Chattanooga Pulse

“New York Cool” has opened at the Hunter Museum, and we are much enamored by its presence. Selected by Pepe Karmel, premiered at the Grey Gallery at New York University, and published as an engaging art book, this collection makes a fairly strong argument for a second eruption of avant-garde styles during the twentieth century.

Dubbed “The New York School” and following about a generation after the initial eruption of various styles of expressionism and surrealism in Europe, this collection seems less of a transition to later, well-known styles than a “Trinity” (as in New Mexico) that had transformed the ground of artistic endeavor for good.

Marshall McLuhan defined the term “cool” with respect to media as “involvement,” specifically of the imagination of the person receiving the medium: Telephones are a “cool” medium. With respect to the collection, I think the dynamism of these artists’ work to imbue forms with their free vision will draw the viewer deeply into complex imaginative play. Form presents the essence of the known, and freedom may express the unknown, perhaps the “not yet” known. Art made in such a context promotes more questions than answers.

Significantly, a new form, “The Grid”, develops within this group. Rosalind Krauss (in the “New York Cool” book): “The Grid announces…modern art’s will to silence…it is what art looks like when it turns its back on nature.” Well, maybe, but “The Grid” remains geometrical, and geometry remains so relevant to ourselves. Krauss does present an elegant aesthetic reformulation: “A symbolist window parading in the guise of a treatise on optics”—mais oui! Perhaps non-mimetic, as Krauss declares—music is nonmemetic; geometrical abstraction presents the limits of form, limits pushed to the unrecognizable in fully abstract freeplay. This collection contains stunning examples of both styles.

There is a “perfect” little grid by Agnes Martin, “Wood 4” (1964), handed off by the playwright Edward Albee. Perhaps paper can show its origin as wood, but such closure presents the illusion of sublime artistic play. I saw Agnes Martin’s last installation in Taos, placing the viewer in the center of a polygram of her great rectangles. “Quien sabe?”—very much to the point.

Adolf Gottlieb’s “Circular” (1960) juxtaposes the geometric with more chaotic abstraction. There is a suggestion that it can induce satori—very large grain of salt here—were I to play the illusionist game, I may propose it as a snapshot of a latter stage of a “Trinity” explosion, But beyond such fanciful speculation, this sublime work invites more contemplation than any of us probably has the leisure to engage in.

“Spread” (1958), by Kenneth Noland of Black Mountain College, honored by being the logo work of this show, similarly shows this movement between the geometric abstract and more chaotic abstractions.

Of abstract work there is a great range, beginning with Hale A. Woodruff’s “Blue Intrusion” (1958). Its blasts of color possess a quality the imbues nearly every work in the “Collaborations” show at the Chattanooga African American Museum, a quality of aesthetic substance that rather deliberately eschews the “polish” of fine arts presentations. “Circular” also possesses this quality; others, too.

Women artists are well represented here. Louise Bourgeoise’s surreal “Labyrinthine Tower” (1962), manages to contain purely imaginative content—such an elegant masterpiece! Miriam Shapiro has two pieces in the collection, in styles that have been widely replicated. Louise Nevelson’s “The Tropical Gardens” (1957), blackly surreal, contains order and chaos.

The surreal shows strongly in both sculptures and collages. Seymour Liatin’s “Argosy” (1948) appears to be the earliest work, as strange as Dali, yet so deeply fundamental. This collection also contains a later series of his. Robert Rauschenberg’s “Untitled” (1957) conflates intent with accident. Even the relative border between surrealism and expressionism gets erased by Nicolar Marsicano’s “Unitled” (1966). Works by the de Koonings provoke strange wonder.

Frank O’Hara’s semi-poetic postcards of desire, so suited to the New York streets, combine with Norman Blum’s abstracted meanderings in 22 pieces (1960). Forms become teased and even transformed by the play of such gifted artists.

I could go one, but I won’t, there’s so much here! Ellen Simak, curator at the Hunter, has shown such devotion to the presentation of this show. Art historian Irving Sandler, who recognized this “cool school”, will comment on this exhibit on October 8. For all the questions posed by the works here, for all its intricacy and elegance, plan to spend hours, which likely won’t be enough.

“New York Cool: Paintings and Sculpture from the New York University Art Collection”
$9.95
Hunter Museum, 10 Bluff View
(423) 267-0968.  www.huntermuseum.org