Alex Katz and David Hockney

Right now, there is an exhibition on David Hockney in Vienna. I only had a vague knowledge about David Hockney before (now it is somehow less vague), yet on the spot I alluded Hockney´s paintings to those of Alex Katz. That is what, vaguely, came to my mind before joining the exhibition. What also came to my mind is that Alex Katz must be somehow more profound than David Hockney. Yet why would Alex Katz be more profound than David Hockney? That is not a mean question. And therefore this reflection should be about rolling out, collecting ideas, why someone like Alex Katz would be more profound than someone than David Hockney.

Both Alex Katz and David Hockney stem out, or had a distinct encounter with poop art. The style of painting and the use of colour is bold and simple. Katz` portrayal of humans is close-up and distinctly flat, almost two-dimensional; Hockney portrays people in a reduced but less idiosyncratic and recurrent fashion … Why would Alex Katz be more profound and make more sense than David Hockney?

(Right now I realise that I just mistyped pop art as „poop art“! Lolroflmao! I am not negative about pop art; on the contrary, I consider it the last movement in modern art that actually had a brain – yet for comedic reasons I do not want to correct it but leave it as it is, there above.)

A possibility may lie in Clement Greenberg stating that the original problem of painting is how to depict a three-dimensional, spatial world (or, as we might add, a four-dimensional spacetime) on a two-dimensional canvas. We might add that artistic genius somehow seems to gaze into additional dimensions. These additional dimensions cannot, by human measure, exactly be quantified and located, unlike our three-dimensional space/four-dimensional spacetime. Distinguished works of art seem to offer glimpses into these higher dimensions, present an imprint of how higher-dimensional objects would reveal themselves in three-dimensional space/four-dimensional spacetime. They are mysterious imprints, related to the capabilities of genius and genius insight being usually referred to as „mysterious“. Due to this mysterious, dimensional insight it is possible to reveal – or offer a glimpse – at an inner, actual „essence“ of that which is portrayed. That is, then, a „metaphysical“ insight, and the highest point of art – to be the „actual metaphysical activity“ (as says Nietzsche, with reference to Schopenhauer).

We also might think of the blank canvas confronting us with the „deep structure“ of painting/art. The „deep structure“ of art is the Experimentierfeld ihrer Möglichkeiten, the field of experimentation in order to bring out new possibilities of expression that make sense in the universe. This field of experimentation, this deep structure, is necessarily additionally-dimensioned. It is a space of apprehension and intuition of additional dimensions and of both lucid and enigmatic signals that stem out from those dimensions. To bring out this lucid and enigmatic signals of additional dimensions is the noblest goal of art. (We may also say that this deep structure and field of experimentation is the space of imagination itself. Yet products of imagination do not necessarily make sense in the universe; they can be stupid, or bad art, all alike. The deep structure and field of experimentation is, in a way, a space of transcendence, yet referring to the finally and ultimately meanigful, the transcendental. It is a framed space.)

Alex Katz, nevertheless, reduces three-dimensional humans to two-dimensional ones. That´s the gag. And he does so in a highly distinctive and expressive manner. Probably this came as a reflection on the Greenberg dictum, probably not. Yet you sense that he had experienced the dimensionality of the deep structure, the field of experimentation, and managed to come up with a solution that tames the deep structure´s abysmal dimensionality, that he had managed to come up with a new signifier – for a signified that, necessarily, remains obscure (that concerns both for the signified of the imaginative space of painting or the Greenberg dictum as well as of the humans portrayed – in their enigmatic, both deep and flat, hidden and revealed etc. presence and essence). You sense that Katz had gone through and seen through something. He has come up with something, with an erect signifier, that makes sense in the universe.

