according to what 

a column about art
and the kitchen sink


by Richard Milazzo
with Joey T. Lamb
and R.T. Vullo







Walter, this is by way of a preface. I'm 

on overload. I've fallen down and I can't 

get up. So, I've asked some friends to 

help me. Their names are R.T. Vullo and 

Joey T. Lamb.


R.T.'s a writer. He was born in North 

Africa. He says he's a "derelict 

entrepreneur, and the product of Arabic, 

Sicilian, and American relations." 

Somewhere else, he describes himself as 

"ultimately a black Jew from Marseilles." 

He's also "an amateur photographer, who 

enjoys the subsidiary pleasures of travel." 

He currently lives and works in Morocco and 

Egypt, with little stop-overs in New York, 

Paris, London, etc.


Joey's a whole other story. They also call 

him "o.t." (small case), short for Joey-on-

the-Lam. I've known o.t. forever. He's 

from Queens, my neck of the woods, Astoria, 

specifically. His m.o. is very vague. He's 

a little bit on the crude side -- like R.T. 

-- but always insightful.


By the way, I met both of them at Cronin 

and Phelan's, an old drinking hole of mine, 

on Broadway (just off Steinway) in Astoria, 

so long ago I can't remember. Just to give 

you some idea, my old elementary school is 

right around the corner, Most Precious 

Blood. We've lost track of each other 

plenty of times, for long periods of times, 

but always somehow manage to get back in 

touch again. I guess Joey (o.t.) is also a 

writer, of some kind.


So, that's the warning. Here's the 

exchange we had recently about art and a 

great many other things, much of it ad 

hominem. Hope you can use it, or some part 

of it. If not, just junk the whole thing.


[Richard -- you said it, I did it. Don't 

worry, I took out far more than I put in, 

in the hope that you can save the leftovers 

for next time. -- respectfully, Walter]


* * * *


RT: Some preface. You know we could've 

written those bios ourselves, and they 

would've come out much better. At least, 

they would've been honest.


RM: Honest?


RT: Why, do you think that's impossible?


ot: Richard has a philosophy thing about 

lies.


RM: Yeah. That they can contain the 

better part of the truth. Or that they 

sometimes can liberate us from the truth.



RT: You mean it's the common man's form of 

liberation from reality, the common folk's 

metaphor.


RM: Yeah, an existential trope.


ot: Here we go again, with those long, 

meaningless terms.


RT: The worst part of it, is Richard's 

pseudo-desire to identify with the masses. 

He wants to join up, especially recently, 

but can't, because he won't really exhale 

and get rid of all that constipated, bone-

chilling, sterile terminology he loves to 

use to intimidate no one but himself.


ot: Plus, just to add insult to injury, he 

loves to talk about reality and lies and 

other dirty things, but he's really 

incapable of jumping into the fray.


RM: What is this, some kind of dare? All I 

was trying to do was press forward the 

ideas about lies we have been discussing 

for the longest time. What's going to 

happen when I bring up my other big term...


ot: Oh, oh! You don't mean...


RT: Don't even say it. It's Richard's 

impression of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.


ot: God! You mean his latest take on the 

art world -- the UNDIFFERENTIATION 

thing.... It's Richard getting older, like 

in Unforgiven. Lately, he's been falling 

off his horse more often. 


RT: So, he's even willing to communicate 

with the rest of us. 


ot: He's maturing. But even under the 

banner of his new, humane style of 

communication he becomes so insecure...and 

suddenly launches, out of that old 

insecurity, one of his neo-Dada, neo-Art 

Language terms, like a SCUD missile...


* * * *

RT: So why don't you go ahead and explain 

your term UNDIFFERENTIATION.


RM: I don't feel like it now.


ot: You want to talk about Schnabel?


RT: You mean his new double show at 

Pace/Wildenstein and Sperone Westwater?


RM: If we are going to discuss it 

intelligently, then I'd like to do it in 

the context of Milton Resnick's new 

paintings uptown at Robert Miller.


ot: And, of course, you wouldn't mind 

bringing them up in the context of the 

young Belgian artist you are currently 

showing in your shiny new space at Janis -- 

Michel Frére.


