Something Else

::

the top and right edges as “resting spaces,”

and as elements which allow the painting

“to breathe.” In the wide blue-green expanse

of the Diebenkorn, the thin white edges

were what drew Goldstein’s attention. In her

opinion, the touches of blank whiteness are

what allow the color to remain constantly

refreshing, constantly surprising. In her own

paintings, Goldstein uses far more than CAPPS

inch-wide edges of white, often leaving

the majority of her canvases covered in

white paint, but ultimately, the purpose

appears to be the same. In her works Last

Splash (2016) and High Kicks (2017), the

vibrant yellow, gold, purple, and blue shapes

hold their visual punch because of the

white environments surrounding them. In

traversing the canvases, the eye must pass

across these blank planes in order to reach P O L LY

the next area of color, allowing the vision to

reset before approaching the next stroke of

pigment. Goldstein captures the role of white

space in her paintings with her description

of the Diebenkorn: her painted works truly

breathe, with each full inhale of saturated

color perfectly balanced by a cleansing

Rebekah Goldstein, High Kicks, 2017, oil and acrylic on canvas exhale of blank white.

51

MELISSA CHEN an immediate kinship between the artists’
bodies of work in the same way we might
SEEING THROUGH THE EYES OF REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: understand two people to be relatives not
LINE AND STRUCTURE only from obvious traits such as identical
nose bridges or the same jut of their lips, but
Zhanpei Feng, “Rebekah Goldstein in front of “What would this painting be without the similarity in expressions and mannerisms
Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #60 (1973).” these lines?” Rebekah Goldstein demands that arises subconsciously as a result of a
of Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #60 long-lasting proximity. Indeed, Goldstein says
52 (1973). “It would just be nothingness.” This that she allows her subconscious to have its
is true: imagining Ocean Park #60 without way when she works, and she avoids heavy‐
the assortment of lines—all primary and handed or direct references to other artists.
secondary colors shooting across the frame
—that work across the top and the right Both Goldstein and Diebenkorn’s
edges of the canvas produces a muddled paintings gently corral areas of gestural
painting deprived of energy, emotion, and painting between hard lines. These generally
even the quality of being a finished work. pale swaths of color indicate the artist’s
As I take on Goldstein’s perspective, the sweeping arm pulling the brush across
architecture of Diebenkorn’s painting grips the canvas, yet abruptly stopping or being
me. Almost like the marble block before painted over with staunch edges. Goldstein
the sculpture is carved out of it, the canvas puts a particular emphasis on the hand‐
becomes an object that must be broken drawn line and asserts that a taped line sits
apart to reveal the artist’s hidden creation. wrong with her. She does not elaborate,
but I imagine that she thinks that the taped
It makes sense that Diebenkorn’s later line has an irksome rigidity that prevents a
work, located between abstraction and proper visual flow. My Goldstein‐calibrated
depiction, should appeal to Goldstein, eye finds structural dynamism in the two
who says that her own abstract paintings artists’ paintings. In Goldstein’s words,
always start off as figural. We can sense a painting is successful if its structure is

precarious, if there is a “sense of balance CHEN
where it seems like the structure is about to
fall apart or about to come together.” This MELISSA
philosophy rings true in Ocean Park #60.
Rebekah Goldstein, Everyone but You, 2016, oil and acrylic on canvas The disproportionately distributed weight
creates airiness, much as Goldstein does in
53 her own work. Everyone but You (2016), for
example, snaps my gaze diagonally across
the canvas and back using a composition
that resembles a toppling statue, a second
away from collapsing and shattering.

Goldstein’s attachment to line and using
it to prop up the structure of a painting
informs the appearance of her work.
Though imparting a first impression of
geometric shapes, Goldstein’s paintings
contain no closed traditional forms such as
rectangles or triangles. Instead they gently
guide my eyes along its lines all across the
canvas, between the broken-up sections
that Goldstein calls frames within frames.
This sectioning coupled with layers of color
creates a world we know to be flat that
somehow inspires a feeling of depth—a
world that without her deliberate and
ruthless hand would plummet straight
into “nothingness.”

ZHANPEI FANG color. She points out the tonal harmony
of one piece, Ocean Park #60 (1973): in
Rebekah Goldstein loves the baggage particular, the way in which the blues and
that comes with being a painter. Painting aquas are muted yet not muddied, and how
as a tradition has existed through millennia, the yellow and red lines crisscrossing the
and according to her, a painter has always top of the canvas elevate the eye. Ocean
primarily “dealt with surface and illusion.” Park #60 is gently colored with chalky,
For her, “if you’re not comfortable with the pastel blues; Goldstein notes the layering
historical weight of painting, then it’s hard of overlapping planes of color, and use of
to be a painter”; embracing art-historical “painting out.” As a painter herself, she
precedent “is something that keeps me is able to infer that “from a color mixing
going in the studio.” standpoint, [the] teals were some of the first
colors he put down.” According to Goldstein,
One artist who has particularly “when you squint, there is a really nice
informed Goldstein’s studio practice is sense of light coming through the painting,
Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993). According and that’s from not having overworked the
to Goldstein, “it’s more helpful to compare underlayer.” The overall effect is of a tranquil,
artists to their own work than to compare glowing canvas, with a sense of opening
artist‐to‐artist”—an approach she takes space, moody yet bright.
when considering Diebenkorn’s use of color
in the Ocean Park series (1967–1988), Goldstein’s characterization of
relative to his earlier bodies of work. In her Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #60 can very well
opinion, Diebenkorn had not “figured out” be used to describe her own works. Her most
color in his prior work, but this later-career recent solo show, See You on the Flip Side
series demonstrates skilled, subtle use of (2018), is built upon a unified color palette
54 which was explicitly inspired by Ocean Park,
as well as David Hockney’s swimming-pool
paintings. As with Diebenkorn’s abstract

works, Goldstein’s treatment of paint is built FA N G
upon a layered technique: “I start by putting
Rebekah Goldstein, See You on the Flip Side, exhibition view of solo show at Cult Exhibitions, 2018 down washes of color, and as I’m working ZHANPEI
some image takes hold.” Her canvases
55 feature geometric zones of pigment, lightly
scrambled over colored ground. They
demonstrate an interest in the way that
color creates space: through faint blues
and greens, corn-silk yellows, pastel tones
hanging in tension against each other, all
illuminated with the same bright, cool light.

