America Is Hard to See

May 1–Sept 27, 2015

All

13 / 23

Previous Next

Although long considered the most important modern art form, painting fell out of fashion in the contemporary art world of the late 1960s. Regarded by many as outmoded, even dying, the medium was challenged, on the one hand, by the forceful presence and novel processes of Minimal and Post-Minimal sculpture and, on the other, by Conceptual art’s emphasis on language and photography. Yet it was precisely painting’s diminished status that made it ripe for reinvention—a space to play not only with paint itself but also with critical taboos like figuration and bad taste.

The paintings on view in this chapter represent a variety of experimental approaches to the medium from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Some, such as Robert Reed’s and Jack Whitten’s canvases, involve almost sculptural processes, such as pouring, smearing, and layering, while Elizabeth Murray’s painting toys with eccentric graphic forms and jarring high-key colors. Having abandoned his Abstract Expressionist style for cartoonish symbols in the late 1960s, Philip Guston paved the way for younger artists reengaging the figure within psychologically charged tableaus. Several of them appeared under the mantle of New Image Painting, a provocative 1978 Whitney exhibition that included the work of Neil Jenney and Susan Rothenberg. These artists rejected both abstraction and the smoothly rendered images of Pop in order to pursue oblique imagined narratives—whether comic or foreboding—within loosely painted fields. The freedom they espoused in their handwork, symbolism, and humor revivified a medium that some left for dead and continues to inspire younger generations of painters today.

Below is a selection of works from this chapter.

Back

3 / 9

Previous Next

A painting of a person swimming to a life raft surrounded by three shark fins.

For Threat and Sanctuary, Neil Jenney used broad brushstrokes executed in thinly applied paint to depict a lone figure swimming through shark-filled waters toward an empty lifeboat. The title underscores the deadpan literalism of the scene. Threat and Sanctuary is part of a series in which each painting names two subjects that don’t logically belong together. Collectively, the works—all set in deep black frames constructed by Jenney and whose titles the artist hand-lettered—offer a backhanded testament to the power of painting, a medium whose persuasive power is so great that it can, at least momentarily, make a believable reality out of absurd juxtapositions.

Jenney wryly referred to his paintings as “good ideas done badly,” a description that anticipated the late 1970s categorization “Bad Painting.” As an artist who willingly defied conventional expectations, Jenney readily embraced the term.

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 648 works

America Is Hard to See

Threat and Sanctuary

13

NEIL JENNEY (B.1945), THREAT AND SANCTUARY, 1969

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

On the Hour

America Is Hard to See

Threat and Sanctuary

13

NEIL JENNEY (B.1945), THREAT AND SANCTUARY, 1969

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection