R. B. Kitaj
Los Angeles No. 28 (Hug), 2004
Oil on canvas
91.4 x 91.4 cm
36 x 36 in
36 x 36 in
Copyright The Artist
In 2005, Kitaj offered the following remarks about Los Angeles No. 28 (Hug): 'In 2004 I began to read Sig. Freud again plus books on the Jewish Freud. At some...
In 2005, Kitaj offered the following remarks about Los Angeles No. 28 (Hug):
"In 2004 I began to read Sig. Freud again plus books on the Jewish Freud. At some point I thought to freely associate forms, strokes and clusters of paint as if I were one of his early Jewish analysands. So, in this picture of Sandra and me (Los Angeles Judios), I tried to deploy strokes which arise from my unconscious more than they usually do. "
The ambition to encode ideas in his mode of applying paint suggests the analytical quality of Kitaj’s thinking, using a net of broken brushstrokes as a loaded metaphor for free association – a tool of Freudian analysis. Kitaj’s credulous interest in psychoanalysis and the unconscious mind stretched over several decades, and in the sixties he had explored Carl Jung’s notion of ‘active imagination’. He explained: ‘[it] helped me to shore up my own habitual, intuitive (neosurreal) practice… In this, consciousness is only an agent, noting what comes up in one’s fantasy as it arrives…’.
Several paintings contemporaneous with Los Angeles No. 28 (Hug) were executed in the same style of broken brushstrokes, including Soutine (After His Self-Portrait) (2004) [L891]. Other works that explored overtly Freudian themes included The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (2004) [L894], which adopted the title of Sigmund Freud’s book about telling errors of action and speech.
"In 2004 I began to read Sig. Freud again plus books on the Jewish Freud. At some point I thought to freely associate forms, strokes and clusters of paint as if I were one of his early Jewish analysands. So, in this picture of Sandra and me (Los Angeles Judios), I tried to deploy strokes which arise from my unconscious more than they usually do. "
The ambition to encode ideas in his mode of applying paint suggests the analytical quality of Kitaj’s thinking, using a net of broken brushstrokes as a loaded metaphor for free association – a tool of Freudian analysis. Kitaj’s credulous interest in psychoanalysis and the unconscious mind stretched over several decades, and in the sixties he had explored Carl Jung’s notion of ‘active imagination’. He explained: ‘[it] helped me to shore up my own habitual, intuitive (neosurreal) practice… In this, consciousness is only an agent, noting what comes up in one’s fantasy as it arrives…’.
Several paintings contemporaneous with Los Angeles No. 28 (Hug) were executed in the same style of broken brushstrokes, including Soutine (After His Self-Portrait) (2004) [L891]. Other works that explored overtly Freudian themes included The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (2004) [L894], which adopted the title of Sigmund Freud’s book about telling errors of action and speech.
Provenance
R.B. Kitaj EstateExhibitions
2005, New York, Marlborough Gallery, R.B. Kitaj: How To Reach 72 In A Jewish Art, 1 March - 2 April 2005, cat. no. 532017, New York, Marlborough Contemporary, R.B. Kitaj: The Exile at Home, 4 March - 8 April 2017, unnumbered
Literature
R.B. Kitaj: How To Reach 72 In A Jewish Art, exh. cat., Marlborough Gallery, 2005, cat. no. 53, p. 60 (col. illus.)Barry Schwabsky and Keith Mayerson, R.B. Kitaj: The Exile at Home, exh. cat., Marlborough Contemporary, 2017, pp. 60-61 (col. illus.)
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