Watching you watching me, 2013
Monoprints
Revisiting the paintings and photographs of visionary artist Forrest Bess, this exhibition of monoprints and sculptures asks how we represent bodies and lives without simplifying them through narrative explanations.
WATCHING YOU WATCHING ME
I first saw Forrest Bess’ paintings at the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Upon entering the exhibition space I was initially struck by how many people were reading the wall text. I too turned to read it- a sensational biographic introduction to Forrest Bess by artist Robert Gober.
In his text, Gober introduces us to Bess as an injured recluse artist, who made paintings and wrote theories about joining the male and female parts of himself together. His wish to exhibit these two forms of expression (writing and painting) together was never realized. During his productive years, Bess’ paintings were exhibited by his gallerist Betty Parsons, and she did not agree to show his photographic documents. However, posthumously, a number of exhibitions have been mounted that “respect his wishes” and display a vitrine of photographs and texts alongside his paintings.
When I entered the Whitney exhibition, I read the wall text. I also watched viewers gasp, whisper to their friends about the text, and then walk directly to the “sensational” vitrine of documents, passing up Bess’ dozen or so small oil paintings. Similarly, reviews of the show either relish in the details of Bess’ life and pass over the content and technique of his paintings, or focus solely on his paintings to the exclusion of his "hermaphroditic" experimentation.
I relate to Bess’ wish to have his artwork and his theories merge in an exhibition. Bess’ paintings feature a number of symbols. He believed that hermaphrodites were the universal symbol for the complete, self-generating, immortal human. He set out to achieve this physically. My work is often interpreted through transness, while alternatively, my identity is minimized or removed from the frame. I am curious how artists can keep themselves in the art yet not have the work be about their particular identity. How would a modern day Forrest Bess fare?
Bess described his paintings as copies of what he saw on the back of his eyelids. In this exhibition, I am copying Bess’ paintings based on my memories of seeing them. This series began as a series of drawings I made after seeing Bess paintings. I then made the drawings into monoprints.
Additionally, I carved my own mounds or woodies to be displayed alongside the monoprints, a kind of generative genital exploration in honor of Bess.
Emmett Ramstad, artist
I first saw Forrest Bess’ paintings at the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Upon entering the exhibition space I was initially struck by how many people were reading the wall text. I too turned to read it- a sensational biographic introduction to Forrest Bess by artist Robert Gober.
In his text, Gober introduces us to Bess as an injured recluse artist, who made paintings and wrote theories about joining the male and female parts of himself together. His wish to exhibit these two forms of expression (writing and painting) together was never realized. During his productive years, Bess’ paintings were exhibited by his gallerist Betty Parsons, and she did not agree to show his photographic documents. However, posthumously, a number of exhibitions have been mounted that “respect his wishes” and display a vitrine of photographs and texts alongside his paintings.
When I entered the Whitney exhibition, I read the wall text. I also watched viewers gasp, whisper to their friends about the text, and then walk directly to the “sensational” vitrine of documents, passing up Bess’ dozen or so small oil paintings. Similarly, reviews of the show either relish in the details of Bess’ life and pass over the content and technique of his paintings, or focus solely on his paintings to the exclusion of his "hermaphroditic" experimentation.
I relate to Bess’ wish to have his artwork and his theories merge in an exhibition. Bess’ paintings feature a number of symbols. He believed that hermaphrodites were the universal symbol for the complete, self-generating, immortal human. He set out to achieve this physically. My work is often interpreted through transness, while alternatively, my identity is minimized or removed from the frame. I am curious how artists can keep themselves in the art yet not have the work be about their particular identity. How would a modern day Forrest Bess fare?
Bess described his paintings as copies of what he saw on the back of his eyelids. In this exhibition, I am copying Bess’ paintings based on my memories of seeing them. This series began as a series of drawings I made after seeing Bess paintings. I then made the drawings into monoprints.
Additionally, I carved my own mounds or woodies to be displayed alongside the monoprints, a kind of generative genital exploration in honor of Bess.
Emmett Ramstad, artist