pe hak Guten of LMARDEN'S CHOICE Jonaritas Hay New York, May 1997: In an upper-loor gallery, wo large abstract paintings of roughly square format hang low on the wo walls perpendicular to the windows, and diagonally across from each other. They share the space of the room with several slabs of limestone also square, but much smaller and lying flat, close w» floor-feel These slabs, densely inscribed with decoration and writing, are epitaph tablets from Chinese tombs. The vs: tor to the show needs help with the puzzling gap between the paintings and the stones. It is discreetly available on the wall opposite the windows, where Wie are framed Wik Fub- bings taken from two of the slabs. In the space under ead GTACTER a the center oF that particular slab, This unusual show in which Brice Marden’ paintings confronted, and formally responded. to, Chinese epitaph tablers of the sith to ninth centuries, was not the fst time the artise sought to establish such Cialoppyla 21991 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in scan the acist had already Tam his own works together with a wide range of other art- works of his choice, many of them Chinese.) The 1997 show, however was Rsolarly unr Telectic it was an intense, sometimes piercing, sometimes puzzling dialogue between two paintings and five ancient Chinese funerary monuments, ( Stone epitaph tables such > these were placed in the tombs of wealthy Chinese ver Hany Centuries Tn all har one case the caily eramples exhibited in the show follow the Gandard model of wo separate square slabs, one covering the other.? In small regular arate sq 8 characters the epitaph text itself was carved into the polished surface of he fower slabs The underside of the top sab was also polished, and when the composite cable was placed inside the tomb at its symbolically central position, che epitaph text was entirely hidden, Ie was thus protected fiom physical damage, while sill remaining accessible to the spirits who were its intended readers. The sides were often decorated with astrological ‘mages (sometimes extending onto the beveled top of the ever) which reinforced the gs mantic centrality of the tablet, And at the enter of the top of the cover, ona la square surface echoing the anger square of the tablet asa whole the name of the deceased was ters, using an archaic, highly formal script. For these inscriptions, as ceeds rg fo depp underneath, dh Scien af the Acetyl pon he bese calignaphers thi spon Theeligapher wold hare ft write ov the ne om the energy flow in the orginal ealigraphy, although the passage into stone inevitably flatrened it out. Marden’s paintings specifically respond to two of these formally cal ligeaphed names, which he began Dy copying, oF Tenerpretng, as an Tak drawing on peepee amine Se eR UME eer in sen 2paper using a stick, based upon rubbings of the original inscription. This and larer stages interview that follows, of the genesis of the paintings are discussed in the Painting 1 go6-97) and Epitaph Painting 2 ( follow directly from a group of Tori99e, who Wilkes revel aha ies Those works, oughly sx Toot high by two foot eight inches, are sealed to the human figure, and as such Winter pared theme: Ting Diner, Cline Bento, Sui, ant By he River of He So belong to a family of Marden’s works thar can be traced hack ino the 19608. By contrat, the new paintings are lagggse-roughly eight feet square, and belong to a different family ‘of works, deliberStely monumental, having its origins at the beginning of the 1970s Although this square forma finds its immediate explanation in the model offered by the square epitaph tables, t abo partakes of a broader and more personal association, as iden explinetn he TIvTew Vepical works he thinks of as figure paintings, horizon SE While nor intending these categoriza, Tions to be taken too literally, the artist does seem co sugaest that his square pain escape (or pethaps exceed, since both figural and landscape references remain in play) the alternative modes of viewing offered by figure painting and landscape, pointing as they do ‘in opposing directions of confrontation and envelopment The slow; meandering lines that structure che two Fyitaph paintings are a feature that frst quietly appeared in Mardens painting around 1988, in the series tiled Digguonmad Coupler (1988-89). Whatever clse this meander may connote, it also marks a second stage of the artist’ response to East Asian calligraphy, following a fst stage (starting in the mic-sig ies) dominated by his use of the “slyph"—an ape name employed by the artist fora fam ily of images that semaine stionay angular even geometsic, At fist, as in the Daganied (Gonples, dhe meander inhabits a glyphie universe, which it inflects in the direction of 4 ‘more clastic stracural field. In subsequent works such as Pcasos Shall (o989-90), Le Sudo (990) and Kalo Ker (1990), the meander retains tis secondary role. But already by 1990 in other paintings, the yp was coming to he consumed—ingested into an onganie field of skeins, traces, and expanting/contracting spaces. The pivotal group of works