Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective

by Dana Miller (Editor), Greil Marcus (Contributor), Michael Duncan (Contributor)

Jay DeFeo (1929–1989) was part of a vibrant community of avant-garde artists, poets, and musicians in San Francisco during the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle included Wallace Berman, Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Wally Hedrick, Edward Kienholz, and Michael McClure. Although best known for her monumental painting The Rose (1958–66), DeFeo worked in a wide range of media and produced an astoundingly diverse and compelling body of work over four decades. DeFeo's unconventional approach to materials and her intensive, physical method make her a unique figure in postwar American art. In the first comprehensive monograph on DeFeo, Dana Miller looks at the breadth of the artist's work, her cross-disciplinary practice, broad range of interests and influences, as well as pivotal moments in her career. In addition, Miller dispels misconceptions and assumptions about the artist and also offers new insight into her under-recognized works from the 1970s and 1980s. Greil Marcus explores the significance of titles in DeFeo's work; Michael Duncan considers her approach to her career and the marketplace; Corey Keller looks at DeFeo's photographic oeuvre; and Carol Mancusi-Ungaro examines her materials and processes. The book features new photography, archival images, and a number of previously unpublished works. Also included are a biographical chronology, an extensive bibliography, and an exhibition history.

Distributed for the Whitney Museum of American Art

Exhibition San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (11/03/12–02/03/13) Whitney Museum of American Art (02/28/13–06/02/13)

Genres: Art

320 pages, Hardcover

First published December 21, 2012

Reviews

[Tinker · Rating 4 out of 5]

pictures great, especially vintage photos, works in progress, etc. text mostly typical stiff institutional museum writing; good information, but little insight or conveyed enthusiasm.

thats the book. the show is mindboggling and the artist superb, and if youre intention is to look at her pictures, this catalogue is the next best thing to seeing the exhibit. the reproductions are excellent.

[William West · Rating 5 out of 5]

I left this show speechless. The art was extraordinary, but what shocked me was that I had up until the show never heard of the artist. To me, this proves that there is, indeed, a profound sexism alive in American art reception, because DeFeo is clearly one of the seminal American artists of the twentieth century.
Not only does her work span across a multitude of mediums- jewelry, photography, collage, but her favorite- painting, blurs the distinction between the receptive genres of painting and sculpture. Her most famous work, The Rose, is literally, weight wise, the heaviest painting in the world: a totemic piece of idolatrous consideration. Yet, in the show, it seems only a great, meditative, anchor to her magnificent, relatively unsung oeuvre.
No macho-male abstractionist applied paint like DeFeo. Her most celebrated works are on canvas. Yet, the canvas itself plays no part. The paint erupts from them, creating a whole new, deeply sculptural, landscape.
As she was dying from cancer at age 60, DeFeo took to small scale, flat canvasses that were unrelenting in their honesty as their signs of deterioration and death.
This is a show that embodies the art-as-self of a legit Hero.

[The Art Book Review · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The canvas is Penelope’s loom, made, built upon, and then undone in the still of the night. The painting is a body, ripe with raw muscles and spilled guts. Such visceral messes can be found in contemporary artists from Paul McCarthy to Joyce Pensato. Superficial skins peel away to reveal all the unseen strata; flayed, sensitive, alive."
--David Gilbert on "Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective"

Read the full review here:
http://theartbookreview.org/2013/08/0...

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent cross section of the work of Jay DeFeo and her life. Great reproductions and examples of collages and photographs. Really insightful.