Rebecca Nemser

Many of the artists here are of a gen­er­a­tion who reject­ed the con­ven­tion­al com­forts of orga­nized reli­gion — and now they find them­selves fac­ing the inevitable mys­tery of death alone. They are re-invent­ing rit­u­als that feel authen­tic to them and find­ing new ways to sat­is­fy their spir­i­tu­al needs. Paper Prayers has become one such con­tem­po­rary heal­ing rit­u­al — a small con­gre­ga­tion of artists gath­ered togeth­er In the Spirit.

FRIDA KAHLO’s Self-Por­trait with Thorn Neck­lace and Hum­ming­bird shows her in a jun­gle with but­ter­flies in her hair and a hum­ming­bird dan­gling from a thorn neck­lace that pierces her neck, draw­ing small red drops of blood. “I nev­er paint­ed dreams,” she said. “I paint­ed my own reality.”

“When the “light prop” was set in motion for the first time in a small mechan­ics shop in 1930, I felt like the sor­cer­er’s appren­tice. The mobile was so star­tling in its coor­di­nat­ed motions and space artic­u­la­tions of light and shad­ow sequences that I almost believed in magic.”

A crowd­ed stage, and all the play­ers on it. A king, wear­ing a crown, stabs him­self in the heart. A woman looks at her reflec­tion in a mir­ror, next to a stat­ue of a Greek god. Mod­ern men and women read the news­pa­per, talk, flirt, and fight with real knives. MAX BECK­MAN­N’s The Actors aims to encom­pass all of Art and Life in thick, sure slash­es of paint.

in a moment, the door will swing back shut, and the cafe will dis­ap­pear, and then the street singer will van­ish, into the street, into the night, nev­er to be seen again. Only here, in this paint­ing, where she is for­ev­er caught in the gold­en net of the Paris night at the moment when she stepped out through the swing­ing door, onto the street, and into our dreams.

In a dark, smoky room, a soli­tary dancer rais­es up her arm in a tense, ecsta­t­ic move­ment of inspi­ra­tion; her oth­er hand clutch­es the skirt of her dress — a flash of white light gleam­ing in the dark. You can almost hear the rhyth­mic weep­ing of the gui­tars; you can almost feel beat­ing of the dancer’s tumul­tuous heart.

Madame Vigee-Lebrun rev­o­lu­tion­ized the por­trait. She despised the pow­der and stiff clothes that women wore; she let their hair down, and draped them in soft, flow­ing shawls and paint­ed them look­ing soft, dreamy, nat­ur­al, alive. Her paint­ings helped to cre­ate a new look, a new style, a new atti­tude to life in pre-rev­o­lu­tion­ary Paris.

When Berthe Morisot met Édouard Manet at the Lou­vre in 1867, he was 36 years old and mar­ried; she was ten years younger and still liv­ing with her par­ents at home. She was live­ly, intel­li­gent, charm­ing, tal­ent­ed. He was bril­liant, dif­fi­cult, fick­le, famous, fas­ci­nat­ing. She had long admired him from a dis­tance; he imme­di­ate­ly want­ed to paint her portrait.

All that we know of Greece has come to us in ruins–armless, head­less, fad­ed, fall­en, bro­ken, bat­tered, lost in trans­la­tion. What we have are frag­ments, frag­ments that have lost almost everything–except their poet­ry. But, gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion, that poet­ry has nev­er lost its thrilling, vision­ary gleam.

“All these images are oblit­er­at­ed, defaced, lost. It’s about those mar­gin­al, mun­dane expe­ri­ences that are for some rea­son sig­nif­i­cant to her. There are cer­tain things about her work that are mys­te­ri­ous. They remain mys­te­ri­ous. And she trea­sures that mysteriousness.”

GERRY BERG­STEIN’s draw­ings show scrib­bles, scrawls, cross­ings-out, angry re-work­ings, mark­ings of strug­gle and doubt. From this chaos of marks on paper emerge lumi­nous lit­tle still lives, marked by the process of decay: visions of a world in flux, where every­thing is chang­ing, grow­ing, liv­ing, dying, and being reborn. 

