Art for the Ages
Thomas Hoving Picks a Collection of American
Artists Who May Be the Picassos and Monets of the 21st Century
by Thomas Hoving
The question I'm asked most often is, "Who are the finest artists
alive in America today that I should collect? You know, for
investment?"
My answer is in two parts: Never buy art for investment, only for love
and to enrich your soul; and always collect contemporaries the way the
founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr, did--with
an intense contempt for acquiring what's chic at the moment or
"stylish" or representative of some style.
Whatever one thinks of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in
New York, most people generally agree that Barr bought the best and
most diverse examples of paintings and sculptures of his day. He was
enormously proud of the way he acquired works without giving much of a
hoot about individual styles. He chased after specific works of
excellence and punch, and landed them.
I remember him telling me with justifiable pride about how--in a
month's time--he would bring into the collections works by Picasso,
Miró, Picabia, Dalí, Peter Blume, Yves Tanguy and Andrew
Wyeth. Whether a work was abstract or surreal or even magic realism
realist wasn't the point; only the power and superiority of the
individual piece counted.
That's how to drive for an incomparable collection.
Who are the absolutely prime artists working today? Who should you buy
now so that your grandchildren can dangle their wills before the
covetous eyes of the biggest museums in the land, and be wined and
dined for the rest of their lives at the nation's greatest museums and
the toniest homes of museum trustees?
Here are my picks, greatly helped by three connoisseurs of the current
scene whose eyes I admire and trust--Peter Norton of California and
Larry Gagosian and Wynn Kramarsky of New York City.
Mark di Suvero. He is without a doubt the premier American
sculptor of his generation and quite possibly the most glorious of the
second half of the 20th century. He's bold and experimental, free and
mysterious, harmonic and earthy. The works are huge, witty, energetic,
impolite, incongruous and surpassingly timeless. Di Suvero has painted
the American Way with steel, scrap and wood. One of his most superb
works, pictured on page 215, is a 24-foot-tall, yellow steel piece
titled "Oneoklock," 1969. Andre Emmerich Gallery, Inc. 41 East 57th
Street, New York, New York 10022, fax (212) 371-7345; Larry Gagosian
Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10021, fax (212)
772-7962
Jenny Saville. Her enormous oils of huge, fatty, sometimes
bloated naked women, some of whom are covered with strange writings,
evoke the universal images of Great Mother Earth that have been
created since the beginning of mankind. These works can be upsetting
and ugly, but they are as sensitive and poignant as works of the high
Renaissance. I look upon them as truthful, gripping representations of
humanity--ungussied, unairbrushed, uncosmeticized. Sensational. One
feels that mankind will be lucky to have these grotesque figures--such
as those above in "Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face),"
1993-94--as exemplars in thousands of years. Larry Gagosian
Gallery
Charles Ray. Anyone who passed by the entrance to the Whitney
Museum during the run of the 1993 biennial was startled by what
appeared to be a red fire truck parked in front of the institution. On
closer examination, the vehicle turned out to be a huge,
plastic-and-chrome silver-painted toy--50 by 10 by 8 feet. It was not
a trick, not a gimmick, but a powerful and legitimate sculpture by
Charles Ray; its very ersatz nature makes its reality more profound.
The piece confused me in a delightful manner. I found myself thinking
about my childhood, whether or not I had suddenly become a child again
and if the perceptions of a child were not more acute than any
adult. The sculpture established that delightful confusion between
reality and artifice--which is fundamental to so many naturalistic
works of art and which seldom has been so admirably
captured. Feature, 76 Greene Street, New York, New York 10012, fax
(212) 431-7187
Jeanne Dunning. Her works in Cibachrome mounted onto Plexiglas,
such as her untitled image of 1994, on page 218, are disturbing,
superbly made images of looming sexuality. I find her work profound,
totemic, powerfully echoing our troubled--and occasionally
exalted--times. Her strength lies in the very enigmatic nature of her
semihuman scenes--images that come from the closets of all our
minds. Feature
Jason Rhoades. He has got to be the most provocative
installation artist working at the moment. His "Garage, Renovation New
York," 1993, amply shows its strong character. Ragged, hallucinatory,
dynamic, his huge works evoke the shattering activity of artists at
work, their doubts, turmoils, fears and triumphs. They are really
stupendous and theatrical self-portraits. David Zwirner Gallery, 43
Greene Street, New York, New York 10013, fax (212) 966-4952
Lorna Simpson. Her works possess an incredible emotional
blast. She has the ability to make something minuscule grow to
important dimensions. Her work, "III," is a box made out of wood and
has three wishbones made of ceramic, rubber and bronze. The piece
evokes a series of nerve-alerting responses. What are these wishbones?
