Old Friends: Tony Berlant and James Hayward

Old Friends Tony Berlant and James Hayward

December 16, 2021 – January 23, 2022

Left to Right: Tony Berlant and James Hayward in 2021

Left to Right: James Hayward and Tony Berlant in 1977 Image provided by Joan Quinn

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Old Friends by David Pagel Selected Groupings: Tony Berlant and James Hayward

Tony Berlant

13 21 29

Wall Mounted Collages Sculptural Collages Blade Signs

James Hayward

31 34 41 43

Abstracts Diptychs

Archival Images Biographies

Old Friends Tony and Jimmy met in 1966 and have been friends ever since. That’s an awfully long time, and lots has happened over those five-and-a-half decades, both in the world at large and in the lives of the two artists. Their enduring friendship speaks to a deep—and deeply human—connection between them, a reciprocal relationship in which each brings out the best in the other, not always instantly or easily, but consistently accompanied by the unvarnished honesty and abiding integrity that are essential for real trust and true love to get a toehold—and to have a fighting chance—in a world that seems to be increasingly overrun by the opposite: a what’s-in-it-for-me-and-mealone selfishness that has no patience for other people because it’s based in the belief that social relationships are a zero-sum game, an everyone-for-themselves melee in which every benefit anyone accrues comes out of someone else’s loss.

Friends do not behave like that. Not in the 1960s. Not in the 2020s. Nor in any of the decades between. And for all that time, Tony and Jimmy have remained true to their artistic visions and moral principles, each making the works they needed—and need—to make, while engaging each other in wide-ranging conversations about how their works worked— and continue to work—in the world. Their friendship has given them something special:

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someone they trust to tell them the truth about what they have just done in the studio.

Like every artist worthy of being called an artist (and there are many pretenders), Tony and Jimmy test what they have done in the studio against themselves before bringing it out into the world. That’s a solitary and complex process. It requires each to marshall the entirety of his thinking, intuition, and experience, as well as his beliefs, convictions, and ambitions, to analyze, scrutinize, and ponder every move he has made with the materials he has chosen to work with. It’s a rigorous, often ruthless assessment of palette, texture, and composition, as well as gesture, scale, and energy, not to mention feel, pace, and rhythm; atmosphere, depth, and suggestion; kick, impact, and mystery. And it’s always accompanied by doubt, by a healthy dose of the feeling that what you have just done is not good enough—that it should be better: maybe clearer and crisper and more focused, or deeper, more resonant, and more profound, or more expansive, wide-ranging, rip-roaring.

This is the self-critical component of art making: the moment when the insights generated by logic and rationality bump up against the pleasures provided by sense experience, whose complexities cannot be translated into words, much less step-by-step arguments or irrefutable dissertations.

Along with this self-critical moment of art making is the soaring, self-confident moment that comes with the thrill of having made an object that amazes you—of having gotten lost in a process of concentrated physical activity, maybe cutting, shuffling, and nailing (in Tony’s case), or mixing, dipping, and slashing (in Jimmy’s case), and then standing back and seeing that something magical has happened: something unpredictable, just beyond the horizon of your awareness, not exactly something you set out to do—as if following a recipe or set of directions—but something that is better than anything you had anticipated, something beyond anything you had envisioned and are now standing right in front of, your world different because the new work is in it. Such transformative discoveries are most potent—and consequential—when they’re unsettling, when they come from someplace beyond consciousness, and, in one fell swoop, take you to unfamiliar, even unknown territory.

What’s most important about this half of the creative process is that it has nothing to do with either artist’s ego. It has nothing to do with the authority of authorship nor the brilliance of genius, neither compositional virtuosity (Tony) nor whiplash brushwork (Jimmy); neither spatial savvy (Tony) nor gestural aplomb (Jimmy). On the contrary, it’s all about each

artist trusting the stuff he works with, and trusting the process he has developed: giving himself over to both, for the time it takes to do what he does (sometimes hours, sometimes months), and then being up to the task of coming to some kind of understanding of what that all might mean, both in terms of what it says about the world we live in and what it says about what each artist might do next, based on what he discovered in his last piece.

Those two elements—trust and the internal conflict between doubt and confidence— get raised to the next level when they occur between friends. What takes place between each artist and the work he has just made gets replayed or revisited—re-envisioned and reimagined—between each artist and his friend.

