Table Of ContentINTERPRETING
CONTEMPORARY ART
Critical Views
In the same series
The New Museology
edited by PeterVergo
RenaissanceBodies
editedby Lucy Gent and
Nigel Llewellyn
Modernism in Design
edited by Paul Greenhalgh
INTERPRETING
CONTEMPORARY ART
Edited by Stephen Bann and
William Alien
REAKTION BOOKS
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FirstPublished 1991
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Interpretingcontemporaryart.
1.Visualarts, 1970-
I.Bann,Stephen II. Alien,William I967-
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Contents
Photographic Acknowledgements VI
Notes on the Artists vii
Colour Illustrations IX
Notes on the Editors and Contributors XVll
Introduction Stephen Bann andWilliam Alien
I
Art and Literature: Robert Motherwell's Riverrun
I
Marcelin Pleynet
I I
2 The Shining Cuckoo Wystan Curnow 27
3 Jannis Kounellis and the Question of High Art
Stephen Bann and William Alien 47
4 David Reed: An Abstract Painter in the Age of
'Postmodernism' David Carrier 67
5 Romance of the Real: Jonathan Lasker's Double-Play
Rainer Crone and DavidMoos 85
6 Susan Smith's Archaeology Yve-Alain Bois 102
7 Perverse Space Victor Burgin 124
8 'Salle/Lemieux': Elements of a Narrative Paul Smith 139
9 Echo and Reflections David Reason 162
10 From World to Earth: Richard Deacon and the End of
Nature Michael Newman 177
References 205
Select Bibliography 224
Index 227
Photographic Acknowledgements
Alinari p. 78 bottom, Richard Deacon pp. 198, 199, 200, Ruth Kaiser p. 59,
LissonGallery, Londonpp. 188,196,MassimoAudielloGallery,NewYorkpp.
xiii, 96 top and bottom, 97, 98, Sue OrmerodlWhitechapel ArtGalleryp. 182,
RichardStoner p. 144.
Notes on the Artists
ROBERTMOTHERWELLwasbornin1915inAberdeen,Washington,USA.After
studyingliterature,philosophyandaestheticsatStanfordandHarvardUniversi
ties, he beganto paintin 1940.Through theencouragementofMeyerSchapiro
hemetmanyEuropeanexilesinNewYork,andhisownfirstone-manshowwas
presented by Peggy Guggenheim at the Art of This Century Gallery in 1944.
Since then he has exhibited regularly in the United States and Europe. A
retrospective exhibition of his work opened at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, in 1983 and subsequently travelled to Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Seattle,WashingtonandNewYork.Thisconfirmedhisstatureasoneofthemost
imaginativeandproductivepaintersofthesecondhalfofthetwentiethcentury.
COLIN MCCAHON was born inTimaru in 1919 and died in Auckland in 1987,
havinglivedinNewZealandallhislifeapartfromvisitstoAustralia(1951) and
the United States (1958). Always a painter of powerful images, these were
sometimes abstract, landscape or of text, and later a combination of all three.
Death and the problem of beliefwere his abidingsubjects.
JANNIS KOUNELLIS was bornin 1936inPiraeus, Greece. In 1956hemoved to
Rome where he still lives. In the last two decades he has exhibited widely.
International institutions that have produced catalogues accompanying their
one-manshowsoftheartistincludeARC/Museed'ArtdelaVilledePa~·is(1980);
Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Amsterdam (198crl, travelled); Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago (1986).
DAVIDREED,whohaslivedfortwentyyearsinTribeca,NewYork,continuesto
paint through various 'deaths of painting'. Before moving to New York, he
painted the landscapes of the American southwest. Inspired by the space and
light of the desert, he thought the Grand Canyon 'the source and home of
American painting'. More recently he has travelled extensively in Italy, tracing
the influences on and ofthe Carracci.
JONATHAN LASKERwasborninJerseyCity,NewJersey,in 1948.Hestudiedat
the School of Visual Arts, New York, and the California Institute of the Arts
(1975-7).Inthelastdecadehisworkhasbeenshowninanumberofgalleriesin
EuropeandAmerica: hehasheldsoloexhibitions,mostrecentlyintheMassimo
Notes on the Artists
VIU
Audiello Gallery, New York (1988, 1989), the Gian Enzo Sperone Gallery,
Rome (1988), and Michael Werner, Cologne (1980). He is represented in a
number of public collections including the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and the
HirshhornMuseum, Washington.
SUSAN SMITH was born in Greensberg, Pennsylvania, and lives and works in
New York. She has had solo exhibitions at a number of New York galleries,
including most recently the Margarete Roeder Gallery (1989). Her pictorial
workhasalwaysdealtwitharchitecture- assite,asconstructionandasmemory.
She has been involved with the type ofassemblages discussed here, which take
theirstartingpointin found demolition material, sincethe mid-I 980s.
HELMUT NEWTON was born in Berlin in 1920. He emigrated to Australia and
workedasafreelancephotographerinSydneyinthemid-1940S. Laterhesettled
in Paris and Monaco. His photographs have appeared regularly in the German
magazineStern andtheFrenchandAmericaneditionsof Vogueinrecentyears.
AmonghisbooksofphotographsareSleeplessNights (1978),47Nudes (1982)
andWorld withoutMen (1986).
DAVID SALLEwasborninNorman, Oklahoma,in 1952andlivesandworksin
New York. His one-man shows have been seen at the Addison Gallery of
American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, the Museum Boy
mans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (in 1983) and the Museum of Contemporary
Art, Los Angeles (in 1988).
ANNETTE LEMIEUXwasborninNorfolk,Virginia,in1957,studiedatHartford
ArtSchool,Connecticut(BFA,1980)andnowlivesandworksinNewYork.She
hasexhibitedintheCash/NewhouseGallery,NewYork(1984and1986),andin
HollySolomonGallery'sgroupshow'57St.BetweenA& D' (1985,NewYork).
Homecoming, 1985, was exhibitedin the 1987Whitney Museum ofAmerican
ArtBiennial, New York.
HAMISH FULTONwasbornin1946andlivesnearCanterburyinKent,England.
HamishFulton:SelectedWalks I969-89 (1990) (withessaysbyMichaelAuping
and David Reason) was recently published on the occasion of an exhibition
organizedbytheAlbright-KnoxArtGallery,Buffalo,NewYork.Theexhibition
travelled to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Centro Cultural
Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City.
RICHARD DEACONwas bornin 1949inBangor,Wales, andlivesandworks in
London. He is represented by the Lisson Gallery, London, and the Marian
Goodman Gallery, New York. Among his one-man exhibitions were the
FruitmarketGallery, Edinburgh (1984, travelled),Tateand SerpentineGallery,
London (1985), Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, and Museum of Con
temporary Art, Los Angeles (1988), Whitechapel Art Gallery (1988--9), Kunst
nirnes Hus, Oslo, and Saatchi Collection (1990). In 1987 he was awarded the
TurnerPrize.