The Boston Athenaeum, a Library with gra­cious high-ceilinged rooms adorned with columns and all kinds of Grae­co-Roman archi­tec­tur­al details, and filled with books and pic­tures, was built by 19th cen­tu­ry Bosto­ni­ans as a mod­ern tem­ple to Athena, God­dess of Wisdom. 

A neon blue riv­er of light cross­es the stage on a diag­o­nal. A black moun­tain looms beyond, pierced by a stark white water­fall. The sculp­tor sits brood­ing on a rocky throne; an egg-shaped stone is pierced with a spear. Two Irenes enter, and lie on the ground, like stones. “You have killed my soul,” they cry. “I am an artist!” cries the sculp­tor. One Irene sits on the rock, like a stat­ue. “I was a human being too.”

“Sound art is more open and much clos­er to life than music. Music is a fil­tered expe­ri­ence. I’m not a com­pos­er. I don’t want the emo­tion­al view bound or direct­ed in any one direc­tion. I want to keep it open. I’m always try­ing things out. I hear some­thing and I can pick it up and react in min­utes. I’m inter­est­ed in every­thing that makes a noise.”

ROBERT WILSON’S VISION is struc­tured like a jour­ney — a jour­ney that moves from morn­ing to night — from white to black — from the past to the future — from birth to death. A jour­ney that has no begin­ning and no end, but all takes place in a time­less, end­less present.

The prayers were long, thin strips of paper or can­vas, newsprint, pho­tographs, or tin­sel, embell­ished with draw­ings, paint, cut‑outs, dried ros­es, gold leaf, but­tons, beads. Some were abstract; some had words; oth­ers had musi­cal nota­tions writ­ten on them. One prayer was made from a piece of old, paint‑splattered blue jeans, with a peace sym­bol and love beads. 

In mono­type, there is no fixed image on the print­ing sur­face. The artist paints or draws on a print­ing plate, makes changes, and prints again; the final proof is an accu­mu­la­tion of all the changes that have been made. Pale, fad­ed images of past impres­sions often cling to mono­types like shad­ows; they are called “ghosts.”

It is said that CHU TA nev­er spoke — but he laughed, cried, waved his hands, and drank rice wine most expres­sive­ly while he paint­ed. Every sin­gle touch of Chu Ta’s brush means some­thing. Every mark still mat­ters. Hun­dreds of years lat­er, you can still almost feel the move­ment of his hand — the bold drunk­en touch of his brush.

In LINDA CON­NOR’s cam­er­a’s mys­ti­cal eye, the world is filled with ancient sacred things. The same images repeat and recur in her body of work — spi­rals, veils, beams of light shin­ing into a dark place, open doors, closed eyes, hands — but each time you see them, they mean some­thing dif­fer­ent. Each time you see them, they mean some­thing more.

His sculp­ture is like a very sophis­ti­cat­ed game of musi­cal chairs, where all the pieces come togeth­er for a moment of per­fect, pre­car­i­ous bal­ance. In his draw­ings, the char­coal keeps on danc­ing, long after the music stops.

Bar­bi­zon was a place and a style — and also a feeling—a mood—a time of day — dusk, when the forms of things soft­en and the edges blur, and a kind of hush falls over the world. The earth is solemn, soft, and ten­der, like a bed—and some­times like a grave. 

BON­NARD’s art is an art of nuance and sug­ges­tion. His friend, the Sym­bol­ist poet Paul Ver­laine, wrote:
“You must have music first of all,
and for that a rhythm uneven is best,
vague in the air and soluble
with noth­ing heavy and noth­ing at rest.”

His fal­cons are ele­gant objects, yet they are also birds of prey. They are chained to a perch, dream­ing of flight; per­fect­ly at rest, yet poised to spread their wings and reach for the sky. His art con­veys a sense of scrap­ing away and dis­card­ing every­thing that is not essen­tial — of trav­el­ling light, like a nomad, and soar­ing high, like a bird.

