We
have always been told of art's capacity to operate on
many levels at once... It's almost a clichÈ... But it is
true that some artists are possessed with urges that drive
deep
into rich strata, lying between beds of other kinds,
to make up the structural foundation of a work. Howard
Fried
started
his career at a level of operation usually arrived at
only after years of uncomfortable analytical probing. Emerging
in the early seventies with several other
San Francisco Bay Area artists such as Terry Fox,
Paul Koss and Chris Burden in Los Angeles, Howard distinguished himself immediately
by subverting the rich openness provided by early Conceptual art's untrodden
fields, with the most excruciating journeys into paradox.
In examining the 1971 film, "Inside the Harlequin," one is
effectively seized by Fried's complex system of entry and the extraordinarily
ambitious set
of problems set upon himself as he literally enters into the "eye of
the storm," scaling the walls of a room as if, to even consider the
possibility of a valid work one must position oneself in perfect alignment
to it. Fried
is correctly placing emphasis on entry, for it is the angled entry that places
one's
art in a rich territory. No matter how inspired one is, if the territory
of operation is undernourished the event created within it will be undernourished
as well.
The early seventies was a period of extreme intoxication
for the so-called Conceptual artists. Wide doors were opened
for the first time,
rich oxygen
would rush in,
sweeping one along in this constant breeze, engaging the artist, making "breathing
easy." At this time, it was rare for an artist such as Fried, in the
midst of all this easy spanning of territory, to constantly pay heed to his
inner
urges and step down into the thicker, more treacherous terrain which became
his world
of operation.
Of the many noble quests undertaken by an artist, none seems as challenging
as the use of art to probe itself. The slow and casual unlayering of
the beast,
rib by rib, joint by joint, it is in every sense a journey crowed by tunnels,
blind alleys, mock impulses and divergent crossroads. Howard Fried's urges
sent him into this terrain.
Using a "pushed mind," and holding
his breath, he submerges into the pitch black of art making. This is
often a journey of no return, as the
perverse
intoxication provided by the occasional bursts of acknowledgment indicating
a positive track, possible riches behind doors, pressures one to keep pounding
harder for a view, a clearer view, of that sweet connection that establishes
a foundation to an art idea.
It is because this world of operation is known to a relative few
that it gives me great pleasure to open it up to more viewers.
Dennis Oppenheim
©1997 |
