Kathrin Schaeppi
Five Action Artists Lynda Benglis – Wing (1970) there is no film of this creature's uncontrolled flow from the wall · or how it draws warmth from my skin as I confront its folds · stopped · cold · think of curves and things that go hard in a moment · think of glaciers · icy shoulders · humpbacked mountains in the Sinai · silver poppy petals · or just plain shadow below this beating · held still Helen Frankenthaler – Autumn Farm (1959) scare scar carcass see the black sow hung from hind legs and slaughtered green splatter dried and fresh red barn autumn farm but this is not really there yet this is what I see the same green as the sweater I wear cannot bear what the brain projects on skin colored canvas that can’t distance print and imprint and then there is this skull grinning bloody snout Eva Hesse – ohne Titel (1961) colors work · brushes drip · how does this act? the other react? · graying cells see white on gray and call them SnowDropClouds · Queen SnowDropCloud wears a blue cockscomb · SnowDropClouds filling an apple · eva’s or perhaps snow white’s · from thatch an insect buzzes up and along and through slicing spraying staining juice onto SnowDropClouds · we see this in cross section · do you sway with the momentum through this wormholeworld? does your yellow smile slide down the canvas in a drizzle? Lee Krasner – The Guardian (1960) if Pollack’s pieces dance jazz, then Krasner’s Guardian is rumba, samba, salsa, tango in brown and tan · iris and pupil skip-hopping · with swinging and flipping, whirling · arching and stretching · muscles twitching not stopped at canvas edge · a couple next to me say, you know she supported him ... in a red farmhouse in New England · after she leaving him and he leaving · splattered like his canvas · Lee began again · to sing in two tones · no post-card of hers next to his in the shop · this beige-brown bending and flexing propels me on my way home · Joan Mitchell – ohne titel (1960) abstract yearns for concrete blue gift wrapped in brown-green kelp the kind that grows in wilder waters and gets tossed and torn and caught in tide pools in the Bretagne or in Maine where gravity rips at white corners sepia squid tentacles and reeds lift Note on a process: On a busy Sunday in May 2008 I visited the Action Painting exhibit at the Beyeler Foundation near Basel where I previously had noted that women artists tend to be underrepresented. I was pleased to find five of the twenty-seven artists to be women. I re-acted to their action painting by standing in the exhibit writing while exhibit visitors strolled in front and around me. As in most museums there is a shop with postcards. I found only a postcard by Eva Hesse. On the Beyeler Foundation website none of their art was visible next to their male contemporaries. Abstract action art has the potential to escape gender. Joan Mitchell had made known that she did not want to be distinguished as a woman artist. However, the biography of Lee Krasner’s unveils gender roles in action.
Kathrin Schaeppi is the author of three chapbooks. Sonja Sekula, a
full-length poetic biography of the Swiss poète-peintre is forthcoming from
Black Radish. Creative and critical work has appeared in diverse hardcopy
and online journals. Through her small press
http://www.ellectriquepress.com
she has issued correspondence with nobody and Spelling ( ) Bound.