Being inside MATT MUL­LI­CAN’s instal­la­tion is like being inside Matt Mul­li­can’s mind — a dizzy­ing expe­ri­ence. He’s con­stant­ly clas­si­fy­ing and re-order­ing every­thing. “It’s the first time I’ve arranged my mean­ing as objects in space depict­ing my mean­ing,” he says. 

LOUIS CARTIER used pre­cious met­als and jew­els in a high­ly pol­ished, sparkling, and yet almost casu­al way way — the way Fred Astaire and Gin­ger Rogers danced. The shim­mer of dozens of tiny dia­monds on a cool plat­inum sur­face is the essence of sophis­ti­ca­tion –- like a Cole Porter song. 

In 1969, TODD and JUDY MCKIE paint­ed ban­ners with the signs of the Zodi­ac for Wood­stock, which peo­ple pulled down to use as tents and blan­kets in the rain. Judy began mak­ing fur­ni­ture in the ear­ly 70s to fur­nish their apart­ment. One day she impul­sive­ly carved two crouch­ing fig­ures into the arms of a butcherblock couch. 

It takes a lot of courage to be an artist. All kinds of things get in the way, but the thing that gets in the way the most is fear. That’s why the threat of cen­sor­ship is so dan­ger­ous to Art. Art helps us to see the beau­ti­ful — and also to face the ugli­ness in life. Artists need to be free to show us the world as they see it — to tell it like it is.

Madame de Pom­padour always man­aged to look grace­ful, even in the most con­strict­ing clothes — corsets, bus­tles, and stays. Like Madon­na, she cre­at­ed a Look that was supreme­ly arti­fi­cial — the pow­dered hair, the heav­i­ly applied make-up, the elab­o­rate gowns. Like Madon­na in her John-Paul Gaulti­er bustiers, La Pom­padour in her negligée proud­ly dis­played her sex­u­al­i­ty as the source of her power. 

On film, JEAN ARTHUR is impul­sive, but truth­ful ‑‑ true to the moment, while the moment lasts. She is chaste, but not prud­ish; she tru­ly inhab­its her small, ath­let­ic body, and she moves like a dancer with an easy nat­ur­al volup­tuous­ness. Her soft, grav­el­ly voice is aston­ish­ly expres­sive. And some of her great­est lines aren’t words at all, but an aston­ish­ing reper­toire of whim­pers, sighs, sobs, gig­gles, and moans.

Great art cheats death of its vic­to­ry by trans­form­ing mem­o­ry’s frag­ile frag­ments into some­thing last­ing, pre­cious, and incor­rupt­ible. The ghost­ly white porch is a win­dow to a world beyond flesh and paint — a world with­out sor­row or sub­stance, col­or or weight. It is cool, pale, and white as a bone.

In the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, women in Shak­er com­mu­ni­ties record­ed their visions of heav­en­ly gar­dens in “spir­it” or “gift” draw­ings — sim­ple gifts that speak to the heart. The words, writ­ten in tiny, spi­dery hand­writ­ing, are fad­ed and almost illeg­i­ble, but the lit­tle birds and hearts and flow­ers make the feel­ings clear. 

In paint­ing after paint­ing, the earth moves and the water swoons and the sky tum­bles and all the blues and pinks and pur­ples and reds and oranges dis­solve into one. Earth and water come togeth­er, again and again, and explode in a sym­pho­ny of light and col­or and air.

GENE KELLY was a great dancer because his danc­ing seemed to be an over­flow of his superb vital­i­ty — a nat­ur­al exten­sion of his per­son­al­i­ty. In all his movies, the tran­si­tions to dance are incred­i­bly smooth, because even when he’s not danc­ing he’s think­ing about dancing–his ath­let­ic body is flexed and lim­ber– and he’s ready to roll, even on an emp­ty set with 500,000 kilo­watts of elec­tric light mim­ic­k­ing star­dust and a giant fan cre­at­ing the sen­sa­tion of a moon­light breeze.

