The Brooklyn Rail

Sometimes working figuratively and other times abstractly, painter Vaughn Spann is a man for all seasons. The burning question: which Spann would show up to inaugurate Almine Rech’s new, grand gallery space in Tribeca? I’m happy to report that the abstract Spann won the day with three distinct bodies of work in twenty paintings on view. But his spectacular deployment of abstraction makes determining Spann’s intentions impossible. In fact, the message presented in the gallery statement along with the ominous 2013 poem “The Big Bad” by David Orr would have us believe Spann paints in reaction to the chaotic world we inhabit, that there is a direct link between our anxiety-generating status quo and the paintings we experience. But why should we think that art as a reaction to life is the only possibility here?

Therein lies the problem inherent in all “message” painting; that is, all political painting whose “meaning” is, in the mind of its creator, absolute. Unless there is some verbal explanation either embedded in or attached to the work, the meaning becomes lost with time. Picasso’s Guernica (1937) would be the obvious case in point: unless we know the circumstances that supposedly inspired the artist, we might assume we’re seeing a wildly expressionistic work depicting a nightmare world. The same holds true for Spann’s magnificent paintings: even though we have a document purporting to explain them, their essence eludes explanation.

His show is called Trilogy, which spawns yet another ambiguity. The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy because Tolkien needs three volumes to tell one story—the narrative continuity links the books. A trilogy might also be three works by the same author simply gathered together in one volume. The question in the case of Spann’s tripartite show is: what is the relationship connecting the three very different painting sequences? Surely not a sentimental reaction to the news of the day. The answer lies in technique. In the first set of paintings, Spann paints without brushes, instead using his hands and forearms to spread it across the canvas while in the second, he resorts to brushes but retains the frenzied deployment of paint we see in the first group. In the third group, hung in the lower floor of the gallery, separated from the other two bodies of work, we have tightly controlled paintings conceived as a series, each one echoing or replicating the others.

The color blue predominates the first set of paintings, made without brushes. Again, when we try to relate the statement about Spann’s intentions to his work, we find a clash between his anxieties as reported and his paintings. We could easily relate Spann’s blue obsession to Mallarmé’s 1864 poem “L’Azur.” Mallarmé expresses ironic contempt for himself for having fruitlessly pursued the ideal (l’azur / azure) only to confess in his last verse that he is haunted by the ideal. Spann’s Visions of the Rapture (2023), an 84-by-168-inch diptych oil on wood panel, seems like a visual coda to Mallarmé’s poem. The pulsating rays of blue express ecstasy, either in the religious sense of being snatched into heaven or in the orgasmic, sexual sense. Leaving behind his “age of anxiety” here, Spann instead opts for an instants of joy in this body of work, repeated in each of the paintings, and especially in Blue Twister (2023), an explosion of color.

The next group of five paintings, composed with paintbrushes, have a decidedly different atmosphere. Spann marks the transition with a radical (and momentary) change of color. Red Twister (2023), a 45-by-39-inch oil on wood panel, is not simply the red version of Blue Twister. His red streaks take us out of any hazy ideal and locate us in the realm of passion, love, lust, or empathy. The painting is unique because the other four are predominantly dark blue or black. Freefalling (waterfall) (2023) is another instance of ambiguity. “Free Fallin’” is a 1989 Tom Petty song about cutting ties, feeling free, and feeling lost. Spann’s painting may echo that sentiment but seems more like the sexualized nature found in many Courbet waterfall paintings. Floodgates (2023), with its dramatic spattering, confirms the erotic dimension of falling water and is a splendid example of passion arrested in paint.

The final group of works differ radically from the first eleven. They all appear to depict an impact site, as if a meteor had struck a planet. Each work is marked with a horizontal bar that bisects the painting on a horizontal axis. Flames of Fury (2023) may contain another musical allusion; the band of the same name has a song, “I Burn” that could be a musical accompaniment to this dazzling piece. Here the colors of passion—reds and oranges—blaze around a black center, eclipsing the blue. Perhaps the bar separating us from the blaze marks the artist’s simultaneous acknowledgment of passion and his rejection of it. No matter, Spann leaves us gasping for air and happy.