Here is a sculpture by American born artist Martin Puryear. Mr. Puryear will be 75 years old in the next few weeks - exactly the time his one-man show will open at the Smithsonian American Gallery in Washington, D.C. It so happens that I will be in Washington, D.C. just about then and if all goes as planned I will view “Vessel” and the other eleven sculptures personally - all within arm’s length. I can hardly wait.
There’s a nice video conversation with Mr. Puryear making the rounds on YouTube and Facebook (at least, among my fb friends) and the way he talks about his art is refreshing.
He says that he was trained and became “art aware” at a time when art did not need to be evangelical; it did not need to comment on the human condition nor lament -or predict - the state of the world (interior or exterior). Art could be simply itself…an object…an image sitting in space to be visually explored, intellectually examined, pondered over on other than socially significant terms.
I am thinking that this is fundamentally the difference between art of perhaps the “older generation” - whatever that means - and art of today when everything must be loaded down with extra spices. I’ve become bored with all this world-weary hype. Too many young artists seem to believe it’s their duty to tell us their inner-most secrets - to believe that this is the only valid art expression.
To which I say “get over yourself” and listen to Mr. Puryear and go see his sculpture if you can. And for god’s sake, learn your craft! And if you get the chance, conspire with an artist from another discipline. What can be better than sharing a stage with the Garth Fagan dancers as Puryear has done…or designing brilliant sets and designs for the opera “Madame Butterfly,” ceramic artist Jan Kaneko’s challenge…or stage sets for the Portland Ballet theater as glass artist Dale Chihuly successfully created.
Art may be pursued and perfected in what seems solitary confinement.
But laced together with the geniuses of other artists whose aim is…to reach heaven? Gloom and doom are words simply not in that vocabulary.