RM: Hardly shiny. But, no, I wouldn't 

mind. Since it all legitimately falls 

within the scope of my theory about 

UNDIFFERENTIATION.


RT: What's your space at Janis called...


RM: "11, rue Larrey at Sidney Janis 

Gallery."


ot: Sounds like the Janises have opened up 

a new gallery in Paris.


RT: No, it doesn't. What do the press 

releases say... something about a door by 

Duchamp...


RM: I have a copy of it right here.


ot: Naturally.


RM: Quote: A new space adjoining the main 

gallery, named "11, rue Larrey at Sidney 

Janis Gallery," is distinguished by 15 x 

24' wall-to-wall north light windows and a 

door that links the two spaces, recalling 

Marcel Duchamp's Porte, 11 rue Larrey, a 

work that references the address of his 

small Paris apartment in 1927. Duchamp had 

a carpenter replace the two colliding doors 

that separated the bedroom from the 

bathroom with a single one that could be 

simultaneously opened and closed. Duchamp 

saw in this door a "domestic paradox" that 

constituted ultimately "a reconciliation of 

opposites." We see in it simply the co-

existence of two separate spaces within the 

same gallery.


ot: So, you want to talk about abstraction, 

basically. I mean if you want to talk 

about Schnabel, Resnick and Frére, 

you must really want to talk about 

abstraction and painting...


RM: Also about Katz's new show at Peter 

Blum downtown.


ot: OK. Let's. I don't really care who 

we talk about. It's all the same to me.



RM: You guys want to tear everything down, 

which is really stupid. You're just the 

other side of October magazine.


ot: No, November Magazine. And what makes 

you think they don't want to tear 

everything down, but in their own way.


RM: That's what I said.


RT: You mean May Magazine.


ot: How about February Magazine?


RM: I'm outta here.


* * * *


RT: Where were we?


ot: Richard was plugging his space at 

Janis. 


RM: We were going to talk about two uptown 

shows -- Resnick and Frére -- and 

two downtown shows -- Schnabel and Katz.


RT: Very symmetrical.


ot: Why Schnabel? Doesn't he get enough 

publicity? Isn't that a bit of the 

problem? Like Patrick Ewing of the New 

York Knicks -- after nine seasons, don't 


you think he's had enough time? It's 

clearly a motivation thing. Some guys can 

produce when you pay them a lot of money. 

Other guys, well, it cuts into their 

motivation. Nine seasons and no 

championship. I say trash the bum.


RT: You're saying Schnabel has a 

motivation problem?


ot: Do you have another explanation? He's 

been around for nearly 15 seasons, and no 

championship.


RM: No championship...?


RT: You mean no really great paintings, 

just really large ones that use size to 

mask their lack of greatness. But no real 

masterpieces.


ot: Masterpiece theater...but no 

substance. He's admired some of the right 

guys -- Cy Twombly, Picasso -- but he 

always comes up blank.


RT: Harold Bloom's anxiety of influence 

syndrome...


ot: No. Just wanting to be like someone 

else so badly, namely Picasso, and knowing 

that the key to being his successor is that 

you must never believe that you are not.


RM: You mean the key is that you must 

believe so fully in your self-delusion that 

you erase any possible trace of self-

consciousness?


RT: Right. If you believe in yourself, in 

the delusion of yourself as the new, young 

Picasso, then it will follow that people 

like Bernice Rose will write in your 

catalogue "Schnabel is a true believer: 

'Art functions as a physical fact to 

commemorate the existence of being'." The 

quote within the quote belongs to Schnabel 

himself.


ot: She also did not fail to mention 

Schnabel's "nostalgia for ambitious 

painting."


RT: It is very clever, because she gets 

out of saying they are actually ambitious 

paintings by suggesting that it is his 

nostalgia for greatness, in effect, that 

not only creates or "generates" Schnabel's 

new paintings but can explain his ambition. 

Very clever.


RM: Let's try to get past the politics of 

ambition and creation and see if we can 

actually talk about the paintings.


ot: I guess.


* * * *

RM: But before we begin, we must talk 

about Jonathan Lasker and the Lasker School 

of abstraction, currently in vogue in the 

New York art world right now, and 

internationally.


RT: You mean like Spain's "Lasker" is Juan 

Uslé and Great Britain's is Fiona Rae. 

