Hans Hermann Viets Beans and Barley Market and Cafe 1901 E. North Avenue, Milwaukee 414-278-7878 www.beansandbarley.org By Debra Brehmer I don’t fall in love easily. But I am crazy about the new paintings at Beans and Barley, and the funny thing is, no one agrees with me. I’ve shown two friends these paintings and they unanimously said “ugh.” One said quite unequivocably: “They are disgusting.” But I’m sticking to my guns. I think they are divine. This might, indeed, be the first time I’ve ever walked into a local art exhibit and had such an immediate reaction. The artist of note is someone I’ve never heard of: Hans Hermann Viets. It sounds like a made-up name. Matter of fact, in looking on the web, finding his site and reading his bio, which unfolds like fiction, I began to wonder. This guy Viets studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Moved to New York City. Had all his work stolen. It later showed up on exhibit at a Soho gallery. A roommate had apparently confiscated the work, signed her name to it and was showing 18 of the 21 paintings. The gallery returned the work to Viets. Meanwhile, to lick his wounds, he had taken a job at the Dia Center, commuting to Beacon daily, where he met and worked with Sol LeWitt. Starting to sound like a fairy tale? That’s what I thought. His “bio” continues: Travel to Germany, plays in a band, and here’s the clincher, Viets returns to Milwaukee to enroll in the Milwaukee School of Engineering, where this week he is finishing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. Why? To supplement his artistic process. This is all made-for-TV stuff. I actually started to wonder if this was a hoax. Could these paintings have been done by monkeys or an art collective and exhibited under a fictitious pretense just to pull off a good joke? Have I been thoroughly duped? Will whatever credibility I have as an art writer, be sullied forever because I love these paintings? (As I write this, I am starting to doubt myself. I’m going to stop writing and go to Beans and Barley to look again). OK, I’m back. Upon the third viewing, I have to say, I like them even more. Viets’ has three large paintings and three smaller ones at Beans. The smaller ones are paintings of flowers and they don’t hold up to the drama of the larger works. Two of the larger pieces include a bull as protagonist. In one, Winged Bull, the animal is upside down and crashing to the ground. His patterned wings don’t keep him aloft. There’s this amazing orchestration of layered color and texture in all three of these paintings. At first, they look chaotic and impulsively (messily) executed. Some of the staff at Beans refer to them as “Apocalypse at Merrill Lynch.” But they are not really chaotic. They are full of intent and skilled manipulation of composition and patterns. Viets makes the drips and scars and scruffy surfaces work for him. The power of the paintings is that they do have a freeing and explosive element that feels fresh and alive and unfettered, but they are also tightly controlled and intentional. These paintings are a bit apocalyptic, but in a gentle and cartoonish way. The bull falls downward with a crescendo of gold leaf marking his passage. Harsh and sickly blues and reds form an amorphous ground which one hoof sinks into. Everything is a bit garish and over the top, but Viets pulls it into some kind of interesting self-defined configuration of beauty. The largest painting, Sitting Bull, is more complex. This time the childishly drawn bull sits on the ground like a dog. Immobile and frontally frozen, Viets positions the bull off center and leaves the painting’s focal point to two drippy, almost iridescent blobs of white paint. The remainder of the painting, sky and ground, consist of abstract marks and drips and colored stains peeking out of painterly layers. But it’s not a mess. Viets balances the immediate and sensational with a controlled and grounded overall compositional clarity. And his color sensibility, while brash, feels just right. These are paintings that I could spend a long time with. They are restless and stable at the same time and the whimsical, painterly play of their surfaces feels freeing, as if Viets is not afraid to take risk after risk. Maybe that’s why I like these paintings so much. They model a kind of creative courageousness. They say to me: “Don’t be so scared. The abyss isn’t so bad. Let go.” In a very tangential way, Viets’ paintings summon, in my mind, just what I love about van Gogh. I saw the Vollard show at the Art Institute of Chicago last week and the very first room has about 10 van Gogh paintings. The very same green that Viets smothers like jelly on toast to the background of Sitting Bull, van Gogh applies to his painting of the postman’s son Armand Roulin, 1888. I like van Gogh because he seems to make paintings that are guided in equal measures by emotion and intellect. Maybe that’s what the Greeks have been telling us all along: That beauty lies at the mid-point of oppositional forces. Anyway, Viets seems to be on to something. Or at least I think so. I stopped in one more time and asked a Beans worker if, perchance, the paintings had grown on him. “Even with time,” he said, “none of them have grown on me.” I guess it’s just you and me, Hans. Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images. Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com <<<<<Back to contents page Copyright 2007. Material may not be used or reproduced without the permission of the author. |
susceptible to images a milwaukee art review |
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| Installation view, Beans and Barley. |
| Vincent van Gogh, Armand Roulin, 1888. |
| Hans Hermann Viets, Winged Bull |
| Hans Hermann Viets, Sitting Bull |
| Hans Hermann Viets, Free Bird |