Fragments of carcasses or perhaps divining rods seeking something
crucial for the rest of time? Sean Kelly Gallery, 22 Wooster
Street, New York, New York 10012, phone (212) 343-2405, fax (212)
343-2604
Mark Innerst. His landscapes are vivid, sometimes strangely
brooding icons of high emotion. Each one is a deftly captured specific
moment in a special season. In "Central Park South," 1995, above (9
1/4 inches by 12 1/4 inches in a beautiful, handmade frame), the
artist has evoked the sunlit glory of the great South Lawn as an oasis
of peace and hope in the center of a threatening city, whose dark and
cruel forms loom ominously, yet curiously safely, just outside
Eden. The paint passages are thrilling. Curt Marcus Gallery, 578
Broadway, New York, New York 10012, phone (212) 226-3200
Frank Stella. The veteran artist's work has never been better
than right now. I've watched Stella's work for a lifetime--from the
spare and dour pin-striped paintings of the late 1950s which were
poetic, remote and bereft of tricks, through a sort of kicky wasteland
of the past 25 years in which he seemed to sound off and partly sell
out in attractive, three-dimensional, highly colored but strangely
uncolorful pastiches. But some recent sculptural work is almost
unbelievably hard, uncompromising and powerful. They are like giant
gnarled hunks of some petrified forest of the imagination. This one is
called "Fos," 1994. Stephen Mazoh Gallery, 67 East 93rd Street, New
York, New York 10128, fax (212) 289-5991; Larry Gagosian Gallery
Nari Ward. He makes grandiose, rugged installations out of many
media, such as his 1993 work on page 215. They distinguish themselves
by their drama, their sensitivity and their poetic strength. Jack
Tilton Gallery, 49 Greene Street, New York, New York 10013, phone
(212) 941-1775, fax (212) 941-1812
Stephen Antonakos. Some might think the lean masterpieces of
this artist are minimalist creations. That would be a mistake. When
one really gets into them, one recognizes them as dazzlingly rich and
wondrously complex combinations of rectitude and freedom, stillness
and boundless energy. Antonakos places the forms--crosses, circles,
half-circles, arcs--with intense care onto grounds of flickering color
or blackness. The artist conveys a feeling of startling spirituality
in his extraordinary pieces, which are made with colored pencils on
French plastivellum paper. Stephen Antonakos, 435 West Broadway,
New York, New York 10012, phone (212) 925-5956
Sara Sosnowy. She's one of the most accomplished colorists
working today. Her large constructions of rectangular
four-inch-by-four-inch paper panels, painted in a dazzling array of
colors and stuck to a seven-foot-by-eight-foot board like a series of
Post-its, are breathtaking--at once delicate, dreamy and
expressive. John Weber Gallery, 142 Greene Street, New York, New
York 10012, phone (212) 966-6115, fax (212) 941-8727
Damien Hirst. There's no telling what medium or what images
fine artists will choose to create their most expressive
achievements. Why not, say, dead animals or a shark, preserved in
perfect condition floating in a formaldehyde solution, in cases of
steel and glass? Hirst has chosen these bizarre forms. In his gifted
hands images such as his "Away from the Flock" are at once
frightening, riveting and grand. Larry Gagosian Gallery
David Jeffrey. The works are stark. Many are white, black and
grayish rectangles on a white ground, made of pencil and white beeswax
in daring scumbles on the surface. They are stunningly evocative and
full of character--beautiful images which open the viewer's mind. This
one from 1992 is untitled and is made out of beeswax, charcoal and a
wax medium on paper. The central image measures 27 1/8 square inches
and the overall dimensions are 40 inches by 60 inches. David
Jeffrey, 230 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11205, phone
(718) 636-3669
Kry Bastian. The found objects brilliantly embellished and
manipulated by Kry Bastian are nerve-shatteringly poetic. "Untitled
(Bronze Box)," 1994, is 7 1/2-by-6-by-5-inches and is made of
bronze, fabric, hair and thread. Her works make you want to embrace
them. They give the impression that they are the only objects
remaining in civilization at the end of time. Hers is an immense
talent. Kry Bastian, 46 Hoyt Street, Apt. 2, Brooklyn, New York
11201, phone (718) 875-0565
Bill Thompson. There's almost nothing to see in his
monochromatic square pictures, such as "Stage," an acrylic on wood, 24
inches by 24 inches. Gradually, from within this apparently bland and
formless beige object emerge the most uncannily complicated
architectural forms and the most subtle and pleasing gradations of
shades enhanced by thin, almost imperceptible white lines. It is not
easy to explain why or how such tension exists in this and other
patently placid objects. They work. Alpha Gallery, 14 Newbury
Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, fax (617) 536-5695
Wendy Mark. There's a universe of artistry to be found in her
diminutive monotypes. Her subjects are diverse. They range from
still-lifes, a portrait, swimmers bounding from Ektachrome waves, a
red splash of a car and infinite varieties of landscapes--some bright,
some Stygian, all deep in perspective and harmony of light--and
clouds, filled with light, imparted with the kind of secret life all
clouds possess. Her "One Path Leading Away," 1994, (above right)
measures 3 1/2 inches by 3 1/4 inches. Wendy Mark, 2 West 67th
Street, New York, New York 10023, phone (212) 874-2455
Helen Frankenthaler. She has managed to perfect complete
abstraction as few other artists have. To look at one of her pieces on
canvas or paper is to be calmed, put into a peaceful frame of
mind. They are lyrical, sincere and satisfying. Living with a
Frankenthaler brings peace to one's life. She has brought a needed
longevity and purpose--and even a proper dignity--to the New York
School. Knoedler Gallery, 19 East 70th Street, New York, New York
10021, phone (212) 794-0550
Andrew Wyeth. His creations are observant, independent,
quixotic, romantic and never "merely real." "Whale Rib," below,
painted in 1993, is an uncannily perceived picture and a deeply
emotional and dramatic one--possessing a host of delicious, 'false'
surrealistic touches.
The painting is a portrait of Maine as a state of physical reality, a
state of mind and also a sort of inventory of the flora and fauna that
can only exist on this specific and single tiny island, an environment
which is utterly different from one a stone's throw away. It's at once
broad, universal, specific and emotionally powerful--the reminder of
the inevitable end of all things. Nicholas Wyeth Inc., 1120 Fifth
Avenue, New York, New York 10128, phone (212) 348-8500
Nicole Eisenman. She is equally adept at installations and
paintings such as her imposing "Amazon Composition," 1993, on page
222. Her works are amazingly imaginative and thought-provoking. She
makes more startling and splendidly ominous images--many of them of
women under stress--than any other artist working today. Jack
Tilton Gallery
Jeff Koons. I find many of his works awful, almost arrogantly
destructive--especially the raw porn he once employed in commemorating
himself in coitus with his then wife Ciciolina--the pornstar cum
Italian parliamentarian. But part of artistic stature is shock value,
and Koons is an accomplished shocker. I don't think Koons' works are
contrived shock or kid's shock or some kind of practical joke.
His marbles are gripping. You might not like them, but he's got an
exceptional talent. One mark of his abilities is the hatred he
generates among the mainstream art critics. Jeffrey Deitch, 721
Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10022, fax (212) 371-9594
Eric Fischl. The beautifully crafted images of this exceptional
painter, like the one on page 215, are compellingly enigmatic. This is
a man who dares to paint the nude and does it as well as any artist in
American history. He is far from a contemporary realist but is more a
dynamic classicist who instills in his works the disturbing tones of
today's world. I am convinced that, in several generations, Fischl
will be counted among the most important artists of the second half of
the 20th century. Mary Boone Gallery, 417 West Broadway, New York,
New York 10021, phone (212) 431-1818
Kim Dingle. Her work is wild, sometimes undisciplined and
richly diverse, ranging from installations to constructions to oil
paintings. More often than not it depicts young girls or disturbing
babies like this installation titled "The Priss Room" . There's a
nasty and invigorating edge to her pieces. They never fail to stick in
one's mind. They are extraordinary exemplars of trouble, malaise,
wounds and illness--which amount to important statements about
mankind. Jack Tilton Gallery
Richard Maury. He's a splendid realist working in Florence. His
works are particularly moving, primarily because of the electric
excitement he imparts to his interiors, his vivid portraits and his
studies of objects of everyday life. Maury expands our visions and
perceptions. He achieves an uncanny poetry in his thoughtful and fresh
works. With every clean and entrancing painting, he's making new
discoveries in the realist style. Gerold Wunderlich & Co., 50
West 57th Street, New York, New York 10019, phone (212) 974-8444
Wayne Thiebaud. He's great, primarily, because he defies being
categorized. He was once mistakenly even branded a pop
artist. Thiebaud is a painterly magician who transforms the most banal
objects--things like mens' ties, round cakes or candy apples--into
adventurous admixtures of the real, the abstract and the
mysterious. The ties are far more than a jumble of colorful cravats;