And, of course, here there are lots of 

lesser "laskers."



RM: I don't know if I would put it exactly 

like that. I think these are good artists. 

Plus, here, Fabian Marcaccio has made a 

substantial contribution, building not only 

on Lasker but on Peter Halley's work, as 

well.


ot: OK, Richard, you were saying that you 

can't talk about Schnabel unless you talk 

about Lasker first. Let's have it.


RT: Let's get it over with, especially the 

bit about Clint Eastwood, I mean 

UNDIFFERENTIATION.


RM: Basically, Lasker has been practicing 

a variety of abstraction that has 

emphasized the differentiation of figure 

and ground.


ot: I remember the explanation from 

another article you did. Essentially what 

you're saying is that the figure and ground 

have become so distinct from each other -- 

so externalized -- that they have almost 

become 'signs' rather than 'marks'.


RT: This is because abstract painting has 

been competing with Pop ever since Pop's 

inception in the 1950s. That's the idea, 

right?


RM: Sort of. Yes, in a way, the work, the 

gesture, the structure, the whole 

phenomenological disposition of the figure 

and ground have become signic in nature.


ot: Christ! "Phenomenological," "signic," 

crap! Can't you speak in English?

RT: They have assumed the status of signs, 

Pop icons, but they have lost their dignity 

as intensified carriers of the Sublime and 

the Visionary. Isn't that the idea?


ot: You mean after all the efforts to 

establish a material vocabulary for 

abstract painting, you want to revert back 

to some kind of universal Zen moment of 

unity or "onement" of painting? Give us a 

break!


RM: Sorry. But I'm not talking about the 

abdication of the material values of 

painting. I'm just suggesting that even 

this so-called material language of 

abstract painting has been usurped by a new 

Pop vocabulary of abstract signs. You could 

call it 'Pop abstraction'.


RT: I think I understand. Can the signs 

also be historical?


RM: Precisely.


ot: I'm lost, Mr. & Mrs.October 

Magazine. What are you guys doing, an 

imitation of Artforum ese?


RM: Why don't you try to concentrate 

instead of always reacting. What I'm trying 

to get at is that painting has become a 

very self-conscious practice.


ot: When wasn't it?


RT: It has become self-reflexive in 

relation to its own history. In effect, 

it's involved in an act of appropriation or 

reappropriation.


ot: Or, EXPROPRIATION!!!


RM: It has taken the history of its own 

mark-making and converted it into a sign-

producing machine, devoid of any spiritual 

dimension....


ot: You mean abstract painting has become 

an ironical practice -- very shrewd, very 

professional, very calculated? Very middle 

class.


RM: I wouldn't go that far. I would say 

very studied or self-reflexive.


RT: Your term was 'self-conscious'. At 

its worse, it has become anecdotal.


RM: Yes. But at its best, just to follow 

Jonathan's own reasoning, irony's pursuit 

of meaning can yield the tragical in 

abstract painting.


ot: But how can you speak about the 

spiritual in abstract painting, its lack or 

nostalgia for its return? What a bunch of 

poop?


RT: But what the hell does this have to do 

with Julian Schnabel? Christ, you're not 

going to argue that the "Schnab" is 

involved in the restoration of the 

Spiritual in abstract painting?... Please, 

don't say that!


RM: No. Where I was going with all of this 

is that Lasker has advanced the case of 

abstraction as an evolutionary model. 

Whether good or bad, he has driven the 

practice to a certain set of extremes. 

Among these extremes is the infusion of 

irony and other Pop, very plastic values 

into abstract painting. I believe the heart 

and soul of this form of evolutionary 

extremism is the intensification of the 

differentiation of the figure and ground, 

the basic formal ingredients of abstract 

painting.


ot: OK, OK. So where are you going with 

this stinkpot of elitist distinctions?


RM: Just that Lasker, if not his followers 

-- and there are a great many of them -- 

its even worse than school of Bleckner, an 

artist who, as you know very well, I have 

also always loved and supported -- has 

accomplished a great deal, but he has also 

had to sacrifice a great deal to achieve 

this new plateau, or let's call it the new 

descendent values of abstract painting.