In their own ways, Diebenkorn and
Goldstein, both Bay Area natives, are trying
to make sense of what it means to be a
“Bay Area painter”. Both artists’ paintings
are quiet, meditative, and suffused with
luminosity. Their works draw inspiration
from the artists’ experience of the landscape,
and respond to distinct attributes of the
region—perhaps suggesting the sweeping
expanses of the Northern California coast,
or in Diebenkorn’s case, the Ocean Park
neighborhood of Santa Monica, with a
sense of openness that is characteristically
Californian. Separated across the decades,
Diebenkorn and Goldstein have arrived at
similar conclusions.

PIO THOMPSON of the work. Chain Gang contains portions
of canvas that are cropped and attached to
PAINTING AND SCULPTURE INTERSECT: the rest of the work at angles, suggesting
EDGES IN REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN’S ARTWORK sculpture, but, as Goldstein notes, “she’s left
[the edges] unpainted so you can see the
Throughout her interview at Stanford’s painting falling off, and for me that’s such
Anderson Collection, Rebekah Goldstein a painterly move. I’m not going to paint all
talked repeatedly about the edges of various of the sides, I’m going to let it be a painting
canvases. In describing Black Ripe (1955) rather than this fully-painted object.” Having
by Ellsworth Kelly, for example, she drew our heard Goldstein’s compelling thoughts
attention to the abstract black shape painted on edges in these two works, I became
over the plain white canvas. “The black form interested in studying how edges play into
in the center plays with the edge of the Goldstein’s own paintings.
frame,” she reflected, “the white background
[…] falls back but it also is playing and In many of Rebekah Goldstein’s works
pushing and pulling against the black form on canvas, I find a similar tension between
in the center of this canvas.” Goldstein’s the edge of the piece and the form of the
meditations on the tension between the piece to what she locates in Ellsworth Kelly’s
edge of the canvas and the rest of the work Black Ripe. In All Because Of You (2018),
arose again later in the interview when she for example, Goldstein is working with an
described work by Elizabeth Murray. She unconventionally shaped canvas: an irregular
pointed to the edges in Murray’s piece Chain polygon. What surprises me about this piece
Gang (1985–86) as a place of intersection is how the paint both emphasizes and defies
between the painterly and sculptural aspects the form of the canvas. The thin black lines
56 to the upper and lower left, for example,
delineate the edge of the canvas, while the
light blue paint on the right likewise follows
its angles. In other areas, however, the lines

of black paint break the form of the canvas, THOMPSON
and the emerald green rectangle in the
center of the work runs against any natural PIO
edges of the canvas, creating a sense of
Rebekah Goldstein, All Because of You, 2018, oil on canvas detachment or suspension. One section
of blue paint at the very top seems to be
57 peeling away from the edge of the canvas,
creating an interesting moment of tension
between the shape of the canvas and the
paint applied to it.

Some of Rebekah Goldstein’s works, like
those of Elizabeth Murray, employ the edge
to create ambiguity between the forms of
sculpture and painting. Navy Pattern Square
(2016), for example, is a three‐dimensional
sculpture, but the painted polygons—that
in many places cross the edges of the
piece—work to compress the form into two
dimensional space. Or, to borrow Goldstein’s
words, they make the work seem like “a
painting rather than a fully painted object.”
I find Goldstein’s sculptures interesting
because, departing from the many paintings
that conventionally use perspective to create
the illusion of three dimensionality, her
sculptures instead use edges to allude to
two dimensionality.

PHILLIP MAISEL :

PHILLIP MAISEL INTERVIEW AT THE CANTOR ARTS CENTER
JESSE MORRIS
: I think photography has always been a method for me to think about its relation to
:MAISEL
MORRIS memory, it’s kind of played a crucial role in my upbringing.
MAISEL
: Are the photographs you use in your own work found or your own?
KIM BEIL
: It’s a combination of personal images, found images, photographs that I’ve taken
59
and it’s ultimately sometimes a formal decision. I’m interested in the way that
photographs look photographed, I like the way that the act of photographing
things transforms them.

: Is the repetition that photography allows something that interests you?

: It often stems from a personal standpoint. A deep anxiety I feel with photography

is this back and forth relationship where I feel very much obsessed with it and
reliant on it for a number of things including my own kind of failing memory, or not
‘failing’ but faulty memory. I just have this tenuous relationship to photography and
I think making multiple images is related to this anxiety.

[On Zeke Berman, Necker Cube and Empties, 1993] What I really appreciate is
that [the photograph] is both creating this illusion but also showing its hand—that
it is not perfect, it’s not trying to completely fool anybody. So it’s playing with the
illusionistic depth of the photographic space and the quality of the photograph as
an object and as a surface.

: Can you guess what he was looking at to make the photograph?

59

MAISEL : It feels so sketch-like which I really appreciate. It feels kind of messy and haphazard.
BEIL
MAISEL The illusion of movement is really satisfying to spend some time with, especially in
person.
ANGELICA JOPLING
MAISEL : So when you’re doing research, what kinds of artwork do you look at? Do you go

through books, are you going to exhibitions a lot?

: I try to go see as much work as possible in person. I try not to look at stuff online

too much. It’s really easy to feel like you’ve seen something by looking at it on your

:phone. I love being able to get closer to things. I love how even with photography

as you move from left to right your relationship to it changes.

: Do other artists’ works play a role in your process?

: This Robert Motherwell collage [Sea Snail, 1981] is beautiful. I found this great

quote from him. He was talking about artists like Picasso and Matisse. He didn’t
believe those types of figures were figures that could be overthrown, and instead
of triumphing over them he was convinced he could expand upon their innovations.
I think about that all the time with my work. Early on I was really self-conscious
about that, the notion of ripping somebody off or being redundant, but I am okay
with it. I think making art is like being part of a conversation and a dialogue. I’m
interested in expanding a vocabulary as opposed to trying to hide influences.

