American Cutout
The New York Studio School
8 West 8th Street
New York NY 10011
nyss.org/cutout
October 15 through November 22, 2003
By ERIC
GELBER
Alex Katz Cat
(1959)
collage, 7-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches
Courtesy Alex Katz
This show encompasses a number
of different styles and formats, namely cutouts and collage, and the
definition of "cutout" is meant to be multi-faceted.. Cutout
generally means cutting out shapes and placing them on some sort of
background. Cutouts allow artists to draw without the use of chiaroscuro.
Crisp edged cutout forms have been used by artists to emphasize color
and outline. Cutout has also been an essential part of modern art because
of the way it flattens out forms and the picture space. Collage on the
other hand, creates ambiguity in two-dimensional space. Photos, text,
drawing, painting, and other materials, such as wallpaper, pieces of
construction paper, and candy and food wrappers can be combined in the
same composition. Through collage, artists have been able to subvert
subject matter, add psychological or political dimensions to their work,
approach drawing and painting in new ways, suggest new kinds of pictorial
space, introduce text into their work, and redefine pictorial realism.
In Kara Walker's work and
the small pieces by Alex Katz in this show, notions of foreground and
background are presented unambiguously; the picture plane is not deconstructed.
The cutout is used either to sharpen the contrast between picture planes
(Walker) or to heighten the tension between two-dimensional space and
the suggestion of three-dimensional forms (Katz).
Kara Walker Jockey
1995
cut paper mounted on canvas, 10 x 10 inches
Courtesy Brent Sikkema, New York
Walker uses stenciled cutouts
to create a jarring contrast between fore and background, which makes
her work more disturbing and surreal. The black stenciled forms she
places on a solid white background ("Jockey," 1995) have political
implications, but also fool us into thinking we can easily read the
action and the figures. In fact it is not clear exactly what we are
looking at. The gender of the figures, what they are wearing and holding
and doing is unclear. We are not sure how the figures are interacting
with one another, even though their outlines are crisp.
Three small collages by Alex
Katz from the fifties ("Cat,' 1959, "Roadmaster," 1955-56,
and "Two Figures," 1955) are perfect examples of how artists
use simple means, snipping away at tiny pieces of colored paper, to
portray complex relationships. The trimmed edges of the colored paper
capture the nuances of the figure of a sleeping cat, two lovers lounging
on the grass, and a parked car. Katz's Rowboat, 1964, is a piece made
of painted wood cutouts of two people in a rowboat floating on calmly
rippling water. The cutout figures have been painted black, and when
placed on a white background, create the illusion of three dimensional
space, rippling water, shadow, and solid form and figure, without resorting
to line drawing or the modulation of colors.
The isolating effect produced
by the cut-out can be used in a variety of ways. One of Katz's full
length portrait cutouts of friends and colleagues ("Frank O'Hara,"
1959-60) transforms the gallery space into a background for the figure.
The cut aluminum figure by William King ("Magic," 1972) has
a ghostly erotic presence. From one angle the shape looks like a female
figure, bending to the floor with her rear end in the air. Viewed from
another angle, this reading falls apart and the shape becomes completely
abstract.
Ellsworth Kelly
Horizontal Nude 1974
collage, 4 x 5-7/8 inches
Courtesy Ellsworth Kelly
Like many artists in this show, Robert Motherwell uses collage to enhance
the drawing process and reinvent form. Drawn or painted elements commingle
with newspaper clippings, images, and text to form an agitated whole.
Ellsworth Kelly juxtaposes different materials,a fragment of a naked
woman over a row of mountains ("Horizontal Nude," 1974), a
bar of color pasted over the Statue of Liberty ("Statue of Liberty,"
1957) to create new kinds of pictorial space and to recontextualize
cultural icons. A few artists in this show follow in the tradition of
cubist collage and make new forms and new spaces using fragments of
observed reality and patterns and textures such as Lee Krasner's "Study
for Mosaic at 2 Broadway, New York," 1959, and Frank Stella's "Lanckorona,"
1972.
Willem de Kooning Woman c1969-70
india ink on wood cutout, 36-1/2 x 42 x 2-1/4 inches
Courtesy of Vered Gallery, East Hampton, NY
The most exciting rarities
in this show are "Woman," 1969-70, by Willem de Kooning, believed
to be an armature or study aid for a sculpture he never made, and a
small but beautiful gouache découpée by Matisse ("Alga
on Green Background," 1947). An India ink drawing on a wood cutout,
"Woman" is immediately recognizable as a de Kooning because
of the familiar high heel shoes and flailing breast shapes. This object
was probably one of the many fragments of unfinished projects or ideas
the artist had strewn about his various work spaces. The Matisse consists
of a purple tendril shape (which appears in many of Matisse's late works)
placed on a green background. The piece has an aqueous feel to it, and
the colors are enchanting.
This show makes it clear
that artists used collage and cutout to disrupt or flatten or complicate
the picture plane and to introduce different materials into the same
composition. Photography undermined the realism welded by painters and
draftsman for centuries, but collage and cutout allowed visual artists
to manipulate two-dimensional space in ways not available to the photographer,
at least, notprior to the invention of graphics software. Collage and
cutout transformed the very notions of abstraction and realism, and
the works in this show exemplify the liberating spirit they brought
to modern draftsmanship and painting.
ERIC GELBER,
assistant editor at artcritical.com, is an artist and critic. He has
also contributed to Sculpture, Artnet and other publications.
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