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Granted, Chuck Close is an intense-looking guy, but looking at numerous
galleries filled with reproductions of his balding, portly, bearded,
spectacled visage is a bit monotonous. While on an individual basis the
majority of the pieces are excellently executed, as a collected body, the
exposition is something of a bore.
Chuck close is known primarily for his "graphical realism."
Looking at one of his paintings is like being subjected to one of Descartes'
nightmares. Close produces his images through the use of innumerable,
color-filled squares. His process involves the imposition of a meticulous
grid onto the canvas. The squares of the grid are then painstakingly filled
in with colors corresponding to the light values of the image that he trying
to reproduce. For example, the shadows in the furrows of Close's prominent
brow might be represented by a collection of squares filled with dark
purples, greens, and grays, while the highlights on the bridge of his nose
might be combinations of white, pink, orange and yellow.
The exposition consists of many examples of this well-defined style, as
well as preliminary sketches, photographs and works from his earlier forays
into photorealism. Surprisingly I found his most striking work to be one of
the photorealistic pieces and not one of the championed grids. This piece is
one of the earliest portraits that the show presented, produced prior to the
crippling disability that Close suffered later in his career. It is a
massive portrait of Close as an angry young man, stubble-faced, with erratic
black hair, a patronizing squint, and the butt of a cigarette hanging
defiantly out of the corner of his mouth. This piece very effectively brings
across both the actual appearance of the subject as well as the attitude that
the subject is trying to convey. However, this one piece did not save the
experience of the show as a whole.
Even though I know that Close has produced many portraits of many other
people throughout his career, I couldn't help but find a collection composed
exclusively of self-portraits to be both pretentious and annoying. Being an
artist already requires a certain degree of narcissism, and having the sole
subject matter of a show be one's narcissistic self felt like a bit of an
affront to me: the general public.
I am not suggesting that I do not find Close's technique and execution to
be both original and expertly produced, I merely saying that I found his
choice of subject somewhat one-track and uninteresting. I went to the exhibit
expecting to be blown away by originality and mastery. But the originality
just seemed to have burnt out by the time I had entered the second gallery,
as had the mastery. It seems to me that Close's work could be better
appreciated in contrast to the less original and less masterful productions
of other artists rather that in contrast to itself.
All in all I found myself fairly unimpressed and unprovoked. Does this
make me a philistine? Is my inability to appreciate the work of a man hailed
as one of the paragons of contemporary art and as a shining affirmation of
the human endurance of creative spirit an indication of my own lack of
sophistication? Or, is it just plain boring to look at a bunch of large
pixilated representations of an aging celebrity?
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