60

:

ANGELICA JOPLING passed down from his grandfather, and
this omlette of personal history is shared
Phillip Maisel enters the Cantor Museum’s with the class. Maisel circulates the Stereo
wood cladded classroom with a backpack Transparencies around the room. It is a
full of history. He sets this bag onto his lap, family ritual of his to look through old slides,
unzips it and begins to empty the contents a ritual that he has become increasingly
onto the table in front of a roomful of hungry reliant upon for his self‐proclaimed “faulty
adolescent eyes peering over laptops, memory”. He describes this ritual as being
awaiting the reveal. Three Kodachrome both communal and isolating—only one
Stereo Transparencies and a mini mountain viewer can look at the image at a time, yet
of mustard yellow slides sit in front of Maisel the conversation that emerges from the
like a home-cooked meal waiting to be image that ultimately builds a communal
consumed. feeling. Sharing these slides with a group
of near‐strangers, I consider how Maisel
These slides are Maisel’s history, a series has brought his private family ritual to a
of family snapshots from the 1950s–60s public classroom setting. Photography is an
62 intimate and often singular practice between
photographer and subject seeking to
awaken a conversation and a history. There
is a seeming contradiction in photography
being both communal and isolating but it is
one that Maisel repairs both materially and
theoretically through his own work.

After viewing the family snapshots of
his grandparents or his father as a boy in
various tourist locations around the world,
Maisel brings us to a series of photographs

to be viewed through a set of wooden mid‐ into objects through sculptural mixed media JOPLING
nineteenth century stereoscopes. These techniques. He discusses his curiosity
Students look at stereographic photographs from stereoscopes are a little clumsier. Holding about the stereoscopes in terms of the ANGELICA
the collection of the Cantor during Phillip Maisel’s the wooden handle in one hand, you use surface quality of the images, the way that
visit. the other to adjust the slide for your eyes line functions, the way that colour works
to approximate a certain kind of depth for within the frame; he demonstrates the
63 the three-dimensional illusion to emerge metamorphosis an otherwise banal image
from the two-dimensional image. It is this can undergo by a change as small as being
dichotomy that informs Maisel’s practice flipped upside-down. Like the stereoscopes,
and penetrates his work. He is interested Maisel’s two-dimensional work becomes
in how 3D technology can distort or three-dimensional objects that test the eye.
embody life within a frame, be it an 1861
stereoscope, a 1950 Kodachrome Stereo In his most recent 2018 exhibition, As
Transparency, or a 2018 Oculus VR headset. It Lays, at Gregory Lind Gallery in San
Francisco, his works marry elements of
Photography, although a young art photography with angular, geometrical
form, does not exist without the burden of collage and pastel that wrap around the
history. It brings the history of yesterday or edge of the panel. They challenge the
of one hundred years ago eerily close to the viewer’s eye by mimicking the three-
present. Yet it is both this burden of Maisel’s dimensionality of an object or even of a
family history as well as photography’s world upon the flat surface. This is similar to
history that Maisel is attracted to. One can how the stereoscopes operate yet, without
see this play out in his work but perhaps it the tactile medium that distances the viewer
aligns more with his “faulty memory” than from the work. Maisel’s work does not
the real image-memory that is prompted by require a bulky medium to create illusion.
the stereoscopes. Maisel’s work often seems It hangs alone on the wall and slips into its
to be most drawn towards the distortion, place in history, distorting everything that
abstraction and transformation of images once was or will be.

JESSE MORRIS Phillip Maisel hands me the bulky
stereoscope. My hands trip over its power
COLLAGING BISTABILITY: cables, connected to an outlet beneath the
AN INTERVIEW WITH PHILLIP MAISEL table surface. As I peer into the two lenses
of the unfamiliar object Maisel explains how
Phillip Maisel, Installation view from As It Lays at Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2018 a two-lensed camera “recreates some sort
of semblance of dimensionality…it is not
64 perfect. There is a strangeness to it.” He
goes on: “what I really appreciate about this
technology is that it’s both communal and
very isolating.” I can barely make out what
lies beyond the fourth wall of the dark image
I’m looking at. It certainly isn’t perfect, is it?
In fear of isolating myself before my class, I
say nothing.

Maisel was not familiar with Zeke
Berman’s black and white photograph,
Necker Cube and Empties prior to our
interview. In his analysis of Berman’s image,
he fondly recalls the notion of bistable
perception—when something appears to be
two things at once—and a quote he once
found on the internet: “Depth perception
can be upset when rule and knowledge are
in conflict.” Immediately I flash to the blue or
gold dress. I associate bistable perception
with meme culture. Bistability in that case

is more often the subject of an image, as in collages disparate surfaces to compose a

the face/candlestick or duck/rabbit illusion. single work. This is ever more highlighted

Maisel and Berman, though, use it as a as individual photographs are included as

tool. In Maisel’s work, bistability employs collaged fragments of the largerwork. The

the imperfect in its activation of negative imperfection Maisel loves in Berman’s work

space. Just as the distortion of an image may gains prominence in his own; he composes

precipitate a realization of its essence, so bistable perception not through studio

the disorientation of Maisel’s use of bistable contraption but more simply through

perception can enunciate his subject. collaging imperfect scraps. Maisel stumbled MORRIS

From a distance Zeke Berman’s Necker upon Berman’s work just as he stumbles

Cubes and Empties is only a series of upon layouts in his own—structural decisions

floating, chalky lines—cubes and improbable occur real time though experimentation.

shapes. Upon closer viewing the contrast Consequently, effortless and imperfect

between negative and positive space fragmentation forces negative space.

dulls and the shadowy studio reveals its If coherent depth perception is harmony

supporting structures. To Maisel, “It is between knowledge and rule, the success

not perfect,” moreover, it plays “with the of Maisel’s work is in its fragmentation of

illusionistic depth of the photographic space knowledge and rule: bistability. Eventually

and the surface quality of the photograph as I learned I could not view the stereoscope JESSE

an object and as a surface.” Berman depicts properly simply because I was not turning

the strangeness of imperfect perception on the light. Through simple fragmentations

similar to that of Maisel’s stereoscopes. Maisel isolates his viewer in their own

Maisel’s most recent series As It Lays individualized state of disbelief. One seeks

toys with tension of bistable perception explanation—some contraption in Berman’s

through imperfect fragmentation. While studio space, or light switch to make it all

Berman distorts objects contained within make sense—but there is none; there is only

the single photographic surface, Maisel effortless imperfection.

65

ANNIE NG imperfection underlying other artists’ work
and his own, resulting in artwork which
‘SOMETHING ELSE’ ABOUT PHILLIP MAISEL: sparks tenderness for this quality even as its
MUNDANE ARTIFACT AS ARTWORK content eludes full comprehension.

