Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)

This catalog documents an exhibit devoted to Georgia O’Keeffe mounted by the Kunsthaus Zürich from October 24, 2003 to February 1, 2004. The show was a sign that O’Keeffe had been admitted to the pantheon of great modern artists in Europe after long enjoying this status in North America.
Along with more than seventy of O’Keeffe’s paintings and drawings were photographs of her, notably those by her promoter and husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Although his figure studies contributed to a reductionist interpretation of her flower paintings, my take after reading the essays in this book is that these were not exploitation but that O’Keeffe worked with Stieglitz in forming her public persona. Her life, her work, and the photos interpret each other. Taken together, they present the image of an autonomous personality.
The essays by Bice Curiger, Carter Ratcliff, and Peter J. Schneemann reiterate this. While the reading “flowers equal genitalia” is too simplistic, it seems that O’Keeffe’s denial of this view should not be taken at face value either.
The book includes “Momentaufnahmen,” short reactions by sixteen artists. While most are positive, some indicate they admire the person and what she represents more than the work. This seems related to her delayed reception in Europe. Her work is too abstract to be representational, too representational to be abstract.
O’Keeffe has been a favorite since I first saw her paintings in the 1960s. I enjoyed the Zurich retrospective, a mix of familiar work and many I hadn’t seen before. And I’m glad I can revisit the exhibit through the pages of this book.… (mais)

I was only vaguely familiar with Georgia O’Keeffe’s artwork before reading this book, her reputation standing out largely in my mind as the artist who painted genitalia-like florals. Well. In this book O’Keeffe quickly and staunchly refutes her infamy and brings her own words to bear on her lifetime of work. She claims in the introduction that “no one else can know how [her] paintings happen,” and while each piece may be interpreted in the eye of the individual beholder (tinged by their own preconceptions and experiences), hearing O’Keeffe speak words alongside her brushstrokes is a valuable experience. Beginning with O’Keeffe’s childhood, the book grounds itself in her earliest memories and experiences before traipsing eloquently into her discovery of art at school and then her artworks themselves. Her language is sparse, but evokes a certain lightly pictorial quality that pairs well with the abstracted but somehow realistic paintings; rarely does she explore meanings outright, but describes instead the circumstances in which the painting was created, the multiple editions before the “finished” piece, and her journey through life, which seem to gather the artworks into a travelling diary of her time in New York, Canada, New Mexico, and elsewhere. I was almost shocked as I turned the pages of the book to uncover increasingly impactful pieces steeped in lucious colours, granular textures, and evocative compositions that were far more than the “vagina flowers” that seem to dominate the popular cultural references to her work. In fact, by the time I reached the florals partway through the narrative, I was well convinced that these weren’t even her best work. Sure, the flowers are gorgeous, and I can see how her macro-abstractions would have been a visual shock to the traditional detailed (and overly feminine) Victorian, Romantic, or even Impressionist florals of earlier decades, but her other work is easily as appealing. Combined with the stories of each locale that she painted into gorgeous abstraction, her journey through the American landscape seems far more impressive.… (mais)