RT: Dialectical thinking if ever I've seen 

it. So, who are the best among these 

artists? David Reed, Stephen Ellis, who 

else?


RM: Forget it. That's not the point. But 

yes, they are very good artists.


ot: Why are you being so diplomatic? 

Where does Schnabel fit into all of this, 

all of these wild value judgments, 

supported only by your theoretical 

hallucinations?


RM: Well, as Lasker has pushed the 

differentiation of figure and ground to new 

extremes -- wait till you see the new 

paintings for his next show at Sperone 

Westwater in April! -- he has also forced 

the issue in other people's work.


ot: I don't understand.


RM: Well, by no means do I think that all 

of these cultural pulsions are conscious. 

Let's say they're just in the air. So, 

while Lasker, who is a great artist, may be 

able to push the envelope of 

differentiation, and continue to produce 

powerful new works, and test the limits of 

the rational in abstract painting -- 

indeed, test the very boundaries of irony, 

plasticity, meaning, and the interaction of 

Pop Art or popular culture and abstraction 

or the history of abstract painting -- 

other artists may either fall away or adopt 

new strategies or go in other directions or 

abandon these modalities altogether. At 

least, they may seem to on the surface.


RT: Are you alluding to Alex Katz's 

paintings? You know, the boats, 

Provincetown, etc.


* * * *


RM: Michel Frére is one of those artists 

who has, consciously or not, chosen to 

abandon 'smart', Richteresque or 

Laskeresque painting.


ot: Here it comes...

U N D I F F E R E N T I A T I O N! 


RM: It's like this. And Frére is not the 

only one up to this. I'm also thinking of 

Charles Clough, who's been around for 

years; not to mention Resnick, who is 

really an old master at it. And then there 

is the very contemporary, Italian, abstract 

painter, Stefano Peroli.


ot: Can you explain what I T is?


* * * *


RM: Michel Frére pushes the 

differentiation of figure and ground to the 

point where they almost become one and the 

same. It as if he were driving the figure 

and ground toward each other, neutralizing 

them, rendering them indistinguishable. He 

is pushing ahead through a form of 

regression, back to an unknowable common 

source. Lasker intensifies the 

differentiation of figure and ground, 

thereby relating them to an uncommon 

source, whereas Frére accents the 

undifferentiation of the figure and ground, 

achieving a kind of transcendental mud (or 

ground).


ot: So, Lasker's form of abstraction is 

fundamentally fueled by differentiation, 

whereas Frére is compelled by 

undifferentiation.


RM: Exactly.


RT: So, I think I know where Schnabel fits 

into all of this.


ot: ...in the middle?


RM: Yes. At least at this moment, he is 

the great Middle-Man of abstract painting. 

He is caught somewhere between a monumental 

desire to differentiate his forms and the 

contradictory compulsion to release them 

from the pseudo-glamor of his ego.


ot: What you have in Schnabel's case are 

gigantic, awkward missteps.


RT: What you have is an ego that, contrary 

to what the artist may believe, does not 

generate form but rather competes with the 

forms that it is barely able to articulate.


ot: This is why even their conception 

seems blurred, and the execution unskilled.


RT: This, despite Bernice Rose's brilliant 

(if somewhat too Roland Bartheish) essay.


RM: The homage is not so much to Paolo 

Malfi, who was accidentally hit and killed 

by a automobile, but to Schnabel himself, 

whose nervous, ever-present, fumbling ego 

stunts his forms and terminates them even 

before they can take flight or properly 

fall to the ground.


ot: It is his ego that is bidding "Adieu" 

to his own forms -- and it is the double 

nature of this self-possession, this 

thwarted desire, that creates the illusion 

of self and other, communication or 

language, and even intimacy, in Schnabel's 

work, at least in Bernice Rose's eyes.


RT: This is why we can feel no sympathy 

for the 'subject' of the homage, regardless 

of who it is, nor empathy for the paintings 

that would circumscribe a general sense of 

mortality.


RM: The failed Postmodern melodrama of 

inauthenticity replaces the diurnal drama 

of a single mortality.


ot: The paintings do not understand a 

simple death, much less its possible 

conversions, whether they be material or 

allegorical.


