Saul Chernick: From Banality and Back to Humanity in the 21st-Century
by Jill Conner
As of 2002 Chernick’s work began to concentrate on the cut-out human form. Adopted from comic-book drawings, the artist’s representation of the lyrically-shaped human figure through the use of an elastic, moving line creates a visually explosive dynamism within a fixed, measured setting. Untitled, for example, portrays two sitting positions within one form, making this work easily understood as an erotic moment shared between two men. But rather, Chernick uses this piece to capture both the sexually dominant and vulnerable aspect of man. The artist’s laborious, time-consuming representations of society’s male stereotype upon the male figure appears in two works titled, Grand Odalisque (recto), and Grand Odalisque (verso). Whether seen from the front or the back the form of a car hood and radiator appears within the open space between the figure’s legs, causing a visual distortion to occur upon the body. Men, cars and sexuality were also explored by Kenneth Anger in a short film titled Kustom Kar Kommandos, (1965) which isolated society’s agreed-upon stereotype of the masculine in order to demonstrate its close connection to homoerotic aesthetics. Chernick, however, sidesteps homoeroticism and instead eloquently addresses the fact that all men are captured, trapped and confined to such broad, linear, simplistic associations which deny the unique personalities inherent within each individual. Since the details of these cut-outs are not immediate and rather difficult to see, it is evident that these works lack voyeurism.
As the line of Chernick’s work puts one into a trance, demanding time to observe and understand, the very process of following this calligraphic lyricism gradually reveals the viewer’s own complicity in creating the male stereotype. Moreover these cut-out pieces make use of the formal qualities of paper so as to establish the presence of male identity within the absence of pictorial space. Due to the presence of gender feminism which has applied its own combative notions about men in such aggressive, univeral ways, one could also see these cut-out pieces as a male artist’s attempt to create a personal definition of male identity within the presence of negativity. It is of course ironic to see that desexualized space does in functions as an oppressive barrier.
Untitled (from the Battle Royale series), reflects the legs of two wrestling men at opposing ends of the same diagonal. As the incomplete figures of both combine together in the center of the large sheet of paper, the sheer force of muscular energy gives way to a visual maze like swirl. The intensity that emerges from this dualism clearly questions what it means to be masculine. Doug Robinson’s No Less A Man: Masculinist Art in a Feminist Age discusses some concerns that parallel those of Chernick. Focusing on popular art, Robinson exposes the artificially constructed male as seen in television, movies and theater. Bruce Springsteen, also referred to as "the Boss," is for contemporary rock music what Jackson Pollock was for Abstract Expressionism: a charismatic male persona performing the widely accepted stereotype of the American man.
Consequently, popular culture’s embrace of this generalized idea has created: men as generalized emblems of ‘patriarchy [to] feel dismissed, peripheralized…Some of this may be a paranoid fantasy prompted by our socialization to gender, our training in the patriarchal battle of the sexes, which coaches each gender to blame the other for all (real and imagined) defeats and deprivations. 1
Thus the broadly accepted definition of masculinity is nothing more than a general standard that is not naturally lived but rather superficially performed. Gender feminists have also defined femininity as a concept that can be performed by women who, in doing so, choose to pursue a repressive form of self-surveillance that translates into compliance to patriarchy. 2 Beauty achieved through the use of make-up, accessories and dieting is seen as demoralizing and enjoyment is considered to be pathological. 3
Regardless of the recent technological and scientific achievements, a puritanical shaming of the body continues to prevail within our Western culture as well as others. And despite its pursuit for equality, feminism has also developed into its own fundamentalist orthodoxy. Since the body of the individual has become the site from which politics and religion develop rules and regulations, our "free" society carries with it a very repressive characteristic. Lloyd DeMause’s study of restrictive religious-based cultures of the Middle East identified a link between the act of genital mutilation and bodily shame with the development of self hatred. Negative perceptions of the self are then transmitted into tragic events caused by adult, youth and/or group violence. 4
One of Chernick’s untitled gouache drawings on denril revisits the process of self-exploration through touch. Void of a particular individuality, this body emerges from a white, opaque background and signifies the artist’s ability to traverse the barrier of shame as established by society. Chernick’s drawing suggests a way in which individuality can be defined and pursued. Wanderer, represents a fragment of hand and phallus, one grasping the other, within an isolated realm. This image is quite different from Andy Warhol’s penis drawings since it neither glorifies the male gender nor sensationalizes it as part of a sexual act. Using contour and expressive line to embellish dimensionality onto the surface, this piece is more than a simply-drawn line since the artist uses the technique of realism to give the subject a tangible, three-dimensionality in a non-aggressive way. Unlike Warhol, Chernick’s phallic representations appear in extremely small scale, reflecting both modesty and ambiguity. By abstracting this gendered form away from the larger picture of reality, the artist also questions the how the link between the body and the fully-defined self is eventually established.
The claim that negativity exists within free, open space returns in several depictions of beards. Created as both cut-outs and drawings, these works are not simply a fetish for facial hair. Rather each is a response to the patriarchal pressures that religion has imbued into the artist’s life. Angel, for example, depicts a mustache floating weightlessly in the sky whereas an untitled drawing creates an outline that suggests the presence of an individual. While remaining true to his Jewish heritage, Chernick does not represent literal depictions of a particular religious persona but rather the idea of one. Beard, however, reflects a facet of orthodoxy that functions as a site of authority. In this work, numerous arabesques cluster together forming wavy facial hair, affirming the presence of an other through a literal visual absence. In 1999 Robert Therrien also pursued the beard as an icon in both sculptural and drawn forms, but according to Lynn Zelevansky, Therrien’s No Title (fake beard), is nothing more than the artist’s own fascination with the facial appearance of sculptor Constantin Brancusi, an artist who he strongly admires. 5
Appearing less conceptual than Therrien and not as literal as Warhol, Chernick’s consistent use of shaping space out of space with interlacing arabesques keeps his work individually expressive and unified under the idea of identity, process and self-definition. Up until now, Saul Chernick has explored the fomal qualities of paper and line. However in the past year, the artist took a step in attempting to establish a bridge between his art and life by placing more of himself within the artistic process. His use of realism, moreover, falls short of exact likeness which leaves enough room for personal interpretation and identification. It seems that Chernick is part of a humanist revival that has emerged in the wake of the perversely-famed decadent art made by artists such as Mike Kelly and Paul McCarthy.
Notes:
1. Doug Robinson, No Less A Man: Masculinist Art in a Feminist Age (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press 1994): 22.
2. Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women (New York, NY: Touchstone 1994): 230-264.
3. Ibid.
4. Lloyd DeMause, "The Childhood Origins of Terrorism," The Journal of Psychohistory, 29, no. 4 (Spring 2002): 340-348.
5. Lynn Zelevansky, "No Title: The Work of Robert Therrien," Robert Therrien (Los Angles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art 1999): 59-61.
