Art review: Richard T. Walker at Christopher Grimes Gallery

In Caspar David Friedrich's iconic painting, "Monk by the Sea" (1808-10), a solitary figure stands with his back to us, confronting a seascape stark and sublime. Skip ahead two centuries to Richard T. Walker's video, "successive inconceivable events" (2005) for a contemporary restaging of that profound negotiation between self and nature.

This one features the artist as a secular searcher perched on a hilltop, facing the valley below, literally addressing the chasm. He speaks – shouts, actually – as if his voice had to carry to the vista's furthest reaches, and chooses his words haltingly, like a confused suitor, unsure where he stands.

 "I don't know," he bellows. "I think you're really beautiful and quite amazing, and yet there's a lack of some sort of connection." After all, he says, he's been walking around all day and his presence has not even been acknowledged. "I thought there'd be a bit more warmth, I'd feel more comfortable, but I don't." Instead, he admits, he's disappointed. The object of his affection has made him feel isolated, alienated.

Walker's tender and provocative six-minute video, at Christopher Grimes, is part romantic meditation, part confessional love letter. It's also a coy coda to a particular tradition in British art centering on the experience of the solitary walker in the wilderness –kin to the work of Richard Long and Hamish Fulton, for instance, both of which also incorporate language. Walker, born and schooled in Britain, now lives in San Francisco.

The video begins with several establishing shots of gorgeous scenery, broad views of hills and fields in muted fall colors. Walker enters the scene holding a boombox, which he places on a tree stump near a patch of dead limbs. He sits in silence with his back to us while the machine plays a mellow, instrumental introduction to his address. When the music stops, he begins to speak, funneling his feelings into a distinctly 21st century complaint – earnest but tinged with entitlement, naive yet demanding.

  "I feel you're being pretty harsh," he accuses, raising his voice to compensate for nature being a tad deaf to his needs. His expectations deflated, he wonders aloud why his affection has not been returned. He seems oblivious to how his plea must sound, coming from right next to a murdered tree and its scattered bones, and concludes that there must be some sort of misunderstanding.

 There is a misunderstanding, of course. Several of them, which make this modest little work especially poignant and memorable beyond its short duration. Walker's anthropomorphizing of nature, his assignation of human qualities of will, character and emotion to the land is amusing, charming even. It's also utterly telling. In an appealing and nonthreatening way, Walker lays bare (and implicitly challenges) the presumption that the natural world revolves around us. He gently mocks our inability to step outside of the self-appointed center by showing himself attempting more meaningful communion but failing, due to fundamental flaws in the terms of the search.

This is Walker's first show in L.A., and it makes a fine introduction to a body of work of genuine relevance. In his videos and performances since "successive inconceivable events," he has continued to prize the authentic lyric voice, and to bring our present culture's epic estrangement from nature down to an intimate level. His tone is accessible, slightly absurd, but ultimately reverential.

At the end of the video at Grimes, Walker announces plaintively, "It's getting pretty cold. I'm going to go." Then he sits a little while longer, as if hoping to be begged to stay.

– Leah Ollman

Christopher Grimes Gallery, 916 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 587-3373, through Feb. 27. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.cgrimes.com

Image: Film still from successive inconceivable events, 2005, courtesy of Christopher Grimes Gallery.

Comments

[William Wray]

The mentally disturbed have conversations with nature or infinity all the time. Yet when somebody fakes it as an artistic statement it’s romantic, sublime and provocative, comparable to a great artist like Caspar David Friedrich. Really? Is it really? If the artist in question mounted a tree and said “ Come get some Mother Nature” and copiously stump humped professing his love until he bled, we would be getting somewhere.

[Donald Frazell]

In the little snippets you quoted above, he has used the word "I" six times. Enough said.
The Age of Mesim and Excess is over.

art collegia delenda est

[Cate]

Good Gaia, you just painted a bloody ugly image with your words, William. The stump is dead; let her rest in peace.

