A Closer Look at Chuck Close
Bunbob Chhun
ARTS 1001
Artist Research
A Closer Look at Chuck Close
Chuck Close was born in Washington State in 1940 . Close is known for his giant portraits. His medium: ink, graphite, paint, paper and canvass. His technique: breaking a photograph into a grid and recreating that grid to enormous magnitude, sometimes containing up to 4,000 squares (some pieces 9’x 9’). At first glance Close’s paintings may seem like blow-ups of photographs but this is not so. Close meticulously works on one square at a time, which influences the next square. There is much “room for subjectivity� when this amount of choice is present. The subject matter of portraits is not to inspire, any other image would certainly suffice in capturing what Close attempts to accomplish. What is meant to inspire is the interpretation of the subject. Because an artist creates the image Close explains that “the way you choose to make something influences the way it looks and therefore what it means.� Again, with the amount of choices and how one square can influence the future of another square determines not a blown up replica but an artist’s perspective on the subject. In other words “every decision is influenced by all that precedes it, and modifies the whole.� It can be assumed that any other artist using the same method “would produce a substantially different result.� At first glance his works may seem like traditional portraits however with close examination they represent something more profound. Close himself intends his work to “challenge the spectator’s vision of reality.� Using the example of his 1969 work Phil Close enlarges a photograph of a friend. A photograph is a quick snapshot or reality. Close’s version of Phil becomes more than that. It is Close’s own interpretation of his friend Phil. He captures blemishes caught by the camera and adds nuances not captured by the photograph. Also, it is the intense manner in which Close operates to construct the piece that challenges the context of the photograph. His works prior to 1988 are more straightforward in respect to photorealism.
In 1988, Close became paralyzed from the neck down . Many agreed that his career was over. Not so, he inevitably regained control of one of his hands. In fact Close reinvented his photorealistic technique of breaking up an image into a grid and recreating it on a larger scale. An up close view of the squares he painted look like miniature abstract paintings. However, from a far these images combine together to form a larger complete portrait similar to his previous works in scale but different in style. Similar to how a mosaic brings many different pictures together for one singular unified composition.
The inspiration of Chuck Close has a lot to do with the closing of Pop Art. Remember, Pop Art was not so much concerned with recreating images but “examined the visual grammar� of how the subject is presented. In other words context matters most in what they represented in society. In Close’s attempt to recreate images his technique brought a new context of how decisions influence a result, and the more decisions the more variety that can be produced.
In regards to using photographs and specifically portraiture, Nan Goldin is similar. However, how they interpret the image is completely different. Nan Goldin will take numerous pictures capturing the moment. She does not reinterpret the image, the viewer is left to decipher what there is to decipher. In her mode she captures reality for all its worth, the ‘nitty gritty’ whereas Close acts as a middle-man interpreting one photograph through his systematic technique which consequently influences the viewer to see something the way he sees it. It is convoluted.
Andrea Carlson’s works are similar to Close’s not just in obvious size but also how she puts a new spin on an old image by changing the context in which it would be originally considered. For example her work on Truthiness she centers an American decorative plate that contains Fort Snelling and an eagle representing America in all its glory. However the context that surrounds the plate is anything but glorious. There are jackals and men fighting in the background. What is key to understand is the fighting is not fighting it is murder. How can murder be glorious? In short context matters. Carlson’s work may differ from Close in what medium she uses and Close’s work may not challenge morality to the extent of Carlson but they share a reinterpretation and technique that changes the context of the original image.
Chuck Close is to photorealism what an auteur is to film. At the beginning of his career his style and product was innovative but more importantly unique. You know it’s a Chuck Close when you see it. If any person needed an example of how art did not die with Picasso, a portrait by Close would more than suffice. Walking into a gallery and seeing a huge image of a woman, Kiki part of the permanent Walker Art Center collection for example, takes your breath away. The size is intriguing. Moving closer you notice how it is broken up in a grid of little cubes. They act like pixels from a television on the canvass. A person wonders who this person is and why she is on a gigantic canvas let alone why she is painted in this manner.
Questions that have come up during this paper, one of them is whether Chuck Close born in a different time would produce work in the same fashion? Would he have been a revolutionary in the Realist Period? Regardless, his works will transcend time because of their unique manner prior and post paralysis. Close and Goldin both use photographs in their art but their purpose and construction are different. Carlson’s work is more similar because of her abstraction of context. Close’s art is intelligent because of the manner in which it is produced. There is much thought that goes into each square he paints from his grid composition. Each square influences the other, like dominos tumbling on each other. This reason alone is worth recommendation and thought.
***Footnote symbols did not appear so i will also submit a hard copy as well upload a copy.***
Christopher Finch, Chuck Close Dot Drawings 1973 to 1975. Inner cover.
Finch, Chuck Close 8.
Finch, Chuck Close 8.
Edward Lucie-Smith, Visual Arts in the 20th Century (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1996). 266.
Finch, Chuck Close 10
Finch, Chuck Close 10
Lucie-Smith, Visual Arts. 266
Deborah Solomon, “The Persistence of the Portraitist,� New York Times, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E0DA103BF932A35751C0A96E958260, accessed 25 November 2008.
Lucie-Smith, Visual Arts. 260
