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| Hernan Bas Work From the Rubell Family Collection |
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by David Rohn - 26 Feb., 2008
Hernan Bas Work From the Rubell Family Collectionby David Rohn Currently the subject of an exhibition of his work in the Rubell Family Collection, Hernan Bas is unquestionably ‘one of Miami’s most celebrated’ and talked about artists. And because the “buzz” around this 28 year old artist sometimes seems to focus more on his career achievements than the actual work, this observer thought it may be an interesting moment to take a look at the work; and not least what its popularity might suggest for aesthetic tendencies at this point in time. The show chronicles Bas’ work as a small retrospective. And we’ve seen it develop over the past 5-6 years from images of slender figures rendered in Slim Fast, to installations that evoke boyhood backyard camp-outs, to illustrations of not-so-much erotic as romantic encounters between boys, and on to expansive videos that seem to literally project the artists sentiments across the spaces they feature. In an age when gays could say as easily say ’you’ve come a long way baby’ as some other groups, the proximity of this young artist, and the content of his work, to his adolescent years, might serve as a reminder that we really haven’t put much in place for the teenage gays. They still often find themselves in foreign feelings and foreign territory. And ‘metro-sexual’ not withstanding, I still constantly hear about adolescent boys (at that most homoerotic and, perhaps therefore, most homo-phobic age), being harassed for being (whether it’s true or not) ‘gay’. And not unlike other minorities before them, Gays sometimes begin their own research into the history of ‘their kind’. So whether it s the Hardy Boys, the Romantic Poets, or Victorian Fops it‘s not hard to understand why a young gay artist might want to explore this material. And why so many other people find it interesting may serve as a useful indicator of current tastes and values.
Well, for one thing one might say ’what’s not to like‘. The earlier illustrations are well rendered and communicate clearly and easily. They exploit a tight sense of space that reinforces the intimate event under consideration and leave us most often with a subtle sense of angst over the evident emotional residue that belies the often (seemingly) matter–of –fact subject matter and rendition. The paintings, which are generally more recent, often have a more naive quality. The emotional undercurrents are still in evidence in the mushy expressionistic application of the paint, but the tight compositions and concern for detail produce a somewhat contradictory condition: a liason between Chaim Soutine and Jacques Louis David for example. Perhaps this work will develop to the point where it can be compared to Eugene Delacroix -- a key artist for Modernism with whom Bas shares a penchant for sensuality and emotional turbulence.
The videos, which represent the most recent work, do not appear nearly as referential as the work mentioned above, although they are not inconsistent with the the earlier work in that they are concerned with young men and in different ways, their emotional expressions. One which may have been shot at Monet’s garden at Giverny outside Paris, has a magnificent sense of spatial tension and slowness of speed with its foreground frame on one side of a corner and background on the other. A figure, (the artist it seems) appears in the distance; a row boat gently crosses the space and a paper crown subtly throbs upside down and partly submerged/ruined in the wavelets at the edge of the pond in the foreground. The piece is infused with a Proustian sense of languid melancholy; of internalized emotions and self absorption, of childhood innocence/fantasy lost (as represented by the paper crown) . The piece seems deeply and intimately personal and virtually as romantic as the search for. or desire to hold unto, or mourn, lost innocence. And with all the irony and sarcasm evident in much of fashionable contemporary art, this video seems to be completely sincere. Another video, depicts boys swimming around with fake shark fins strapped to their backs. This one seems far more humorous and playful than the one mentioned above and although it lacks the complex sense of spatial contrast, its mixed message of playfulness and the menace represented by shark fins is a reminder that ‘boys will be boys’ can mean that fun can turn nasty as in, for example, ‘Lord of the Flies’ where the gang of English schoolboys turn on, and kill the fat boy. Although this video lacks the narrative suggestiveness of the one previously mentioned, its mixed message of playfulness and danger is as concise and paradoxical as it is true to life. So what about this highly romantic oeuvre, with its concern for effete boys and their deepest feelings hat have so much appeal for the art buying public now? If Hernan Bas’ work