Synopses & Reviews
Now in his late 70s, Leon Golub is a leading exponent of history painting-painting as a narrative expression of global, social, and political relations and of the realities of power. In Leon Golub: Echoes of the Real, published to accompany a major retrospective exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, from February to April 2001, and the Brooklyn Art Museum, New York, Summer 2001, Jon Bird argues that some of this artist's most compelling images have been produced over the last two decades.
Despite the widespread critical attention Golub's monumental, highly textured, frequently mysterious paintings have received, the sources and meanings of his imagery, and his complex interweaving of the iconographic traditions of both high and popular arts, have not been comprehensively examined. As a history painter, Golub is acutely aware of the antecedents to his own imagery and symbolism; Jon Bird explores the artist's fascination with, and indebtedness to, a range of European visual sources and traditions, and defines this radical American artist's place in the development of modernism.
Making a case for Golub's practice of critical realism that also takes account of the unconscious, Bird focuses on two themes that dominate the work: how art figures the body as a sign for social and psychic identity, and what might be termed the symbolic expression of social space.
Jon Bird is Professor of Art and Critical Theory at Middlesex University, UK, and a tutor in the Theory Department at the Jan van Eyck Acadamie, Maastricht, The Netherlands. He is the co-editor of Rewriting Conceptual Art (Reaktion, 1999).
Also available by Jon Bird (with MichaelNewman)
Rewriting Conceptual Art
PB $24.95, 1-86189-052-4 CUSA
Synopsis
Now in his late 70s, Leon Golub is a leading exponent of history painting – painting as a narrative, symbolic expression of global, social and political relations and of the realities of power. In this book, published to accompany a major retrospective exhibition traveling to Ireland, England and the United States, Jon Bird examines the artist's work from the classically influenced early paintings through depictions of conflict and masculine aggression to compelling images of the last two decades. Despite the widespread critical attention his work has received, the range and extent of his practice and its complex interweaving of the iconographic traditions of both high and popular art have not been properly examined. As a history painter, Golub is acutely aware of the antecedents to his own imagery and symbolism; part of Jon Bird's critical project is to track and define the artist's relationship to modernism. Making a case for Golub's practice of "critical realism" that also takes account of the unconscious, Bird focuses on two themes that dominate Golub's work: how his art figures the body as a sign for social and psychic identity, and what might be termed the symbolic expression of social space.
About the Author
Jon Bird is Professor of Art and Critical Theory at Middlesex University and a tutor in the Theory Department at the Jan van Eyck Acadamie, Maastricht.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Reflections on the Uncongenial Art of Leon Golub: A Foreword by Declan McGonagle
1. The Classical Trace
2. Echoes of the Real
3. Portraits of Power
4. Painting 'History'...
5. Beware of Dog
References
Select Bibliography
Biography
Solo Exhibitions
Select Group Exhibitions
Videos and Films
Public and Private Collections
Photographic Acknowledgements