Conversations at the Georgia O’Keeffe study visit
When a large multi-disciplined group gets together and starts to talk about art – especially when in the presence of powerful work – a lot of conversations arise. No attempt was made at keeping the group together as the show was busy and people moved at their own pace and sought out works that piqued their interest.
The group was large – fifteen students altogether – and spread across several disciplines (music, photography, drawing, painting and others doing more text oriented studies). This made for lots of interesting conversations about O’Keeffe’s work but also more general discussions about art and how painting differs – or is similar to – other kinds of work.
I know that students also spoke animatedly amongst themselves, but the following is a summary of the conversations in which I was involved:
Seeing stuff in the flesh: I was keen to push this as an important theme of seeing O’Keeffe’s work and it provided and interesting area of exploration and discussion. All the students I spoke to thought that seeing the work had changed their understanding of the work, with some becoming converts to it.
Whether modernism across art forms is manifested in similar ways: Before we entered the show I was asked about Modernism in painting was different or the same as that in photography and did it have the same dates. It’s a massive subject but set me thinking about how in Literary Modernism differs from what might be called Visual Modernism.
The difference between scale and size: Several of us thought that the work would be bigger in size, but we generally agreed that her paintings – especially the later landscape pieces – were still ambitious in terms of scale. Size and scale, then, might not be interchangeable terms. There’s something at work here that draws the viewer in and then undermines or challenges assumptions that relate to our physical presence with the image on display. The largest painting on show is, after all, of a small flower.
The nature of abstraction: O’Keeffe’s work exists in the space between abstraction in the songs Delaunay sense to a more figurative approach to making, but the results are still abstractions in the strictest sense of the word. She edits what she sees as she paints. The desert scenes are not dusty but smooth and when she paints adobe dwellings and churches they seems to be made of skin stretched over a form. She also removed a lot of the scrubby trees and bushes from her images. By removing such reference points (and aside from one drawn abstraction of a figure I didn’t see any people in the paintings at all) the size of things is called into question.
The control exerted in a career that seemed to move methodically from monochrome to colour: Over her long life she had time to thoroughly explore her themes and this show reinforces how she moved from the urban to the wild and fro monochrome to colour. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if that’s a deliberate strategy on her part or to do with the curation of the show, but it does seem that she moved carefully through phases, learning and expanding her practice as she did so.
The importance of making art that looks good: It’s easy to get caught up in the concept that triggers or defines a piece of work (and I spoke with a student about this show in relation to the relatively austere Conceptual Art in Britain show), and forget the power of visual seduction. The surfaces of these paintings are as rich as some others but there’s a measure of control that is attractive. We feel in safe hands when look at O’Keeffe’s work: it looks like she wanted it to look.
The relation of photography to painting: This is a crucial theme of the show and though I didn’t spend much time with the photographs a few people did. There was criticism of the decision to include Stieglitz’s nude studies of O’Keeffe and then an other discussion about Stieglitz being the photographer of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain.
Gender roles and the Muse: Over coffee we spoke about how the muse has changed from the classical idea that God sends inspiration through an appropriate muse to something more autonomous. The direction seems too have altered as the artist now finds a muse rather than simply being receptive to one. I can’t remember how this conversation started, though it would be easy to make a case for the landscape of New Mexico being O’Keeffe’s muse. I do remember arguing that Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro, and Leonardo Di Caprio have all been muses for Martin Scorsese.
How is ‘love’ encoded into a painting of rocks?: This was a question I was asked by a student and to be honest it threw me a bit. There’s no denying that O’Keeffe loved the landscape of New Mexico and that its evident in the work, but how is it in the work? For my money, its encoded into the love of painting. All these works speak about or represent a subject (skyscrapers, flowers, rock formations) but also contribute to a conversation that goes on between artists and also between paintings. The results of O’Keeffe’s practice exist in relation to other paintings and the time she spent with them (and why would she have spent the hours these works took without loving the process or the image or, or, or, something?). I’m not sure if there’s a ‘right’ answer here, but thinking about this has the power to release new ways pf thinking about picture making,
The nature of criticality: This relates to the preceding point and to the first point about scale/size. If all the elements of a work point, metaphorically, in the same direction then it becomes kitsch. Think about Socialist Realism which has a muscularity in scale, size, and subject matter. Nothing undercuts or critiques an ideological position. In O’Keeffe’s work we see decoration and design run counter to the brutal landscapes and scale stand in tension with size. This is what draws an audience back to the work again and again. There’s something here that can’t be pinned down.