represents current trends, it’s worth noting just how far in full circle we’ve come over the past half century: Although his work wasn‘t so much bought as publicized at the time, Pollock’s work was hailed as innovative for its liberating and cathartic expression of raw emotion. It grew out of Surrealism and psychoanalysis -- which were considered to be new and innovative ideas at the time. And it was non-figurative and non-referential -- two characteristics that had already become part of the required criteria of Modernism. Instead Bas’ work expresses emotions that have more to do with desire and longing than the dark and demonic forces that fascinated people in the 1950’s. And it is intentionally figurative and, refers back to a period when social order was highly structured and contrived. After all this time where ‘innovation‘ was considered important, it no longer seems to be a contemporary concern. Modernism no doubt did become an academic ‘establishment’ movement and, successive movements like Pop and the return to figuration have put it in its proper place. But the intense interest in the work of Hernan Bas seems a striking reversal of the fundamental ideas of Reductivism and formal innovation that the Museum of Modern Art was built upon. As always, it will be interesting to see what follows. That said, we are clearly living in a period when the ‘haves’ have a lot; articles on Miami Basel describe the shortage of chartered private jets required to bring the new billionaires to the art market where they snap up ‘objets’ of aesthetic desire. That easily cost more than what 99,9% of the rest of us earn in a year. Wasn’t it once said that ’the rich will always be with us’? Although some of this activity may simply be monetary or some other form of social investment we might as well try to figure what the significance of their tastes suggest for the current social intellectual and aesthetic climate. It’s easy to see NOW how Warhol’s flamboyant smiling Marilyn’s dovetailed with cars that competed to have the longest tailfins during the ‘go-go years of the stockmarket but, how do Bas’ sensitive and self-absorbed lads correspond to our current collective moment? His work and his comments about the work refer back to 19th Century period when European and, (to a lesser degree) American Societies were strictly defined along class lines and the distribution of wealth was as uneven as it is nowadays: manners and behavior were of utmost importance. And although it is not apparent that Bas intends to satire these periods, many people –- including Oscar Wilde for one –- did. (And it may be an indication of the level of self effacement of his social system that Wilde suffered ostracism and exile for his virtually open homosexuality if not also for his outspokenness on the hypocrisies of his contemporaries. At least being openly Gay doesn’t get you into trouble the way it used to. Our current moment does seem to share with the period of the ‘Dandy’ of London, the ‘Flaneur’ (or strolling gentleman observer) of Paris, and their American imitators. One immediate parallel; then as now the social systems of the developed world contain a large wealthy elite eager to exercise their money-based social positions to differentiate themselves from the lower and rougher, (or at least less manicured) classes. As anyone who has read Thackeray (Vanity Fair) or, Balzac (The Human Comedy) or, Edith Wharton (whose novels chronicled New York‘s noveau riche) knows, appearances were everything. So, things like having the right tailor or the right caterer were of the utmost importance because they demonstrated that one was a person of taste and refinement, a ‘connoisseur’ who wasn’t simply superior because he had more money than others, but who was superior because he knew what to do with it. If Bas’ fascination with these periods and their archetypes is less about social position and more about obsessive self absorption and sentiment, can we still separate the tastes and emotional tendencies of a particular era from its social systems and the assumptions that underlined them? It would be wrong not to mention that there are other ‘hot’ artists whose work would appear to be less obviously related to 19th century tendencies. Or is it fair to suggest that the narcissistic and affected young men of the 19th century, as well as the milieux they moved in, were somehow comparable to the rarefied and highly mannered ‘receptions’ of the contemporary art world? Well as one artist commented after the first Miami Basel art fair: ’that wasn’t about art, that was about ‘who’s who’! Well who knows? That said, we do live in a time when the art world is highly organized, highly stratified and competitive, extremely nuanced and mannered; and rather a lot about money. Some would ask, “Why does this surprise you when we live in a time when the wealth and resources are so unevenly distributed?” And probably they would be right. Hernan Bas Thru Nov. 28 2008
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