[Richard, I just had to stop and ask, what 

do "thereby relating them to a common 

source," "the diurnal drama of a single 

mortality" and other such gnomic utterances 

mean? And if Julian's ego is "nervous" and 

"fumbling," does that mean mine is too, and 

yours? --baffledly, Walter] 


* * * *


RT: Where were we?


RM: Let's jump to the old master, Milton 

Resnick. I loved his new paintings.


ot: Loved?


RM: Loved. It's a new art term. I'm 

collecting them. Others are realism, 

spirituality, visionary, essence, the 

universal, the Sublime. 


It's not just because he's added the human 

(or inhuman) figure. In fact, the figure 

merely emphasizes anew, in a very dramatic 

way, in mythological terms, the phenomenon 

of undifferentiation at work in his 

paintings.


ot: By the way, didn't you say that you 

liked something about Schnabel's new 

works...


RM: Yes, very much. I like the fact that 

he approached this batch of new paintings 

with a new-found rigor. He really attacked 

the surfaces. 


ot: You mean usually he's so reverential 

toward his own work.


RM: Yes. Hoping that we will be, too. 

Setting the right example for us.


RT: Pretending like he's Cy, or Brice 

Marden, with a twig in his hand, channeling 

the natural forces of Nature, or, in Cy's 

case, re-inscribing the void with a certain 

refined but Dionysian fervor.


ot: Yes, the surfaces are fuller, more 

robust, less tentative.


RT: But, still something is missing.


ot: Real vision...


RT: motivation...


RM: a real connection to one's self.


ot: Brice, the Zen master, also 

occasionally forgets this dimension of 

things, as banal or trite as it may sound, 

and sometimes so does the pre-Socratic 

champion, Mr. Twombly.


RT: "Real Vision"...is that like Real 

Lemon Juice?


RM: You're afraid to say things like this, 

about the transcendental and the visionary, 

so you cover your ass by being ironical.


ot: Just like the painters do?...


RT: Weren't we talking about Resnick, his 

new work, the built up surfaces, the 

addition, of late, of the figures?... At 

some level, Resnick has always been 

involved in trying to build up what can be 

paradoxically described as a differentiated 

ground.


ot: Color, texture, sensation have always 

been driven right up to the imperceptible 

edge of undifferentiation.


RM: It is like he has tried to 

substantiate the groundlessness of abstract 

painting, or better, he has tried to find 

the ground of the void that fundamentally 

subtends abstraction.


RT: Richard, at his best.


RM: Not really. I hate this language. It 

says nothing.


ot: So try again, Mr. Great-newfound-

appreciator-of-communication-and-clarity.


RM: OK. One of the reasons the addition 

of the figures is so interesting, at least 

to me, is that they confirm, or they are 

the outcome, the substantiated nodal point, 

of the void that Resnick has always sought 

to exquisitely map.



RT: This is why the figures look so basic, 

like they are about to return to their 

source or sources, even though they also 

look as if they have just emerged from 

them, from the depths?


RM: Yes. This is why they look so faint 

and yet so encrusted or grounded. The 

distance between the surfaces and the 

ground, the figures and their 'depth', is 

not so great or differentiated. This is 

also why he has chosen such simple 

mythological elements and figures -- Adam 

and Eve, the snake, the mythical tree of 

Knowledge, etc. -- they lend themselves to 

a common ground, a material narrative, a 

crusted halo (ugh!), that we can all 

faintly relate to.


ot: They appear 'soft', unedgy, almost at 

ease with the transcendental underworld of 

our discarded figures and myths. And yet 

the brutal or brutish nuances of their 

reality cannot be denied.


RT: Where can you get 'crusted halos' -- 

at those new coffee shops?


RM: In a way, Resnick's new figure 

paintings have the integrity of Dubuffet's 

best figurative work, and the surface or 

material refinement of Ryman at his least 

effete.


RT: If I understand what we are saying it 

is as if the process of undifferentiation 

were happening on the ground level in 

Frére, and, let us say, on the figure level 

in Katz's work, and Resnick is somewhere in 

between, but not in a bad way...


ot: like Schnabel, who is unsure of 

himself and lost in the middle.


RT: Schnabel is still trying to wade 

through the muck of human existence, and 

drowning, whereas Frére, Resnick and Katz 

kind of just glide through it all, but 

really capture the grotesque nature of the 

experience and process.