How O’Keeffe’s classical training underpins the work: O’Keeffe undertook as classic, genteel, art school education but moved towards a more personal way of making work. I think that her schooled ability to draw underpins everything in her work and I tinker this is what I mean about her being a ‘safe pair of hands’.
How would Warhol have dealt with the Internet: We speculated what might have happened if O’Keeffe had married Paul Strand rather than Alfred Stieglitz. That led to ‘what if Elvis hadn’t been drafted into the army’ and so on…
Video tutorials: Inevitably there was some OCA-oriented chatter and I was asked whether these were useful. I’m an advocate forth and so were the students who have had experience of them.
In summary, then, the afternoon was a rich one and from the emails I’ve had since I’m not the only one who enjoyed interacting wth the work and with OCA students. It’s easy to think ‘I’m not interested in that exhibition, so I’m not going on the Study Visit’ but they have the potential to be rewarding spaces of exchange for students and staff alike.
Image Credit: Photographs courtesy OCA student Amano Tracy
15 thoughts on “Conversations at the Georgia O’Keeffe study visit”
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Many thanks for this Bryan – I got so much out of the study trip – not only 11 rooms of the exhibition but such useful discussions with other students- what was particularly useful is meeting students doing different disciplines including photography and leaning about their thoughts and discovering Okeefe’s work in relations to photography. Definitely a valuable day and I feel study trips with a mixed group of students works really well
Agreed. It’s clear to me that when people meet across disciplines they have to rethink terms and concepts and explain them in new ways, which helps to build better understanding. I went to a conference recently and the idea of ‘trans-disciplinary’ rather than ‘inter-disciplinary’ was discussed. The latter has been a hot term for attracting funding and so on for a while but it isn’t a fair representation of what actually happens. By calling something ‘trans’ we acknowledge that when we engage with someone beyond our discipline we need to adjust and reconfigure something in the ‘carrying across’. The discussions felt like that, especially if we include discussions within one discipline but between people on different educational levels and frames of reference.
This was my second visit to this exhibition so my primary motivation was to meet fellow students, Bryan, and talk with like-minded people about O’Keeffe’s ideas. I experienced a bit of a “Eureka” moment during the conversation about size/scale and the nature of criticality. Could this be the X factor we are all trying to find in producing engaging work? She skillfully produced well-crafted paintings that are decorative – that’s OK isn’t it? – yet played with scale rendering the images on the verge of, but not quite, abstract showing us the sensual shapes of natural forms in all respects. The curator made his point in demonstrating that O’Keeffe was more than a flower painter loaded with visual double-entendres which was clearly demonstrated by the ensuing conversations the exhibition provoked.
I also feel that study days are important and any opportunity to discuss our shared experiences and knowledge within a mult-displinary group really helps and it this case proved invaluable and added much to what I took away with me last week. Another valuable thing to me is going to a major exhibition of this scope hi-lights the importance of seeing art in the flesh – I had looked at okeeffes cloud series for drawing one , so seeing them in the flesh was an amazing experience! I am thinking about another view to the show before it closes
Me too. I’m flying out of Stansted early on Sunday 24th September and am considering doing the Saturday evening until 10pm. Might even made some drawings.
I meant to ask the photography students whether they felt that Okeeffe and Stieglitz worked together or independently for example Okeeffe paintings of the view outside their New York apartment mirrors some of Stieglitz’s photos of the same view? Do we know whether they influenced each other?