Phillip Maisel thinks of more than just artwork The way Maisel speaks of vintage
as artwork. He views the mundane—a Kodachrome stereoscopes transforms them
kitchen table spread, old family photographs, from ordinary household artifacts into a
battery-powered stereoscopes—with kind of artworks that inspires the illusory in
the kind of reverence many reserve for his own work. He praises, “[Stereoscopes]
traditional artworks alone, a reverence which fool our minds into seeing three dimensions
informs experimentation in Maisel’s own using two-dimensional material and that’s
practice. From his fascination for ordinary something that’s informed my practice.” Yet
found material springs arrangements which he also notes that the technology is appealing
hover between photography, collage, and partially because it is not entirely polished.
sculpture: in 2017 work Surface Tension, for “What I like about it is that it is not perfect.
example, he constructs illusory depth by There is a strangeness…a weird kind of
collaging coral paper, photographic prints, flatness that still happens despite the depth.”
and melamine panels into seemingly three‐ Though Maisel must have experimented with
dimensional forms, photographs it, then the stereoscopes hundreds of times, he holds
re‐layers portions of the same materials them with obvious care, and still refers to
back on top, creating confusion as to what them as “amazing”—perhaps because even
is ‘real’ versus photographed. Curiously, the after years, they communicate something
mundanity of Maisel’s inspiration culminates new and beautiful each time he returns.
in artwork bordering on the ethereal, the Just recently they drew him in with fresh
surrealist. Yet he simultaneously strives realizations: “The way reflections look, the
to discover and display just a touch of the way water is depicted, the way light glints
66 off things, the way textures look in hard light.”

Accordingly, Maisel’s own artwork displays ANNIE NG
the same shifting quality. He shows us palm-
Phillip Maisel, Installation view from Surface Tension at Black Crown Gallery, Oakland, CA, 2017 sized mockups—tiny concoctions of gridded
paper, fingernail‐sized photo prints, and
67 shiny colored plastic. Each element shimmers
before one’s gaze. My eyes want to drink it all
in, but the shapes and colors appear to shift
as I attempt to catch hold of what I see. His
finished works are much the same: in Surface
Tension, coral shapes that are at once regular
and irregular take form alongside turquoise
grids and mirrors. Textural black‐and‐white
prints offset the pale colors, but one cannot
decipher their full contents as they warp
within neighboring surfaces. Throughout
the series the same triangular‐ish, prism‐ish
shapes appear, an illusion of constancy;
yet from one photograph to another, what
fills the spaces between their edges are
different. There is a delicate roughness in
each object, no matter how precisely placed.
It is charming. Deep within the artwork’s
multiple contradictions, one’s mind is fooled
again and again. Through Maisel’s eyes,
mundane artifacts transform into precious
artworks in their own right. By the firm root
of their influence, he creates the fantastical.

DYLAN SHERMAN three dimensional collages. He then
flattens and obscures the constructions
Standing in front of Robert Motherwell’s by photographing them and collaging
1981 Sea Snail, Phillip Maisel leans in to the photographed objects on the print,
examine the work’s surface, remarking how creating works that defy any expectation for
it’s not until he gets “really really close” that photography as a two-dimensional medium.
a column of black reveals itself as a pasted Looking closely at Maisel’s photographed
piece of collage rather than just black paint constructions, you might deduce that he
on the blue background. Beyond this black has cut a photograph and refracted it into
stripe, a gently defined curve of beige a mirror. Yet the next second, your eye
blends into a triangle of white that spills questions if the photograph was cut the
over the blue background’s edge, animating way you thought or if you were actually
this subtle collage with flickering layers seeing an element of collage introduced
of movement. By using collage to create after the photograph was taken. Indeed,
this scene, Motherwell charges Sea Snail at first glance, both Sea Snail and Maisel’s
with ambiguous flatness, pasting a series photographs masquerade as obedient flat
of stacked edges on fibrous rag paper and surfaces safely contained within a frame.
working against the paper’s razor thinness. But as the works are examined more
closely, such simplicity is exposed as the
In a similar vein, Maisel works with artist deliberately taking materials out of
flat objects such as found photographs, conventional expectations for being seen
mirrors, and marbled paper to create and nudging them into the space beyond
68 two dimensions.

After looking closely at Sea Snail, Maisel
showed us mock‐ups that revealed his
process of layering photographic works back
into themselves using cutouts and collage.

As we flipped through these drafts, Maisel SHERMAN
admitted that he works quickly, trusting his
visual instincts rather than risk overthinking. DYLAN
This comment took me back to Motherwell’s
collage. Even though it was installed
nearby in its fixed, final form, I couldn’t
help but speculate how it came together in
Motherwell’s studio. Did he, too, progress
rapidly through many different iterations
of the same materials, or did he minutely
consider how each material and color could
best function within the overall composition?
Motherwell could not be called on to answer
such questions, but Maisel’s close looking
reveals how questions of artists’ intents can
be worked through, especially for illusionistic
work like his own. Looking closer can
awaken the physicality of the objects within
a flat frame, whether Motherwell’s collage
paper or Maisel’s found images, and reveal
how they still occupy their own space while
Students study work prints by Phillip Maisel during his visit to the Cantor Arts Center. they are fixed into the work. Even though
Maisel’s work always achieves a final form,
this static form is in fact an invitation to look
closely at what is within his frame and think
expansively about how these objects settled
into their final visual array.
69

MARCELA PARDO ARIZA :

:PARDO ARIZA INTERVIEW AT THE CANTOR ARTS CENTER

In the Cantor Arts Center, Marcela Pardo Ariza meets the class.

MARCELA PARDO ARIZA : I really like this assignment of trying to get into something else that’s part of the

collection. Is there something here that you were moved by or something that you

were like, “Why are we looking at this?”

AMIR ABOU-JAOUDE  

: I thought [Lucien Clerque’s] Italian nude (1993) was erotic. Yet, the way that they’re

all lined up makes them look like beached whales.

