{"id":4450,"date":"2017-11-05T23:49:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-05T22:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/?p=4450"},"modified":"2017-11-06T13:34:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T12:34:18","slug":"olivia-laing-philippe-guston-the-body-snatchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/?p=4450","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Laing. Philip Guston, The Body Snatchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

in Frieze<\/em>, n\u00b0 191. <\/a>Philip Guston’s ‘Klan’ paintings are more relevant (pertinentes) than ever<\/a>, By <\/a>Olivia Laing<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/em>Philip Guston, <\/a>Scared Stiff<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> 1970<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0They came like the past returning, Philip Guston\u2019s \u2018Klan\u2019 paintings, which is to say through a channel that opened up in his memory, connecting the violent year of 1968 with the agitations of his youth. How could you keep painting abstractions, walls of exquisitely distressed paint, when there were bleeding bodies in the streets? 1968 had been a year of assassinations: first, Martin Luther King Jr. in April and, then, Robert Kennedy in June. That August, like everybody else, Guston was watching the Democratic National Convention on television: 10,000 protestors, mostly peaceful, mostly young, getting beaten down with billy clubs by 23,000 police and National Guardsmen. It made a\u00a0hole in him, and out of the hole the things\u00a0appeared.
\nLes peintures \u00abKlan\u00bb de Philip Guston, sont venues comme le pass\u00e9 ressurgit, c’est-\u00e0-dire \u00e0 travers un canal qui s’est ouvert dans sa m\u00e9moire, reliant l’ann\u00e9e violente de 1968 aux agitations de sa jeunesse<\/span>. <\/span>Comment continuer \u00e0 peindre des abstractions, des murs de peinture d\u00e9licieusement tristes, alors qu’il y avait des corps sanglants dans les rues? <\/span>1968 avait \u00e9t\u00e9 une ann\u00e9e d’assassinats: d’abord, Martin Luther King Jr. en avril et, ensuite, Robert Kennedy en juin. <\/span>Au mois d’ao\u00fbt, comme tout le monde, Guston regardait la Convention Nationale D\u00e9mocratique \u00e0 la t\u00e9l\u00e9vision: 10 000 manifestants, pour la plupart pacifiques, pour la plupart jeunes, se faisant tabasser par 23 000 policiers et gardes nationaux. <\/span><\/span>Il a creus\u00e9 un trou en lui-m\u00eame, et hors du trou les choses sont apparues.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>Guston painted his first Klansman that year; his first, that is, since the 1920s, when he\u2019d had a series of run-ins with the Klan in Los Angeles, in their guise as strike-breakers. In response, he rendered the Klansmen as evil incarnate, drawn and serious \u2013 a lynched man hanging from a crooked tree evidence of their wicked work. In the 1960s paintings, the Klansmen are cartoonish, worn-out: a\u00a0tired, evil joke. \u2018I felt, like everybody, disturbed about everything to such\u00a0an extent that I didn\u2019t want to exclude it from the studio, from what I did,\u2019 he said in a lecture at Yale University in 1974. \u2018I conceived of these figures as very pathetic, tattered, full of seams. I don\u2019t know how to explain it. Something\u00a0pathetic about brutality, and comic also.\u2019 He gave them cigars to puff, cartoonish cars to drive. Sometimes, their robes were splattered with blood. Sometimes they painted themselves, puffing on a\u00a0cigarette as they rendered the blanks of their eye holes.