in this regard was the Cald Mauna serie (189-9), and this reversed situation of glyphic vestiges within a now meanderdominsted universe would continue co operate through 1993 for cxample, in Aphodie or Usonal (both 1991-93). As for entirely glyphless paintings, thie structure wholly generated from the meander, these began around 1990 with the group of Paintings entitled The Muss Con which, significantly, Marden continues to work), followed Vig, The Sister and Fine As the dates show, the development ‘one, more an exhlarated shuffle, But by the time of the China-theme paint- ings of 199596, the shift was complet. In the process, the line itself had an cven trace, stripped of gestural energy: there had been, in fact, a displacement of ener- 8}: from the constituens-tines into the structural weave, The result, confirmed in these 8Epitaph Puinings of 199697. is paintings that ate slower and clearer, both tight and tough, In line with this structural shift Marden's virtuosity as colorist has moved toward intricare relationships among several colors. Hindsight imposes a sense of evolution in this regal From the starting point of the monochromes of the sities, through the paintings com- bining diffetent panels and color fields and beyond, a gradual process of increasing differentiation seems operative. The artist’ first experiments with color relationships berween line and ground came in the Window Paintings (198}) and subsequent related works ‘of 1985-85. Baby 1986 the introduction of the glyph opened the way to a working process in which different layers interventions swith distiner colors, Marden's subsequent refinements of this procedure have gradually brought about a simplification that is atthe same time an enrichment ofthe coloristic complexity of the painting. Ar var- ious times he has used and abandoned (at lest forthe moment) filled-in areas of color: local tonal variations introduced by gestural fluctuations and unevenness in the lines or ‘ostentatious dripping: and a kind of localized smudged darkening of the ground. What is dk FAT amos prec left (since 1995) is 2 temenclous clarity dhat functions at both local and general level the picture surfice ly the same demand on the eye, so cha chere isa constant oscillation and temsion between the two, Becase this colorfild structure is brought into aligament with the undesying armature of the meander (no mean task), the paintings become dense prsenees in each case a tangled and tangible dynamic thats tains repeated viewing, In Marden’ terms, the painting becomes a “meditative object.” Epitaph Pani 1, with its relatively dark ground and ies note of slightly sour yellow against the grays and greens, has no very close parallel in Marder’ recent work, although grays ice, The darkness and greens are in themselves a constantly recurring element in his ps of the ground may be a response to the dark ground of the ink rubbings of the epitaph tablets, oF to the gray of the limestone from which the tablets are carves.* The brighter Fpiteps Paining 2, meanshile, belongs co a clear and long standing sub-genre within Marden works the ed-yellow-blae painting It isa theme fis explicitly adcressed in three works from 1574, Re Yl, Ble I and ill—conceived in part as an homage to Mondrian. Yet when Fytph Puining 2 veered to0 closely to previously explored tersitory, “Marden abrapely shifted the color scheme by dividing the blue values into red-blue (pur= ple), and green-blue: “then they started reading in relation to each other.” the artist noted, “as well as tothe yellow and the red”* Although initially conceived of as two works in a Inager group of five, one for each epitaph tablet, the two paintings nonetheless operate 3s _-2.pait. But their dialogue as complementary opposites only begins in the domain of color, ‘extending into the thematic dimension through figural and other references which are dis- ‘cussed by the artist inthe interview.For the person who works professionally with Chinese art, talking with Brice Marden is an unexpected pleasure, One discovers an artist for whom inter-cultural experience isthe very ground of his artistic practice. In this espect he has (despite his lack of contact with them) much in common with leading contemporary Chinese artists, whether they live in ‘China, or inhabit the limbo between thitd world and fist world New York, Like them, he can no longer imagine a practice of painting that would engage only the tradition from whence it comes, nor one that, alternatively, would feed off exoticism for reconfirmation of the cultural distance berween Euro-American and East Asian art traditions, Like them, he has dual, even multiple culeaal loyalties, and like them, he is effectively displaced. OF course, given the privileged role of Western culture in globalization, the difference is that Macten’s displacement is rather more of a willed choice, rather more fa self displace ment. The measure of the resistance that this choice inspies is pethaps best taken from ‘Ywe-Alain Bois important 1995 essay, “Manfen’s Doubt.” which discusses the artist’ work since 1985, when his interest in the Jyph” was get ing under way.