A Visit with Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim and the Death of an Egyptian Woman
Until January 11, 2017, the Guggenheim Museum in NYC presents a marvelous retrospective of the paintings of Agnes Martin (1912-2004). Climbing the circling ramps of that unique space, the museum visitor not only looks at paintings but feels very up close to a person working. It is like having a visit with her and probably getting as close as one could have gotten to Martin in life.
It is not unusual these days to come upon video elements in an exhibition, including films in which the artist speaks. This exhibit offers film of Agnes Martin painting and being interviewed about her work. The video teaches a lot about the artist in her work. Watching her paint and listening to her words, I could go back to viewing the paintings thinking I better understood them and why she did them I also felt certain that no one else could have done them. Her paintings are a complete, or near complete, self-representation of Agnes Martin by Agnes Martin.
One particular piece of the film has been in my thoughts since I viewed it. The interviewer asks Martin if she ever painted a negative emotion. Martin unequivocally says "no," that her aim has been to paint positive emotions -- joy, gratitude, friendship, etc. She wants to have the viewer feel "elation" in front of her paintings. She adds that tragedies are bad enough when they happen and asks: "Why would you want to repeat them in painting?". I think Martin gets what she wanted. The emotions I felt while standing in front of her work were positive. They have a calming, peaceful effect. Looking at them carefully, quietly, for an extended piece of time, I felt relaxed.
But what about my own painting? Not the still life paintings, but my depictions of current events. Martin's strong statement about tragedy gets my attention. She wants to provoke "elation" in the viewer, I paint images of dead children being carried out of the rumble in Syria, and refugees held back from freedom by metal gates.
I spend time with photographs of the world's horrors to recapture and repeat the events. I don't leave that tragedy. I make it my job to put on paper and canvas the image and a record of the feelings the event provokes. Instead of Martin's list of joy, gratitude, and elation; I have a list of sadness, hopelessness, and despair. My aim is to evoke a sense of connection with the people in the event and a sense of responsibility to them. I want the art to be a call, to provoke a determination that something needs to be done about the horror-- that I, the viewer, need to do something in the face of events like this.
Recently, I have been working on a series of prints compelled by the murder of Shamaii el-Sabbagh, a 31 year old Egyptian woman killed by the police as she participated in a small peaceful memorial gathering, The masked riot police were said to have used birdshot to break up the procession as the people carried flowers to Tahrir Square. Shamaii el-Sabbagh was the mother of a 5 year old boy, an accomplished poet, a recorder and preserver of Egyptian traditions, and a left-leaning activist. Photographers and videographers captured a moment to moment account of her murder on January 24, 2015. The internet was filled with images of her death and the efforts of her friends to support her, to keep her from falling to the pavement, to carry her to a safer place, and to cradle her and place her down gently as she died.
I thought it important to have her image on paper in a form that can be held. Here are four of the prints.
Seems we have gotten far away from Agnes Martin's luminous, order-inspiring, and elevating art. I hope not. We need her paintings and their encouragement of calm and peacefulness more than ever.
