Dear Mr. Gobrick,
When I was a teenager I rarely visited museums or art
galleries. I remember my teachers were
obliged to haul us out to exhibitions every few years: hay-stuffed history in
fur-trading forts, talking computers at science fairs, and big-screen movies
about whales where you had to wear the cheap red-and-blue paper shades. But painting, sculpture, installation art,
even music? Not that I recall. Until I entered university, fine art –
including drama, music, dance and all that other fairy stuff – was never an
option of study. And until then, the prospect
of going into a building to look at paint on canvas was about as exciting as
sitting still at a ballet. Of course, I
didn’t do either of these things – but ignorance is no excuse to a 15-year old.
I became an undergraduate with no break but the summer
following my school exams, and was just as surprised as everyone else to learn
that my programme fell under the power of that esoteric tower of talent, the
Faculty of Fine Arts. I wouldn’t have to
sing or dance, would I? They can’t mark
me on how well I draw, can they? No, I
learned, but I would have to take at least one course within the Faculty, but
outside of my department (Drama).
Everything with a practical bent scared me out of my wits, and just the
titles of the theoretical courses (Art History, Dance Theory, Music
Appreciation) bored me to tears. So,
coward that I continue to be, I went the easiest way I could find: an
introductory course to all the Fine Arts, surveying (and thus not really getting
dirty with) all art, all method, all eons.
I figured we wouldn’t have time to pick up a flute or dance the
tarantella, and I was right.
Despite what I now consider to be a reprehensible lack of
dialogue and cooperation between the Fine Arts disciplines, four years in any
arts department is not without its prods and nods to explore the larger meaning
of creativity. In my first couple years
I was encouraged by professors to check out the new downtown exhibit, was
exposed in performance art classes to crossdisciplinary practice and theory,
and discovered in my assigned readings the ancient relationship between the
theatre and every other conceivable form of human expression. I wanted to learn more, and to bring it back
to the task at hand. By the time I
finished university my self-indoctrination was complete: I was aimed
full-throttle towards the avant-garde,
experimentation, and annihilating barriers between the crafts. If a four-hour anti-dance escapade performed
by naked feminists drenched in paint on an office-paper canvas under the nothing
but the moonlight came to my town – you bet I’d be there. In fact, count me in today. But some painter who knows how to shadow a
chair? No thanks.
Now keep in mind, I wasn’t afraid of or at heart opposed to
that older kind of art. It was at this
time that I was falling in love with classical music. I was watching older movies and independent
films which comment on the art of cinema and, by extension, the art of visual
expression altogether. I was meeting
other artists from other disciplines who had a lot of fascinating things to say
about the history of their craft, and about the old masters whose shadows still
daunt the newcomer. My mother was just
starting to collect and hang prints and paintings which were admittedly
beautiful, though still over my head. If
I ever said something along the lines of, say, landscape painting is so bourgeois, or, modern art was a confused backstep towards more democratic expression
(I don’t think I ever actually said these idiot things, but you get this gist),
it wasn’t just because I was a philistine, but because I needed some defense
against not “getting it”.
And I did try. I took
it upon myself to be or to get “cultured”, and so attended new exhibitions and
openings, regardless of era and style. I
visited galleries at home and wherever else I found myself, only to champion
the screeching, immediate “new” while rushing past the icy, sanctimonious
“old”. It was the same thing every time:
there’s a man sitting for his portrait, without a smile, his cheeks
unbelievable, shirt-collar puffy, one hand holding an orange and the other on
his knee. Okay, there’s some symbolism
and I should read a book about it, but where’s the genius? There’s an open field with a bunch of horses
running around, and some clouds, and some grass, and in the corner there’s a
lake, and… I’m asleep. There’s a big battle scene, or an exploding
volcano over the fields of hell, or an eviscerating seaborne sunset – wow! Beautiful or sublime, some striking
stuff. But still, a masterpiece? I’ve seen better photographs, and they’re
more informative to boot.
Any half-witted enthusiast of art could have told me I was a
shallow and lazy fool. They would have
suggested I read a good book, or visited a great New York or European museum
with a guide who’s good with yawning children, or just taken that Art History class. I could have crossed the Rubicon of art appreciation
in a multitude of ways, but I’m rather proud and fond of the bridge I ended up
crossing. His name is Bill Hammond.
