Phoebe Osborne. God Sees Everything, November 7, 2014 (performance still). Courtesy of the Artist and the Oakland Museum of California. Photo: Charlie Villyard.

In God Sees Everything, directed and choreographed by Phoebe Osborne, a complex weave of everything Californian coalesces. It is, in certain moments, “so L.A.” as dancers wearing the same blonde, bobbed wig move robotically across the stage. With glitter and glow sticks, God Sees Everything references the music-festivals scene, and with synchronized yoga postures and carrot eating it reaches toward new age. It also emerges from the numerous engagements with extraterrestrial life chronicled by individuals and cults within the state. God Sees Everything is all over the (western) map in terms of references, but each one of them is spot-on in terms of what epitomizes California. Osborne’s careful and sometimes absurd juxtapositions are both humorous and insightful; they point to a contemporary Californian identity that has been informed by a lengthy history of utopian projects.

Read the full article here.

Mungo Thomson. My Name as Written by Bruce Nauman, 2014; neon, 60 x 120 in. Courtesy of the Artist and the Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco. Photo by Jeff Warrin.

In Mungo Thomson’s solo exhibition at Kadist Art Foundation, Wall, Window, or Bar Signs, the gallery is filled with neon works that appropriate the form of Bruce Nauman’s spiraling neon text piece, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) from 1967. Aided by the hypnotic spiral and glowing neon form, Thomson utilizes phrases from twelve-step programs and self-help literature to re-create the spiritual undertones present in Nauman’s work. Though at first glance the works seem to stem exclusively from an obsession with Nauman, a neon piecetucked away in the back room of the gallery ruptures the three-room homage.

Completed in handwritten script, the neon work My Name as Written by Bruce Nauman (2014) is challenging to read, and only after referring to the title sheet do the words become clear: “Thank you Mungo Bruce Nauman.” The inclusion of Nauman’s autograph—received by Thomson at a book-signing event in New York and later transferred into neon—adds to the ongoing conversation about authorship and consent already present in the exhibition. But the work’s scrawl-like effect is similar to Tracey Emin’s neon works and further complicates the circle of appropriation. Emin’s neons are created from love letters or sketches, infusing the cool, conceptual medium with sentimental content. The handwritten letters in Thomson’s neon piece not only highlight the artist’s affection for Nauman, continuing with this idea of the sentimental in Emin’s work, but also instigate a larger narrative around art-historical lineage made evident through appropriation.

Thomson’s presentation of his entanglement with Nauman is mediated through an art-historical lineage that includes Emin as much as it does Nauman. Feminist scholar Lisa Tickner argues that feminist art freed artists from the Oedipal narrative of art history, which she interprets as generations of (male) artists reacting to and rejecting the work of their “art fathers.”[1] Feminist art and a rewriting of art history not only gave rise to a new generation of art daughters, but also made visible the work of art mothers. As a result, all artists are now free to wrestle with the work of their predecessors on both sides of the family, so to speak. So while Nauman may have provided the framework for Thomson’s commissioned body of neons, the legacy of Emin bridges the curatorially recognized lineage between the artist and his inspiration. In a show that has much to do with appropriation, it’s important to recognize the artists who have previously responded to the “mystic truth” of Nauman and his contemporaries.

Wall, Window, or Bar Signs is on view at Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco through November 1, 2014.

Melissa Miller is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator, currently pursuing her MFA in Studio Art and MA in Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

[1] Lisa Tickner, “Mediating Generation: The Mother-Daughter Plot,” in Carol M. Armstrong, and M. Catherine de Zegher, Women Artists at the Millennium. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), 85-120. I am indebted to Tickner’s Mediating Generation and her theories of artist lineage post-feminist art.

Melissa Miller. Flood, 1983; oil on linen; 59 x 95 in. Courtesy of the Artist

Robin Tung: The animals in your paintings take part in cultural myths (Flood [1983] and The Ark [1986]), fables, fictional and humorous narratives (Clowns [1983]), and masquerades (Lioness in Zebra Skin [1985]). What inspired these different themes and configurations?

Melissa Miller: With Flood and The Ark, I was doing a series of paintings set within a context of pending disasters. For me these narratives were metaphors for the human illusion of control over our lives and futures. Humans react as as if we are immune to twists of fate, sudden disaster, associations, illness, disability, or decisions made by others. Having lived my life experiencing Texas hurricanes, droughts, floods, fires, and tornadoes, I thought weather seemed a likely metaphor for unpredictable intrusion.

Occasionally I pull subject matter directly from newspapers, books, the internet, or art history. Clowns resulted in part from seeing Uccello’s Rout of San Romano (1438–40) face to face and simultaneously discovering the Japanese Choju Giga Scrolls. The paintings of animals dressed in each others’ skins (Lioness in Zebra Skin) came from an interest in depicting acts of deception. Both paintings are an example of depicting animals in positions beyond their anatomical possibilities. That’s about as cartoonish as I’ve ever ventured.