Richard T. Walker's art falls under a different category from the Caspar David Friedrich's painting, but there are similarities and comparisons that can be made between the two. I came across a grainy, digital computer image of Friedrich's "Monk by the Sea" a few days ago, and it was a man's words and verbal description of the painting that brought it into focus. There are storm clouds gathering in the distance. Don't mess with Mother Nature; respect her.

Please choose your words more carefully, William. Better yet, draw me a picture with a pencil, or paint me a picture with a brush. The subject might be your backyard after a soft spring rain. Even if it's a mud pit filled with sparse vegetation, I'd like it.

[seraparis]

To William Wray, the artist Paul McCarthy has already created sculpture of animatronic figures humping trees, so your suggestion would actually be quite derivative and unlikely to garner much critical thought.

Walker's conversation with nature was not fake, but very real as the video show. He was there, as was nature, and the words were spoken.

[William Wray]

Cate I grudgingly grasp the correlation by the reviewer-creating context with the comparison. Doesn't mean I don't find it offensive to compare a clever prankster to a great artist who had the devotion to work a lifetime to elevate his skill level to effectively put emotion on canvas. To me it’s like comparing poetry to rap music.
Yeah they both rhyme but…

[William Wray]

Dear Seraparis, Very funny you almost got me!

Boing! I get it! I’ll play along…
Film is real, he was outside and he sounded like he really wanted to be friends with Mother Nature. Really he did! He must have been broken hearted she ignored him when he so sincerely wanted to chat with her. HONEST!
I sincerely hope that one day he will be able to grow enough as a person to be able to converse with nature without words like any normal hiker. I’ll pray for him.
That’s what I like about contemporary art; it’s so truthful.
In the future I’ll believe that all acting in movies is real too especially when it’s filmed outside.

[Donald Frazell]

Is he still there, expecting for them to answer back? Of course an absurdist idea like William gave has been done. the difference is, his was as a joke and just as original as McCarthy's as neither of us waste our time on adolescent cleverness. As that fool took it seriously.

This is stuff dreamt up by those who seldom leave the art scene and their studio, his car was probably right behind him. I spent years hiking the forests and sea cliffs of California, as you can see from my old phtos from 19-22. I learned nature, felt at one, but never head any voices besides that of the animals. I tend not to be delusional or self absorbed. Well, at least not to this extent.

Here is that latin tag line
art collegia delenda est
well deserved.

[None]

"neither of us waste our time on adolescent cleverness"???? Mr Frazell and Mr Wray all you seem to do is waste your time on so called "adolescent cleverness", spending hours obsessing and posting about the work you hate.

Meanwhile two reviews up there's a review of drawings, a medium you both profess to love but are completely ignoring. Maybe ripping on work is more fun for the two of you but it seems a bit adolescent.

[William Wray]

Actually Mr. None it save my vitriol for the most egregious absurdist posts or I really would be more annoying than I already am. If your speaking of that etcher of amebas, I can see why the quite obsessive detail might fascinate some as there is a lot a weight placed on time consuming process work, but there really is no drawing skill there, just a pleasant feeling of pattern and rhythm. Not enough to be bothered about to like or distain. May I ask instead of complaining about me, why not mount a spirited defense of the junk you love? Take me down a peg or educate me. I will relish the debate.

[None]

Mr Wray,

Why should I have to defend the "junk I love?" I spent my adolescents defending the music I loved, the friends I loved, the movies, the tv and the art I loved. I'm an adult now, I don't need to defend what I love.

It seems the critic, gallerist and artist are in the same boat. They do what they love and I don't think they need to defend themselves for doing it. Sure what they do might seem silly. Then again, today, a bunch of men in brightly colored uniforms ran around on a piece of grass and our country came to a virtual stand still. It seems people have different tastes. Luckily for contemporary artists, gallerists and critics there are enough people with their same tastes that they can eek out a living in Los Angeles.

