Chuck Close: Family and Others

Rebecca Stones

Abstract

The review on Chuck Close's exhibition at the White Cube, Masons Yard, London from10th October to 17th November 2007 will give the reader insight and knowledge into the artist's work from a contemporary critical viewpoint.  Close is a portraitist who rejects the conventional understanding of what a portrait is.  His paintings subject everyone to the same rule, the same grid of representation.  He is a contemporary artist who has created a signature style that is as instantly recognisable as anyone's since Andy Warhol.  The review will provide new angles and make lasting comments relating to Chuck Close's portraiture since the development of photorealist painting and advancements in technology.  It will address how photography has impacted on earlier paintings and his most recent tapestry works, from an unvarnished, neutral, critical perspective.  Questions that will be asked will include; would he be following the same approach and process had he not had a spinal aneurysm which reduced his mobility and sensitivity in his fingers?  Are the roughly painted, crude, child-like marks he makes and unusual palette of colours he uses within the lozenges of his paintings effective from close up and a distance?  Do his more recent tapestries still represent and encompass the same ideas as his earlier paintings and communicate the same enthusiasm for life?

I will also be asking if the layout of the exhibition and components selected linked and provided a successful overview of Chuck Close's career to date, in addition to analysing what pieces had a great presence and lasting impression.

Chuck Close
President Bill Clinton, 2006,
Oil on canvas,
275.6 x 213.4 cm.

Chuck Close
Kate, 2006,
Jacquard tapestry, Edition of 6.
261.6 x 200.7 cm.