Reduction is, of course, nothing new to painting and art. Reduction and reducedness are parts of existence and, when entertained properly, have their own specific charisma in art. Think of Minimal Art! Objects/sculptures of Minimal Art usually have an enigmatic, allusive, evocative presence. Although they, first and foremost, usually are nothing but – present. They are silent, artificial, uncommon yet all-too-common, elaborated as well as primordial. They are unterdetermined. They are, sheerly, present, and signify presece. And therefore they adress man´s/woman´s/diverse´s faculty to derive meaning and arrangement from that sheer presence. Are we, or do we prefer, to live seperated and unterinterested, maybe hostile to that which is present around us, or do we try to establish communion, etc.? In their unterdeterminedness and silence, these objects are usually mildly uncanny. Alex Katz` flat, unterdetermined figures are mildly uncanny too. This unterdeterminedness is a condition within existence. We, for the most part, live in a world that is unterdetermined and silent, full of opaque and intransparent people and objects. When investigating them, or when trying to establish communion, they may provide insufficient response, getting us nowhere, because they are opaque and intransparent to themselves too. And then again, it may be otherwise again. Alex Katz´ paintings are profound because they confront us with that with that character of the world, and of humans, oscillating between flatness and depth, lack of imagination and provoking imagination in the eye of the beholder. Therefore they have metaphysical quality.

Hockney seems not that profound. His style is not a stylistic innovation, his style is more a personal style/Personalstil. An artistic style of high order is a theoretical achievement trying to be a foundation of how artistic expression can (ultimately) be meaningful and definitive (like science). Therefore stylistic innovations of high order, like Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism, etc. usually come in with theoretical manifestos. (It is pleasant that the exclusiveness with which masters of modern art treated such styles as absolute (i.e. thinking that true art is exclusively Cubist/Surrealist/de Stijl etc., or it is not) is now rather a thing of the past – yet it is unpleasant that their heroic endavours of producing an art that is profoundly rooted in some meanigfulness and whose creativity had undergone a hard-to-achieve actual transformation is now a thing of the past too and has given way to, well, a more democratic but lighthearted and noncommital opportunism that rather characterises the present state of the art.) Katz has achieved a personal style that nevertheless is of theoretical quality and stands as a landmark in painting. His stylistic innovation makes sense in the universe. Hockney´s style is not that profound and remains, if you may, a personal style (maybe because of this Hockney is actually quite a diverse painter).

Hockney is, however, let us reiterate, a quite diverse painter. He is also famous for his landscapes. He touched upon many, and diverse, genres throughout his career. He is autonomous (to say he has always been avant-garde may be an overstatement, since, e.g. painting in a figurative way at a time when abstraction ruled the place, as he did, reveals some autonomy, but not necessarily avant-gardeness). He came out with his homosexuality and tried to find artistic means for expressing it at a time when homosexuality was still considered a crime in England and could be persecuted by law. His Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) from 1972 has been auctioned for 90 million Dollars in 2018 and is therefore the most expensive artwork of any living artist. I do not know, however, how such a reverence is justified in that case. Alex Katz` paintings are rarely auctioned for more than a million dollars, more commonly, the best selling ones go away for half a million dollars. He does not only portray humans but is also often painting flowers, landscapes and architecture.

Once in my life, in 2005, I have been to the prominent art fair in Basel. Alex Katz was quite prominent at that Art Basel (also prominent was Tom Wesselmann who had passed away before). Before me, there was an elderly couple who had come across a Katz. She said to him: „Alex Katz. We should have ourselves portrayed by Alex Katz as well.“ They must have been filthy rich. It immediately struck me that they´re flat, as in the portraits of Katz, as well. Probably with not very much knowledge about the glorious deep structure of art. Although, as I realised, that would be not their fault. I became remorseful. I do not like to think lowly of people, I prefer to see only Buddhas and so the space of imagination opened whether they are actually quite ok guys, yet the encounter was, although somehow seemingly revelatory, too brief and so the space of imagination seemed to become blurred and fading away almost in an instant. Found my way upstairs and had a smoke. Then somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

Addentum: Probably it was that couple from Basel that paid 90 million Dollars for the lackluster Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures). Yet, that could be. HA! Hahahahahaha.