Customer Reviews

Eric Fischl: It's Where I Look...It's How I See...Their World, My World, the World

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For those who have followed the meteoric career of Eric Fischl (born 1948) this particular monograph of his paintings dating back to 2004/2005 should come as no surprise. His works have always gone where others fear to tread - voyeurism in children ('Bad Boy'), painting situations that deal with people fulfilling the expected behavior while masking their own personal variations of what is considered normal, etc - and so this exploration of desire and sexuality in the middle-aged group of society should feel as comfortable and as disturbing as the viewer feels the comfort zone within himself.

This monograph is the result of a project, named 'The Krefeld Project', which was Eric Fischl's setting for the preparation of a new look at encounters. He rented an empty house, brought in several models, and for a few days observed and photographed them in situations both of his own staging and interactions among the models that fell into the realm of reality, and took some 2000 photographs that would be the fodder for the series of twelve large paintings depicting liaisons or trysts that older people of his generation (Fischl was 57 when he painted this series) might explore.

The results are paintings that share several bedroom scenes of couples in the act of physical contact, the act of getting undressed or getting dressed before and after the service, and scenes in the bathroom, and repairing the evidence of their probable midday assignation. There is not a lot of passion as we expect it here, more a sense of men and women who know what they are about, but are trying to infuse their boring lives with a bit of drama. If there is an overall sense of ennui or even sadness to these stories, then Fischl just may be suggesting that time alters the way we couple, even for illicit affairs. That is not to say these paintings are not rich in feeling: anyone approaching or in or past middle age and the emotional resignation to aging can identify viscerally with these stories. And Fischl's extraordinary sense of illumination, of light coming from a source that refuses to be manipulated by erasing such partial blockades as venetian blind or shutters, is still as beautiful and atmospheric as in all of his major works. The paintings can be isolated - the Krefeld Project does not have to be seen in its entirety to be fully appreciated. There is even one painting - Bedroom Scene #4 'You leave your lover to answer the phone' - that is of two men, as though Fischl is including same sex trysts in this collection.

There are three fine essays that accompany this volume: the first by Jean-Christophe Ammann is aptly entitled 'The Encounter' and his discussion involves not only Fischl as a painter but the stories Fischl has created in this series. The other essays are by fellow artists Francesco Clemente and Richard Prince and are more in the vein of where Fischl falls in the art world scene of then and now. The color reproductions (plus the fine black and white details) are beautifully rendered in the production of this fine book. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, August 10