Galerie Dennis Cooper presents … Nancy Grossman

 

‘Nancy Grossman overplays and overstates the psychological dimension, as if pushing an old mode of making it manifest to its limits in the hope of generating one suitable for the current age. Drawings of naked figures and of totems (and the brilliant sculptural assemblage from which the latter are derived) bristle with potential violence, compete to be “expressive”—to restore a fiction of dramatic expression. Indeed, whether human or inhuman, profane or sacred (the phallocentric totem sculpture from 1984 is entitled Succot, and is clearly chthonic), the works have a nervous, almost oppressive, narrative quality to them. Again, one senses a strain on the pictorial conventions of communicating action. This is exacerbated by the fact that the action depicted is pushed to an explosive limit, as if neither it nor the emotions aroused by it could be contained—or, if they were containable, adequately articulated—in the essentially static picture.

‘This is a Mannerist problem, and indeed there are Mannerist allusions in these drawings, to Bronzino and Leonardo’s caricatures. Grossman’s acknowledgment of the Mannerist Old Masters is not just another example of trendy traditionalism, but a reminder that those artists tested the limits of making pathos pictorially manifest and explored the strange images that result. Grossman tries to see if the limits they pushed can be stretched a little further. As with the Mannerists, her stagings are erotic, the sexes competing to articulate opposing emotional extremes. Roles are reversed; the males are beside themselves with feelings, the females are composed, effortlessly calm in the face of male accusation and anger, which eventually become frustration. Are these men devotees of a male god angry at no longer worshipful or subservient feminists? Whether or no, the allegorical potential is strong in these works, as in Mannerist art. If incompletely legible, allegory here is still more than subliminal, like Mannerist pathos. Indeed, the general mannerist problem is to find an allegorical equivalent for feeling within a normative language. This is an impossible task (which intensifies the feeling) since every language seems to fail in the face of mobile, complexly changing emotion. Such emotion is really impossible to name, whether in words or images.

‘Grossman faces this stylistic problem courageously, using a combination of choppy and long lines, incomplete and complete figures, abrupt and gradual contrasts. She pulls out every linear stop, insisting on the integrity of the lines that define her figures yet varying their density so rapidly within the same work that they seem sometimes like feathers in a vacuum, sometimes ominously heavy and urgent. Perhaps unexpectedly in view of the figures’ clarity, the overall sense is one of tentativeness—an effect absolutely appropriate to intense emotion, which always exists precariously. Even at its most securely obvious it is about to tumble into nothing; it must do so to become new. Grossman’s style shows an idiosyncratic combination of masculine and feminine sensibilities, if that distinction still holds up. One of her feminist points is to show that it doesn’t, which is not to advocate some sort of spiritual androgyny, but rather to indicate that art must use all the resources at its command—old and new—to express pathos, that is, to explicitly bring the psychological dimension into being. Grossman’s hard-won intensity shows that this is not so easy to do as might be thought. It is not simply a matter of generating literary associations for autonomous form, but of making clear that autonomous form is inherently “pathetic.”’ — Donald Kuspit

 

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Further

Nancy Grossman @ Wikipedia
Nancy Grossman @ The Smithsonian
Artists’ Artists – Nancy Grossman
Nancy Grossman 1975: An Interview
Sculptor Nancy Grossman Tells Yvonne Rainer About Her 50 Years of Crafting Radical Human Shapes
Podcast: Nancy Grossman, Stacy Lynn Waddell
Blind Ambition of Leather-Clad Heads
Nancy Grossman: The Edge of Always
The Barbarous Beauty of Nancy Grossman’s Little-Seen Early Work
Nancy Grossman exhibit tells tale about intriguing heads
Nancy Grossman: ‘Out of Control’
Nancy Grossman @ Michael Rosenfeld Art
Nancy Grossman @ Marc Selwyn Fine Art
Book: Nancy Grossman: Tough Life Diary

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Extras

Nancy Grossman: Tough Life Diary

Nancy Grossman on the Symbol of the Head

Nancy Grossman and “My Terrible Stomach”

Nancy Grossman and Elizabeth Streb at the Tang Museum

 

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Interview

 

YVONNE RAINER: I have a sore thumb, which comes from daily overuse. But never have I heard you mention the wear and tear on your hands in dealing with these intractable materials. So, tell me: How are your hands doing?

NANCY GROSSMAN: My left hand—I’m left-handed—hurts every day now. Actually, one time I said to Lowery [Sims, the art historian and curator], “I guess it’s over for me. I’m not going to be able to do sculpture anymore.” And she said, “Well, if you can’t use your hands anymore, use your feet!”

RAINER: That’s heartless!

GROSSMAN: But you know what? That’s exactly what one does! One does what one has to do.