* * * *


ot: So, I've been thinking about this guy, 

Clough. He's been around for a while, 

hasn't he? Why all the unsuccess -- and 

don't tell me it's because of all the 

UNDIFFERENTIATION!


RM: Actually...yes. In part, that is the 

reason. At least in his best pictures, the 

space in which he differentiates figure and 

ground becomes very complex, multifaceted, 

liquid to the extreme. His pictures have 

always had a soft edge during very hard-

edged times. And they have always tended 

toward the chaotic, or rather, they have 

always messed up our neat little aesthetic 

and existential boundaries.


Sometimes he pushes the figure and ground 

to the extremes of undifferentiation. So 

that people can't really situate themselves 

in the space. They can't really...


RT: identify the energy in a specific or 

causal way.


RM: Exactly Pollock's energy, Matisse's 

color, sometimes a de Kooningesque figure 

or a Tintorettoesque land- or skyscape... 

but ultimately Clough brings you face to 

face, right up to the glamour, the luxury, 

the horror, the brink, the excess of the 

void -- which surrounds us unrelentfully.


RT: And exquisitely.


ot: What about the other character...


RM: You mean Stefano Peroli, the young 

Italian painter? OK, well what I like are 

the soft edges, the way it is sometimes 

difficult to grasp the figure and ground 

distinction. At least, in some of his best 

paintings, even where the figural 'arm' 

still obtains in the picture, Peroli makes 

it very difficult to physically apprehend 

the space.


ot: I know, I know. They are trying the 

destiny of undifferentiation.


RT: I think the way he would put it -- and 

this I got from Richard's conversations 

with the artist -- they are exploring the 

residues -- "il resto" -- of an 

undifferentiated figure/ground relation.


RM: In this regard, it is only the cloud 

or the stardust of their posthumous 

existence that endures beyond their fated 

undifferentiation.


ot: "Fated undifferentiation." What is 

that?


RM: Never mind.


ot: No. Explain it.


RM: F you.


* * * *


RT: Alex Katz. Doesn't he fancy himself 

kind've like a truck driver? Doesn't he 

cultivate a kind of rough and tumble 

persona?


ot: He sounds cool.


RT: Kind of like an I-beam painter, a 

belated AB EX guy...


RM: Yeah, he's got a tough side, I guess. 

Who knows? Who cares? I guess it's part 

of the art thing.


RT: You mean, like he may be defensive 

about being a painter, even at this late 

date, or sensitive, down deep inside... 

where it counts (ugh)...and so he puts on 

a cold exterior...?




CODA

Walter, after that things got kinda outta 

hand. So, we couldn't really finish. I'm 

sorry. 


Anyway, just one last thing. I really 

liked Alex Katz's show, and I want to try 

to say something about his pictures.


To me what was interesting -- especially 

now that my head is full and my eyes are 

blinded by this stupid idea about 

undifferentiation -- was the way the figure 

and ground, as so-called more 'realistic' 

rather than more abstract elements, moved 

toward each other in values. The small 

picture, in the front of the gallery, the 

one with the little boats, and the one way 

at the back, with the patches of light 

green, almost seemed to dissolve into an 

early morning mist. Not the way one 

customarily thinks of a void -- or, at 

least, that's not the way I'm accustomed to 

thinking about them.


Somehow you always think that those grand, 

innocuous, nondescript ones that supposedly 

envelop us are always going to take a more 

dramatic form. You don't think it could be 

perfectly embodied by a small, overturned 

rowboat lying on the side of a sand dune, 

painted in proverbial "black and white," or 

rather, in subtly differentiated tones of 

gray, which quietly push toward the glory 

and destitution of the known world. 

Somehow I always reserve a major hot spot 

for my voids. 



That's it, Walter. You better protect me 

editorially from any major embarrassments. 

You, who are so mesmerized by the glamour 

of being bored, and I, who am riddled with 

the ulcers of self-conscious expiation. 

I'm placing myself and my cohorts in your 

hands, Mr. Allstate!


Mea culpa and good luck.


Yours faithfully,

Richard 




RICHARD MILAZZO lives and works in New York.