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    Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957

    It would be easy to survey contemporary art and assume it stole all its best moves from consumer product design and marketing. Whether it is the epic gloss and shine of Jeff Koons, the flawless finishes of Anish Kapoor, the pop-infused stylings of Takashi Murakami, or the cool, oversized appropriations of Richard Prince, art today has regularly borrowed from, learned from, and (to a degree that’s either deserving or terrifying, depending on your perspective) exploited our fascination with the shiny, the sleek, and the new. Further, the processes involved in making a lot of contemporary art have essentially removed the hand of the artist from the finished product. Today we are witness to art brought to fruition by designers and engineers using state of the art manufacturing. In this sense, art remains very much of its time; as crisp as the latest Renzo Piano facade, as self-evident as an iPhone.

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    None of this is particularly new. We’re nearing the centennial celebration of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, perhaps the first (and last?) word in the machine-made object as art debate. More recently, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Op Art, Finish Fetish, Photorealism, and Minimalism have all, in their respective ways, helped shepherd contemporary art to this bright, gleaming, high-tech summit.

    albers
    Leaf Study IX by Josef Albers.

    None of this is necessarily bad either. If the 20th century taught us anything, it’s this: art gets to be whatever it wants to be. It answers to no one. If that means being shiny and machine-made and appealing, so be it. Know this though; the sleek modernism we enjoy today is descended from decidedly coarser stock. To understand that first-hand, we need look no further than Leap Before You Look Black Mountain College 1933-1957, currently on view at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

    Curated by Wexner alum Helen Molesworth, Leap offers a glimpse inside North Carolina’s short-lived and oft-mythologized Black Mountain College. The brainchild of revolutionary educator John A. Rice, Black Mountain College was founded on forward-thinking ideas of experiential learning, democratic governance, and the belief that the arts should play a primary role in the educational environment. Needless to say, these forward-thinking ideas attracted a bevy of forward-thinking students and faculty (including Josef and Anni Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Rauschenberg, and a host of others). As a result, Black Mountain College served as a melting pot; bringing together a wide range of ideas that set art’s course for the post-war years and beyond. From our 2016 perspective though, Leap Before You Look serves another function; it reminds us of contemporary art’s humble and hardscrabble roots.

    Robert Rauschenberg Small Rebus
    Small Rebus by Robert Rauschenberg.

    From its inception, the college operated on a shoestring. It boasted fewer than 1200 students over its twenty-three year run. Everyone involved was expected to pitch in; a prospect that might involve working on the college farm, assisting on construction projects, and even helping out in the kitchen. Not surprisingly, this “make-do” approach is reflected in the art of Black Mountain College. The works on view in Leap have a rough-hewn aesthetic, artisanal even. Neither an era nor a land of plenty, students often had to rely on the materials and resources at hand. (It was at Black Mountain after all that Buckminster Fuller unsuccessfully attempted to erect his geodesic dome with re-purposed Venetian blinds). Imagine if you will, trying to invent modernism on Gilligan’s Island.

    Untitled (S.272) by Ruth Asawa.

    But invent they did. Josef Albers brought matieres from the Bauhaus; introducing a generation of artists to the potential of non-traditional objects and textures in art. Anni Albers made way for unconventional materials in both weaving (cellophane, Lurex, horsehair) and jewelry-making (cork stoppers, hairpins, paper clips). It was at Black Mountain College that composer John Cage recognized the power of silence. It was where Merce Cunningham redefined choreography through the use of collaboration and chance. Black Mountain College was where Ruth Asawa began her exploration of crocheted wire forms and Robert Rauschenberg planted the seeds of his famous Combine paintings.

    Is it any wonder that Black Mountain College has come to hold such mythical status in contemporary culture? What other conclusion can we draw but that these happy, plucky few somehow managed to invent contemporary art…by hand…in the woods of western North Carolina…uphill both ways. Forget melting pots. This was either a miracle, or a lot of hard work.

    Happily Leap Before You Look shows us it was probably a bit of both. The sheer unlikeness of Black Mountain College; the financial struggles, the paycheck to paycheck existence, and the relentless can-do approach, is made clear through ample photographs and expository text. That Black Mountain required very real and very physical labor is obvious. Photos from the school look more like a WPA camp than a college campus. The material resourcefulness on display is astounding. Whether it was the low-cost, Bauhaus-inspired Studies Building, the locally sourced looms, or the use of fall leaves as teaching tools, this was a learning environment that would bear fruit by hook or by crook.

    As to the miracle, it’s hard to think of a better way to explain so many influential actors landing in one place at one time. Steven Johnson is as much an expert on how great ideas develop and spread as anyone and it’s unclear that even he could fit Black Mountain College into his model. Yet there they are; a veritable “Who’s Who” of 20th-century artistic geniuses, digging in the North Carolina dirt, painting in clapboard houses, moving scraps of leaves and bark around on cardboard, and inventing the future of art.

    kline
    Painting by Franz Kline.

    In the end though, the lessons inherent in both Leap Before You Look and Black Mountain College extend far beyond art. This is an exhibition that illustrates the value of collaboration, of keeping an open mind. It’s an exhibition that demonstrates the importance of lateral thinking and creative problem-solving. It’s an exhibition that challenges us to learn and create and improve together. In this month, and in this year, I’m not sure we can ask for a more appropriate lesson than that.

    Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957 is on view at the Wexner Center for the Arts through January 1, 2017.

    More information can be found at www.wexarts.org/exhibitions/.

    Artwork Credits:

    Josef Albers
    Leaf Study IX
    c.1940
    Leaves on paper
    28″ x 24 3.4″
    © 2016 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society, New York
    Photo by Tim Nighswander/Imaging 4 Art

    Anni Albers
    Free-Hanging Room Dividers (Installation view)
    c.1949
    Cotton, Cellophane, braided horsehair, jute and Lurex
    53″ x 34″(L), 87″ x 32 1/2″(R)

    Ruth Asawa
    Untitled (S.272)
    c.1955
    Copper and iron wire
    108″ x 15″ x 15″

    Franz Kline
    Painting
    1952
    Oil on canvas
    65″ x 41 3/4″

    Robert Rauschenberg
    Small Rebus
    1956
    Mixed media
    35″ x 46″ x 1 3/4″

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    Jeff Regensburger
    Jeff Regensburger
    Jeff Regensburger is a painter, librarian, and drummer in the rock combo The Christopher Rendition. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing) from The Ohio State University in 1990 and an Master’s Degree in Library Science from Kent State University in 1997. Jeff blogs sporadically (OnSummit.blogspot.com), tweets occasionally (@jeffrey_r), and paints as time allows.
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