Although having said that Stieglitz was clearly interested in portraits and there were no portraits on display by Okeeffe? Do we know if she ever did any portraits or figure drawings? I did leave the show with many unanswered questions and plenty to think about
I liked the photographs of Georgia, they helped me understand her work. I would love to see a self portrait of her and am intrigued as to why she did not do one as so many artists do. Brian mentioned how she repeats a V shape in her work. I also noticed what I would call a split pea pod shape in almost everything she produced. I wonder if that is the first shape she would draw on a blank page to open it up? As if to say – I can draw a line, I can open it up into two lines then join it back together again – a way to own the page. The largest painting on show is of a small flower – its enormous. Its as if she is trying to delve further and further in to discover its secret, stretching the petals out until they each only just almost meet. This she also does with the iris and other flowers – opening them out with waves of flamboyant folds of colour which lead back to blackness – it can go no further. The boldest works I think are the huge discs of insistent bright blue sky seen through holes in bones, remind me of sound blaring through the hole in the ear that will be, must be heard. In photos of her Georgia O’Keeffe’s expression may portray a kind of anxious patience, but inside her head is a zoom lens.
Bernadette
Your description of the flower painting is spot on – they were definitely more powerful and interesting in the flesh in reproductions I felt they look like pretty pictures but up close I could see the colour blending in the folds and I agree she does appear to lead us off into the unknown depths of the flower?
This was my first study visit and I am so pleased that I went. I got much more from the trip through meeting up with other students and ,with Bryan’s guidance, being encouraged to look at the exhibits in different ways. Reproductions can only give a flavour and seeing these originals of O’Keeffe’s work really impressed me. I particularly liked the charcoal drawings which first brought her to Stieglitz’s attention. I had always imagined the paintings to be larger than they were, but despite this, quoting Bryan, “They were epic”.
Thank you so much for this. I’m going to the exhibition next week and although I won’t have people with me to have these conversations, it’s given me lots of food for thought to reflect on when I see her work.
A really useful way of structuring the article, around your ‘conversations’ for those of us who weren’t on the study visit – like listening in. Thanks.
Thanks Julie. I don’t think the visits should revolve around art historical / received wisdom narratives, especially for practitioners. I always tell students that unlike other visitors to the gallery they are working, not on a day out. It’s important to allow art works to trigger connections and open up ideas. Allowing conversations to run and run and push into areas that are surprising and revealing is a great way of generating ideas for new work.
Really good to read how people’s different perspectives and personal interests influence what they perceive. I was thrilled by being so close to images I had admired and puzzled over for years and was so inspired. I hope I can get to a similar study visit soon with fellow students. I was moved to buy another biography which really helped me understand something of O’Keeffe’s relationship with Stieglitz. Each opened opportunities to the other – their stars were brilliant at different times. Each left an enormous legacy to artists coming after them. I thought this exhibition caught just that.
I too enjoyed the visit and it was so useful to see Georgia O’Keeffe’s work in the flesh and meet up and discus these topics with other students and Bryan.
As others have said, I was expecting some of the pantings to be larger than they were because of the scale of her work. The abstraction of the subject matter with indicators of scale such as figures removed or close up views of small flowers contribute to the sense of vastness even when the painting is relatively small.
This is especially relevant for me as I have been abstracting my own subject matter and experimenting with drawing on larger surfaces – how much of the sense of scale I can obtain from the nature of the composition and abstraction as opposed to the physical size of the paper? How can adding small details to specific parts of the painting change the nature of the scale?
I was surprised at the lack of figures in the work…apart from a couple in the first room, I don’t remember seeing any. Bernadette, I agree it’s strange not to have a self portrait or some figures close to the artist. Bryan, you told me how she was not a member of local art circles and it has made me wonder if she was a person who preferred her own company. She lived in the middle of nowhere, and was obviously happy with that, in return for access to these wonderful landscapes. I think the way she played with the colours in them somehow to me implies her love of the landscape. They are an abstraction of realism, and are such a rich choice of colour.
I really enjoyed this visit, as I was not enamoured with this artist before this but Bryan’s and other student’s enthusiasm made me change my mind!