LECTURE BY MARY MATHEWS GEDO: “ART AS AUTOBIOGRAPHY” ROGER BROWN and ED PASCHKE
Roger Brown, Artist
I attended a lecture at the Weatherspoon Art Museum Friday evening, November 18, 2011, by art historian Mary Mathews Gedo (Ph.D. in art history from Northwestern University, 1972). Originally trained as a child psychologist, Gedo applies her psychoanalytic orientation to her critique of individual works of art and the artists themselves. She has authored/edited numerous works, including Picasso: Art as Autobiography (1982); Looking at Art form the Inside Out: The Psychoiconographic Approach to Modern Art (Contemporary Artists and their Critics (1994); Monet and His Muse: Camille Monet in the Artist's Life. (2010, hardcover); and Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art, V. 3 (1988, hardcover), Mary M. Gedo (editor).
Gedo’s lecture focused on Chicago Imagists Roger Brown (1941-1997) and Ed Paschke (1939-2004).
The “Chicago Imagists” were a group of representational artists closely associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Both Brown and Paschke graduated from the Art Institute. This Chicago-based movement set itself apart from the concurrent New York art scene of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, purposefully distancing itself from classically-educated/trained artists. Outsider and folk artists (untrained artists) were also incorporated into this group.
Gedo’s lecture, supplemented by visual representations of the artists’ work, left me wanting to know more about Paschke and Brown. I even wanted to understand Gedo better as a trained psychoanalyst and art historian. Overall, my primary insights and thoughts have to do with understanding art as representative not only of a particular image or concept, but of the person behind that image, the artist herself/himself. I always find myself drawn to the psychological motivations behind the visual representations because, in my mind, it is not possible to separate the artist’s subjectivity from the object. With my limited exposure to visual art and art theory, and with my interest in the great existential questions, I seem to impose a “meaning of life” orientation into my art experience. Is it possible that in doing so, I am undermining the purity of the visual experience itself? I don’t know --- I am caught up in the dynamics of subjectivity and objectivity – relative to both the artist and the viewer; the personal, social and political contexts that influence lives. And what about the artist as creator and viewer of her own work? Pondering the individual experience of art as a dynamic life experience for both artist and viewer ……..
Finally, from the standpoint of personal taste, I appreciate the art of the Chicago Imagists as very forceful and thought-provoking, actually visceral in its capacity to affect strong responses. It is not the kind of art that I would want in my personal surroundings. In a way, this makes the “art as autobiography” component even more compelling regarding these particular artists.
Ed Paschke:
Roger Brown:
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