\nGuston a peint son premier Klansman<\/em> cette ann\u00e9e-l\u00e0; <\/span>son premier, c’est-\u00e0-dire, depuis les ann\u00e9es 1920, quand il avait eu une s\u00e9rie de d\u00e9m\u00eal\u00e9s avec le Klan \u00e0 Los Angeles, sous l’apparence de briseurs de gr\u00e8ve. <\/span>En r\u00e9ponse, il a repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 les Klansmen comme l’incarnation du mal, dessin\u00e9e et s\u00e9rieuse – un homme lynch\u00e9 accroch\u00e9 \u00e0 un arbre tordu t\u00e9moignant de leur action pernicieuse. Dans les tableaux des ann\u00e9es 1960, les Klansmen sont caricaturaux, \u00e9puis\u00e9s: une blague fatigu\u00e9e et m\u00e9chante. <\/span>\u00ab\u00a0Je me sentais, comme tout le monde, d\u00e9rang\u00e9 \u00e0 tel point que je ne voulais pas l’exclure de l’atelier, de ce que j’avais fait\u00a0\u00bb, at-il d\u00e9clar\u00e9 lors d’une conf\u00e9rence \u00e0 l’universit\u00e9 de Yale en 1974. \u00ab\u00a0J’ai con\u00e7u ces figures <\/span>tr\u00e8s path\u00e9tique, en lambeaux, pleines de coutures. <\/span>Je ne sais pas comment l’expliquer. <\/span>Quelque chose de path\u00e9tique \u00e0 propos de la brutalit\u00e9, et de la bande dessin\u00e9e aussi. \u00bbIl leur a donn\u00e9 des cigares \u00e0 fumer, des voitures de cartoon \u00e0 conduire. <\/span>Parfois, leurs robes \u00e9taient \u00e9clabouss\u00e9es de sang. <\/span>Parfois, ils se peignaient eux-m\u00eames en train de souffler sur une cigarette tout en repr\u00e9sentant les trous de leurs yeux.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This time, though, Guston wasn\u2019t looking from afar. This time, he was inside the frame. Someone, some bozo, was underneath the hood, peering out at the world through slits in cloth. You have to bear witness, Guston kept saying \u2013 but he meant more than merely watching events unfold. He wanted to know what it felt like to be evil, to live with it on a daily basis. In his studio, in 1970, he scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad: \u2018What do they do afterwards? Or before? Smoke, drink, sit around\u00a0in their rooms (lightbulbs, furniture, wooden floor), patrol empty streets; dumb, melancholy, guilty, fearful, remorseful, reassuring one another?\u2019
\nCette fois, cependant, Guston ne les regardait pas de loin. <\/span>Cette fois, il \u00e9tait \u00e0 l’int\u00e9rieur du cadre. <\/span>Quelqu’un, un bozo, \u00e9tait sous sa capuche, scrutant le monde \u00e0 travers les fentes du tissu. <\/span>Vous devez t\u00e9moigner, Guston n’arr\u00eatait pas de le dire – mais il voulait dire plus que simplement regarder les \u00e9v\u00e9nements se d\u00e9rouler. <\/span>Il voulait savoir ce que c’\u00e9tait qu’\u00eatre diabolique, vivre avec \u00e7a tous les jours. <\/span>Dans son studio, en 1970, il gribouillait des notes sur un bloc-notes jaune : \u00abQue font-ils apr\u00e8s? <\/span>Ou avant? <\/span>Fumer, boire, s’asseoir dans leurs chambres (ampoules, meubles, parquet), patrouiller dans les rues vides; <\/span>muet, m\u00e9lancolique, coupable, craintif, plein de remords, se rassurant l’un l’autre?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Reading this calls to mind the poet Claudia Rankine\u2019s Racial Imaginary Institute, founded in 2016 to investigate the ways in which the structure of white supremacy in American society influences our culture. Guston knew who the victims were. Like Rankine, what he wanted to know was who did it. At around the same time, his canvases were filling up with objects\u00a0\u2013 what he called \u2018tangibalia\u2019 or \u2018crapola\u2019. Some of it was comic detritus\u00a0\u2013 sandwiches and beer bottles \u2013 and some of it was sinister, disquieting, bizarrely upsetting. There were lightbulbs dangling from cords, falling bricks; there were piles of bodies, piles of limbs, piles of discarded jackets and shoes. Guston knew exactly what the fruits of those night drives were; he knew the endgame of white supremacy. It wasn\u2019t necessary to show the lynched body, just the post-game litter, the possessions after the people had been dispensed\u00a0with.
