SEASON’S READINGS : Hungray for Dessert

My first memory of Art is green Jell-O and apple pie. On Sundays my father and I went to art museums--neither my mother nor my brother would go. My father took too long for them; he lingered for hours in front of certain paintings. He took two steps forward and three steps back. But I was in it for the pie, the snack that came at the end. I had infinite patience. We started off together at the beginning of the exhibit. We looked at the first painting and then the second, and while he was still on the second I was on the third, the fourth, I had moved on to the next gallery. I went through the entire exhibition and then backward, returning to find him in the second room. He couldn’t speak except to say, “In a little bit.” I sat on a bench. I waited. I faced a painting--Rubens or Rembrandt. The face of the figure was luminous, the fabric of the clothes unfolding. I sat watching and thought of my own efforts to draw--to color. I examined the painting, the surface was smooth, the features of the figure delicate, there was the hint of a brush stroke, but only a hint. I wondered how art was made, how a painter could pull light out of a canvas. My father was a painter. On Wednesday nights a nude woman sat on a platform in our basement while my father and assorted other men and women drew pictures of her. I was not allowed downstairs. I was kept upstairs with my mother who made coffee and cut up fruit for fruit salad. On Sundays I sat on the bench in the museum looking at paintings, wondering what really went on in the basement, in all that silence with the door kept closed. People came and went, pushing strollers, carrying small children. Assorted strangers sat down next to me and sometimes their sleeves or their arms would touch mine and I would think of the nude woman in the basement and all the men and women drawing her and my own efforts--to color--and my stomach would growl.

In the quiet remove of the museum, guards hovering, my senses were heightened and everything became art--the human traffic was a most modern dance. I learned choreography, social history. It was Pinteresque play, I picked up bits and pieces of dialogue. It was all a performance piece, a staged happening. I sat waiting for my father, for hours on end, a human camera, a recorder, watching. Later, when I was slightly older, more willing to wander, I took on the entirety of the museum, I left my father with his Realism and High Renaissance and went off on exploratory adventures; two new museums opened, the Hirshhorn and the East Wing of the National Gallery. I found Picasso, DeKooning, Pollock and Rothko. I found paintings and sculptures that told the story of who I was, who I wanted to be, articulating my impulses and impressions, speaking to me and for me, far better than I could speak for myself.

On my own, I raced forward through history, found the moment that was mine and then I went back again, back through the galleries, through history, looking for my father, hoping to pull him forward, to bring him with me.

“Almost,” he’d say when I’d finally find him lost in another century, his eyes still fixed on a particular work. “In a minute.”

“I’m fainting,” I’d say. And I’d hear his stomach growl too.

“Time for pie,” he’d say, and finally there was something about which we agreed.

We’d go to the old cafeteria in the National Gallery--the cafeteria itself as much a painting, an installation, a play, a work of art as any of the exhibits. It was all my father’s beloved social realists and it was Edward Hopper, Richard Estees and Duane Hanson. And all of it from beginning to end was Warhol. It was pre and post and pop and old and chrome and shiny. My father would take a tray and go down the line, picking out first a slice of pie and then a piece of cake and maybe some chocolate pudding--he always had a problem with cafeteria lines--too many choices. I’d take a bowl of Jell-O cubes, red or green--a delicacy, having come from a house where dessert was either carrot cake or zucchini bread. We’d sit at a table with cups of tea trying the various deserts, marveling at the colors, the textures. I’d swallow the Jell-O cubes, reveling in how they felt going down--slimy but substantial, marvel at the idea that green and red could be flavors as well as colors. And when we were done, it was always late, close to closing time, and we’d make a mad dash for the gift shop--this was the one moment when my father moved quickly, “with alacrity,” he’d say.

My father was not a shopper, he didn’t believe in buying anything other than what was needed, required, and as far as he was concerned almost everything I wanted was not required. The one exception was the gift shop--I could have whatever I wanted--these things were essentials.

It was late, the museum was closing, the guards had begun herding people toward the doors. We rushed, hurrying to gather what we could carry away with us; postcards, posters, reproductions and books, lots of books; exhibition catalogues, monographs, themed collections, biographies, all of it absolutely essential. We would stay until they asked us to leave, not once, not twice, but until the guards had to lead us out the long way--around to the front of the building and through the already locked doors.

