"A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops." – Hans Hofmann
Irascible is a unique examination of the work of Hans Hofmann and his legacy through the lens of contemporary abstraction in New York. Centering on two paintings by Hofmann from 1947 and 1960-65, the exhibition highlights new work by a group of five abstract artists who matriculated on the New York scene: Strauss Bourque LaFrance, Justine Hill, Matt Kleberg, Erin O’Keefe, and Jason Stopa.
Widely considered the father of Abstract Expressionism, Hofmann pioneered methods of paintings and teaching that elevated America to the forefront of the global art stage, with New York City at its center. Despite this, there remains much debate as to whether Hofmann can be included among the New York School visual artists, even among the Abstract Expressionists themselves. The fact is that his career predates them both. Hofmann was considerably older than his American counterparts, his painting deeply formed by previous experiences in Europe with Fauvism and Cubism. His version of New York School abstraction was so cantankerous (some would say irascible) that his achievements in the 1950s never seemed entirely to make sense to artists and critics, or to settle down in one place on the aesthetic spectrum. Clement Greenberg, in particular, who cited Hofmann as a major influence in his writings, was admittedly wary of Hofmann's "variety of manners and even of styles". Disliking artistic labels, Hofmann rebuffed to his dealer Sam Kootz; “If I ever find a style, I’ll stop painting”.
The rejection of conformity, exemplified in the open letter Hofmann and the seventeen other painters (later known as the Irascibles) sent to the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1950 rejecting the museum's exhibition American Painting Today – 1950, permeates this group of contemporaries who reject the standards of the established trends and markets. Ironically, Hofmann would be the first to espouse formal and stringent fundaments of modern art to an estimated 6,000 students. It was his belief the adherence to a two-dimensional surface, the mastery of “push and pull”, and singularity of studio practice, were crucial in an artists’ education. However, he recognized that true artistic innovation occurred when artists began breaking these rules. As he said, “The concepts of my school are fundamental. But a true artist could violate them all”.
Perhaps bending the rules furthest, Justine Hill employs cut-out shapes that imperfectly fit together with applied shapes and marks exaggerating the abutting forms. Hill doesn’t identify with the recent contemporary waves of abstract or surrealist art, instead she finds herself more affected by the work of Hofmann contemporary and Irascible letter co-signer William Baziotes. Inspired by his otherworldly subjects and unspecified painted landscapes, Hill shares an affinity to his abstracted interpretations of myths such as his 1952 masterpiece The Flesh Eaters inspired by the cyclops Polyphemus from Homer’s Odyssey. In Hill’s most recent Bend series, she remains reverent to the ancient Egyptian myth of the goddess Nut. Though abstracted, Bend 5, 6, & 7 allude to a female form arched in front of a polka dot, star speckled sky, painted with watered down paints, wrapped and collaged over plywood panels. After years of paintings laden with collage, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance has recently employed collage techniques without actual applique – marks mimic cutouts, shapes formed through masking and erasure. Avoiding typical brushes, LaFrance creates a “reasoning for the shapes within the picture.” Foam pads, mop heads, rags, squeegees, masonry brushes, canvas cuttings all provide techniques that relate to sculpture, craft practices, textiles, and printmaking. In his piece Bookshelf Blackout, nostalgic echoes from the historic canon of abstraction are undercut by a directness and almost utilitarian way of using these materials “no illusions, no tricks” as LaFrance explains. Or, and Frank Stella recalled of Hofmann, “proof that the straightforward manipulation of pigment can create exalted art."
As an educator and writer, Jason Stopa shares a particular affinity with Hans Hofmann, pointing out two sensibilities of Hofmann’s which other artists of the New York School sought to distance themselves from: a European color palette, and relational form. Admittedly, he’s not the only artist to revisit these issues, but he does so by using multiple formal languages at once: the arabesque, a collage aesthetic, gesture, and geometry. In another parallel, this variety visually mimics that of Hofmann’s over years. A good example of early work, the primary colors and decorative lines of Yellow Volume (1947) convey the notions of the arabesque and ornamental. The architectural square forms of Stopa’s Origin Of trace a direct lineage to the Renate Series, painted in the last years of Hofmann’s life.
The architectural oil stick paintings of Matt Kleberg undulate with lively, statuesque lines and curves. Among his influences, Kleberg cites Richard Diebenkorn, who studied under Hofmann at Berkeley, and Louis Nevelson, a student of his in Munich in 1931-32 and later in New York. Through Hofmann, Nevelson discovered Cubism and collage, which greatly influenced her artistic development. The surface texture and strong architectural qualities of Kleberg’s Tramp Stamp (Moonshine), conjure both the color of Nevelson’s earlier paper collages and the organized structure of her signature wooden assemblages. With a Master of Architecture, Erin O’Keefe also centers her practice around the subject. By sculpting then photographing wooden blocks, she explores both the specific properties of photography along with the material and theoretical concerns of architecture. She intentionally creates a confusion in medium for the viewer by presenting painted and sculpted objects as photographs, connecting herself to all three mediums but committing herself to none, in kinship with Hofmann. O’Keefe is aware her educational background is the framework for her relationship to the visual world; “we all marinate in the precedents we are exposed to in our education.”
For these artists (and many others) Hofmann’s influence is undeniable, and the ripples and parallels extended to educators, collectors, even dealers. Sam Kootz, perhaps the most avid promoter of the New York School artists, would often exhibit Hofmann with his students, and in doing so influenced the MoMA’s long traveling exhibition Hans Hofmann and his Students in the 1960s. In the early days of Abstract Expressionism, Kootz would famously leverage his relationship with Picasso to promote emerging artists like Motherwell, Gottlieb, and Baziotes. On this Kootz and Hofmann very much agreed: the need to champion American talent without allowing provincialism to pervade nor the influence of the previous European generation to be forgotten. An important part of the role of a gallery is to test out unexplored possibilities for locating, nurturing, and presenting art. The most time-tested modes of exhibition-making deserve to be regularly turned on their heads and shaken vigorously. Art needs to be constantly recontextualized, revisited and reimagined.