RAINER: I want to ask about your heads. I noticed that a lot of them have no eyes.

GROSSMAN: That might be because, for the later ones, I became more interested in the sculpture. Making a sculpture whets your appetite for the next thing you can do, and you can get stuck trying to put everything in one piece. It reminds of this time in the 1960s, probably the end of 1963, when I had a storefront on Elizabeth Street and [the artist] David Smith was visiting. I was having so much trouble with this painting. The storefront was 60 feet long and 11 feet wide, like a subway car—I would paint in the front part, store paintings in the middle, and the last 15 feet were my living quarters. He was telling me about a show he was doing and then he broke off and said, “You know that painting of yours in the front studio? There are about 15 paintings on that canvas.”

RAINER: Even with your two-dimension works, such as the wall collages, it’s like there are 10 ideas there. You are not a minimalist, let’s put it that way.

GROSSMAN: It would be so unsatisfying for my soul. But it is a great exercise. Early on, I’d done some things with just brushes and two colors of watercolor. They were the skeletons of everything I would do later. What happened with those collages is the same thing that happened with the heads. There was a concentration of feelings that were really important for me to make as statements. I’m not saying those statements were received or even understood or addressed by an audience, but I was putting it all out there.

RAINER: I know that you consider your heads self-portraits, but I want to know why. They seem to me like some kind of commentary on male power. This might be a long shot, but are they statements about revenge?

GROSSMAN: You could say that the whole course of my life is about being elusive, and not getting trapped by the very things that trap women. What I love about your work is that you did that from the beginning. Whether people related to it or not, you made monumental artwork the way you wanted to do it. The best way to be happy in your life, and to have less pain, is to do what you want to do.

RAINER: We were privileged that we were able to do that in some way, by hook or by crook.

GROSSMAN: Those first works were really important to me. Maybe those heads are about power. Maybe they’re about male power’s envy of women. They do look ferocious.

RAINER: Whatever the power structure going on in them, you restrain that power. You are binding or preventing the enactment of power. That’s the way I read them anyway.

GROSSMAN: You know, I just noticed in the past couple of years how short I am. I always thought I was as tall as everybody else. I was always stronger than everyone else and I could sustain everything longer, so I never thought of my size. I’m so little that I should have been afraid, but I was so fierce and had so many big battles, many of which I’ve won.

RAINER: Are you talking about art-world battles?

GROSSMAN: Personal battles, but art-world ones, too! “You want to be a woman? Well, that comes with a foot on top of your head. My foot on your head.” I actualized these incredibly abstract ideas by physicalizing them. You did that, too.

RAINER: I’m trying to think of a comparison between using the body and using materials like leather and wood. I used the limits of my body. And powerful images can come out of using limits.

GROSSMAN: One thing I was always faithful to was my work. I didn’t even think it was okay for artists to make a living from their real work. The real work is the real work, and nobody has to be invested in it. You don’t try to customize it for anyone. You know, I taught myself sculpture from scratch, after painting. What happens so often, especially when you’re good at something, is that people put you into categories. It’s like actors playing the bad guy and so it becomes the only role people think that he or she can do. They get cornered. A lot of the work that I do is about not being cornered because the beginnings of my life were cornered.

RAINER: You were working your way out of cul-de-sacs.

GROSSMAN: You could say that about the head sculptures. The most powerful part of a human body is the head. The head is the sexiest part. It’s also the most dangerous part. You’d think the fist or the feet are, but no, it’s the head. I even made some sculptures that had teeth, because it was fascinating to me how you could do that. The truth is, my work comes out of the material. It’s about the mastery of the medium that I’m using, and while I’m working there’s a tension between me and the material—it’s always getting away from me, which makes it exciting. The result is always a big surprise.

RAINER: How do you know when to stop a particular work?

GROSSMAN: I don’t.

RAINER: Oh, that’s good, I guess. [Laughs]

GROSSMAN: It’s making itself, and when it looks like it’s complete, then I stop. Saying that, I know the head sculptures look purposeful. But I never make a preliminary sketch or model. It would feel too much like a commission and I’m bad at commissions.

RAINER: Let’s talk about “Male Figure” [1971], which you showed at the Met Breuer earlier this year. It’s larger than life, really.

GROSSMAN: It’s taller than me! It took me a whole year to make that one, because I had no idea how to make a sculpture.

RAINER: This figure is a man who’s both displaying his power and is bound to society.

GROSSMAN: And, as usual, he’s a chicken. But he has a suit over his feathers, you know?

RAINER: He’s afflicted. He’s railing against his conditions.

GROSSMAN: I made him as powerful and muscular and sexy as I could, front and back. In the museum, there was a little sign by him of a camera with a line running through it, meaning do not take pictures of this piece. I realized there would have been a lot of obscene selfies taken. There are a lot of misinterpretations about the work.

