THE WASHINGTON POST • FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2010


18


OnExhibit


Get a ‘Close’ look at these faces


by Michael O’Sullivan


Chuck Close is magician and mythbust- er all in one. With one hand, he does a trick, while with the other he shows you how it’s done. The illusion? Nothing less than the artistic representation of the hu- man face.


Over the past several decades, Close has made a career out of stunning, often monumental portraiture. Working from photographic images, the artist has used everything from abstract dabs of color to his own fingerprints to render faces. Cour- tesy of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s beguil- ing “Chuck Close Prints: Process and Col- laboration,” the artist, who just turned 70, pulls back the curtain on his creative prac- tice. In one of the show’s wall panels, he writes that he wanted to demystify the process “so that people understand how things happen.” Curiously, that peek backstage takes


away nothing from the artist’s sleight of hand. According to Corcoran curator Amanda Maddox, who organized the trav- eling show in Washington, even as Close demystifies his working methods, the fin- ished product is “still really impressive to look at.”


If you go, and you should, here’s what


you’ll see: 12 faces — including the artist’s — in more than 100 manifestations, from a silkscreen to a paper pulp collage to an etching. (Though known primarily as a painter, Close is also a prodigious print- maker. This is the first show to focus exten- sively on that aspect of his career.) The sub- jects are the artist’s family and art-world friends. His wife and daughter turn up again and again, as do painter Roy Lich- tenstein and composer Philip Glass. A single likeness of wild-haired artist Lucas Samaras appears in both woodcut form and in the surface of a hand-loomed rug. You’ll be tempted to roll around on it. Please don’t. One black-and-white portrait of sculptor Keith Hollingworth, in mezzo- tint, or half-tone, is 51 inches tall; another lithograph of the same guy — exact same pose, in fact — is no bigger than a postage stamp. As the show’s title suggests, an exam-


ination of the process — how these things were made — is a big part of the presenta- tion. Part of that process is Close’s tend- ency to transfer images via a grid system, breaking the original into pixels, as it were. You’ll read terms such as “tusche” (a kind of greasy ink) and “pochoir “(a fancy word for stencil) that you’ve never heard before and will probably never hear again. Jargon aside, there’s a fascination with


Close’s often envelope-pushing technique. Shot over a full day but reduced to about eight minutes, a time-lapse video in the ex-


Chuck Close can turn an array of blobs and dots into, for example, a self-portrait.


Chuck Close started his art career as what he calls a “junior abstract expressionist.” Look closely at any single square inch of one of his pictures, and you’ll see nothing but a seemingly random assortment of blobs and dots. With most of his portraits, viewers have to step back a bit before the dots resolve into a discernable face. How did he gravitate toward faces? Close has said he believes that his particular area of interest — and expertise — is a natural result of something called prosopagnosia, or face blindness, a condition that impairs one’s ability to recognize facial features. The artist, who has called himself “hopeless” when it comes to remembering faces, says the only way he can familiarize himself with someone’s appearance is through repeated, close and intense study. — Michael O’Sullivan


BEHIND THE WORK


IMAGES ABOVE AND AT LEFT, FROM CHUCK CLOSE/PACE EDITIONS; BELOW, FROM CHUCK CLOSE


The faces depicted in the Corcoran show include those of Chuck Close’s niece Emma, above, and sculptor Keith Hollingworth, right.


Or in Close’s case, the looking. It’s possible to get so bogged down in


Close’s process that you miss the beauty of his pictures. Japanese master printer Yasu Shibata, for instance, spent nearly three years collaborating with Close on a 113- color woodblock print based on Close’s painting of his niece Emma. The finished blocks are included in the show and they practically reek of perspiration. Such effort is impressive, but what’s most mind-blowing, to use Maddox’s de- scription, is that “Chuck Close Prints,” which at first glance seems so much about the tedious nature of making, is in the end really all about the long, hard process of seeing.


According to Close, his subjects usually


hibition shows workers at New York’s Pace Prints using squeeze bottles outfitted with cake-decorating tips to squirt 13 shades of gray paper pulp into what looks like a giant cookie cutter. Shaped like a jigsaw puzzle, it a kind of contour map of Lichtenstein’s face, broken down into shadows and high- light. The scene resembles an episode of “Ace


of Cakes.” But don’t get lost in the sauce. With art, as with cooking, the proof is in the eating.


balk at receiving copies of their portraits. And Close himself has said he doesn’t like looking at his own face. That might seem odd, considering that dozens of versions of it are in the show. It’s no mystery, however. Most of us are used to looking at ourselves in a mirror, which flips everything, making the mole on our right cheek appear on the left. Close, who works from photographs, sees his subjects not as they see them- selves, but as others see them. osullivanm@washpost.com


CHUCK CLOSE PRINTS: PROCESS AND COLLABORATION


Through Sept. 12 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th St. NW (Metro: Farragut West). 202-639-1700. www.corcoran.org.


Hours: Open Wednesday-Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays until 9 p.m.


Admission: $10; students and seniors $8; free for members, military and age 12 and younger.


Saturdays through Labor Day, admission is free. Public programs: On Wednesday at 7 p.m., the museum will screen “Chuck Close,” a documentary on the artist by the late Marion Cajori. $12; $8 for members.


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