And while my parents’ idea of a good Christmas present was big pad of paper and a box of pens, this year I have a few suggestions; 1994 brought wonderful exhibition catalogues from Willem DeKooning, R. B. Kitaj, Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Cy Twombly, along with the playful Picasso: Sculptor/Painter, and a beautiful monograph on Odillon Redon--the French painter, known as the Prince of Mysterious Dreams. The Andy Warhol Museum gives a behind-the-scenes look at how museums are built. The catalogue comes with a CD featuring bits and pieces of the Warhol tape archive--the Velvet Underground rehearsing, etc. As companion volume--the compulsively readable Death and Disaster: The Rise of The Warhol Empire and The Race For Andy’s Millions by Paul Alexander, and for stocking stuffers, Warhol’s Cats, Cats, Cats and Angels, Angels, Angels.

Then there’s the witty and ironic Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonne 1948-1993, the long awaited, The Power of Feminist Art, a true reference book with contributions by 18 of the movements, major figures including Linda Nochlin, Moria Roth, Suzanne Lacy and Arlene Raven. And Installation Art, the first history of one of the most significant and underreported--due to the large scale and often impermanent nature of installation projects--contemporary art forms. Vito Acconci by Kate Linker, a full-scale study of the New York-based artist best known for his early body/performance work. However, it is his more mature public art/sculptural pieces along the lines of the Adjustable Wall Bra 1990-1991, which take on issues of house and home and brilliantly illustrate how art at its best can at once be personal, political, humorous and philosophical. For the deliberately decorative and decorous: Stephen Calloway’s Baroque: The Culture of Excess, and Pugin: A Gothic Passion, a scholarly and charming volume on perhaps the most influential designer/architect in 19th-Century Britain. Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky is that rare catalogue that is perhaps better than the exhibition. “Create what has never existed before,” Yoshihara Jiro, leader of the Guitai association declared. With essays by architect Isozaki Arata, video artist Nam June Paik and others, this catalogue contains a critical anthology with extended citings of writings by artists and critics along with a glossary laying out historical events and groups essential to understanding postwar Japanese art. Isamu Noguchi, Essays and Conversations is eloquent and well-illustrated, with essays ranging from Noguchi’s graceful proposal in 1927 for a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship to his comments on his multiple collaborations with choreographer Martha Graham. The Museum of Modern Art’s A Century of Artists’ Books beautifully documents the history of the artists’ books and collaborations. And for the real thing in contemporary artists’ books, San Francisco Artspace’s Real Gone, a collaboration between photographer Jack Pierson and novelist Jim Lewis.

New York Dada 1915-23 by Frances M. Nauman, traces the roots and Dada in the New York art world to the living room of Walter and Louise Stevens Arensberg where writers and artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Stella, congregated at the Paris salon of Gertrude Stein. This is the definitive volume on New York Dada--a movement Robert Mcalmon prophetically referred to as “the small, sweet, forget-me-not of the war.”

The Art Book is a kind of big art dictionary--great for kids--that suspends the timeline tradition of art history and arranges the artists alphabetically, one painting per artist. For those who prefer more thorough pondering, I highly recommend Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society, the latest volume of essays from legendary art historian and teacher Meyer Shapiro, which includes his well-known text on Freud and Leonardo da Vinci, also Embodied Meanings, from Arthur Danto, art critic for the Nation, and Making It New, a lively collection of essays, interviews and talks from the late Henry Geldzhaler.

For the classicists among us--my father included--The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Renovation, a beautiful history of the nine- year renovation of Michelangelo’s monumental frescoes and Michelangelo: The Medici Chapel--Michelangelo as sculptor with absolutely stunning black-and-white photographs by Aurelio Amendola.

Last but not least, my favorite volume of the year, highest marks for Howard Hodgkin by Andrew Graham-Dixon, chief art critic for the Independent in London. Howard Hodgkin is a painter I first encountered on one of those Sundays when my father cajoled me into going with him to the museums. Truly one of the most wondrous artists working, Hodgkin’s paintings are intimate and intense, expressing the simultaneity of melancholia and ecstasy, representing neither the literal nor the narrative, but the impulses and emotions behind them. He is a psychological portraitist who, in describing his own work has said, “I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.” And while nothing takes the place of seeing the work in person, these are the best reproductions to date of Hodgkin’s work--the Jell-O cubes and pie you’ll have to supply yourself.