 

: I think because the bodies are fragmented, [the photograph] gives you a sense

of possibility of what it can actually be. It can be that they’re beached, but I also

wonder whether or not it was arranged very specifically, and in what context that

happened.…In photography, everything always looks very polished and staged. I

very much enjoy that about it, but I also like to think about the moments beforehand

and the awkwardness that happens, especially when you’re photographing a

subject for the first time. And then the afterwards of it too—whether or not you’re

close with your subject, or if it is a purely transactional relationship.

JERAMIAH WINSTON  

: You said that fragmented bodies open up possibility? I was wondering if that's

where the inspiration for your cover (Kin, 2019) came from?

PARDO ARIZA : With photography, so much of it comes from a very anthropological point of view.

Even when you see the first photos of different tribes, there's this idea that if you
have a full‐on portrait of someone standing you get a sense of a better sense of

71 71

PARDO ARIZA who they are that if you had a picture of their hands….I've been thinking so much
about the fact that we each have gestures or ways of dressing or things that may
ALI VAUGHAN say more about ourselves than having like a full portrait of someone.
PARDO ARIZA
For Pardo Ariza, even Fantasy Coffin in the Shape of a Jack Daniel’s Whiskey Bottle
72 (1995) reveals larger truths.

: There’s something so cartoonish about [the work]. Even if something doesn't exist

you can make it a reality. There is so much potential in that, especially regarding

:visual culture and seeing the images we want to see or making them happen for

people like us. There is so much agency with this work that I felt like saying, “why
not make a coffin out of a bottle?”

Pardo Ariza often “makes images happen” by sifting through queer archives and
incorporating her discoveries into her work.

: Do you feel a kinship with the people [who created the archival photographs]?

: Absolutely…the most intimate came from independent journals and erotica…I

started to connect with the photographers in terms of style. There is a sensibility
of the person creating this image—they are being thoughtful about it…How do you
re-enact these bodies in a way that feels ethical and also thoughtful?...it’s all about
the intention so it’s not coming from an exploitative, weird type of thing but from
a historical kinship.

:

AMIR ABOU‐JAOUDE the human form, Pardo Ariza admired that
“the bodies are fragmented” because “it
FRAGMENTS OF THE HUMAN FORM gives [the viewer] a sense of possibility of
what it can actually be.” As a professional
Despite its straight forward title, Lucien photographer, she contemplated “the
Clergue’s Italian nude mystifies me. In his relationship between the photographer and
photograph, Clergue does not capture a the subjects” while examining this image.
20th-century successor to the nudes of
Titian, Giorgione, or Bronzino, but instead It’s not surprising that these inquiries
places three subjects in front of the camera. interest Pardo Ariza. She explores them
Since their torsos encompass the entire in her own work. Throughout her career,
frame, they are devoid of heads and legs. she has experimented with the potential
Not all of the figures face the same direction of photographic collage. In a recent series,
—two are supine, while one is prone. At Kin, she layers body parts on top of one
first glance, I assumed that the image was another—from hands to feet, forearms to
sensuous, but after staring at the picture knees, buttocks to crotches. The subjects
for a while, the erotic became insipid. The all wear jean jackets or denim pants, but the
bodies started to remind me of beached composition still seems disconnected. This
whales or poorly conceived abstract forms. fragmentation, however, is not detrimental
There’s nothing particularly Italian about this to the work’s aesthetic appeal. Rather, it
photograph, and under my gaze, the nudes conveys “the sense of possibility” Pardo
stopped being nudes. Ariza mentions in reference to Clergue’s
picture. Just as Clergue rejects the traditional
Standing over the print in the Wilsey depiction of nudes, Pardo Ariza’s splintered
Classroom at the Cantor Arts Center, I asked bodies suggest that kin extends beyond
visiting artist Marcela Pardo Ariza why this biological family or uncomplicated romantic
puzzling photograph appealed to her. While relationships. Pardo often addresses queer
I was bewildered by Clergue’s approach to concerns in her projects. Here, she argues
74

that the definition of kin must be expanded A B O U‐JA O U D E
to provide for non‐heteronormative
possibilities. AMIR

Marcela Pardo Ariza, Bruno & Marcus (1975~, 2018), 2018 When she takes a photograph, Pardo
Ariza describes feeling a certain kinship with
75 her subjects, whether her subjects are her
close friends, anonymous models, or queer
performers. The Clergue picture prompted
Pardo Ariza to eloquently describe these
relationships—“the awkwardness that
happens” before the shutter snaps, “and
then the afterwards of it too.” Sometimes
Pardo will “‘talk about life for real’” with a
subject, while in other instances, she has “a
purely transactional relationship” with him
or her. Nevertheless, as disassembled as
the figures may be, Pardo never sees them
as broken or as only body parts. She resists
the temptation to call Clergue’s subjects
“beached whales” because she realizes that
they are people.

This extraordinary humanism is evident
in Pardo Ariza’s work. After she cuts up her
subjects, they do not seem broken, but more
complete than before. In her photographic
collages, individuals transcend their own
limits to forge strong, unorthodox kinships.

SARA CARRILLO in the show. That same year, Oldenburg
abandoned his traditional media and began
Since we had both recently watched to produce soft sculptures, like Soft
Heather Lenz’s documentary, Kusama: Typewriter (1963) or Soft Toaster (1964)—
Infinity (2018), visual artist and curator his work was well regarded for its innovation
Marcela Pardo Ariza asked me if I recalled and newness. This appropriation of Kusama’s
an anecdote about Yayoi Kusama and Claes style happened not only with Oldenburg and
Oldenburg that, as she explained, was one the soft-sculptures, but with Andy Warhol
of the reasons she had wanted to spend and the wallpaper works as well.
time with Oldenburg’s Untitled (Ice Cream
Cones) from 1968, which is in the Cantor Pardo Ariza, whose own work is
Collection at Stanford University. While concerned with exploring queerness as
she appreciated that much of Oldenburg’s well as telling previously-elided narratives
work is “ridiculous” but still “very relatable of marginalized peoples, seemed troubled
and intergenerational,” Pardo Ariza told our by Oldenburg’s appropriation of Yayoi
class that she wants to call attention to the Kusama’s soft sculptures and by the erasure
fact that while artists influence each other that occurred in the art historical narrative
constantly, “we must be mindful of where about the origins of Oldenburg’s work—she
our inspiration is coming from at all times.” is an artist and curator who is interested in
The story she told was as follows: questioning tradition and history. The scholar
Roula Seikaly has written that Pardo Ariza’s
In 1963, artists Yayoi Kusama and photographic work is ‘queering’ photography:
Claes Oldenburg were featured in a joint not only is she highlighting queer subjects in
exhibition at the Green Gallery in New York. the Bay Area, she is challenging the history
This show, for Kusama, served as the debut and function of photography as we know it.
of her Accumulation ‘soft-sculpture’ series,
but they were almost entirely overlooked For Bay Area Now 8, held at the Yerba
76 Buena Center for the Arts in 2018, Pardo
Ariza’s photographic installation created

