Ralph Paine, 9:52 p.m. 10 January, 2020 #

I.
Sometimes it pays to listen to what artists say. Not so as to be told authorial truth, but rather to learn of the paradoxes inherent in artistic autobiography. Paradoxes are not about WILLED “ambiguity” or “mischievousness.” Paradoxes are about a coexistent unity, duality, and multiplicity of meaning, that is to say, they concern the always reciprocal presupposition of different levels of meaning. Paradoxes thus allow for serious attempts by anyone (during different times and for different reasons) at unpacking the AND…AND…AND of meaning: they are essentially non-frivolous and non-contradictory. In this sense, all of McCahon’s words and works (all artists’ words and works) intrinsically hold together a unity of meaning, a duality of meaning, and a multiplicity of meaning.

Here are some of McCahon’s words. They are much quoted ones, and come from the catalogue for McCahon’s 1972 survey exhibition at Auckland City Art Gallery. No doubt many readers have considered these words, puzzled over them, wondered as to their paradoxical nature....

“My painting is almost entirely autobiographical – it tells you where I am at any given point in time, where I am living and the direction I am pointing in. In this present time it is very difficult to paint for other people – to paint beyond your own ends and point directions as painters once did. Once the painter was making signs and symbols for people to live by; now he makes things to hang on walls at exhibitions.”

The first part of McCahon’s statement asserts that painters of the “present time”—let’s say, the modern—have no choice but to be “autobiographical.” No choice but to conduct themselves as autonomous beings, that is to say, to operate as self-reflexive genii à la Emmanuel Kant’s The Critique Of Judgement. Alone in their artistic pursuits, they are private thinkers.

In other words, McCahon is saying that the modern, “autobiographical” regime of art actually FORCES painters to act in this manner—and thus, that it’s “very difficult” for them to paint beyond their “own ends,” very difficult for them to paint for “other people,” to paint/point directions for other people. Yet—apparently—this is precisely what painters once did. The next brief part of the statement reads like a lament. Here McCahon is mourning a lost world. What is this world? No doubt it’s a pre-modern one, yet the specifics are unclear.

Elsewhere McCahon speaks highly of “the art of churches”, so let’s assume his lost world is a pre-modern European one. What he appears to lament is the loss of a Medieval world, a world where Christianity permeated every dimension of life, from top to bottom.... From the Pope to the peasantry, from lords and bishops to the mostly ANONYMOUS artisan-painters of that time and region. A time and a region in which painting/pointing directions was an uncomplicated yet passionate and collectively urgent affair.... Or so McCahon seems to have believed.

Ralph Paine, 9:55 p.m. 10 January, 2020 #

II.
In marked and I think negative contrast, McCahon goes on to claim that today’s painters simply make “things to hang on walls at exhibitions.” Now, what’s so puzzling about McCahon’s words is the plain and simple fact that he dedicated his entire adult life precisely to MAKING THINGS TO HANG ON WALLS AT EXHIBITIONS. And, he was extremely successful at doing so. He embraced the modern, “autobiographical” regime of art with great vigour. And reciprocally, it embraced him.

Yet McCahon not only embraced the modern, “autobiographical” regime of art as a painter-thinker, he also embraced it as a curator (keeper), a university teacher, a mentor and friend.

OK, add all this up—the prolific art making, the constant exhibiting, the hyper-success, the teaching, curating, mentoring, and supportive friendships—and clearly we get a McCahon whose artworks—and art-WORK—indeed did provide signs and symbols for people to live by; a McCahon who did point directions for other people—yes, even for “an imagined people,” a nation-state. We get then a figure who very actively (and perhaps AT TIMES with difficulty) helped the modern “autobiographical” regime of art to grow and develop into what it is today. In this sense, McCahon was a partisan of the regime.

Thus: institution-wise, legacy-wise, heritage-status-wise, art-as-asset-wise, autobiography-wise, etc. no other artist or art practice springing from this island region of Oceania/Moana stacks up. No other artist or art practice relates to the modern “autobiographical” regime of art in such a synergistic manner.

However—and for me this is a VERY BIG however—the paradox contained in McCahon’s statement—that is to say, the strange differentiation between his words and his sustained actions—opens up a space for the possibility of there being many McCahons, multiple McCahons. Hence, the coherently autobiographical McCahon lived—and lives on—amongst a swarm of other McCahons—a Zen-Existentialist McC, a Heavy-Metal McC, a Sci-Fi McC, a Pagan McC à la D. H. Lawrence, a Derridean McC, a Hegelian McC, a Rastafarian McC, a Trickster McC, and so on.... My Name is Legion, as it were. Or, as the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud puts it, “I am another.”

And by extension, no doubt the modern “autobiographical” regime of art which McCahon did so much to help establish here in Aotearoa is also haunted by otherness. In this regard, McCahon’s paintings do not simply represent his life; they are not only his autobiography. Rather, his multiple signatures also mark a radical absence, a fertile void, appear as rapidly executed signs of his departure from the scene. Paradox.

John Hurrell, 12:04 a.m. 1 March, 2023 #

Ron Brownson’s recent death is quite a shock to the Auckland and national art community, and while all of the obits talk about his career as a curator (highlights were Shirin Neshat, A Place to Paint, and Home AKL) no mention has been made of his activity as an artist in the seventies and eighties.

This is surprising because he was very highly regarded, for his films were shown in ANZART in the eighties, Wystan Curnow included his lightbox ‘totem’ of hei tiki lightboxes in the 1983 Sydney Biennale, and Giovanni Intra incorporated a City Group image in ‘Everyday Pathomimesis’ at the University of Canterbury Fine Arts Gallery in 1995--a very large b/w photograph of a ginormous tumescent schlong.

He will perhaps mainly be remembered for his work in City Group, video and photographic projects that often looked at the sex industry in K’ Rd.

Ron would occasionally deny being part of City Group, and I myself received an angry letter asking me to remove individual member’s names from a wall label in the Govett. I believe this was because of his wish for anonymity, or a belief in a strictly collective ethos--and not the need for a factual correction. Fascinatingly, he might end up being seen by future art historians as much more important as an artist than as a curator.