Philip Guston, L'Ironie de l'Histoire @ Musée Picasso

Philip Guston, The Studio, 1969

The recent exhibition of Philip Guston's paintings doesn't explicitly address the "irony" of history that is mentioned in its title, but the connections are clear. At least, there are various possible interpretations, all of which are plausible. Staging an exhibition of Guston's political work at the Musée Picasso, alongside works by Picasso, itself strongly suggests an ironic repetition of history. Though the connection between the two artists is evident, it was brought into the foreground in this exhibition. Guston was influenced by Picasso's deformed and mutilated figures in his depiction of the Nazis' bombing of Guernica, as well as his repeated satirisation of the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco. When Guston moved to figuration after sixteen years of painting abstraction, wanting to represent the violence of late 1950s and 1960s America, and the absurdity of president Richard Nixon, he had a ready example in Picasso's depictions of the same from thirty years earlier. 

Philip Guston, Poor Richard, 1971

Juxtaposing Picasso's political portraits and Guston's Nixon paintings and drawings, together with some of his depictions drawn from the media representation of the Second World War, the war on America's streets in the postwar period, and the violence of the Vietnam War demonstrates a repetition of history that is logical as well as ironic. Once Guston moves to his representations of white supremacy in the American South and his deformed, grotesque bodies, intertwined in bloody revolt, he expands Picasso's vocabulary. In addition, this connection highlights just how political Guston was. His engagement with the corruption of power in the satirical portraits and drawings of Nixon, especially when his face is one big scrotum and his nose an erect penis, seems as essential to the resistance as marching on the streets. Despite the pushback from artists and critics in his time, Guston's work from the 1960s and 1970s is incredibly radical once he returns to figuration. The return was anything but a turning away from the search for freedom of expression and liberation as some said of these paintings the time. Though perhaps we have to be in an era of explicit American violence all these years later to see the irony.

Philip Guston, Painting, 1954

Included in the exhibition are two exquisite abstract works, hung to illustrate Guston's ties to abstract expressionism. I was drawn to these two works both because they were new to me, but also, because they show Guston's connection to Mondrian. In this work, we see the vibrations and rhythms of Mondrian, as well as the direct, spontaneous expressive brushwork of De Kooning, without the references to self. The Structure of a work such as Painting (1954), its short, thick horizontal and vertical strokes makes the painting appear predetermined. Contrarily, the cloud of red and orange, literally floating on a pink and creamy background gives it a mystery and a surreality. (Note that the reproduction doesn't do the painting justice).

Philip Guston, Large Brush, 1979

Of course, Guston is continually painting himself, if not his personal subjective self. Rather, he is always looking for his self as artist. His persistent question through the exhibition and across his oeuvre is, what is the place of the artist within the idiocy and violence of this country at war? In one of the most disturbing paintings that could well be a self-portrait, a brush is dipped in a saucepan of red paint. It is as though the paint is boiling over, streaming down the sides of the pan as the brush is taken out, getting ready to paint. Of course, the red paint is recognizeable as blood. The painting is disturbing because it brings together the social violence and the artist's responsibility to that same violence, a responsibility taken up in representation. 

Philip Guston, Untitled, 1980

The exhibition finished with a series of works painted between Guston's first heart attack and his death a year later. Guston had a looming sense of his own death, but this didn't stop him painting, it just meant smaller canvases. In his final year, he painted curious, misshapen objects often looking like the spoils of war: bombs, a patched up grey teapot/satchel/elephant, what could be a landmine, all floating in a background of grey paint. To the end, death, violence and the battlefield were the preoccupations of this great American painter.

The greatest irony that will occur to many visitors to the exhibition is still another one. As we watch the United States whither in the face of the current administration's corruption and blatant power grabs, it is for artists to speak truth to power. And ironically, some of the most outspoken critics of current American politics (if we can even call it that as it is more like gangsterism) are the country's comedians. I came away from the exhibition wondering whether more American painters would take up Guston's mantle and speak out against the current regime, thus extending the lineage from Picasso.