Bert Katz: 6 TRANCE DRAWINGS
November 11, 2009 - February 1, 2010, 6th flr
Bio
Bert Katz is an exhibiting painter and photographer. He is included in numerous international collections and museums, including those of President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy and the Museé Picasso in Paris. Additional interests and research are in the history of art, particularly the training of artists in the French Academy, 17th through 19th centuries. While completing his master's degree, Katz studied with the important abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell. Following his Studies, and after painting during an extended stay in France-with the help of art historian Jean Adhemar, researching the late paintings of Daumier-Katz returned to the states and taught studio art at The Ohio State University, Columbus. While at Ohio State, with a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council, he organized "The First International Conference on the Visual and Performing Arts in Higher Education." This well-attended, week-long conference included important figures such as Robert Smithson, Harold Rosenberg, Robert Wilson, and Viola Farber, among others. Katz has also served as director of the Great Lakes Colleges Association New York Arts Program and taught at the Parsons School of Design.
Statement
These drawings, 6 of 12, were first shown in Vienna, Austria under the auspices of the US State Department several years ago. The pieces are seen here in the US. for the first time. They are an example of a period in the development of the artist which was concerned with generating unpremeditated images. The drawings concern 4 primary creative factors: unpremeditation, re-evaluation, integration and finally, contradiction. Hence a number of geometric shapes in combination with biomorphic, erotic shapes within rigid, geometric frames.
The initial, unplanned, images resulted in titling the drawings “Trance Drawings.” The drawing process involved the following steps: Unplanned and descriptive lines were drawn on the picture plane and included the spontaneous use of drafting tools. When the artist felt the proper images were inscribed, he proceeded to “reconsolidate” what had occurred with his memory. (Freud called the process Nachtaglichkeit). That is to say at this point, the images were integrated with some occurrence within the artist’s memory. These ex-post facto considerations sometimes required dramatic alterations and changes in the final stages of the drawing. These drawings then, represent a developmental process which move from the unconscious to a level of consciousness configured by memory.
