STUDIO VISIT
Man on a Mission: Saul Ostrow
by
AMBER FOGEL
Saul Ostrow, 2003,
photo by author
I'm Saul Ostrow's
first official guest in his new apartment, and he's happy to be cooking
for someone other than himself. Saul has just transplanted from New
York to become Dean of Fine Arts and Chair of Painting for the Cleveland
Institute of Arts. His wife, the painter Shirley Kaneda, helped him
move in, having just started teaching herself at the Pratt Institute
after moving back from L.A. The couple maintains a loft in New York,
and he returns there every three weeks. As he labored over his northern
Italian version of pasta rustica and bean salad, we talked about his
ideas for revamping the Institute.
"I'm still
trying to figure out my job. My predecessor emphasized abstract painting,
but figurative styles are the stick at CIA." Billed as America's
only five-year college of art and design, the school is known for its
industrial design and medical arts programs. "Cleveland has real
world programs that actually lead to gainful employment," he says.
His goal is to sustain the prestige the school has earned in that respect,
but to bring it up to date by incorporating more cutting edge art theory
and techniques to the studio practice. "We're still trying to decide
whether to call it visual arts or studio arts," presumably to get
away from the stuffiness of "fine arts."
When asked why the
CIA chose him, he responds quickly and confidently. "Because they
know that studio art is informed by criticism and theory. That has been
my focus, and they are serious about rethinking their program along
those lines." So why did he actually take the position? "I
like to accrue titles. 'Dean' and 'chair' were two that I didn't already
have!"
Eventually, he says,
"I want CIA students to be coveted by graduate schools. I want
to turn out students who paint because they have made the decision to
paint, not because they view other forms of contemporary art as inauthentic."
As chair of painting, he teaches the fifth-year painting class and an
elective course that includes third- to fifth-year students. He says,
rather surprised, "these are really bright kids, and they're hungry.
I've completely confused them though, I've ruined their lives because
I've made them think."
He knows there are
differences in approach among the faculty, but his ambition is to keep
that diversity. "We'll all know who the best students are, but
for different reasons." A big challenge is introducing technology
into painting, "letting the painters know that [technology] won't
replace the painter." Sculpture will also be a big focus. "I
have fifteen fifth-year painting students versus six sculpture students.
I want to know why sculpture is not appealing."
"There's a
tradition of fiefdoms," he says. "I want them to refer to
themselves as visual arts students instead of 'painting students' or
'sculpture students.' Whatever direction we feel our culture is going,
that's the reality. The lines between disciplines are blurring."
He speaks most emphatically
about revising the school's approach to art history. "The liberal
arts program at CIA is good, but it's not geared toward the studio.
The focus is more geared toward connoisseurship or genealogy, whereas
I'm interested in how the studio has been conceived. It is not always
pristine, the relationship of artist to studio to the world shifts.
Artists don't shroud themselves in their studio and then deliver their
gifts to the world. That's a mystique that started in the fifties that
still exists, and that why changing the approach is important."
As we carry our
feast into the dining room and sit down to eat, our conversation turns
to his other major projects: the book series for which he is editor,
called "Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture" (Routledge
Publishing of London) and an exhibition he is organizing for the Paine
Webber Galleries in New York, scheduled to open in the fall of 2005.
For his next curatorial
project, Ostrow is looking at what he describes as "those artists
caught between Greenberg's formalism and minimalism. People like Ann
Truitt and Lyman Kipp, really early Olitski, Ray Parker. Artists who
were working in more of a pictorial formalist style rather than color
field." He explains further that unlike their color field counterparts,
these artists still held onto composition. "These artists all used
a really weird palette. Most of them appear to have chosen their colors
from an interior decorator's manual. Weird beiges, muted cadmiums, avocado
greens," he says with a laugh. "These are artists who were
working from about 1956-1974. I wonder what these artists look like
now? These artists couldn't create a dialogue of their own, so they
fell back into what they were comfortable with."
There's a lesson
in this for his students. "I want them to understand that the internal
dialogue an artist has isn't always linear. They have to take risks.
Pollock's drip paintings were risky, but they also weren't the only
paintings he made." This is the other problem with teaching art
history to studio students, he explains. "They can't grasp the
concept of change."
