Comment on this story What: Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration When: Thru March 27, 2005 Where: Knoxville Museum of Art. Call 525-6101 or visit knoxart.org for info.

Chuck Close triumphs with a little help from his friends

by Heather Joyner Spica

I’m embarrassed to admit that as a college sophomore in art history classes, I was more concerned with memorizing which artists did specific works than I was with their significance within a broader context. Then again, studying the history of late 20th century art while living in the late 20th century was a sort of contradiction in terms, making context more problematic. At the time, one thing was for sure: whenever a slide picturing art by Chuck Close was projected during a quiz, identification was a cinch: his were the big faces (what he calls “heads”) up “close.”

What Close’s heads meant to me in the early ‘80s and what they were supposed to mean within an era in art that was still defining itself was not the issue, even if it should have been. With the KMA’s newly arrived touring show titled “Chuck Close: Process and Collaboration,” we have a chance to reconsider—or decide for the first time—what the artist’s 30-plus years of work in the printmaking genre have to say. We can also consider Close’s

impact throughout decades that are now less difficult to define.

Given their astonishing detail (whether they’re “realistic” or not), it’s no surprise that Close’s enormous heads require considerable time to produce. Be they painted on canvases averaging 9 by 7 feet or translated into printmaking, his portraits are always of himself or of family members or friends. Depending on who’s looking at them, they possess layers of meaning as well as layered visual elements. Yet Close’s works are not about the people he’s chosen to depict; the fact that some of those faces have become famous (Philip Glass’, for instance) is incidental. There has to be a “what,” but it’s the composition of the “what,” evidence of the process that determined that composition, and the eventual form that process produces that matters to Close. The exhibition’s curator Terrie Sultan says, “Close’s familiarity with the portrait subject is beside the point. Beyond the physical resemblance inherent in any portrait representation, his print images fascinate because they reveal how they were constructed.”

Needless to say, intense labor does not necessarily result in great art; painstaking method eliminates no deficiencies, and it certainly doesn’t legitimize crap. But Close’s art is as good as his efforts are impressive, and in Knoxville, it fills the entire upper floor of the KMA. Just as we might applaud Christo for his scale, the prize for dogged determination goes to Close. Nevertheless, complexity and the artist’s dedication are only part of the appeal of Close’s work. Why, then, is Close famous? What’s so special about his creations? If process is central to his final product, what is different about the way he makes art? In terms of his art, one could say he was lucky to hit the nerve that he hit when he hit it and that his distinctive approach was the right thing in the right place at the right time. Whatever the case, Close has devoted plenty of thought to his methods.

Born in 1940 in Wisconsin, Close enjoyed a childhood enriched by creative pursuits. His parents recognized his artistic bent and paid for art lessons, and his mother made curtains for a backyard puppet theater that doubled as a magician’s stage. A snapshot of Close in magician’s garb at age 6 is striking; for a boy burdened by undiagnosed dyslexia and probable A.D.D. throughout his earlier years, he projects considerable confidence.

His father died when Close was 11, and despite other difficulties he managed to go on to both the University of Washington and Yale, where he earned an M.F.A. in 1964. Twenty-four years later, Close suffered a rare spinal artery collapse that initially left him paralyzed below the neck. After a long and painful rehabilitation, he regained some movement in his arms and legs, but he has since been confined to a wheelchair. According to Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan (authors of Chuck Close Up Close), “Along with the complete change in his life, Close’s portraits took on a new dimension. Before ‘the event’ he was already painting in a looser, freer style, but now the shapes of each square [in his well-known grid approach] were like fireworks—bursts of color. It was as if he were celebrating the sheer excitement of being able to paint again.”

Close’s persistence when faced with limitations is every bit as inspiring as his art. Close still uses the language of his boyhood when he says his work is like a rabbit pulled from a hat, yet followed by a glimpse of how he did it. “The greatest enemy for an artist is ease...repeating yourself once you get good at it,” he says.

As for the new show’s emphasis on printmaking, to adequately describe just one of the printmaking techniques Close has employed would require a column this length; anyone seriously interested in the medium would benefit from repeat visits. Close has said his prints are more than supplemental to his paintings and calls them “separate investigations into a new arena of image making.” That investigation began at Yale and became more significant with the creation of his mezzotint titled “Keith” (which Sultan says “...would propel him over the next 30 years: relentless self-education, ambitious innovation, and extremism in both scale and technique...”). Close credits Jasper Johns with “[elevating] the print from ugly stepsister status to princess of the ball.” But he, too, has played a significant role in furthering printmaking’s status. And the current exhibition provides ample evidence of that.

Part II of this review, appearing this winter, will examine how obstacles have shaped Close’s art.

November 4, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 45 © 2004 Metro Pulse