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Shall We Kill Daddy?
Mike Kelley
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The subject of pluralism is wittily evoked in the Crocodile Tears project through the inclusion of the "Peaceable Kingdom" elements. Throughout the project, the narrative is interrupted by various non-illustrative elements including photos from the continuing Variable piece #70, which in its stated intention to document everybody alive is already an impossibly democratic endeavor. Another intrusive element consists of paintings mimicking the works of other artists. These have been executed in the manner of Breughel, Mondrian, Monet, Matisse, etc., etc.. On occasion these paintings have included within them the phrase "The Peaceable Kingdom." This phrase refers to a vision of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them./And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox" (11:6-7). What better parable of harmless (non dialectical) coexistence. Though Huebler was not specifically evoking him, it's hard not to think of the Nineteenth Century American painter and Quaker preacher Edward Hicks, who is said to have painted over one hundred paintings illustrating the vision of the peaceable kingdom. Because members of the Quaker religion separate themselves from the general society to reside in their own communities based on pacifist beliefs, the theme of the peaceable kingdom becomes, in Hicks' case, more than a mystical parable, it is a call to social action. It is a utopian example, calling for the construction of a society based on brotherly love.
This scattering of works, in myriad styles, labeled "The Peaceable Kingdom" could be read as an illustration of "Postmodern" pluralism, and as a snide comment on the failure of the Modernist utopian program which sought a kind of aesthetic version of brotherly love in its various attempts at international style. And I don't think it would be so wrong to read it that way. However, Huebler's work is never solely ironic. It continues to hold within it the spark of Modernism's utopian goals. He has told me as much. Though it reveals no clear social program, and staunchly refuses to speak clearly, his work is not fatalistic. His very choice to work narratively, to set up a system that progresses forward, even as it constantly evokes its own past and making, proves his belief that art is forward-looking.
And now I will demand the impossible, and state that the "generation gap" (It's a term that makes your skin crawl just saying it.) no longer exists. We now live in a paradoxical community of dialectical brotherly love free from distinctions based solely on chronology. Hooray! That's not to say that we are equals, however.
- Mike Kelley
- 1996
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NOTES
1) Filippo Thomas Marinetti. "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism," Marinetti: Selected Writings, edited by R.W. Flint, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1972, pg. 43
2) Joseph Kosuth. "Art after Philosophy," Art after Philosophy and After: Collected Writings, 1966-1990, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993, pg. 26
3) Frederic Paul. "D H still is a real artist," Douglas Huebler: <<Variable>>, etc., F.R.A.C. Limousin, Limoges, 1993, pg. 28
4) Douglas Huebler. "Prospect '69" exhibition catalogue statement, October 1969, quoted in: Jack Burnham. "Alice's Head: Reflections on Conceptual Art," Artforum, February 1970, pg.41
5) David Salle and James Welling. "Images That Understand Us," Journal, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, June/July 1981, pg. 41
6) Thomas Lawson. "Last Exit: Painting," Art After Modernism: Rethinkinq Representation, edited by Brian Wallis, David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, 1984, pg. 160
7) Douglas Huebler. "Sabotage or Trophy? Advance or Retreat?," Artforum, May 1982, pg.73
