The Forms of Color by Karl Gerstner (review)

3. Marcia Pointon, ed. ~ R a p h a e l i t e s R e ~ (Manchester:Manchester Univ. Press. 1989) 4. PhilipHenderson, Swinburne(London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1974) p. 30. 5. William M. Rossetti, ThcPoeficalWorksofDan& GabriclRosscllI (London:Ellis & Elvey, 1891). 6. Kenneth Clark, Ruskin Today (London:John Murray,1964) pp. 127-128. PP. 3-4 A FORESTOF SIGNS: ART IN THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION Catherine Gudis, ed. MIT Press, Cambridge , MA, U.S.A., 1989. 176pp. Trade, $35.00. ISNB:0-262-07119-3. Reuiewed by Elmer H. Duncan, Department of Philosophy, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798,U.S.A. This book was published to accompany the exhibition “A Forest of Signs:Art in the Crisis of Representation ”, 7May-13 August 1989, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and curated by MaryJane Jacob and Ann Goldstein. The exhibition featured the work of 30 artists. The oldest of the artists featured was born in 1944,the youngest in 1956.So the artists are quite young; their art is the art of the 1980s.They are the first generation of artists to grow up with a daily diet of television images. The book itself is put together in an unusual way. After a short forward and introduction, MaryJane Jacob added an essay “Artin the Age of Reagan , 1980-1988”. This is followed by “Baim-Williams”by Ann Goldstein, made up of short descriptions of the work and the careers (to date) of the artists whose works are exhibited (from Richard Baim to Christopher Williams). Each artist was then given two large pages to show a selection of his or her work. And it very often is her work Judith Barry, Erika Beckman, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, etc.-12 of the 30 artists are women. After this “Portfolio of Artists’ Projects”, there is another essay, “Photography-languageContext : Prelude to the 1980s”by Ann Rorimer, and yet another, “In the Text”,by Howard Singerman, and then, finally, a useful “Chronology of Exhibition” of the 30 artists and a “Catalogue of the Exhibitions”. What is characteristic of the art in the exhibition? At risk of oversimplifying , the point would seem to be that we once had a naive view that words can be used to lie to us, but pictures (especially photographs) cannot lie. But the TV generation knows better. Images can be used to persuade, to encourage , to exaggerate, to deceive and, yes, to lie. It is instructive that MaryJane Jacob spoke of the 1980sas the “Ageof Reagan”. For regardless of whether one admires President Reagan, it cannot be denied that while Reagan defeated Carter in 1980 because of the Iranian crisis,he defeated Mondale in 1984because he knew how to use (exploit?)the medium of television and Mondale did not. Further, in the recent past, many (perhaps most) artists have supposed that the primary purpose of art was to express emotion, and this could be done without representation, with no recognizable images at all. But, again, when we grow up with television and are surrounded by a “forest of signs”, how can we then hope to do without images?A world without images simply is not our world. Surrounded by images, we are likely to be overwhelmed and to wonder what sense can be made of it at all. The artists featured in this book use images. They use ordinary photographs, photos of photos, photos of paintings, photos of cartoons, photos of blown-up printed matter, all sorts of images. One wonders: what can they (the images and/or the artists) mean? There need not be a single, simple answer. Sometimes they seem to want to show how deceptive and misleading images can be. Sometimes they mayjust want to show how puzzling and difficult this “forest of signs”has become. The essays ofJacob and Rorimer are, once more, helpful introductions to the history of contemporary art; it is always difficult to write a history of our own day. But all of the essays also feature useful discussions of what might seem to be minor issues. To cite only one example, Howard Singerman notes that photography is unlike other arts in ways we might not have considered (see especiallyp. 163).When we...