‘historical kinships’ between queer figures CARRILLO
of the past and present using photographs
Marcela Pardo Ariza, Exhibition View, Bay Area Now 8 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, from LGBTQ+ archives in modern, digital SARA
2018–2019. Photo by Charlie Villyard photographs. She spoke about her concern
for representing these histories, subjects,
77 and artists in an ethical way, asking, “how
do you re-enact these bodies in a way that
feels ethical and thoughtful?” To Pardo Ariza,
“it’s all about the intention [of the artist], so
it is not coming from an exploitative, weird
type of thing but is coming from a historical
kinship.” And she is not only interested in
putting her subjects in kinship with one
another, she is constantly finding herself
forming kinships with artists that came
before her. When asked by a student in our
class if she felt connected to the people
who created the now-archived photographs
that she is integrating into her photographs,
she explained that she has connected with
the photographers of erotica magazines
and even photojournalists, because of the
thoughtful and intentional sensibility of the
people creating the images. Although queer
lineages have been historically erased, Pardo
Ariza’s practice is focused on forging new
connections within queer communities.

ALI VAUGHAN It takes a particularly keen eye and open this strange thing, and it was this striking
mind to introduce the concept of agency choice of diction that lingered in my own as
78 in the presence of an eight-foot tall, liquor a clue to the way that Pardo Ariza uses the
bottle shaped coffin, a term Marcela Pardo absurdity and humor of her photography to
Ariza brought up almost immediately during visualize queer existence.
her tour of the piece at the Cantor Arts
Center. The object itself, a painted wooden Perhaps Pardo Ariza saw her own sense
fantasy coffin in the shape of a Jack Daniel’s of humor reflected back to her through
whiskey bottle by the Ghanaian artists the coffin, the visual exaggeration of a
Theophilus Nii Anum Sowah and D.A. recognizable liquor bottle that exceeded its
Jasper, is comically large and undeniably own typical importance through a playful
fun despite its morbid function. But at manipulation of scale. As a human-sized
first glance, it does not appear to call the coffin, the symbol of a Jack Daniel’s bottle
concept of agency to mind. It feels more was simultaneously immortalized and
fitting to assume that the piece simply begs satirized, rendered both serious and silly
us to laugh, or at least to crack a smile. Yet by the hand of its maker. It is an object that
agency was one of the words that sprung we know, but not presented in the way that
to Marcela Pardo Ariza’s mind in the face of we expect. This humorous subversion of
expectations, what one could call “queering”,
similarly defines Pardo Ariza’s own work.
Objects of the everyday, whether notecards
whose unruly lines refuse to remain straight,
or a hot dog that bears strange resemblance
to its holder’s fingers, become subjects in
Pardo Ariza’s photographs. She often uses
objects as stand-ins for human bodies,
suggesting latent capacities for metaphor
in seemingly innocuous items. As “figures”

in Pardo Ariza’s work, everyday objects VAU G H A N
cleverly suggest bodies, but don’t contain
Marcela PardoAriza talks about objects in the Stanford Family Collection at the Cantor Arts Center. associations of race or gender associated ALI
with representations of actual people.
79 Consequently, Pardo Ariza’s work excludes
no person from projecting their own bodies
and desires onto her image of two traffic
cones nestled lovingly together, titled
Snuggling (2015).

Through the recurring themes of her
work, and in her apparent joy as she spoke
of the imaginative possibilities suggested by
the coffin, it seems that Pardo Ariza finds
great freedom in objects that manipulate
the familiar. Underlying her absurd sense
of humor is the seriousness of this kind of
play, its necessity for imagining a space
of queer existence. It is through queering
the otherwise unambiguous associations
attached to recognizable objects we
live our lives with, that Pardo Ariza has
created what she calls a “humble space of
possibility”, a space where one can say “why
not make a coffin out of a bottle?” From
this space, Pardo Ariza finds agency in her
artistic process and imagines the potential
of agency for queer people in visual culture.

JERAMIAH WINSTON Torres strange objects have in common? “An
object is not an object.” Pardo continues,
When I first lay eyes on Lucia Molhoy’s, still gazing at Molhoy’s work, “You put a
Untitled (light fixtures), I am thoroughly personality onto it.”
unimpressed. Out of all the works Pardo
has brought out, from fragmented bodies Incidentally, Pardo’s work does make
in rows to arrays of fresh suits, this black me think quite a bit about Gonzales-Torres’
and white picture of light fixture seems the work. For instance, Gonzales-Torres’
most out of place. There’s no particularly infamous candy wapper sculptures remind
sharp contrast or dynamic composition, and me of the calm chaos of Pardo’s Still Fires, a
the title does nothing to suggest a deeper work in which Pardo has created a collage
meaning-laden work. From where I stand, approximation of a fire and placed diverse
it looks like a picture of a light fixture. I’m collections of fruit inside. The fires blaze
wondering why exactly Pardo brought this around, violently. The fruit, by contrast,
work out, when she notes that the work, “ seems calm, unaffected. And it’s through
makes me think so much of Felix Gonzales- compositions like these that Pardo imbues
Torres.” I nod, but it isn’t until later than I these everyday objects with a personality
discover Gonzales-Torres strangely simple and knowability that she herself looks for
and delightful stacked candy wrappers to in other works. Whereas I look at Untitled
his array of hanging lightbulbs. Had I known (light fixtures) and struggle to impress a
of his works during the talk, I perhaps would mode of being onto it, Pardo sees the work
have been even more confused. What did and immediately and emphatically sees
Molhoy’s simple light fixture and Gonzales- its anthropomorphic qualities and is able
80 to engage with the work in a much more
nuanced fashion.