they form a turbulent environment, a cluster of ravines and sharp
cliffs one might encounter in the back country of northern
Arizona. And his landscapes of San Francisco are vertiginous, cruel
and dramatic impressions of the urban scene, rich surges of painterly
bravado, as unnerving as the first shocks of an earthquake. The 1993
oil on canvas on page 215--a full five feet by four feet--is a heady
example of his incomparable portraits of one of the world's unique
cities. Wayne Thiebaud, 1617 Seventh Avenue, Sacramento, California
95818, phone (916) 447-4980
Jennifer Pastor. There are hundreds of artists out there who
make enormous constructions out of plastic, paper, wood, glass, bronze
bits--you name it--but few have any inner passion. Pastor
does. Richard Telles Fine Art, 7380 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles,
California 90036, fax (213) 965-5579
Rez Williams. He paints out of West Tisbury on Martha's
Vineyard, but he's about as far from one of those sticky-sweet
chroniclers of island life and times as one can get. His scenes of the
Vineyard smash into your eyes like crescendos. The spaces warp and
move. The colors clash and rebound. You gaze at something like "Gay
Head Light" for a few seconds and you get out of breath. Williams is
light-years beyond the Vineyard, yet no one has distilled it
better. Rez Williams, P.O. Box 3143, West Tisbury, Massachusetts
02575, phone (508) 693-1253
Matthew Barney. The artist is one of the most bewildering,
inchoate, agonizingly frustrating image-makers in the world today. As
the art writer Jerry Saltz has so aptly pointed out, Barney is a kind
of "athlete-aesthete who crafts psychosexual works" of the most
gripping quality. Writes Saltz: "It's as if Rube Goldberg, Charles
Atlas, Paul Bunyan, Audie Murphy and the Marquis de Sade teamed up to
make art." Barbara Gladstone Gallery, 99 Greene Street, New York,
New York 10012, fax 212-966-9310
Catherine Opie. She creates photographs of the most arresting
variety--troubling, dark, yet gifted images of flesh engraved and
wounded, such as her self-portraits in the guise of afflicted and
outcast members of American society who don't seem to care in the
least. Her works are arresting and curiously universal for all their
arcane weirdness. Stuart Regen Gallery, Inc., 629 North Almont
Drive, Los Angeles, California 90069, phone (310) 276-5424, fax
(310) 276-7430
Gary Simmons. One of the most important artistic forms of this
decade is social and political protest and commentary. Simmons' work
stands out as profoundly fierce and moving, with installations such as
the one in the Whitney 1993 biennial in which eight pairs of
gold-plated sneakers were placed in a police lineup wall, or a 1994
work titled "Step in the Arena (The Essentialist Trap)," which
represents a whitewashed boxing ring with seven pairs of black
wing-tip shoes hanging on the ropes and, on the canvas, a chalked-in
series of steps. Simmons can be lyrical, too, as his "erasure
drawings" such as the one on page 222, "Wall Drawing," 1992, so
admirably demonstrates. Metro Pictures, 150 Greene Street, New
York, New York 10012, fax (212) 219-2027
Fred Wilson. He uses casts of Greek classical and ancient
Egyptian sculpture in mock museum installations to make the point that
Western civilization is truly a combined African and European
ancestry. But the objects he brings together are striking and
evocative on their own, and his installations are indelible. Metro
Pictures
Millie Wilson. Using the oddest materials, this artist is
becoming justifiably famous for her arresting visions of mankind. Some
of her work sets our imaginations to running double-time, such as her
striking image entitled, "Daytona Death Angel," 1994, (not pictured)
made of synthetic hair, wood and chrome. Jose Freire Fine Art, 130
Prince Street, New York, New York 10012, phone (212) 941-8611, fax
(212) 941-7232
Chris Finley. The artist's sculptures--or installations--appear
on the surface to be pure witticisms--amusing assemblies of mundane
objects such as white metal kitchen stools, pet bowls, take-out food
containers. But with the passage of time the pieces somehow transform
themselves into architectural enterprises of far greater beauty and
significance than those in some of the most renowned cities of the
world. Acme Gallery, 1800-B Berkeley Street, Santa Monica,
California 90404, fax (310) 264-5820
Will the reputations of all these artists burgeon? Live forever? And
in two generations will they be preeminent in art history? Will their
works increase in value ten times, a hundred times?
Perhaps.
But you must know what Alfred Barr would always say: If one out of 10
lasted a generation, he felt he had chosen particularly well.
Thomas Hoving is former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
and former editor-in-chief of Connoisseur magazine.
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