Tony tests Jimmy’s works against everything he knows and feels about art. And Jimmy assesses Tony’s works against all his wisdom and experience. Each friend provides the other with something like a second opinion, a knowledgeable perspective or informed understanding that is different from the artist’s own view of his work and different, as well, from how the general public might come to understand the work. Their conversations are unique in that they spring up in the no-man’sland between the solitary work that takes place in the privacy of the studio and the social responses to those works that occur once they

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go out into the world. One-to-one, face-to-face conversations like theirs do not get much ink in when the lives of artists get written about, their existence disappearing behind the mythology of the solitary artist, striving and succeeding solo, his genius unsullied by interactions with others, be they spouses or friends, compatriots or colleagues. This exhibition is one small step toward making such conversations—and the friendship they are based in—visible. It’s a modestly ambitious attempt to consider friendship as an essential ingredient of art, especially when it comes to the works made by Tony and Jimmy.

The intimacy of their friendship is a gift: It gives Tony and Jimmy a rare and valuable way of seeing their own work through the eyes of someone they trust, someone who knows and cares about their goals and purposes, along with their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their tendencies, proclivities, and foibles, not to mention their backgrounds, aspirations, and just about everything they have ever made.

The conversations that come out of this stage of the creative process are invaluable to each artist, who takes them to heart, sometimes taking their work out into the world, ready to risk the unpredictable assessments visited upon it by the general public, and sometimes taking it back to the studio, where it gets revised or rejected or reconfigured—the

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reconsiderations triggered by the friend’s conversations transforming the artist’s understanding of his own work.

These conversations, between true friends—and with lots at stake—are radically different from the interactions we commonly describe as “friendly.” By that we usually mean pleasant and enjoyable and in which nothing uncomfortable comes up to derail the niceness of the otherwise anodyne exchange. In contrast, the conversations that take place between artists who are friends are bare-knuckled and bare-naked: Nothing like everyday chats between strangers or even new friends, they get to the heart and soul of what each artist cares about most deeply and pursues, not just passionately, but as if his life depended on it. Such conversations are not collaborations, because neither artist works with the other as his art is bodied forth from the materials it starts out as. Each artist’s work is completely and totally theirs, in that each remains responsible for everything that goes into and goes on in each piece. It’s just that it’s difficult to also say that each artist’s work is “theirs and theirs alone.” While the first “theirs” rings true, the second not so much so. The fact of the matter is that their friendship modifies— even transforms—the aloneness of being an artist.

The idea that artists must shun society and all others has its roots in the Romantic fantasy that to be true to their visions artists must labor in something like solitary confinement.

That old-fashioned notion is sustained by the modern assumption that artistic originality comes out of nowhere, and that it’s strongest in works that stand apart from their mundane surroundings, unsullied by such down-to-earth interactions as friendship. “Old Friends: Tony Berlant and James Hayward” lays those ideas to rest by making room for some larger truths: 1.) that artists exist in relation to other artists; 2.) that doing your own thing has nothing to do with standing apart from everyone out there; and 3.) that integrity and honesty are fortified when they are tested not just against oneself, in private, but in the presence of someone else; and 4.) that without trust, within oneself and between at least one other person, love has no room to maneuver. That’s the beauty of Tony’s and Jimmy’s works: They give love a toehold in a world that often seems inhospitable to its existence.

also brings out the best of each artist, giving each another pair of eyes through which to see what they’re doing. And viewers, of all shapes and stripes, benefit magnificently from their friendship. Rather than telling us what to do, like some pedagogue or know-it-all, they show us how to interact with their works: Beginning with trust, and sticking with it for a while, we might very well fall in love with what they are up to as artists, entering into relationships in which we make all sorts of unexpected discoveries, in both their art and ourselves.

- David Pagel Art critic, curator, and professor of art theory and history at Claremont Graduate University

In a sense, Tony and Jimmy have figured out how to eat their cake and have it too. Their friendship brings together the best of two worlds, combining the unselfconscious actions and solitary contemplation of the studio with the back-and-forth, to-and-fro of honest conversation between people. Their friendship

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Tony Berlant One of One, 2018 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 60 x 45 in.

James Hayward Chromacord #104, 2006 Oil on canvas on wood panel 58 x 48 in.

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“Instead of broadening the paradigm, Tony has continued to deconstruct and refine the paradigm. He’s been a great friend.”

- James Hayward

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Left: Tony Berlant, One of One, 2018 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 60 x 45 in.

Right: James Hayward, Chromacord #104, 2006 Oil on canvas on wood panel 58 x 48 in.

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James Hayward Abstract #242, 2015 Oil on canvas on wood panel 15 x 14 in.

Tony Berlant Zone, 2005 Reclaimed tin, steel brads, wood 20 x 17 in.

