Chuck Close passes away at 81 (original) (raw)
2019, Chuck Close passes away at 81
This essay was originally written in 2005 for Addison Parks ArtDeal. It was adapted to my Blog in 2011 and finally revived recently when Close passed away. A "victim" of the #metoo backlash, he I l believe is no longer considered as famous as Warhol among the American populace.
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Battling the Invisible Death in the Nineties: New York’s art photographers
The early nineties in New York saw an unparalleled shift in the social views of death. The eighties was rocked from the dream where death was a failure of medicine - a time when Phillipe Airès dubbed death ‘invisible’ – by the realities of AIDS and cancer. As the eighties turned to the nineties, euthanasia debates, abortion debates, and the death penalty brought death into the forefront of politics. Death was no longer invisible, and yet certain groups found that their death was being marginalized. Andres Serrano and Nan Goldin were artists working in New York during this tumultuous time, and brought to the forefront two such groups – AIDS victims and police-related deaths. Using as case studies Serrano’s Jane Doe: Killed by Police and Goldin’s Cookie in Her Casket, I will argue that these artists attempt to reintroduce care to the dead, which were socially ostracized. This attempt to care for those dead that were otherwise discounted, however, raises serious ethical concerns. For Goldin the conflict of selling photographs of her dead friend is rarely breached by the critical reception of her work. In Serrano’s case, Jane Doe’s criminal identity raises concerns for those bodies that do not have a family to advocate on their behalf. Both artists use beauty to care for the dead, but does it cloud the reality of exploiting the marginalized dead? Do the benefits out-weight the consequences? Or is this the only way that art can critically engage with the issues surrounding these kinds of deaths?
Andy Warhol remains a lingering question in the art world, and for surprising reasons. On the one hand, a fast survey of the indexes of a number of standard texts on Postmodern theory reveals the notable infrequency with which his name appears. On the other hand, art critics of serious position almost invariably take a stand on his works and their worth. Just as notably, they seem to have found little to agree upon. There appears to be almost no aggregation of judgment on the questions of what Warhol accomplished and what was his lasting influence. We have yet to discover how to digest him.
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