RAINER: What are the misinterpretations?

GROSSMAN: My work is often taken in some superficial costume-y way. Other people think I’m simply interested in tying up people or beating them with chains or something. Nothing could be further from the truth. You know, I had a friend who took me to a leather bar back in 1961 or ’62. I didn’t know anything about it. But these people were the real thing—they were the real fetishists. There were a few young guys but most of them were older. I remember this very tall, angular man who was bald, and he was dressed in white leather. It was filthy. You could tell that he lived in it, you know? And now, here I am in Interview, which also started 50 years ago, the same time I began making my heads. If you told me I was going to do something for 50 years, I wouldn’t have believed it.

 

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Show

Blunt, 1968

 

Black, 1973-1974

 

Head, 1968

 

Untitled (Head for N.G.), 1968

 

Three Heads, 1971

 

Head, 1968

 

Head (Zipper), 1971

 

Gunhead, 1973

 

Road to Life, 1975

 

Sonta, 1971

 

No Name, 1968

 

Head (Low), 1970

 

Untitled, 1969

 

Male Figure, 1971

 

Tazmanian mean mouth , 1969

 

5 Strap I, 1968

 

Head Study, 1972

 

Untitled, 1973

 

Head, 1968

 

Head, 1968

 

Untitled, 1968

 

Mummy, 1965

 

Purple Glass, 1966

 

Black Lavascape, 1994-5

 

Opus Volcanus (triptych), 1994

 

Hitchcock, 1965

 

T.R., 1968

 

Smith, 1971

 

Untitled, 1972

 

T.O.K., 1969-70

 

No Name, 1968

 

Untitled (Double Head), 1971

 

Untitled Drawing, 1970

 

Mary, 1971

 

Cob II, 1977–80

Head, 1969

 

T.Y.V.L., 1970

 

Head, 1968

 

 

*

p.s. RIP Greg Tate. ** David, Wait, don’t tell me. You told me! I was going to guess Dubai. New camera phone, nice. And I like your breakfast. I miss hash browns. Edible hash browns, I mean. Favorite Xmas song? ‘Father Sgt. Christmas Card’ (by Guided by Voices). Historically … oh, gosh, I guess I still have a soft spot for ‘Little Drummer Boy’. I don’t know that Kate Bush song, but, yeah, I’ll get it under my belt. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Oh, poor Anita. So, if she wears a mask, ideally a monster mask, and speaks in a scary growly voice, that would probably be bad form on her part? That seems like the only solution to me. Maybe it’s just because it’s kind of freezing cold here, but your yesterday love sounds like a very viable option. Thank you, in other words. Love using his magic powers to make being bored really trendy, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Oh, good, about the Coum doc. I’m sure there’s some online route to it, and, gosh darn it, I’m going to find that trail if it’s the last thing I do. ** geymm, Hi. Nice name. It should be a word (if it isn’t). I’m going to start using it all the time. I haven’t read ‘Complaint: Grievance among Friends’. I think she’s so great that you can just pick a book of hers whose subject particularly interests you and start there. The first one I read that got me hooked was ‘Crack Wars’. Thanks about the Guardian. That was heartening, and Rachel is awesome and mega-smart, so I’m also really happy she liked it that much. I’m kind of excited about Xmas. But I’m also already dreading when they take all the Xmas decorations and lights down. You? How are you maxing out the holidays? ** Ian, Hey, man. Oh, concrete. That’s exciting. I love watching concrete get poured and smoothed and all that stuff. Before the summer in 2022 is soon! Very nice. Can you work on your writing in your head while you’re pouring concrete? I haven’t read ‘Torpor’, but I can imagine it’s good. Sweet. Don’t spare on the extra clothing. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, how you got from Avital Ronell to the Pet Shop Boys would have turned Evil Knievel green. ** Brian, Hi, Brian. That’s unfortunate. About the lack of particular excitement possible via the film production final. But, yeah, learning sound design is definitely something. The guy who does the sound design on Zac’s and my films is — or at least seems like — a total wizard. Watching him implement all the detailed noise and silence is so riveting. So that’s great skill to learn/have. So, not too shabby. Well, I question your judgement on your talent re: making films. Look at me. Otherwise, it’s all about money and finding money or someone to find you money. Which, it’s true, is not a easy task. Just ask Zac and me. We’re so frustrated with that process we could scream if we ever screamed. I hope the grindstone you need to keep your nose to this week is either like a flowerbed or a very long line of cocaine, your choice. ** Okay. Do you know Nancy Grossman’s art? I thought I would put some before you in case you don’t. See you tomorrow.