsewhere a more sophisticated viewer was moved in a similar way by Alex Katz's paintings.
Perhaps to this day, I still love the paintings of Alex Katz and Bob Ruth at the same time. As a young boy growing up in a small town in Kansas, I was once inspired by a painter on a television show who taught me that my initial feelings for art were a potential, unknown, and major source. Bob Ruth woke me up. Alex Katz, on the other hand, was one of the many references I received after my higher education, the result of my search after I became obsessed with art and painting. These two parallel but polarized standards are especially important to me, and they help me to advance my understanding of contemporary painting in my thinking.
Benjamin Butler, Purple Tree (Pastel), oil on canvas, 190×240cm, 2012 © Benjamin Butler, Courtesy of Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna
In 2002 at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, I finally found a definite presence in the middle of the poles.
Alex Katz had spent many years of summer in Maine at the time, and he had donated 400 of his works to the Colby College Gallery in 1992 and forged a deep bond with the College. As I walked in front of the many Alex Katz paintings in the Colby Academy Art Gallery, I admired his use of color and proportion, immersed in his mastery of painting technique and exquisite brushstrokes. I think back to the lecture I heard in 1999 and think about the connection between us in painting.
My keen interest in combining so-called "vulgar art" with "high art" forms led me to associate the landscape paintings of Alex Katz with the images in the greeting cards, calendars, and craft landscapes that I grew up with. Looking back at those "vulgar" and crafted art forms in contemporary, commercial and postmodern contexts instantly awakens me, and I wonder if Alex Katz was also aware of his connection to vulgar art. Or rather, the connection is even closer in our generation, which is more influenced by pop art and popular culture. Then I learned that he was really inspired by a lot of movies, fashion and outdoor billboards.
Alex Katz, Night Tree, oil on canvas, 193.7×196.2 cm, 1993, sold for $245,000 (estimated at $100,000-$150,000) at the Sotheby's Contemporary Art Auction in New York on March 7, 2014, courtesy of Sotheby's.
From the existing works, Alex Katz has created many paintings with very high readability, which are feminine and eye-catching in response to subject matter and appeal. For example, he depicts family, friends, holiday scenes, sunsets, trees and forests, birds and huge flowers. The figures in his figurative paintings also often appear as sipping cocktails, wearing a swimsuit, relaxing on the lawn, dancing, or in cinematic close-ups. He also often creates huge oil paintings, as if he is sending an open invitation to everyone to enter and experience the world in his paintings.
But we should be wary of being fooled by the ease and temptation conveyed in his paintings, and Alex Katz, while presenting us with his relaxed and silent observations of life around him, is undoubtedly conveying his attitude towards painting, composition, and art history with the utmost seriousness. In particular, the eye goes back to the chronological context in which these paintings were created and circulated, starting with his first solo exhibition in 1954.
Benjamin Butler, Untitled Tree, oil on canvas, 50×60cm, Benjamin Butler, Courtesy of Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2016 ©
Alex Katz is engaged in dialogue with art history in as elegant and comfortable a way as possible.
He has something in common with Abstract Expressionism: huge size, grandiose style, and pronounced brushstrokes, but the subject matter he chooses softens the masculinity prevalent in the paintings of the previous generation. From pop art, he captures simple flatness, bright colors and repetitive patterns, as well as the idea that any everyday object can take its place in contemporary art. His work is also clearly linked to many art-historical cases, such as bright color field paintings, Matisse's confident use of line and color, Milton Avery's landscape composition, Manet's unique flattening treatment, and even the psychological associations of simple figures in Georgia O'Keefe's work.
Benjamin Butler, The Pastel Forest, oil on canvas, 190×240cm, 2012 © Benjamin Butler, Courtesy of Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna
Contrary to the soothing atmosphere presented at the end of the work, Alex Katz is very intense in his painting process. He often begins with a series of sketches to capture the gestures and expressions of the subject, creating the first impression in the process of purification and formation. A huge cartoon-like picture is painted on paper with charcoal pencils, and then it is converted to the canvas that finally carries the work with a rapid wet touch technique. All of these steps are essential exercises and preparations, like an athlete warming up before a big competition to pre-act and strengthen muscle memory. Before the final picture was presented, even if there was a small piece of color that had not been determined, Katz carefully advanced step by step with a strong feel until it was perfected.
Because of this, the viewer seems to be able to touch and feel the intense sunlight shining in Katz's paintings.
Alex Katz, Twilight Series, chromatic triptych prints, overall size 118.7×95.3cm, 24/25, with signature, 2009-2010, Published by Simmelink/Sukimoto Editions, Kingston, New York, all Unframed.New York Phillips sold for $22,500 (estimated at $18,000-$25,000) at the Day and Night Auction of works on paper on October 26, 2015, courtesy of Phillips.
Alex Katz often paints the same theme over and over again. The eloquent figure of his wife, Ada, has appeared in his paintings for more than half a century, sometimes even multiple times in the same painting, from an ordinary love story and everyday life into the picture like a ripple for decades to act on Katz's creation. It can even be ventured to speculate that it also influenced the work of pop artists such as Andy Warhol on some level, not to mention those who continue to work today.
Through painting, Katz successfully solidifies time. He found a most poetic way to preserve the image of his lover beyond time to immortality. Perhaps these paintings are also a complex metaphor for his deep love for one of the things he does best: painting.
Benjamin Butler, Ocean Tree, oil on canvas, 51×41cm, Benjamin Butler, Courtesy of Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2001 ©
In a 2012 interview with WGBH Radio, Alicia M. Alicia Anstead asked Katz, "How do you watch it?" ”
Katz replied, "Part of the picture I saw came from the man's inner view of art. If you have presupposed what art should look like in your mind, you will see it appear in line with expectations.
"Probably when I was in art school, I started to realize this problem. I was sketching by the river, painting a picture as beautiful as in Bonaire's painting, and when I looked up I saw a man on the roof, and the sun hit him at that moment, like a visual spectacle. However, when I looked down, all I saw was a so-called 'beautiful' painting. Although I lost the painting a few years later, I knew that the moment was the inspiration I longed for. I realized that everyone thinks they're looking at the world through their eyes, but the truth is that they use their respective cultural backgrounds as a window. Your culture is telling you what you see.
"You might think that what you see is constant, but it's only transient."
[This article was originally published in the July 2016 issue of Basha Art in the "Masterpieces talk about masterpieces" column]
[Guest Writer/Benjamin Butler] [Editor & Translator/Wei Yi] [Editorial Assistant/LI Xixi, Wen Zhuang]
［资料提供／Benjamin Butler、Tomio Koyama Gallery、Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery、Galerie Martin Janda、Sotheby's、Phillips］
[Special Thanks/Tomio Koyama Gallery]