[William Wray]

Why Mr. None?
I didn’t watch the super bowl. Went on a long bike ride to Whittier Narrows and fed the ducks. Nice to not have the crowds there. Don’t care for organized sports, but perhaps if we had more good, understandable art in galleries we could attract a small segment of the sports fans to them.
Even good abstract art can be explained and the public who can be taught to like it.
If you don’t want to defend or explain the art you like, you must not find it worth defending. "I don’t need to" bis a cop out. If you don’t find it worth defending why do you care if I criticize it? I have yet to find someone who can articulate why potted plants in a gallery or talking to the mountain is meaningful art. I believe the reason it’s not articulated is because it simply cannot be judiciously explained. Thus everyone dances around the issue by implying people like me are too dense to get it. If you can’t articulate the “why” of something, it fundamentally calls into question of the underlying need of contemporary art academia in the first place. I believe we are down to filling galleries with nothing and everyone knows it, but are too nervous to say it, to much money is being made to rock the boat. It’s a weird sick game that has seen it’s day.

[None]

Mr Wray,

All I'm saying is people have different tastes and there shouldn't be a problem with it.

Is it meaningful art? Yes, it is to me. I saw the "Masters of the American West" exhibition at the Autry this weekend and it was nice and there were a few excellent pieces but I think Rodney McMillian's show and this one did a better job of speaking to me about the west. Maybe it was the sense of space or that sound and touch and smell were a brought into the equation. Maybe it was the associations I had with the subject matter triggering an onslaught of memories. In the end it's just my taste and I don't feel I should be condemned for having it.

Is it meaningful art? No, not to you. No matter how many galleries, museums, curators, critics, collectors and artists love it and spend their lives on it, it will not be meaningful to you. No matter how many reviews are written, books are published, documentaries are made, it will not be meaningful to you. Yet, it does consume you daily, making posts, creating blogs, railing against it and using it as a convenient scape goat for your failures. So, I guess it might be meaningful for you. Maybe even more meaningful to you than to me.

[William Wray]

Not true Mr. None, I am open mined to being educated. Despite my sweeping assertions that the art world is overflowing with overrated nothings, I think some stuff out there is good. I just think the majority of it has become mediocre do to repetitive approaches of expression and a narrow range of what is acceptable to be noted as contemporary art. To be fair, I think all art movements only have greatness in the minority.
In fact I agree with you on the Masters of the American West. There is some talent there that rises about the typical, but lets face it, the Autry show is oriented to an idealized west that existed more in the movies of the museums namesake than in real life. Despite attempts at “accuracy,” I find it hard to believe that western painters of today are doing something authentic. I’d love to see some other these painters paint the Indian of today. That would be more honest. My beef is, the few painters in the show I do think deserve coverage in these pages are automatically disqualified do to appearing in a western show, that’s the part I resent.

I appreciate you taking the time to try and articulate your feelings about Rodney McMillian show, I don’t fathom how the juxtaposition of pillars, plants and sphincter shaped black plastic harkens the west, or tingles your sensory organs, but at least you gave it a shot at trying to explain your feelings. Thanks for that.

[None]

Mr Wray,

Your welcome.

When I have a bad gallery day and I feel like I'm not seeing any good work, here's what I do. I turn on the TV and realize there are only three or four channels I watch out of 300. I try to go to the movies and realize there's nothing to see. I try to buy some music but out of millions of choices I'm lucky to find a dozen things I'm interested.
If I'm still in a funk, I dig out my old art magazine from the 20s - 60s and realized I don't have a clue who 95% of the artist are, they've almost all disappeared into the ether. I remember our view of the past can be skewed because only the best of the best of the best remains in museums.
So, if I only see two good show out of 20, those are pretty good odds and give me a lot of hope about the state of art.

[William Wray]

Sounds like your tiring arduously to like current art and I’m unrealistically demanding too much from it. Maybe we can meet in the middle. I’d like to not to have either one of us have to work this hard at accepting the situation. Perhaps the key to that struggle is for the art world to ease up on cartelizing, Excuse me if I keep prodding toward that goal. On a positive note this on going conflict is giving me much fuel for my own painting to do work that bridges all categories.