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Tony Berlant Wink, 2019 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 5 3/4 x 5 1/2 5 3/4 in.

James Hayward Abstract #194, 2013 Oil on canvas on wood panel 15 x 11 in.

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Tony Berlant Rolling Right, 2013 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 13 x 12 in.

“You don’t have to know people for them to be essential influences, but the people whose studios you hang out in and whose work you watch evolve over a long time have the greatest influence.”

- Tony Berlant

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Tony Berlant Flame, 2005 reclaimed tin, steel brads, wood 12” x 8 1/4”

Tony Berlant Luck of the Draw, 2011 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 30 x 30 in.

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Tony Berlant Is What It Is, 2011 Reclaimed tin, steel brads, wood 24 x 50 1/2 in.

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Tony Berlant polaroid by Andy Warhol, 1973 Image courtesy of Tony Berlant

Opposite: Tony Berlant Within and Without, 2017 Polaroid imagery by Andy Warhol Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 80 x 24 in.

(Detail)

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Tony Berlant O, 2019 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 7 1/4 x 5 1/2 7 3/4 in.

Tony Berlant Big Fish, Little Pond, 2019 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 8 1/4 x 6 3/4 8 in.

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Tony Berlant Home Run, 2018 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 8 in.

Tony Berlant Seventh Heaven, 2018 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 10½ x 8⅛ x 10⅝ in.

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Tony Berlant Key (side A), 2017 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 20 1/2 x 48 1/4 x 6 3/4 in.

Tony Berlant Key (side B), 2017 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 20 1/2 x 48 1/4 x 6 3/4 in.

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“It should be said that Mr. Berlant has picked up a lot from other artists, among them Frank Stella and Sigmar Polke, but he has assiduously cultivated the part of his work that is his own with sophistication, intelligence and restraint.”

- Roberta Smith

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Tony Berlant Lucky, 2015 Reclaimed tin, steel brads, wood 6 x 6 x 6 in. each

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Tony Berlant Encinitas, 2018 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 22 x 15 in.

Tony Berlant Roamy, 2018 Photo printed metal, found tin and steel brads 18 x 13 1/4 in.

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James Hayward Abstract #244, 2017 Oil on canvas on wood panel 58 x 48 in.

James Hayward Abstract #141, 2007 Oil on canvas on wood panel 36 x 28 in.

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“James Hayward’s paintings exist as a constellation of occasions scattered about in an infinitely nuanced field of sizes, surfaces, and colors. All of their attributes resist ascribed meaning.”

- Dave Hickey

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James Hayward Abstract Diptych #47, 2017 Oil on canvas on wood panels 33 x 44 in.

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James Hayward Abstract Diptych #55, 2018 Oil on canvas on wood panels 17 x 27 in.

Opposite: (Detail)

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James Hayward Abstract Diptych #54, 2018 Oil on canvas on wood panels 15 x 22 in.

“Hayward’s command of paint, ranging from blissful spontaneity to profound control, separates him from artists who are lured into a signature style.”

- Frances Colpitt

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“Hayward is a consummate painter and one of the major, enduring figures of our time.”

- Dave Hickey

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James Hayward Abstract Diptych #31, 2016 Oil on canvas on wood panels 15 x 22 in.

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Left to Right: Tony Berlant, Gwynn Murrill, and Nancy Rubins

Left to Right: Tony Berlant and James Hayward in 1977 Image provided by Joan Quinn

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Left to Right: James Hayward and Chris Burden

Left to Right: James Hayward, Helen Berlant, Nancy Rubins, and Chris Burden

Left to Right: James Hayward and Tony Berlant

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Tony Berlant Born New York, NY in 1941 Lives and works in Santa Monica, CA

Education 1961 Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Los Angeles 1962 Master of Arts, Painting, University of California, Los Angeles 1963 Master of Fine Arts, Sculpture, University of California, Los Angeles 1965-69 Taught at University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Art

Public Collections Art Institute of Chicago, IL

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA

San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Stanford Museum of Art, Palo Alto, CA

Minneapolis Institute of Fine Art, Minneapolis, MN

The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA

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James Hayward Born in San Francisco, CA in 1943 Lives and works in Moorpark, CA

Education 1966 BFA, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 1966-1969 Graduate School, University of California, Los Angeles 1972 MFA, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Public Collections Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, CA

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

University Art Museum, UCSB, CA

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami Beach, FL

Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University,

San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA

Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, Minneapolis, MN

Anderson School of Business, UCLA, CA

Malibu, CA

Denver Museum of Modern Art, Denver, CO

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