1 of 4
WITH THIS ISSUE WE INTRODUCE A NEW DEPARTMENT. IN CITY JOURNAL, COLUMNIST EMILY OREN WILL REPORT ON THE VISUAL CULTURE OF NEW YORK. (NOW AND THEN UNDER THE SAME HEADING WE'LL INCLUDE REPORTS FROM OTHER PLACES.) COMING IN THE MAY/JUNE ISSUE: A FRESH LOOK AT STAINED GLASS. AND IN JULY AUGUST: A VISIT TO A NEWLY CONSTRUCTED KOREAN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN QUEENS, ONE OF THE MOST RADICALLY DESIGNED BUILDINGS TO APPEAR IN THE CITY IN DECADES. OREN IS A FIRST-YEAR STUDENT OF ARCHITECTURE AT COOPER UNION. HER HOME CHURCH IS HOLY CROSS ANTIOCHIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN CANTONSVILLE, MARYLAND.
"Were these our seats?" says my friend Penley, just a little too loudly. The woman in front of him has moved our belongings onto one chair and is now occupying the other one, in pretended ignorance of the plight she has put us in. New Yorkers, I've learned, can be subtle with their incivility. Especially at art shows.
"I think so," I reply, in a tone designed to make the squatter uncomfortable. We continue this obviously staged dialogue for a minute or so, but the woman ignores us and continues her conversation. We're going to have to get another chair from the back.
We are here to listen to Eric Fischl. He is an artist, mostly a painter, famous for his vernacular, suburban backdrops that depict scenes bordering on the taboo and dangerous, and often hinting at the allegorical although the viewer can't always readily unpack the immediately suggestive imagery.
Fischl is very distinguished looking, with a black blazer over a black dress T-shirt and suit pants. His graying hair is longish, brushing his shoulders at times; he has that Richard Gere look about him, and I think that he could definitely pass for an onscreen presence. He waits patiently while someone delivers the obligatory aggrandizing introduction; then he steps to the microphone.
"Can everyone hear me?" he asks, with the confidence of a high-school debater who knows he's about to give a decisive rebuttal. There is a chorus of "no," "yes", and "a little!" from various parts of the room. Fischl shrugs.
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it, so … " There is a pause. "I'm a little tired right now," he apologizes. "I was just playing tennis." He could be talking to one of his students, or his wife. The audience giggles at his familiarity.
"You know, tennis is a lot like painting," he continues. I brace myself for a painfully stretched analogy. Surprisingly, though, Fischl carries it out with deft ease, winning soft laughter from us. "Both take place inside a rectangle. They use tools—a brush and a racket—that extend your reach and make strokes. There are rules, which are sometimes broken. Opposition and resistance are part of the goal; they improve you, make you into a more skilled competitor. And there are two camps of participants: professionals and amateurs.
"In tennis, there are two audiences. First, there is the audience that receives the full force of the ball, the one that resists your intentions. Your opponent. And then there is the audience that comes to watch the game. They don't care about the players. They care about the game itself—they want to see a good match.
"In art, there are also two audiences: first, again, the audience that resists your intentions; your opponent. It could be your love for da Vinci, which forbids you to paint a certain way, or your sixth-grade gym teacher, who instilled a lack of self-confidence in you that lasted well beyond the middle-school years. It is the voice inside the artist's head that tells him what he can or can't do. And the second audience, the one that comes to the show—they don't care about you," Fischl explains. "They want to see your work. They want to see the result of your struggle—the result of the existential-psychological-aesthetic battle between the artist and his soul."
RSS Feed