WILLEM DeKOONING Paintings with essays by David Silvester and Richard Shiff Catalog by Marla Prather (National Gallery of Art in Washington/Yale University Press: $55; 231 pp.)

R.B. KITAJ A Retrospective edited by Richard Morphet (Rizzoli: $60; 240 pp.)

BRUCE NAUMAN edited by Joan Simon (Walker Art Center/ Minneapolis: $35; 215 pp.)

ROBERT RYMAN by Robert Storr (Tate Gallery London/ Museum of Modern Art: $49.50; 235 pp.)

CY TWOMBLY A Retrospective by Kirk Varnedoe (The Museum of Modern Art New York: $55; 175 pp.)

PICASSO Sculptor/Painter by Elizabeth Cowling and John Golding (Tate Gallery/University ofSeattle: $65; 295 pp.)

ODILLON REDON Prince of Dreams 1940-1960 edited by Douglas W. Druick (Abrams/Art Institute of Chicago: $60; 464 pp.)

THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM (Andy Warhol Museum/ Distributed Art Publishers: $49.95; 208 pp.)

DEATH AND DISASTER The Rise of the Warhol Empire and the Race for Andy’s Millions by Paul Alexander (Villard Books: $23; 258 pp.)

CATS, CATS, CATS by Andy Warhol (Bullfinch Press: $9.95; 72 pp.)

ANGELS, ANGELS, ANGELS by Andy Warhol (Bullfinch Press: $9.95; 76 pp.)

THE PRINTS OF ROY LICHTENSTEIN A Catalogue Raisonne 1948-1993 by Mary Lee Corlett (Hudson Hills Press, New York/National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.: $95; 328 pp.)

THE POWER OF FEMINIST ART edited by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (Abrams: $49.50; 318 pp.)

INSTALLATION ART by Nicolas de Oliveria, Nicola Oxley, Michael Petry, with texts by Michael Archer (Smithsonian: $49.95; 208 pp.)

VITO ACCONCI by Kate Linker (Rizzoli: $50; 224 pp.)

BAROQUE BAROQUE The Culture of Excess by Stephen Calloway (Phaidon/Chronicle: $49.95; 240 pp.)

PUGIN A Gothic Passion edited by Paul Atterbury and Clive Wainwright (Yale University Press/The Victoria and Albert Museum: $60; 309 pp.)

JAPANESE ART AFTER 1945 Scream Against the Sky by Alexandra Munroe (Abrams: $65; 416 pp.)

ISAMU NOGUCHI Essays and Conversations edited by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona and Bruce Altshuler (Abrams: $34.95; 175 pp.)

A CENTURY OF ARTISTS’ BOOKS by Riva Castelman (Museum of Modern Art: $60; 263 pp.)

REAL GONE by Jack Pierson and Jim Lewis (Artspace/San Francisco: $15; 50 pp.)

DESIRE BY NUMBERS art by Nan Golden fiction by Klaus Kertess (Artspace: $15; 50 pp.)

NEW YORK DADA 1915-23 by Francis M. Nauman (Abrams: $60; 256 pp.)

THE ART BOOK An A-Z of Artists (Phaidon/Chronicle: $35; 512 pp.)

THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF ART Style, Artist, and Society by Meyer Schapiro (George Braziller: $27.50; 253 pp.)

EMBODIED MEANINGS Critical Essays and Aesthetic Meditations by Arthur Danto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27.50: 387 pp.)

MAKING IT NEW Essays, Interviews, and Talks by Henry Geldzahler (Turtle Point Press: $21; 368 pp.)

THE SISTINE CHAPEL A Glorious Renovation edited by Pierluigi De Vecchi (Abrams: $75; 271 pp.)

MICHELANGELO The Medici Chapel by James Beck, Antonio Paolucci and Bruno Santi with photographs by Aurelio Amendola (Thames & Hudson: $65; 211 pp.)

HOWARD HODGKIN by Andrew Graham-Dixon (Abrams: $49.50; 192 pp.) Hungry for Dessert