Over in Newport Center, the Orange County Museum of Art is featuring “Jack Goldstein x 10,000,” the first retrospective in the United States of the influential, yet not widely known Canadian-born artist.
Goldstein lived in New York during the 1970s and ’80s, but spent most of his life in Southern California. After disappearing from the art world in the 1990s, he re-emerged in 2000 when there was a renewed interest in his work. Goldstein committed suicide in San Bernardino on March 14, 2003.
The OCMA exhibition brings together more than 70 works by Goldstein, including installations, films, paintings, writings and vinyl records with listening stations. This show is curated by Philipp Kaiser, former senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. MOCA originally scheduled, then canceled this show. OCMA accepted it back in 2010.
Goldstein, a central figure in the Pictures Generation of the 1970s, was included in the sprawling, Getty-sponsored initiative “Pacific Standard Time,” specifically in MOCA’s show, “Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981.” Goldstein’s contribution to that show was the repeating 1975 film, “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.”
The title “Jack Goldstein x 10,000” comes from an interview he did in 1985 with Chris Dercon, who’s now director of the Tate Modern in London. The artist downplayed his name and said one could find 10,000 Jack Goldsteins in the telephone book.
However, not as common was the artist’s facility in various media, including painting, film, installation, poetry, self-described “aphorisms” and sound recordings. He also had a probing mind, one that’s evident in his writings and films.
The OCMA exhibit opens with the 16-millimeter film (converted to DVD) “The Jump” (1978), which depicts a figure jumping, his body lit up and twinkling with shiny red lights. It’s retro and old-school, and kind of cool.
The next gallery features Goldstein’s vertical pictographs of various aphorisms, mostly excerpts from his book “Totems: Selected Writings, 1988-90.” Using graphic design, clip art and colored text on paper, the artist accentuates certain words and phrases and gives them a real physical presence.
One observation: If you’re a stickler for grammar, you’ll notice that Goldstein’s syntax is not the finest, and he does seem to have trouble with proper apostrophe usage. You can choose to ignore it or it can annoy you, depending on how much you care about that sort of thing.
Layered in his writings and pictographs are some semi-deep thoughts, some riddles, and some confusing conundrums. There’s more than a touch of gobbledygook. But his writings do demonstrate that, in addition to being an artist, Goldstein was a curious, boundary-pushing writer and thinker.
A PAINTING HERO – OR NOT
Though he was working in an era when painting was declared dead, Goldstein’s paintings prove to be the most cohesive and polished experience in this show. His works are large, untitled, photorealistic acrylics on canvas, depicting natural phenomena and lit up cityscapes.
Goldstein’s rings of fire, expansive depictions of lightning over cities and fighter pilot scenes make you wonder if you’re looking at a painting or a photograph. His incandescent fire paintings are hot off the canvas, demanding the viewer’s attention. Goldstein’s acrylics from 1981, featuring fireworks with city spires in silhouette, are also well-executed and frequently amazing.
However, Goldstein’s paintings are a little less inspiring when you learn they were done by ciphers, or moonlighting art students who did the actual brushwork. Such revelations bring up questions of authenticity and authorship. According to the catalog and didactics, Goldstein was accused of selling out during his lifetime.
Yet, to a certain degree, removing signs of authorship was his intention in his painting and a great deal of other work. He didn’t sign his paintings, and outside of his films, didn’t attach his name to many other projects. Indeed, eliminating or killing the author is a signature act of postmodernism, and Goldstein squarely fits within that trope.
NOT QUITE TO THE LETTER
Having studied with John Baldessari at California Institute of the Arts, Goldstein was quite attuned to budding trends in conceptual art. The OCMA exhibition includes his “Portfolio Performance” series from 1976-85/2001, which describes in painstaking detail nine of his proposed art performances.
Two of them are brought to life in the OCMA galleries, “Burning Window” (1977) and “Sound Performance” (1979).
OCMA’s version of “Burning Window” feels like a cut-off, condensed version of the piece, especially after comparing the installation to the description in “Portfolio Performance.” That text and photograph suggest that the installation should be in a darkened room by itself, not on one end of a large gallery containing film works.
As for “Sound Performance,” the speakers are supposed to be concealed, but they aren’t in OCMA’s version of the installation. Goldstein’s text clearly states, “From each corner of the space, a concealed loud-speaker transmits a soundtrack.” So what are those four, bellowing black boxes doing in the corners?
Nonetheless, OCMA’s interpretation of “Sound Performance” is still effective. The blue ceiling resembles the sky, and the white gallery walls are reminiscent of clouds. Sounds of transportation – of trains coming and planes going – are slightly jarring yet evocative.
AN EXPERIMENTER WITH FILM
Working in Southern California, Goldstein had relatively easy access to studios and technicians in the film and music industries. He made dozens of experimental short films, and 21 of them are on view at OCMA.
The films generally have simple titles, such as “A Glass of Milk,” “A Spotlight,” “Rocking Chair” or “Fingerprints.” They range from 19 seconds to 13 minutes.
Goldstein’s films contain many memorable images, from the German shepherd in “Shane” (1975) to butterflies on the tips of fingers in “Some Butterflies” (1975). “Underwater Sea Fantasy” (1983/2003) is an ever-unfolding mystery, while “Jack” (1973) is a haunting desert-based piece that presages his demise.
“The Portrait of Père Tanguy” (1974) features a hand drawing an outline of van Gogh’s iconic painting of the same name. The drawing is abruptly taken away, and we see a print of the original exposed, again prompting questions of authorship.
“Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” does this too, as the MGM logo has been removed, leaving only the Latin “Ars Gratia Aris” (“Art for art’s sake”). But that dang lion won’t shut up, as the three-minute film is continuously looped. (You can hear him constantly roaring away in the entire second half of the exhibit.)
Of all the films, the best is “A Reading” (1973), which starts simply enough: A page of text is shown, while an unseen narrator (presumably Goldstein) reads it. Then, the top of the page suddenly catches fire, and the reader races to finish the page before it burns into smithereens.
There’s an exciting, performative quality to this work, which combines the creative act of reading aloud with the destructive act of fire consuming the page. “A Reading” makes me think of the late Ray Bradbury and his incendiary novel, “Fahrenheit 451.”
The film also evokes the work of the late Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, the Korean American writer and video artist who crafted careful, time and word-based videos. “A Reading” is one of the best things I’ve seen all year, and the film alone is worth the price of admission.
Contact the writer: 714-796-6026 or rchang@ocregister.com