And perhaps I’m not giving Untitled
(light fixtures) enough credit. One of the
aspects that Pardo pushes for in her own

object-based work is how it can be relatable WINSTON
to the widest array of people. Perhaps the
Marcela Padoro, Still Fires, 2018 simplicity of the subject is so more people JERAMIAH
will connect with the object. Perhaps
81 the simple presentation and imagery
combined with the ubiquity of its subject
allows Pardo and others to really imbue
the work with personality and nuance.
Pardo herself embarks on a similar task
in her 2015 series Paranoia in which she
photographs multiple household objects
in very simple backgrounds. One work, for
instance, is simply a shot of a hand holding
a hotdog. But even still, Pardo takes the idea
presented by Untitled (light fixtures) and
runs with it, creating simply backgrounds
that both do not detract from the viewing
experience but do not overpower the
object or subject being photographed.
Untitled (light fixtures) with its plain white
background cannot say the same.

In the end, while Untitled (light fixtures)
may not move me, the tenants of the
work that Pardo applies to her own are
fascinating and inviting, and Pardo explores
them masterfully.

ERIK PARRA :

ERIK PARRA INTERVIEW AT THE CANTOR ARTS CENTER

:ARIEL KAUFMAN : [On Richard Diebenkorn, Girl on the Beach (1957)] [JRV1] One of the things that I
PA R R A
KIM BEIL absolutely love about this painting is that…you can tell Diebenkorn is exhibiting his
PA R R A painting intelligence…He’s defining form through the language of flatness…He’s
literally pushing [paint] onto the canvas and scratching it back out to…define the
ZHANPEI FANG form but also highlight the flatness…It all is neatly tied together in this idea that the
painting is essentially a skin…so it’s living and breathing with you as good paintings
should.

: I can’t help but look at the chair and think about how furniture often plays a role in

your paintings.

: Chairs…do two things in my paintings: chairs are stand-ins…for the figure…I am

[also] interested in this idea that people often make choices about the artwork
they live with based on the furniture…The chair operates metaphorically, operates
narratively.

: Shall we move one to another painting?

: [On Paul Wonner, Wine Glass and Postcard (Zurbaran) (1968)] The history of art

starts with things being flat and cartoonish and…moves to…the sort of mimesis of
lived Cartesian space. And then it swings back in the sixties with Modernism to
flatness and reducing narrative and…hints at any sort of Cartesian space other than
just the space of the canvas—which is flat.

: What do you make of the still-life in this image?

83

PA R R A : That is a reference to the history of painting I was talking about. He’s doing here in
FANG
PA R R A a very ham-fisted way what Richard Diebenkorn does in a very poetic and subtle
ALI VAUGHAN way. He’s talking about the history of how paintings have been made—the arc of
PA R R A flatness. It’s just sort of one to one.

84 : All still-life since then is just riffing off Golden Age painting. [Laughter]

: And not done nearly as well…A bad still life is still better than a bad abstraction,

because there was a conversation about facility.

:: Do you believe artists should build up skills of rendering before they can break that
down?

: Abstraction made by somebody who can draw is…stronger than abstraction made

by somebody who can’t draw.
[On Mark Tansey, Yosemite Falls (Homage to Watkins) (1993)] You know…in a lot

of Tansey's work there's threads of philosophy and…existentialism, which relates to
a lot of these grandiose photos…One of the things that I love about his [Tansey’s]
process is that he would have these massive books, so every camera that you see
in the composition I guarantee you he has a little cut-out of that camera turned
in different positions. He's got these huge volumes of everything imaginable like
photographed and cut out as…source. So he'll just put them together and then
create the image from there…Something that as I was saying earlier really resonates
with my process because cutting and moving and actually manipulating an image
with your hands to then create the image with your hands.

:

LORENA DIOSDADO legitimizing modernist work. Coalescing
Greenberg’s relationship with modernism
ERIK PARRA AND FLATNESS and the preceding centuries of art-making,
Parra came to one of two fundamental pillars
Paul Wonner’s Figure at Window (1962) that define “good art”: Good art, for Parra,
was instrumental in shifting the conversation is historically grounded. Parra understands
from the technical construction of flatness to flatness as a product of time and innovation,
its compositional effectiveness. In the piece, made even more splendid because of all
the widecurved construction of a leafy plant the varied techniques that preceded it. It is
contrasts with the rectilinear architectural because of history that Parra saw Figure at
forms behind it. Furthermore, the partially Window not as a unique instance of flatness
concelaed figure, while equally as flat as the but instead a unique piece because of the
afromentioned objects, is compromised of technical departure from previous artistic
short curved strokes. Parra’s education in norms through its embrace of flatness.
art history seemed to inform his vehement
fascination with Figure at Window’s Parra’s own work depicting domestic
different renditions of flatness; he traced spaces also toys with flatness. The expansive
the origins of flatness to the transformation planes of his geometrically rendered spaces
of artistic norms from the early “cartoonish” are typically a single color complicated
representation of figures to “...illusion and by thin washes of black paint creating
space and the sort of mimesis of lived intense shadows. Reminiscent of geometric
Cartesian space” all to be challenged by tessellations, Parra’s use of planes confound
Modernism and flatness. space so it is here that Parra’s second pillar
of good art comes to play: Good art “tell[s]
Parra was particularly drawn to art you about seeing.” Stairway with Atomic
critic Clement Greenberg whose analysis Railing (2015), which centers around a
of modernist flatness was essential in dark railing that leads into a brightly lit
86 hallway and staircase, best exemplifies the

complications of perspective flatness lends DIOSDADO
itself to. At the end of the railing the viewer
Erik Parra at the Anderson Collection discussing Richard Diebenkorn’s Girl on the Beach, 1957, oil on canvas. is met with either a mirror (reflecting a bright LORENA
staircase) or another staircase altogether
87 but because the light source hits objects
unevenly, objects fluctuate between existing
in light and shadow; or rather, reality and
illusion. Most of the geometric planes seem
uncannily brightly lit or ominously in shadow
but never consistently so. Furthermore,
definite borders established by a flat canvas
are of little concern to Parra; he hardly seems
to notice borders (the stairs and railing
unapologetically veer off the page) which is
not a reaction against borders but rather a
humble acceptance of them as yet another
play on flatness.