One of DAVID SALLE’s favorite movies is Dou­glas Sirk’s IMITATION OF LIFE. In one scene, all the char­ac­ters are jammed into a taxi, watch­ing a funer­al through the win­dows. In Salle’s paint­ings, too, many dif­fer­ent things are hap­pen­ing at once, every­thing is crammed togeth­er, noth­ing seems fin­ished, every­thing is seen in reflec­tion or jux­ta­po­si­tion or through a fil­ter or a pane of glass, and all of the con­tra­dic­tions are left unresolved.

“It can be fright­en­ing, but that’s life,” said Doug. “Art is part of life,” said Mike. “It’s a real part — it’s the essence of life,” said Doug. “There’s no rea­son to make it per­fect,” says Doug. “We want to show the phys­i­cal nature,” said Mike. “The phys­i­cal nature,” said Doug. “Of every­thing, but in par­tic­u­lar, Art,” said Mike.

Rugs and blan­kets, shrouds and shawls: tex­tiles touched the lives of the peo­ple who lived with them. Slum­ber­ing in store­rooms, rolled up and pro­tect­ed from light, these tex­tile mas­ter­pieces have kept their vibrant col­ors and some­thing of their human warmth. Now, unfurled, they look like mag­ic car­pets, poised to rise.

Light as a whis­per, these ele­gant images, in the del­i­cate style known as ROCOCO, con­vey the “sweet­ness of life” before the Rev­o­lu­tion. Some­thing of the warmth of the artist’s hand still lingers in all the lit­tle jabs and touch­es of chalk or ink that make up these deli­cious lit­tle 18th cen­tu­ry draw­ings and prints.

The CONE sis­ters col­lect­ed art because they loved it and want­ed to live with it. Their art col­lec­tion became an emblem of their secret selves — a vision of the rich­ness of their inner lives. Many of the images here show women the same expres­sion on their face — a look of con­tent­ment, com­plete­ness, and self-fulfillment.

SOPHIE CALLE bor­rows ele­ments from detec­tive nov­els, philo­soph­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tions, the film noir, the nou­veau roman, doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy, love let­ters, art movies, B‑movies, John Cage’s the­o­ries of ran­dom­ness, and Joseph Beuys’s actions. She com­bines them in star­tling ways, as med­i­ta­tions on the mys­te­ri­ous spaces between self and other.

WEST­ON’s por­traits of friends and lovers are so intense that their souls seem to flick­er through their sen­si­tive faces and expres­sive hands. But West­on’s Nudes are seen in name­less frag­ments, as cool and smooth as mar­ble. You see their bod­ies, but their faces are turned away. 

The can­vas curled back like a white wave. The light turned red. Sil­hou­ettes of dancers moved through the white space like brush­strokes mov­ing across a pic­ture plane. The light turned white. The ceil­ing rip­pled and bil­lowed. Silence. White light. I was tak­ing notes, and the only sound I could hear was the sound of my own writ­ing. It was over.

Every view­er who choos­es to par­tic­i­pate will have a dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence. For me, it was a mov­ing med­i­ta­tion on loss, change, and get­ting a sec­ond chance. As one of the char­ac­ters in William Faulkn­er’s nov­el The Wild Palms says, “Between grief and noth­ing, I will take grief.”

MINOR WHITE’s pho­tographs con­vey a sense that behind the vis­i­ble world is anoth­er world — a world filled with mean­ing and mag­ic. He was fas­ci­nat­ed by pho­tog­ra­phy’s abil­i­ty to show what he called “things for what else they are.” He liked to quote the thir­teenth-cen­tu­ry Ger­man mys­tic Meis­ter Eck­hart: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”

The 80’s began with big, shiny, self-con­fi­dent paint­ings, but they are end­ing with of shreds and tat­ters, and anx­ious pre­mo­ni­tions of a ruined world. They remind­ed me of the end­ing of William Gib­son’s sci­ence fic­tion nov­el Count Zero, when a bril­liant com­put­er dis­tills the few remain­ing frag­ments of a ruined civ­i­liza­tion into exquis­ite lit­tle con­struc­tions. Or these lines from a Shake­speare son­net; “bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet bird sang”.

