Other Dimensions

In an Essay for "Abstract Expressionism; Other dimensions" Jeff Wechsler position's Vincent Pepi's work as the antithesis of his peers tendency to work with large canvases. Wechsler notes small-scale abstractions, like this one painted in 1950 while Pepi was in Rome, which was-according to Wechsler- a crucial time in the development of the New York School.



--Geographical destiny can be just as severe when a New York artist leaves New York at the wrong time, art historically speaking. This occured to a young, talented artist named Vincent Pepi, who may be used to represent any number of artists who traveled abroad during the late 1940's. Pepi's first absence from New York was not for artistic reasons; he served in the U. S. Navy from May 1944 to July 1946. In 1948, however, he studied in Mexico city, and in 1949 he decided upon further study abroad in Rome that continued through 1951. By chance, 1949 was the year Pepi reached a mature abstract style, but his art could not be seen in New York. From the first Pepi seems to have preferred small formats and media traditional to that scale, gouache and watercolor. But his work displays a fine understanding of the formal principles of gestural abstraction and a spontaneous linearity that contradicts traditional usages of those media.

His paintings in oil also show an absorbtion of the gestural and fragmented field modalities of contemporary Abstract Expressionism. Greta Berman's essay written to accompany a recent solo show of Pepi's paintings ( the artist's first since the 1960's, and held not in New York, but in Santa Fe), incidentally reviews many of the personality traits and career histories of painters of small scale abstractions. -

"Pepi separated himself from other artists of his time, since he felt uncomfortable with the New York "art Scene", and was never certain where he fit in (though it is clear from today's vantage point that he fit right in the center). He attended the "Club" from time to time, but preferred his own studio and a more solitary existence... Pepi's art certainly posseses affinities with other New York School Action painters, but retains its own uniquiness. His choice to live in Italy from1949 to 1951, as well as his preference for painting in a consistently smaller format may have obscured the recognition and fame that might have been his."

Pepi has acquired the habit of jotting down written notes- short remarks or lengthy essays-- in his sketch pad whenever his thoughts so move him. In a recent effort, he stated: " I have been very much pre-occupied with this idea of size for some time now. I have some strong convictions about this subject.... Everything I do in art I wish to resolve in the interest of art- and not in the interest of self aggrandizement., or self importance, or for personal gain.... A work of 8 x 10 inches can have the monumentality of a work 8 x 10 feet.... Let us beware of the art work that looms up at us in overwhelming proportions.... There is no rule for size- except beware of charlatans of art always go big and not small. With a philosophy like that, and a few crucial years spent in Italy, one can see how Pepi' art could escape public attention."


--excerpted from: "Abstract Expressionism, Other Dimensions"/An introduction to small
scale painterly abstraction in America, 1940---1965. / Essay by Jeffrey Wechsler

Image-Rome 507A, 1950. Watercolor, 14 x 10 x 1 inches

Regarding Themes in Art

NY Times Article Sept 1, 2006
Art Review- Roberta Smith
"Power, Injustice, Death, Loss
Out of Time, A Contemporary View, at Sea in the Here and Now"

"Out of Time, A Contemporary View, at Sea in the Here and Now" is a superb article by Roberta Smith- not so much as there is any interest in the actual "review" of the Art in question, but for the way she knows how to remove a few pebbles from her shoes while she is writing her homework article. Let me underline the most cogent portions of her article...

"It is only among installations by R.G. and the sisters Jane and Louise W. that this unusually sterile selection of 49 works by 36 artists coheres with anything close to the kind of resonance and emotional usefulness that should be expected from an Art museum"

Wow.

"The point is that these selections and juxtapositions in "Out of Time" are so orthodox, so true to the minimalist, conceptualist gene pool, so loyal to a familiar cast of pre-approved artists and so risk-adverse and eccentrically intolerant that the art feels frozen and isolated like deer in the headlights"

"This display seems to have involved less thought than an exceptional summer group show in a commercial gallery. It makes me wonder about the curatorial imagination of the team behind it: Joachim Pisarro, curator of painting and sculpture and Eva Respini an assistant curator of photography. But mainly it makes me think about how MOMA is imprisoned by its own history and its new building."

Usually when it is felt necessary in an exhibition of art work to introduce a theme, that theme is seen by the purists among us as a contrivance, imposed by those who find themselves to be in positions of authority. Hence these super impositions in the form of a theme should be considered to be a distraction to the main subject, which is of course, the art work itself. We should remember that the theme should be spontaneous, in that it emanates from the art work to be shown rather than from something else which is superimposed on the art exhibit by a museum or gallery etc., here it is in danger of being viewed as a distraction.

"one wonders wether the theme of time was at least partly imposed by some higher up who felt the public needed an idea to hold on to. That may be no where near the truth, but it would explain the shows half-hearted alterations between the obvious and the arbitrary."She goes on to give examples like Robert Morris, B. Anastasi and Janine Antoni. Plus an example by Bill Viola's lugubrious slow motion video installation. paraphrase second to last paragraph . art is not illustration...."

"The basic question here is- what are the curators supposed to do? Perhaps they should give into the irrational, subjective nature of visual experience. This would mean letting their eyes betray them and take them places where carefully worked out theories and current fashions do not. Caught between fear of its supposedly formalist past and the apparent desire for a canon- any canon- the museum of Modern Art has its own particular problems. But for starters it needs to get over itself and figure out how to free its curators to do their work."

Amen,

Vincent Pepi, March 20, 2007

Hodgkin: a response

The blog you posted on Art notes recently is terrific. I have been watching this artist from London for some years now- and when I saw that our friend Kimmelman reviewed it
with such relish, I was delighted and wrote you an
e-mail about this exhibit. You were already "tuned-in on the subject" and wrote an e-mail to me. Good work. It is people like yourself and the intelligent and informed art critic such as Michael Kimmelman that people like myself can rejoice in the new found hope that some sanity and some validity in the documentation of that which is vital and vibrant in the world of art can be achieved and enjoyed. The same vigilance required to monitor the convolutions of government in today's world in upheaval, should also be used in the art world when listening to critics and also professors of art in the universities to make sure they are not teaching current events in the place of art history.That vigilance of which I refer, should be the true function of the art scholar. You have been very swift in connecting the things that
you and I have been discussing.
....For example-
what you brought out in your art comment regarding size, is very important. These are things which in my opinion have not as yet been pursued in depth. In the Exhibit in which I was included- "Abstract Expressionism, Other Dimensions", Jeff Wechsler, Asst. Director, Curator of The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, included in
the text a passage about me. and reproduced the painting; "Piazza del Popolo" which I painted in Rome, in 1950. The size, 27,3/8 x 17,1/2". Not very big. Wechsler made his
point beautifully in this landmark exhibit. It travelled and was a big success.

*Image- Piazza del Popolo, 1950,28" x 18", oil on canvas, permanent collection of Zimmerli Museum of Art



--Vincent Pepi 3/01/'07