* Bois puts the artist's fascination with Chinese ar in perspective (the Western metaphor is not inappropriate), arguing that the paradigm of formal structure offered by Chinese calligraphy is often di an well-documented case. Marden, one might say, is reeled back into « modetnist frame of reference, updated forthe nineties through the problematic of the bout. ally 2 pai sil ofa OD iinaesem To be sure, since he defines calligraphy poral, and to famess, Boss has no dlfficuley in demonstrating thar Manders work sys attributes ro calligraphy have in each case heen accompanied historically by an internal tigue. I would even go so far as to say that the very py pictorial negation oT that temporal onder, and Between graphic Hlamess and sn Tha the concept of calligraphy with which he engages is one that embraces this complexity of qualities Confirmation of one sort can be found in the fa€€ that, as Taentioned by the artist in his interview, behind the ostensible reference to calligraphy lies another, undeclared reference MEST Tichcape painting Indeed, not the Teast pleasure in viewing Mandens work for n itfren kin oF confirmation might be een in Marden ShIF from the glyph to the meander, which fred his art up fora dynamics of the pctor- il field much closer wo the namics of the calligraphic fl. A second type of objection te Bois argument mighr also be ventured. Since 19g, Marden has in fact expanded his Chinese fame of reference muuch Surther in directions which confirm that his engagement with the body (on which Bois is entirely con TiRaWement wih Chinese avincing) cannot be dissociated from his art. For corporeal metaphors are fundamental to the otherChinese art forms which have fascinated che artist in recent years: nocably, painting, oraa- mental rocks, and tomb sculpture. Yet corporeal metaphors are equally fundamental to the calligraphy with which Marden started,” so are we to think thatthe artist was then unaware of their existence? Given Marderis passionate interest in books on calligraphy and Chinese art in general, and the fact that the role of such metaphors is a staple of scholsaly and popular writing on calligraphy (and other forms of Chinese art, it seems unlikely? By excluding the “corporeal metaphor” from Chinese calligraphy and from the artists nder- standing of it, it becomes possible to single out the metaphor as an indice of the atts deeper engagement with modernism. The Chinese fame of reference is reduced to that of a mere catalyst, a way back in to modernism from some unexpected point, as if refieshed. From this view, Chinese artis seen as irredeemably other, good only for productive mis- understandings. Alice Yang has recently written of the way in which successive twentieth- century crties have positioned Chinese art as one of the Others of modernism. For erit= ies of Western modern art, she writes, “Chinese art comes to signify by turns, the promise as well asthe hazards of surrendering [the] task of representation’ (understood in terms of pain extent that Marden’ reference point in Chinese atc is identified as calligraphy, and call saphy is defined as essentially alien to the modernist enterprise. But what if an artist makes na’s Renaissance inhertancs 2 Bois’ essay joins in this critical wadition, to the a serious attempt to correct this misunderstanding and succeeds not only in this correc- ‘ion, but also in incorporating this new understanding ino his work? How do we define modernism then? The point is not ro deny Marden other incerests— for example, in bones, skeletons, or dance, not to mention late Pollack, all of them entire= Jy relevant—bur rather ta account forthe fact chat these interests did not alone, or even Primarily, take him to his present point. The artist cannot in che end be rele back in, bout continues 10 be sef-displaced, ae some in-between point, That this is part of what rmodernisin has become today presents contemporary criticism with one of its most uncomfortable challenges. ‘Thor Fier, wth Reet Cle a Bre Minden (Bertone Men of Fine As, Boston 4: The expan ia sing ds, euler oj th cove in anormal ble, her the pag ext cred onto the most uneen unde oft one, Pot ta aly ten hat sul 4. Bk Maven Zach Thomas Annan Fine At, 6) The fr ie Bye Rie of Sin Eas fom Te line Neri La by Li Pon tse Eas Pram Poa Te Sr Ps Ee Toe (New ork Ny Destine Socks i) 4 In an unpublished part of ier with he ain he std Ut che grey pra of another projected, bt 4 yeni, iting fom the Ppp aang sens es ceed wh she rk ings nd Ss even wh Brice Maden e957 {6 YueAlan Bo, "Males Dein Be Mrs ag 1985195 (Bera Kuhl e996 27The most emensie wing om corporeal men in China ct ha been done by John Hay (no rain) na Tikteapiy niet tone Ge brane Tic Fn lym Mesos Suc of Seco Vas 1ECligapyp Suns snd Cnt aks Ths Ca Pico: Prion Uni Phos ig aad “The Body tobe ip Chinese Aa tv Angela Zito ad Ties E Baton ed Ba Saran Poe Chas (Chg Chcngs User Pr) 1 Sethe inervew dt flav 44 Ale Ying, “Moderi ad ee Chinese teri Terie Cen Cricin My A? Ean Ga ty ‘iad tn nc Ne Yk ew Yok Uriesty Press 98)