Stand­ing at the cen­ter of the spi­ral, I see the backs of all the chairs fac­ing away from me, and feel a tremen­dous shock of lone­li­ness and loss. Look­ing down from the bal­cony, I see that the chairs are the begin­ning of a spi­ral that could go on forever.

Many of the most mem­o­rable images of the six­ties were silkscreen prints: Andy Warhol’s soup­cans, Mar­i­lyns, and Jack­ies, Roy Licht­en­stein­s’s day-glo brush­strokes on Ben-Day dots, Sis­ter Cori­ta’s Flower Pow­er mes­sages, Robert Indi­ana’s LOVE, and Ed Ruscha’s daz­zling 1966 Stan­dard Sta­tion, radi­ant and gleam­ing in the Cal­i­for­nia light.

In many of the prints, a wom­an’s face is par­tial­ly obscured, either because of the way she has turned her head, or because she is hold­ing some­thing in front of her face ‑‑ a hand, a let­ter, a child. This con­veys a sense of mys­tery, a feel­ing that there are secret mean­ings and moments of tragedy and what Vir­ginia Woolf called “ecsta­sy” — hid­den in the tex­ture of a wom­an’s dai­ly life.

MEN­ZEL’s draw­ings often show peo­ple and things as if they were turn­ing into shad­ow, turn­ing into smoke, dis­solv­ing into a cloud; just about to dis­ap­pear. He said, “I ear­ly cul­ti­vat­ed the habit of draw­ing things as though I were nev­er to see them again.”

The peo­ple in the por­traits present anx­ious faces to the cam­era; hav­ing your pic­ture tak­en was a seri­ous busi­ness. The cam­era was enor­mous, bulky, and expen­sive; the process was time-con­sum­ing and mys­te­ri­ous. Sil­very and almost trans­par­ent, their del­i­cate faces float on the shim­mer­ing sil­ver plates like ghosts.

“It’s all com­ing from mem­o­ry,” says ROBERT FERRANDINI. “From fairy tales, from child­hood — from imag­in­ing. The way I see it, it’s the land­scape of the mind. Lots of land­scapes came to me from the movies. Fort Apache. Red Riv­er. Cheyenne Autumn. The Searchers. The idea of the search — which is what I do as a painter. I go into it. I search.”

ROGER KIZIK’s loopy, stac­ca­to line describes fish­ing boats with names like Frol­ic or Finast Kind, hous­es on the beach, the book he is read­ing or the tool he is using for fix­ing up his house or boat. The things in his draw­ings press in on him; they clus­ter around him, rich with hid­den cor­re­spon­dences and secret mes­sages, com­pos­ing his life.

The sil­very glow of the moon and the flow of an under­ground riv­er are reflect­ed in sin­u­ous cal­lig­ra­phy that swoons down a page from 12th cen­tu­ry book of poems, strewn with shim­mer­ing sil­ver ros­es: “True, I say nothing/ but the long­ing in my heart/ reach­es out to you,/ secret as the con­stant flow of an under­ground river.”

The Sit­u­a­tion­ists called for an art of excess, delir­i­um, out­rage, and social change. They believed that cap­i­tal­ism had turned con­tem­po­rary life into a soci­ety of “spec­ta­cle” that its inhab­i­tants could only pas­sive­ly watch and con­sume. Sit­u­a­tion­ism would bring art out of the muse­ums and into the streets, and sab­o­tage the soci­ety of spec­ta­cle by cre­at­ing sit­u­a­tions in which peo­ple could turn their own lives into a cre­ative experience.

FRANCES HAMIL­TON’s art does­n’t come from the head; it comes from the hand and the heart. And that’s why a show of her work is always so reward­ing. Her images stay with you, grow­ing rich­er and deep­er, as time goes by. They trig­ger mem­o­ries. Major or minor, they touch a chord.