Just before the new year I visited the Alex Katz retrospective “Gathering” at the Guggenheim with Alex, Justin, Jonathan and Huw.
It was all lovely enough but as I kept looking I started noticing something humiliating.
It’s hard to catch in his earlier sketches when everything just suggests some subjects.
But as the strokes started to turn into the type of portraiture that he’s known for, I started to wonder….
could Alex Katz…
… draw feet?
Like,
was it disinterest?
Denial?
Depression?
Anger?
I don’t know.
Maybe “style” isn’t
just a word for choices,
but also
compromises.
Because with a little bargaining,
And a lot of artful avoidance,
You can make it work.
But eventually with reflection
There’s acceptance
And maybe even freedom.
But who knows.
The show wasn’t all of his work. It was likely only as chronological as it was convenient to group themes. There isn’t any record of him discussing the difficulty of drawing feet that I can find.
Maybe it wasn’t about lack of proficiency, but lack of sufficient interest — maybe he didn’t find the features of feet as compelling as everything else he’s become known to portray.
But I choose to believe he couldn’t draw feet because I find something more useful about that.
Because when he finally drew them, all he did was give himself more space, maybe even grace, to depict them in the way he developed to avoid them.
And in a way, this painting of feet is a shrine to the little ticks and tricks he gathered to keep going and keep working despite his limits — defining a style that’s only and entirely him.
It’s not unlike the paths we trace and retrace to avoid or carefully tread around the things that bring us shame and suffering.
How those lines of thought outline the beliefs and insecurities we keep sacred and make apparent, shaping our story, ourselves —
our own art of living.
These are a bit of mine.
and maybe you won’t notice i don’t know how to design a newsletter
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