\nLire ceci nous rappelle \u00e0 l\u2019esprit l’Institut racial imaginaire de la po\u00e8tesse Claudia Rankine, fond\u00e9 en 2016 pour \u00e9tudier les fa\u00e7ons dont la structure de la supr\u00e9matie blanche dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine influence notre culture. <\/span>Guston savait qui \u00e9taient les victimes. <\/span>Comme Rankine, ce qu’il voulait savoir, c’\u00e9tait qui le faisait. <\/span>\u00c0 peu pr\u00e8s \u00e0 la m\u00eame \u00e9poque, ses toiles se remplissaient d’objets \u2014ce qu’il appelait \u00abtangibalia\u00bb ou \u00abcrapola\u00bb. <\/span>Certains d’entre eux \u00e9taient des d\u00e9tritus comiques \u2014des sandwiches et des bouteilles de bi\u00e8re\u2014 et certains d’entre eux \u00e9taient sinistres, inqui\u00e9tants, bizarrement bouleversants. <\/span>Il y avait des ampoules qui pendaient au bout de cordes, des briques tomb\u00e9es; <\/span>il y avait des tas de corps, des piles de membres, des piles de vestes et de chaussures. <\/span>Guston savait exactement quels \u00e9taient les fruits de ces campagnes de nuit; <\/span>il connaissait la fin du jeu de la supr\u00e9matie blanche. <\/span>Il n’\u00e9tait pas n\u00e9cessaire de montrer le corps lynch\u00e9, juste la d\u00e9chets d’apr\u00e8s-match, les biens dont les gens avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 spoli\u00e9s.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On 23 October 1968, Guston was in conversation with Morton Feldman at the New York Studio School. He\u2019d been thinking a lot about the Holocaust, especially the concentration camp Treblinka. It worked, the mass killing, he told Feldman, because the Nazis deliberately induced numbness on both sides, in the victims and also the tormentors. And yet, a small group of prisoners managed to escape. \u2018Imagine what a process it was to unnumb yourself, to see it totally and to bear witness,\u2019 he said. \u2018That\u2019s the only reason to be an artist: to escape, to bear witness to this.\u2019<\/span>
\nLe 23 octobre 1968, Guston \u00e9tait en conversation avec Morton Feldman \u00e0 la New York Studio School. <\/span>Il avait beaucoup r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi \u00e0 l’Holocauste, en particulier au camp de concentration de Treblinka. <\/span>Cela a fonctionn\u00e9, le massacre, a-t-il dit \u00e0 Feldman, parce que les nazis ont d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9ment instaur\u00e9 l’engourdissement des deux parties, victimes et\u00a0 bourreaux. <\/span>Et pourtant, un petit groupe de prisonniers avait r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 s’\u00e9chapper. <\/span>\u00ab\u00a0Imaginez ce que c’\u00e9tait que de vous lancer un d\u00e9fin \u00e0 vous-m\u00eame, d’avoir une vision globale et de t\u00e9moigner\u00a0\u00bb, a-t-il dit. <\/span><\/span>C’est la seule raison d’\u00eatre un artiste: s’\u00e9chapper, t\u00e9moigner de cela.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>
\nInevitably, I thought of Guston\u2019s paintings as I watched footage of the Klan marching through Charlottesville and Boston: anonymous, impervious, refusing to face up to their cruelties and crimes. Old ghosts on parade, immune to reason. Listen, Guston says: if it happened, it can happen again. But they\u2019re just men, with pink hams for fists. If\u00a0they were once disarmed, they can always be disarmed.
\nIn\u00e9vitablement, j’ai pens\u00e9 aux peintures de Guston en regardant des images du Klan qui d\u00e9filait \u00e0 travers Charlottesville et Boston : anonyme, imperm\u00e9able, refusant de faire face \u00e0 leurs cruaut\u00e9s et \u00e0 leurs crimes. <\/span>Vieux fant\u00f4mes \u00e0 la parade, immunis\u00e9s de la raison. <\/span>Ecoutez, Guston dit : si cela est arriv\u00e9, cela peut se reproduire. <\/span>Mais ce ne sont que des hommes, avec des jambons roses comme poings. <\/span>S’ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9sarm\u00e9s une fois, ils peuvent l’\u00eatre encore.\u00a0\u00bb<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

in Frieze, n\u00b0 191. Philip Guston’s ‘Klan’ paintings are more relevant (pertinentes) than ever, By Olivia Laing Philip Guston, Scared Stiff, 1970 \u00ab\u00a0They came like the past returning, Philip Guston\u2019s \u2018Klan\u2019 paintings, which is to say through a channel that opened up in his memory, connecting the violent year of 1968 with the agitations of … Continuer la lecture de Olivia Laing. Philip Guston, The Body Snatchers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,6,44,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-contemporain","category-artiste","category-everyday-life","category-reader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4450"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4472,"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4450\/revisions\/4472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lantb.net\/figure\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}