Installation Views: Artists Choose Parrish, Part II at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, August 20, 2023–February 4, 2024. Photos: Gary Mamay. Artists Choose Parrish Part II - Parrish Art Museum
Phillip Pearlstein is not my father. I am not related to Phillip Pearlstein. But through the coincidence of our shared last name, I’ve formed a strange, life-long relationship with his work. His rough-hewn bodies, foreshortened and cropped by the frame as if they’re trying to escape the conventions of figuration and the malaise of their New York-y, summers on Long Island milieu - through sheer bodily aggression.
Aggression is also present in Annie Leibowitz’s jewel of a portrait of Chuck Close. And it is there in his Big Self-Portrait, which I have festooned with young women’s bodies. One of those bodies represents a very dear friend of mine. I’ve been cutting out and collecting figures and objects for a long time, many from magazine or catalog reproductions of artworks. A Pearlstein sub-set of my ongoing Archive Collage series formed recently. The entire series is replete with ties to the history of artists on the East End.
Carolee Schneemann’s first performance of Interior Scroll took place at Ashawagh Hall in East Hampton. It was long after Pollock’s time, but deeply connected by place, and through the angsty lens of the Pollockian performative. Bodies, paintings, sculptures and landscapes populate the mis-en-scene of the collages, suggesting connections through history, form and association. The back of Willem de Kooning’s head, regarding his Woman painting in progress points to an active state of reflexive reflection - looking at art, looking at artists looking through art.
Collection Works:
Annie Leibovitz, Chuck Close, 2000, Gelatin Silver Print, 1 ¾ x 15 ¾”
Fred W. McDarrah, Carolee Schneeman in a Private Performance at Ashawagh Hall, East Hampton, 1975, Gelatin silver print, 10 x 8”
Phillip Pearlstein, Two Reclining Nudes on a Rug, n.d. Lithograph, 22 x 29 15/16’
Mary Ellen Bartley, Hiroshi Sugimoto, 2011, Archival pigment print, 18” X 27
Tony Vaccaro, Willem De Kooning Sitting, East Hampton, 1953, Gelatin Silver Print, 19 3/4 x 14”
Alix Pearlstein: List of Works (all mixed media collage on paper):
Archive Collage (Big Self-Portrait with Shit, nude women and Pearlstein nude) 24”X18”, 2022
Archive Collage (Le Va-4 with Interior Scroll, action painter, babies, Guernica) 17”X14”, 2021
Archive Collage (Leopard and zebra prints, white dog, profile, yoga and Pearlstein nude) 24”X18”, 2022
Archive Collage (Zinc Plain, Nitsch female participant, Padre & Madre, Non-Picturesque Mountain Landscape and Pearlstein nudes) 30”X24”, 2022
Archive Collage (Le Va-11 with Grave’s Camels, dancers, Oceans) 30”X24” 2021
Archive Collage (Le Va-12 with Grave’s Camels, dog, Robert Bending, Seascapes) 30”X24”, 2021
Archive Collage (Black and White, Portraits of Elaine de Kooning, Ada’s and Pearlstein nudes) 30”X24”, 2022
Archive Collage (Judith II, Nancy and Leaves, Van Gogh Self Portraits and Pearlstein Nudes on kilim rug) 24”X18”, 2023
Archive Collage (Head of Young Boy, Wall Drawings, Tipperary Blue, Picasso portrait and Pearlstein nudes) 30”X24”, 2022
Archive Collage (Le Va-17 with Kitchen Table Series, Lucretia, Christina's World, landscape and Pearlstein nudes) 30”X24”, 2022