THE WHITE ROSE
[via Bruce Conner]
Once protectively covered >
Jay DeFeo’s bed.
Barry Alpert / Silver Spring, MD US / 11-17-05 (2:29 AM)
Written while watching for perhaps the third time Bruce Conner’s 1967 film
documenting the removal of a now-legendary, 2300-pound painting (“The White
Rose”) from the upper level studio of artist Jay DeFeo. On this viewing I
was struck by DeFeo’s performative activity of placing relatively small
sheets of paper over the front surface of her huge painting and then laying
down on it, once the staff from Bekin’s had moved “The White Rose” from its
initial vertical position to a horizontal location on the floor of her
studio. Eventually I began to consciously consider this activity in
relation to the use of mattresses as material for art making by Robert
Rauschenberg and Guillermo Kuitca. Jackson Pollock’s painting of canvas
laid out on the floor also came to mind. Despite its rescue and exhibition
in the late sixties, “The White Rose” apparently “languished” in storage at
the San Francisco Art Institute for 25 years until it underwent
conservation and entered the collection of the Whitney Museum of Art.
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