When thinking of Parra’s desire to immerse
himself in the complexities of visual imagery
and the deliberate, methodical, and nuanced
conversations that stem from a painting, I
realized that Parra’s own work plays off of art-
historical narratives and technical composition.
Meaning, for Parra, is constructed by the
intrinsic preceding history of art-making and
the way in which an artist is able to adapt that
history into a novel technique.

ALFONSO GAMBOA valued. During his artist visit, Parra showed
himself to be very knowledgeable about
Erik Parra, Living Room with Checkered Seating From the very start of his interview, Erik the history and theories that influenced the
Options, 2015, ink, acrylic, watercolor on paper Parra made clear that he got excited when works in the galleries, which he said also
talking about artists whom he admired influenced his own works. The artists and
88 and drew inspiration from. In referencing artistic movements of the past that he has
Richard Diebenkorn’s Girl on the Beach, studied are present to him, consciously or
Parra said, “I could make this painting in my unconsciously, and the influence of previous
sleep because I’ve seen it so many times.” generations plays a role in shaping his own
His attention to looking at art in order to see artistic production.
what drew him in was inspiring to see and
revealed some of the elements that he most The element that he focused moston in
the Diebenkorn was how the artist played
with the use of orthogonal lines in the girl’s
skirt or the beach chair in order to simultane-
ously evoke pictorial space while also calling
attention to flatness in the work. This same
element of play is present in Parra’s collage
Forest for the Trees (2014) in which house-
hold objects are cut out and placed amidst
scenes of nature. Parra cuts out objects and
places them in such a way as to create an
illusion of receding space, while showing the
absurdity of a frame hanging in midair.

When looking at Mark Tansey’s Yosemite
Falls (Homage to Watkins), a satirical take
on depictions of Yosemite Falls depicting
an avalanche of film cameras rather than

a shower of water, Parra pointed out the help but imagine that he has seen and GAMBOA
element of Tansey’s process that most thought of the precise piece of furniture he
Erik Parra, Living Room with Rabbit, 2015, ink, resonated with his own work: “One of the wishes to depict, and has contemplated it ALFONSO
acrylic, watercolor on paper things that I love about his process is that he from each angle, just as Tansey thought of
would have these massive books so every his cascade of cameras. Living Room with
89 camera that you see in the composition I Checkered Seating Options and Living
guarantee you he has a little cut‐out of that Room with Rabbit, both from 2015, form a
camera turned in different positions.” Parra pair of images of the same size and having
explained the connection of the cut-outs to identical compositions, including the same
his own collage work, which is evident perspective and framing, but exploring
in Dining Room Reflection from 2013, or, how changes in light and shadow affect
as mentioned above, Forest for the Trees the impression of the scene on the viewer.
(2014) in which household objects are cut Checkered chairs are the subject in both
out and placed amidst scenes of nature. The works, and the pair of paintings appears to
connection to Tansey’s work feels tangible in the viewer to be an experience of viewing a
these collages for the attention given to the particular object and returning to it in order
objects chosen, as well as the playfulness of to understand not only its physical form, but
the artist. also the spirit they evoke.

The general fascination with capturing Ultimately, Parra is inspired to continue
historical objects as they were and incor‐ to build upon the work of the artists
porating them into works of art is present that came before him. He stated that in
also in Parra’s painting. In Midcentury his opinion, Modernism has yet to be
Arrangement (2014) Parra gives attention completely “unpacked,” suggesting that his
to rendering the furniture of the apartment own incorporation of modernist ideas into
so as to capture the feeling and aesthetic of his work is a means by which to continue
a midcentury space like the one he grew up the conversations only begun by artists like
in. After listening to his interview, I cannot Diebenkorn and Tansey.

ARIEL KAUFMAN that for him, this empty space is imbued
with the cultural and aesthetic politics of
ERIK PARRA PAINTS DESIGN WITHIN REACH modernism. Having grown up in a modern
house, the house image and modernism are
In a small gallery at the Minnesota Street one and the same for him. Void of figures,
Project, I saw a painting of a low‐profile his paintings of empty interior spaces are
credenza accessorized with a cement planter staged with furniture typical of the mid-
of succulents, a turquoise frame, and a brass century aesthetic as conceived by 21st
lamp in front of an inky sky shining through a century designers. The design objects serve
gridded window (Figure 1). I could have seen not only as actors but as narrative and
this vignette of mid-century modern artifacts metaphorical devices. Pieces of furniture, he
as configured by contemporary tastemakers said in the interview, “are stand-ins for the
on Pinterest (a social media platform wherein figure…There’s this relationship of the body
users share photographs, often of interior to painting, the body to space and the chair,
spaces); it was surprising to see in the art the chair is the medium of that negotiation.”
gallery. I wondered what future viewers will
make of this distinctly 21st century image. As a former student of art history, Parra
Will they find the angular windowpanes as has looked to the work of other artists—
dated as I find 1980s popcorn ceilings? from 17 th century Dutch still-life painters to
1950s–1960s abstract painters like Richard
A year later, in an interview with Erik Parra, Diebenkorn—to think through how art
the artist behind that painting, I learned depicts those relationships between bodies,
90 furniture, and space. Parra delighted at the
“buttery” profusion of thick oil paint giving
the houseplant in Paul Wonner’s Figure
at Window (1962) a body-like weight.
A room reduced to mostly-flat planes of
color, this painting catapulted a discussion

of the history of modernism—one Parra

conceptually grapples with in his work. “I

think we haven’t unpacked modernism all

the way,” he said. “This utopian narrative

of modernism…is actually really dystopic.”

For Parra, this dystopic reality is manifest

in the class issues undergirding the design

market. The designs of the Bauhaus with K AUFM AN

all their potential to optimize beauty and

efficiency, he lamented, have trickled into a

design market focused more on what people

can afford. Those lofty ideals have been

reduced to the price difference between Ikea

and Design Within Reach, and Parra seeks

to reclaim the aesthetic they share while

acknowledging its complex history.

In his painting, Parra does just that. The

design elements of mid‐century modernism

are freed from not only the inaccessibility ARIEL

of the market but from the overwhelming

deluge of images we confront on platforms

like Pinterest. He gives the viewer an

opportunity to look at the shallow curve of

the planter or the blush-pink of the drawers

without considering whether they can afford

Erik Parra, Can You Tell Me How the West was Won? An Allegory of Fixation, 2018, to purchase them. Ironically, he actually
acrylic on canvas brings design within reach.

91