Thoughts On Art & Grief
For The Light
Susan Rothenberg
Grief, honed and sharpened in brilliant hands, reminds me that I am not alone.
– Libby Buck
An Article By Guest Writer: Libby Gray Buck
Late this summer while hiking a mountain in Maine, I unexpectedly found myself thinking about my first job. As I stood aside to let others pass—everyone masked up and avoiding conversation—I returned to Manhattan, to the front desk of the Willard Gallery.
At a time when all the other blue chips were steadily decamping to SoHo, the Willard remained on the Upper East Side. A contemporary of Leo Castelli, Ms. Willard had made her reputation in the early 20th century representing the avant-garde of Europe. (At the time, this work provoked such outrage that rocks sometimes crashed through the gallery’s windows in protest; a Paul Klée could be purchased in installments.) By the time her daughter, Miani Johnson, hired me, though, the gallery had shifted its focus towards contemporary American artists, many of them women.
Of these, Susan Rothenberg remains the most famous. Her muscular paintings of horses charging through layers of paint challenged the testosterone-fueled abstraction that had so dominated the art world a generation before. These animals race across their canvases, riderless and fearsome, at once the quintessential symbol of the American West but also—counterintuitively—representative of a mainly female-dominated sport. At the time, I found the work jaw-droppingly beautiful. I still do. (Susan Rothenberg, For the Light, 1978-9. Whitney Museum of American Art)
The early 1980s found Ms. Rothenberg trying to move past the imagery that had forged her reputation. These paintings blew her horses to bits as if, in order to move on, she had to rip apart what she’d created. Severed limbs, forelegs and haunches, float in a haze of impasto, the canvases worked and re-worked with brush and palette knife, violent pictures made for a violent time. This was the era of the Central Park jogger. In addition, press-amplified rising crime rates and ballooning homelessness all made life in New York as a young college graduate feel precarious. Risk seemed to lurk around every corner.
In comparison, the hush of the gallery’s white-walled space felt safe. I spent my days clocking visitors, organizing files, and fetching chairs for critics. At openings, I refilled wine glasses and cheese platters. The brainless work suited me. My father’s death a few months earlier sometimes made getting out of bed difficult, and the job offered long stretches of quiet time when I could read and study the exhibits.
Breonna Taylor for Vanity Fair
Amy Sherald
One piece in particular demanded a great deal of my attention. Constructed of twisted metal and glass, it measured over five feet high and included a glass vase that required a new tulip every other day and a propane tank that fueled a gas line. Every morning, I lit the nozzle and adjusted the flame height. The artist, Barry Ledoux, built it as an homage to his friends lost to AIDS. Since this was in the early years of the disease—the President had yet to even acknowledge it was indeed a crisis—it was decidedly a political statement.
On account of the fire hazard, it was installed next to my desk. I couldn’t look away. I watched the flowers wilt, the pale petals drifting past the open flame. Probably not surprisingly, it didn’t sell. At the end of the month, the artist packed it back up in silence.
Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about that piece, how much it hurt to light that nozzle, and also about how much it helped to know that I wasn’t the only one in mourning. I wish I had told Mr. Ledoux.
This came back to me climbing Cadillac Mountain the week after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. Tributes flooded social media, lace collars offered up as emblems of the fierce feminine, proof that badassery comes in all sizes, including the extra-petite. I thought, too, about other images made in response to the events of 2020: in particular, Titus Kaphar’s heartbreaking homage to George Floyd on the cover of Time magazine, and Amy Sherald’s haunting portrait of Breonna Taylor.
There is so much loss to be reckoned with right now, so many lives taken by a virus that continues to rage, too many who have suffered at the hands of racial inequity and died as a result of systemic injustice. The art created in the midst of this turmoil doesn’t alleviate the burden of our mourning, nor does it make our witness any easier. Kaphar’s empty-handed mother guts me. But, as I learned in my early twenties, that grief, honed and sharpened in Sherald’s and Kaphar’s brilliant hands, reminds me that I am not alone. And for that solace, I am grateful.