|
Expression—artistic
Dylan |
|
Jeff Gordon on Bob Dylan
Expression—artistic expression—is a common enough trait in New York
City. Not that location defines creativity, hardly, but New York can
“stamp” art as either getting through the gate or getting banished to
the land of obscurity. It’s interesting then, that the first museum
exhibition of Bob Dylan’s paintings was held in a small German
city.
Dylan made watercolors and gouaches for the show. He
is the perennial traveler, the on-the-road observer. And, if one looks,
a truly American observer. Some 170 of these new works will be on view
through February in Germany’s Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz. This is a group
of works that show a keen eye for line and color as form, capturing a
moment, holding it there, then releasing it. The works are figurative,
as in Woman In Red Lion Pub a work on watercolor paper showing the back
of a rather healthy woman in beret and a blue-grey sleeveless dress
with light red stockings, standing at the bar. There is a comfortable
lightness and humor here, and Dylan’s lines are mature and not
over-accentuated.
In Man On A Bridge Dylan shows a
standing figure, blue coat, slight beard and mustache, looking down,
eyes closed, a background scene of buildings and a towering structure
on the right. The colors are mainly sandy—greys, browns—his blue coat
is brushed expressively, the roughness of the strokes relaying the
atmosphere. In Cupid Doll there is a profile of a female facing left
in a dark coat, her hair a sun yellow, the eye covered by hair, we have
the nose and lips and a bit of the chin intersected by the coat. The
whole feeling is intimate, small.
In Train Tracks Dylan
has rendered the tracks, platform, and mountains in an appealingly
humble manner, simple and telling. There is an uncomplicated truth and
beauty to simple things, and the artist warms to that idea. The tracks
become the rhythm of mystery, the unknown.
Dylan has
expressed his partiality for certain painters, notably Red Grooms,
Diego Velazquez, Goya, Delacroix. A mix of time and era, but consistent
in spirit. Some of the Dylan works share the fatalistic element which
speak eloquently in Goya—or as Dylan has said, "Ain’t dark yet/ but
it’s gettin’ there." But lest this cast a pall over the body of
Dylan’s works, be assured that in the majority of these, there is a
lighter, amused stance—a circus of character and place and random
buoyancy. To glimpse again at his words, "My ship’s been split to
splinters and it’s sinking fast/ I’m drownin’ in the poison, got no
future, got no past/ But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s
free/ I’ve got nothin’ but affection for all those who’ve sailed with
me." (From "Mississippi," 1997, Special Rider Music.)
That the artist can convey this range of viewpoints is a
testament to his draughtmanship and brush. Where other artists may have
the skillful cleverness to direct their second passion to completion,
whatever the secondary interest may be, here it becomes obvious after
spending time with these art works that Dylan expresses himself as
succinctly and intriguingly with painting as he does with the written
word and music.
The art world has always been and continues to be fickle—today’s
fifty-million-dollar diamond-encrusted skull will be tomorrow’s vacant
lot. But these Dylan offerings will have their permanent place and
time, even surrounded by a swirling cascade of art hucksters and real
estate moguls. And that’s because his art is from the heart and he’s
talented enough to make it work.
Ingrid Mossinger, director of the museum in Chemnitz, had seen
works in the Bob Dylan Morgan Library Museum Collection, was impressed,
and pursued the idea of showing new works in Germany. And it’s a good
thing she did. An extensive catalogue publication in color and black
and white of these artworks, edited by Mossinger and Kerstin Drechsel,
including essays, published by Prestel Munich, London, and New York,
will be released soon.