Melissa Miller. Red Pony, 2002; oil on canvas; 48 x 56 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: I particularly love Red Pony (2002) and Cluster (2003). These paintings in the context of your works communicate all facets of a full existence–harmony, demons, destruction, feeding, masking, humor, flight, rest. Can you tell us about Red Pony and Cluster?

MM: For the last fifteen or so years, I have been interested in how humans are reshaping animal habitats and forcing them into new juxtapositions and locations. There is a globalization of animals happening that is similar to that of humans. Having closely observed landscape and pastures and development in south and central Texas my whole life, there are startling changes. Not only do livestock and indigenous animals cohabitate, but multiple foreign species have been introduced. Either for reasons of conservation, commerce, hunting, or novelty, these new conglomerations have become rather common. Simply from the highway, one can see imported antelope, deer, giraffe, zebra, goats, etc. Llamas have become almost ubiquitous companions of livestock. Humans are also encroaching on habitats, changing animal and bird migratory patterns, driving some species into extinction, etc.

The animals in both Red Pony and Cluster may seem a strange combo, but actually, these mixes are based on reality. I photographed what I could tell (with some confidence) were a foreign breed of black goats off a back road to San Antonio. The horse in the environment with them would not be unusual, though the color of the little pony obviously is. I felt the painting needed that shot of highly saturated color and the narrative stretch.

The species in Cluster all appeared in a photograph together in a street scene from Southeast Asia. There was a small Asian Bear, on a chain, performing tricks for a crowd. In the background was a Brahma cow and Rhesus monkey. I based my menagerie on this actual juxtaposition. Their fiction is not far from the truth.

Both paintings are organized on a loose grid with a kind of stacked perspective, which is more commonly used in Eastern art (as opposed to Western perspective, in which objects diminish in size as they move back in space). I like this type of illusion of space and time because it seems to equalize the importance of each figure and vignette. Both this type of perspective and the gridlike structure support a sense of calm in both works.

Melissa Miller. Clowns, 1983; oil on linen; 56 x 76 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: What was your journey like when you began as an artist, and what motivated you?

MM: That art would be the focus of my life was never in question after I graduated college. (I did not attend graduate school.) I recognized, at a very young age, that it was the one activity that could remain a constant in my life. Despite relocations, separations, deaths, interruptions, etc., my creative impulse could be the one thing I could always turn back to and stand on. I never expected that it might, at times, actually be profitable. I was addicted to the pleasure, challenge, and discovery and was naive about the struggle and occasional heartbreak of it.

Wherever I moved or worked, I made sure studio space and production were the top priority. I first exhibited work in juried exhibitions and with small collectives. Linda Cathcart, who was the director at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston in the early 1980s, gave me a big break: a small show in the basement of the museum. Simultaneously, I was fortunate to secure galleries in New York and Houston, and my career began.

Melissa Miller. Dive, 2003; gouache on paper; 8 x 7 /2 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: What is your approach when you begin work on a new painting or series?

MM: Most often, something sparks an idea and I make a note, do a sketch, or file an image. If the idea haunts me long enough, I will do more sketches and put them in my to-do file. I work extremely slowly, and so nine out of ten of my intentions are never realized. My slow speed has always been frustrating.

Once I commit to a painting, I do research on the animals and environment. I like to have as much visual information around me as possible, because I cannot always conjure believable anatomy in my mind’s eye. I may have a dozen different images available of each animal in the painting as I compose a piece.

My sketches for my paintings are not precious and are usually very crude. The real drawing and organizing happens on the actual surface of the canvas. I draw on the canvas with light ochre paint. I hold my brush in one hand and in the other hold a rag with solvent. I erase with the rag as I adjust figuration around the canvas. This part of the process can take a month or more on complex paintings.

Once I have the “drawing,” I paint over it with a very diluted layer of oil paint so as to become confident in my color arrangements and the tone of the painting. The painting stays very open through these early stages. and I am always making adjustments. Once I can more easily see my path, I start to paint with thicker layers of oil. My watercolor process is obviously somewhat different.

Melissa Miller. Cluster, 2003; oil on canvas; 40 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: What advice can you give to new and emerging artists today in light of your teaching experience?

MM: The art world is always shifting, and I don’t believe I am much of a player anymore. Therefore, my advice as far as the commercial side of the business is fairly outdated. I do tell students that it is a difficult field to make a living in. Therefore, I ask young artists to examine the role their creative process plays in their lives. If the activity is something that brings them pleasure and reward, then either they can segue that into some other creative field or find a way to keep it alive as they pursue other financially viable employment. If creating art is something they can’t possibly shut off or live without, then we discuss jobs that may pay reasonably yet will leave them time and energy to keep their focus on artistic endeavors. I tell young artists that no matter what road they choose, if they continue doing their art, it can become a personal measuring stick for growth and will always provide honest reflection. I also tell them that because the journey is difficult, they need to be supportive of one another. Finally, I strongly suggest they stay informed on issues and vote (often) to exercise the rights a democracy affords them.