Saturday, May 1, 2010

The problem Avigdor Arikha posed to painting

The passing of Avigdor Arikha is an opportunity to reflect on the way that the best artists often confuse the conventional categories to which almost any discourse about painting is still beholden (including the New York Times article linked to above). Considered a representational painter, Arikha's work does not fit squarely within either side of the abstract/representational divide. Instead, it problematizes both notions through a rich vision of what painting is and can do. His insistence on representing everyday objects and persons through the most rigorous set of constraints (only natural light, finishing a painting in a single sitting) made his work finally about human agency within a circumscribed set of circumstances. In other words, his paintings make one intensely aware of the conditions under which we see mediated through the act of painting. A portrait never simply represents the body of the sitter but struggles to capture the visual impression of that body given the totality of sensual data within a specific time frame. The near terrifying impossibility of such a task is Arikha's uniquely Sisyphean contribution and gives his painting an awkward intensity. With typical brevity, Samuel Beckett offered a summation of Arikha's efforts:

Laying siege to the impenetrable without