MMK Museum presents Jack Goldstein in a Comprehensive Retrospective |
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| Written by Clara Issacson |
| Tuesday, 06 October 2009 19:43 |
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The exhibition “Pictures” curated by art critic and theorist Douglas Crimp in 1977 in the “Artists Space” in New York spotlighted Troy Brauntuch, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo and Jack Goldstein as a new generation of artists. Their work both set itself off from Minimalism and Pop Art while, at the same time, critically advancing both styles. In an interview Goldstein once said: “I am interested in the gap between Minimalism and Pop Art: in the object character and autonomy of Minimalism and the subject matter of our culture that is to be encountered in Pop Art.” For his critical exploration of the images of Western culture conveyed by the media he drew on techniques and images from the culture industry and advertising. In the 1980s Goldstein was considered one of the most promising artists of the Post-Pop Art movement alongside Richard Prince, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo and David Salle.  While studying under Baldessari Goldstein
initially worked on minimalist sculptures, but soon turned his attention to
performance and film. As the public was excluded from attending his earliest
performances they are only documented by descriptions of them and a handful of
photographs. The first films, dating from the years 1971-73, depict performative
situations and serve to advance the ideas behind his first works. All
Goldstein’s films are shot on 16mm material and their composition is inspired
more by models from the theater than from the video esthetic that was gradually
evolving at that time. Up until 1983 Jack Goldstein produced 34 films, and today
they number his most famous works. The films, some of which are very brief (with
the shortest lasting a mere 20 seconds) rely on the tools and technology of the
commercial film industry. The film topics range from performative stagings via
motifs culled from the US movie industry through to short sequences that focus
on a single object or movement. He edited the last ten films, completed during
his lifetime, to form a single sequence. They represent the peak of his
achievements in film and simultaneously mark the starting point for the new
series of LP recordings. The records are not only sound recordings but also
objects, which are designed as “images” and are also presented as such. The
first work entitled A Suite of Nine 7” Records and made in 1976 is a series of
color records for which he used sound material from commercial archives (it is
part of the MMK Collection). Other aural works refer to popular film genres such
as disaster movies and sci-fi or adventure films as churned out by Hollywood’s
movie industry. The most comprehensive but least known part in Goldstein’s oeuvre are his paintings. Like the films and records, the paintings – for the most part they have large formats – were executed by trained specialists in line with instructions that Goldstein provided. The motifs are inspired by reproductions of war pictures, storms, natural disasters, astronomical photographs and so on. They all revolve around the idea of the spectacular, which also plays a key role in the world of the media. For Documenta 7 Goldstein wrote an aphoristic essay for the catalog, which begins with the assertion that “media is sensational”. This sentiment runs like a red thread through his work and is specifically a leitmotif of his paintings. He also emphasizes how media technology can substitute for our own experience. He writes: “Technology does everything for us so that we no longer have to function in terms of experience. We function in terms of esthetics.” It follows that only by means of the instruments of art can we counter the closed cosmos of a world recorded by the media. Or to cite Jack Goldstein himself: “Art should be a trailer for the future”. In the final years of his life Goldstein devoted himself increasingly to such text-works, which will also feature in the MMK show. The exhibition in the MMK is the first comprehensive museum exhibition in Germany since 1985. Goldstein, whose films and paintings were shown at Documenta 7 (1982) and 8 (1987) respectively, had large solo exhibitions in America and Europe, more recently 2002 in “Le Magasin, Centre National d‘Art Contemporain”, Grenoble. Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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