My four months in New Zealand was the first time I’d ever
really traveled. I bought plane tickets
there and back, extended just long enough to spectate the Wellington International
Arts Festival, threw on a backpack and left behind my camera (because I wanted
to remember things, I announced). I worked for two weeks on an organic farm,
and another two in an organic café; I hitchhiked from one end of the country to
the other, tramped solo and in a group all across the South and Stewart
Islands; I read a book, left it behind, bought or found or borrowed another,
and repeated the cycle ad infinitum;
I saw fjords, waterfalls, mountains, beaches, and glaciers, and met some of the
most wonderful people. My gameplan in
every town or city was to get up in the morning, stroll out in the sun or the
rain, and walk, and walk, and walk. If there
was anything I did in New Zealand, it was walking. I didn’t have a guidebook until I found one near
the end of the trip, so I sometimes learned about things to do or see by word
of mouth. Usually, however, I just
stumbled on it.
In Christchurch, I stumbled on an art gallery. To me it proposed itself like any other:
sleek, professional, and empty. I looked
at the programme posted outside the main door, and it meant nothing to me. A bunch of talk about mindscapes, using fat
words like defragmentary, eclipse and phenomenological. I was hesitant. I was hungry too, which is never a good
sign. It may have been my first chance
at a proper “institution” since Wellington’s Te Papa Museum, which I had very
much enjoyed, but that museum was huge: if I was bored with the wooden
artifacts encased in glass, I could just go next door, to the room which
explains the Big Bang. The Christchurch
Art Gallery, on the other hand, was small and intimate, and frightening. Once I paid for the ticket, I couldn’t just
pop in, have a look, and leave. I’d have
to stay, and be still, and suffer, and get my money’s worth. For some reason or another, after wrestling
with these prospects, I paid up and went inside. The first exhibit featured the paintings of
Bill Hammond.
It didn’t take long, maybe a couple seconds. There may have been a set of stairs to ascend
or an elevator to open or a corner to turn, but suddenly I was faced with a
great big green canvas, and I was captivated.
Its paint dripped down to the floor as if still wet, its lines were like
violin strings, thrumming, its shapes were vibrant and living yet of almost the
same colour as the background, its frame seemed crooked yet it was
symmetrical. For perhaps the first time
in all of my endless walking around that young island nation, I couldn’t help
now but be still. I stared, and stared,
and stared. The shapes formed dozens of
man-like figures topped with these glorious, imperial heads of birds, which
pointed always, fiercely, resolutely, dangerously, to the side. They were in the foreground and in the back,
uniform but separate, nervous but wise. They
held spears and seemed to sing. They
were all at war, yet too graceful to ever strike. Below and behind these figures, the colours on
the canvas separated to form the sky and the earth, mountains and trees, and
some measure of doom in the smoke. The
ground was all gnarled, and death awaited everything. Fear was rank, but order was ranker. These bird-headed men, these anthropomorphs,
I got the sense they were desperate, they were trying right now, to live
forever. I was shocked and immersed at
once, and absurdly afraid. To use Roland
Barthes’ term, these figures and their world were a punctum: they sliced me open.
People were passing by behind me, and I wondered, as if from
the world of the painting, how they could stop for so short a time, why they
weren’t as entangled as I was. Some had
hands in their pockets and didn’t even slow their step. Eventually I realised that there would be
more than one painting in the Gallery. I
must have stood in front of that first painting for 20 minutes before I pulled
out of the trance and decided to move on.
I was no less entranced by the other paintings, and took no
less time. Some were of the same grand
design which enveloped an entire white room, while others were concentrated,
screaming portraits of life relegated to irregular boxes. If I were a critic I’d go on, and probably
mention the collapse of foreground and background, the threatening lack of
realistic light which still plays with shadow, and to show off my understanding
of technique, I’d have to say something about the brushstrokes. Instead, being an eternal charlatan, I’ll try
to explain how I connected with Hammond’s paintings. I slowly developed a method of seeing – or,
because they seemed so active, of watching
– whereby I’d just stand and wait a while.
