This title was digitized by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA).
About Atlanta Art Workers Coalition newspaper. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1978-1980 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1980)
Jennifer Bartlett’s Swimmers Atlanta By Barbara Schreiber On December 10, 1979, in a public ceremony, Jennifer Bartlett’s Swim mers Atlanta was unveiled at the new Richard B. Russell Federal Building. Bartlett’s work is the final and, at $110,000, the costliest piece installed here in the General Services Adminis tration’s Art-in-Architecture program. This piece, along with Sam Gilliam’s Three Variances and Lloyd Hamrol’s Thronopolis, constitutes the GSA’s controversial effort in Atlanta to com ply with the Federal Government’s one percent for art mandate. Swimmers Atlanta is a monumental nine-part work, each painting consist ing of juxtaposed units of oil on can vas and enamel on steel, ranging in size from 28 inches to 18 feet square. Bartlett gives the two sides of each painting “happy” and “sad” designa tions and sees the differences in shiny and matte surfaces and the bright and somber colors as supporting this dichotomy. Elliptical forms represent swimmers; from painting to painting these forms encounter numerous ob stacles like rocks, boats and whirl pools. The media employed on either side and the approaches that both art ist and viewer must take in dealing with them have some bearing on the content of the work. Bartlett says that the metai and enamel surfaces encourage more subtle and analytical thinking. Since the metal halves of the paintings actually consist of foot square blocks separated by one inch spaces, the viewer is encouraged to examine the center portions more carefully than he or she would the con tinuous expanses of canvas. Bartlett developed the process of working on metal in 1969, when she was looking for a more flexible for mat than the traditional oil on canvas. The metal plates suited her, because she could remove or rearrange units and wrap them around corners. Best known in this vein is Rhapsody, a 1976 work consisting of 988 enamel on foot square metal plates. As one views the plates, the images change in rhythm and intensity, until the viewer is met with a house which spans 49 plates. Here Bartlett used eleven different symbols and a number of painting styles (including some, like photoreal ism, with which she was unfamiliar). In the September-October 1976 issue of Art in America, Lindsay Stamm Shapiro referred to this work as a “pa rody of the history of art.” Two years ago, she started to com bine the enamel on metal with the oil on canvas: “...when it seemed to me that I was repeating things a lot. I thought if I threw a spanner in the works, just messed things up for my self, that I could pull more out of it.” Bartlett directly contrasts her ap proach in Rhapsody to that in Swim mers: Atlanta. In Swimmers, she wanted to “make nine different paint ings, nine different sizes, with nine different color experiences.... I want ed to make everything different from the beginning, but I wanted them to finish at the same point...and trying to make a 2x2 foot painting stay on the same level as an 18x18 foot painting is like having a turtle and a rabbit fin ish a race at the same time...you can’t change the rabbit and the turtle, but you can change the race course. That was the problem for this piece, which was the exact opposite of the problem I set for myself in Rhapsody. '' Despite its name, the content of Swimmers: Atluuta is not really refer ential to the city. Regarding the use of the swimmers theme in a landlocked city, Bartlett said that she didn’t even know that the city was inland until her first visit here after accepting the com mission: “1 kept asking, ‘Where’s the ocean?’ because it feels like it should be right on the water." The idea for this set of paintings came from an earlier work called Hap py and Sad Tidal Wave, in which el lipses are smashed by a wave on one side of the painting, and, as Bartlett says “going free and happy” on the other side. “...I thought that it was like going on trial. There’s either a yes or no, guilty or innocent...or are there in-betweens?” When Bartlett discusses abstract and symbolic elements of her work, she seems to evince a split loyalty which impedes her ability to develop either to its fullest. Her elements do not function as purely abstract nor do her considerations for contrasts in de meanor, weather conditions or light carry her work. Although she alludes to a set of symbols or a pictoral sys tem, her definitions do not quite seem to merit the structure she has devised for them nor the scale in which she has elected to present them. When Bart lett describes ellipses as swimmers and details the various obstacles en countered, that is basically what she seems to be talking about. And al though one might consider Gericault or Diana Nyad when viewing these works, what is largely observed is the paint itself. In Roberta Smith’s glowing article (Art in America, October 1979) which was freely distributed at the unveil ing, Smith claims that Bartlett con ceived this work with the general pub lic in mind, an assertion which Bart lett clearly denies. She says that it is not her role to give the public what it wants, that it is presumptuous of her even to attempt determining public wants or needs or what the public is capable of understanding: “...I would hate for someone who was running the symphony in my city to say, ‘Oh, god, she’s such a dumb cluck that she can only hear the soft, adagio parts of Tchaikovsky and then once a year she can hear Rimsky-Korsakov.’ Forget it; I want to hear the best, the most diffi cult, the most interesting that’s avail able anywhere. I don’t want somebody editing my taste...art isn’t taught in the public schools in this country, so it’s an area in which people are gen erally ill-informed. But the job of the artist is not to inform the public about art, it's to make art.” A different view is that of Lloyd Hamrol, whose “Thronopolis," a spi ral arrangement of wooden chair like structures, (affectionately dubbed by one local art wit, “Spiral Settee”) sits outside the auditorium of the Rich ard Russell building. The October 6th Journal-Constitution quoted the artist: “Art has been more involved with its own evolution and less involved with reflections of social values or social changes...it’s a risky game when art leaders try to invest in the future based on what they know about the present. If you went into an Italian- American community and asked them what they wanted and they said ‘A bronze statue of Christopher Colum bus,’ then I think they should very well have it.” Don Thalacker, Director of the Gen eral Service's Administration’s Art- in-Architecture program wants it clearly understood that Bartlett did not walk away from this commission with a pile of money in her pocket. From her $110,000, she paid a sizable chunk to Paula Cooper Gallery with whom she has a contract, furnished all materials, paid for shipping and in stallation costs, and paid support per sonnel. Paula Cooper stated that if Bart lett had simply painted individual works for the 14 months it took to com plete the GSA project and Cooper had sold them in a competitive market, they both would have made considera bly more money than they did in this commission. Another liability of executing this type of work was the enormous amount of time consumed by business transactions. Factors like insuring the work and tax considerations in hiring employees put a drain on her time which Bartlett grew to resent. Al though she acknowledges feelings of frustration in being forced to act like a business person, she actually credits Alan McCullen with handling the bulk of the administrative details, e.g., or dering material, researching, making installation arrangements. Bartlett stated that she ultimately preferred having total responsibility for comple tion of this commission and appre ciates the government’s non-inter vention. Bartlett said she does not relish having to re-employ this newly acquired body of knowledge, although she has accepted another commission for a subway station piece in Balti more. ATLANTA GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY The Photo Secession: Stieglitz, Steichen, White, Kasebier, and others. January 4 - February 23 opening reception Friday, January 4, 6:00 -8:00 3077 E. Shadowlawn Ave., NE Atlanta 233-1462 cD DOUG BARLOW BAR/LOW PRINTING INCORPORATED F 1222 SPRING ST NW ATLANTA, GA 30309 (404) 892-2900 ' ‘I kept asking, ‘ Where’s the ocean ? * because it feels like it should be on the water. ” The Atlanta Art Workers Coalition Newspaper, January/February, 1980 8
