Post-Conceptualism and Figurative Painting

Post-Conceptualism and Figurative Painting

This article is an excerpt from Apologia.[1] Find the book here or go to our books.

In recent years, figurative painting has become increasingly visible. However, the notion of contemporary figurative painting remains often somewhat problematic in certain circuits. Wrongly, even today, representational painting is still associated with or seen as a reactionary tendency in contemporary art. As a result, it is even looked down upon in some cases. The medium and visual language of representational oil painting is labeled as traditional and obsolete – and thus, not an intellectual form of art or high art in general – even though the aesthetics are exclusively time-bound and contemporary, and the subject matter is closer to Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945) than by example to Claude Monet (1940-1926).

Even though, at the same time, one must also be cautious and critical in how one approaches figurative art today. It is to say, representational painting is often – and also wrongly – judged or admired solely for its skillfully rendered figurative imagery. A trick of magic by the painter, transforming pigments and turpentine into people, landscapes, animals, and life. Ready to bite art, ripe to be consumed by a much wider audience. However, it must be made clear that today the usage of a figurative visual language is not a free agent to a serious, good, or successful painting. Although figurative painting has been on the up in the art world over the last few decades, the premise or pretext of figuration does not perforce fulfill the outcome of relevant art. In fact, the figuration is often rather a casing, a vehicular language externalizing its concepts.

Postmodern movements in art have changed the semiotics of art radically. A culmination point for this often-linguistic game of the signified and the signifier can be found in Conceptual Art. At first, from a visual point of view, one might argue Conceptual Art and figurative painting today are entirely different. One might even say opposites. However, the semiotics of a picture by Michaël Borremans (b. 1963) is much more alike to a work by Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) than to, for instance, Borremans’ baroque painting teacher Diego Velázquez (1599-1660).

Broodthaers, who has done many works with eggs and eggshells, alludes humoristically to the absurdity of using eggs as a medium in an artwork. However, by using eggs and eggshells, the eggs also become a symbolic construction for interpretation.

The meaning of ‘the egg as a metaphor’ arises. The egg is a reference to fertility and the genesis of things. Even more, by placing the egg in an art historical context, the role of the egg as a part of art history – as a medium for paint and mixing pigment – comes into play, juxtaposed with the absurd sculpture by the Belgian conceptual artist.

Borremans also plays with the shifts in the meaning of the egg in his painting, yet evoking different analogies. The picture itself, the pose of the girl looking down at the egg in the palm of her hand, feels like a surreal image. This (neo-)surrealism is an indication the image is staged. There is no narrative taking place. Although the picture is very representational and thus less absurd than the Broodthaers sculpture, it has the same kind of humor in its absurdism. However, in contrast to Broodthaers, this humor is drenched in the gloomy atmosphere of the image. Further, being painted in a manner reminiscent of old master painting, this omnipresent dialogue of Borremans’ works with art history, in relation to the egg and its role as a medium for painting, raises intriguing questions and even statements presented in an anachronistic setting of Postmodern and Post-conceptual Art, rendered in traditionally painted manner.

Thus, Borremans’ paintings are not at all reactionary or opposite to Conceptual Art, as one might argue. They are in fact strongly Post-Conceptual. Even more, his work would not have been possible to make in another era. From a dialectic perspective, Post-Conceptualism is not a counter-reaction or an end to Conceptual Art. It is instead a synthesis of new developments, building upon the legacy of Conceptual Art in which the concept – the idea – is the primary concern of the artwork.[2]

This Conceptual notion freed the artist of the so-called dictatorship of beauty and esthetics. But this does not imply a Conceptual work cannot be esthetically pleasing. Think about the iconic One and three chairs (1965) by the aforementioned Joseph Kosuth. Although the beauty of this sculpture is less convenient, the arrangement is very esthetically pleasing, and these esthetics are strongly premeditated. So why would an esthetic figurative piece of art not be able to have a conceptual foundation?

In the case of Michaël Borremans, I think many of his paintings are misunderstood because of their beauty. Sometimes, I would even like to say that they are too beautiful. However, as Borremans has stated before, they are relevant because they are painted in this manner. The painterly technique creates an anachronism with its contemporary subject matter and composition. This notion functions as a continuum throughout his oeuvre and can be seen as a conceptual notion itself.

This case study illustrates a possible pitfall for figurative painting today as a traditional form of art, craftsmanship without any contemporary input or intellectually challenging aspects. In particular with painters such as Michaël Borremans, who are not only very esthetical and skillful but also very subtle in their approach. The conceptual subject matter is disguised in virtuoso brushstrokes, asking a great effort from the viewer to remain attentive in a daze of beauty.

Not all artists occupied conceptual figurative painting work in this manner. Another great example can be found in the works of Manuele Cerutti (b. 1976). Visually reminiscent of Michaël Borremans, the burnt umber and yellow ocher palette, surreal compositions, and masterly brushstrokes, the Italian artist chose a more radical conceptual approach. Seemingly in the tradition of still life painting, Cerutti paints images that seem to be installations or sculptures of found objects. In doing so, he creates a rhetorical question for the viewer to solve. The objects are taken out of their context, becoming the actors or protagonists of the painting.

For example, the painter conceptualizes objects as characters in his series La folla, ‘the crowd’. Their original function is undone, questioning our perception of everyday objects. For example, with Personaggio secondo and Personaggio ottavo, Cerutti creates and depicts the characters of this crowd. The first painting in a very implicit and enigmatic fashion, the second in a humoristic and absurd manner, giving an everyday object a beard.

Another example can be found in the works of Michael Simpson (b. 1940). Although the British painter is from another generation than Borremans and Cerutti, Simpson effectuates in a similar fashion figurative conceptual painting. He is known for his often large-scale pictures of ladders, steps, benches, and plinths. Objects, are often used in Conceptual Art and Installation Art.

They are used as a symbol of human culture, presence, or, when depicted as empty, the absence of human existence. From a visual point of view, the works of Simpson are much more rooted in Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and the ‘clean’ esthetics of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. His images seem to be conceptual installations but then painted. For example, the diptych of Leper squints 21 and 22 depict a black plinth and the same black plinth that is becoming a step by adding a slightly higher part, shifting its categorical meaning. In both paintings, there is a black rectangle on the background at the top of the painting. These objects are both installed in the same setting. It is to say, the setting is as if in a gallery. A grey, probably concrete, floor and a white wall.

One of the most essential aspects of Simpson’s works is how he composes these elements in this space. As with Conceptual Art, for example, in the aforementioned One and three chairs by Joseph Kosuth or the installation of Marcel Broodthaers, the objects are arranged aesthetically and artistically in space as an accrochage of forms. Michael Simpson connects this way of organizing forms with painting as a medium. According to Simpson, painting is all about putting the right things in the right places, as it always has been.

These three painters – from three different generations – indicate a continuum of the legacy of Conceptual Art in painting. Post-Conceptualism has shifted not only the esthetics in painting, but also the semiotics.

Notes:

[1] Julien Delagrange, “Apologia for contemporary figurative painting” in Apologia (Kortrijk: CAI, 2021).
[2] Peter Osborne, Conceptual Art: Themes and Movements (Phaidon: London, 2002), p. 28.

Last Updated on August 1, 2023