I’d let the whole picture become clear, and then I’d seek out the
details: the strips of musical notation, maybe, or the globe-like object one of
the figures held as if either a bun from the oven or the precious source of youth
itself. Once I’d investigated every inch
– and still failed to notice all the details and quirks – I’d pick the most
striking space within the frame and be taken from there. Sagas appeared to me. Great tales of heroism and tragedy stretched
out from the image and blurted themselves into my ear, unhindered,
unconcealing, unstoppable. The figures
would begin as angels and end up as devils, or be a split-second away from
flying off before I realised they were clipped and couldn’t fly.
When all the stories were as loud as I could handle, I’d step back again, and see it all. And almost every time, at this point, I felt a catharsis: a total, singular image, less a message than an emotion. Each painting rewarded my journey in and out of its universe with a rush of understanding. A self-centred, warmongering general, burning all in his path for glory and power and the music of money, blind to his own betrayal of himself. Creatures of paradise crying up to the clouds for redemption. A lonely couple, fitting together like an apple and its bitten-off piece, holding out against the end of the world. These images were snaps of understanding, about-faces to the void. They were the same class of feeling you get when someone tells you a story, usually about themselves in truth or in allegory, and suddenly you see why that person does everything they do, why they hurt everywhere they hurt, and why they laugh every time the laugh. It was the same feeling I got, and still get, in a Beethoven symphony at that critical, gaping moment just seconds away from the climax, after listening to the whole work. And it’s a feeling I never get when I hear only that one part.
Bill Hammond’s paintings, of course, never tell stories, but
only suggest them; being still, they are cut-outs of a single moment in time,
containing hundreds of strands but never the outcomes or precursors of those
strands. It is up to the observer, the
participant, to follow the artist’s compass and fill in the rest. Thus, Bill Hammond does not merely have one Jingle Jangle Morning, but as many as
there are viewers who stop and look. I wager that all great art of any form –
drama, music, painting, sculpture, film, pottery, poetry, you name it – hinges
on this same principle. But for some
reason, when it came to painting, I hadn’t gone there before. I hadn’t followed the path. I saw where it led, into a dark forest or up
onto a bald hill, probably even decided that it looked like a nice path, but
decided it wasn’t worth my effort. I was
lucky back in Christchurch to pass a trail by which every part of me wanted to
tumble down, and then to stay lost until closing time. It turned out, by chance or by design, to
lead to other paths, which eventually returned me to the bustling highway of –
well, for lack of a better term – Art Appreciation.
I’m not going to go on about it, but since I encountered
Bill Hammond’s work, I’ve been empowered to soak up quite a bit of art I
wouldn’t otherwise have soaked up. I do
have to give at least partial credit to residing for nearly five years after
New Zealand in Europe, where whole warehouses of some of the most inspired human
expression are saved on canvas, paper,
bronze, stone, tapestry, church wall and hard drive, and nurtured, and visited,
and respected. But I could easily have
lived there for twice as long, shunning Caravaggio while pretending to “get it”
by blasting Shostakovich into my skull from oversized headphones. I may still need to freshen up on my Dutch
symbolism in order to understand the true intentioned meaning of the orange
clasped in the hand of that bored and boring man who sits for his
portrait. But it might just be enough –
and, if the work is of the stuff it truly aspires to be, it will be enough – to
stare, and wait, and notice the details, and find every little piece there is
to find, and listen, and pull back, and see it all over again.
Don’t get me wrong. I
still don’t really get it, but I’m deeper than I ever thought I would be. And I can’t help but feel like one of
Hammond’s bird-men: the strange, tall, flesh-toned one who sits before a
school-chalkboard-coloured backdrop, happy and nearly smiling as he plays the
cello, while everyone else stares incredulously. Maybe they shake their fists, maybe they thrust
their crotches, or maybe they’re indifferent.
But I have no choice, I’ve seen the painting and its shadow, I’ve
entered and cannot return by the same path, and I’ve got music written all over
my skin: I have to play on.
Play on, Bill Hammond.
Yours,
QM
PS: I visited the Christchurch Gallery in 2008, and returned
a month later for another viewing. On my
second visit I bought a catalogue, but don’t have that with me. What I’ve written is from a poor memory,
which all but guarantees inaccuracy. My apologies
– but if you really want to know what it’s like, you deserve to see it for
yourself. Here are a few links to get
started:
