One of the first things I noticed was how different all the hands were. In a group of four Brian Buczak paintings, the artist divided each canvas horizontally. In one half, there was a depiction of a common grade school science experiment, and, in the other half, an image of a boy activating an experiment. The hands in each of these were painted differently than the others:

• • In Boy with Balloon (Science Project Series), 1986–1987, the hands are flat and pudgy, almost cartoon-like.

• • In Broken Glass (Science Project Series), 1986–1987, the hands are brushy and pointillistic.

• • Buoyancy (Science Project Series), 1986–1987, offers hands that are more carefully rendered and complex, thoughtfully shadowed.

• • The hands in Tuning Fork (Science Project Series), 1986–1987, are given the same careful consideration as in Buoyancy but are darker and more ominous, more attention being given to mood.

These four paintings were from an exhibition of work by Brian Buczak called “Man Looks at the World,” which was divided between Ortuzar Projects and two spaces at Gordon Robichaux. This was the first good look at, and solo exhibition of, Brian Buczak’s work since 1989—Buczak died from AIDS-related complications in 1987 at the age of 33. His work is diverse and intriguing. On one hand, the work connects to the art of the Pictures Generation in its references to commercial images. On the other hand, the work has visual connections to other queer artists of the time such as David Wojnarowicz—in its depiction of boyhood and the use of stencils; and Keith Haring—in its quick graffiti feel, bright colors, and thin flat surfaces. Buczak, however, belongs to neither of these camps. He was tied to Fluxus by virtue of his intimate relationship with the artist Geoffrey Hendricks with whom he often collaborated. He had connections to conceptualist artists and traditional painters. He and Hendricks were the subjects of a well-known Alice Neel double portrait, Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian (1978) now in the collection of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

After Buczak’s death, Hendricks commissioned Philip Glass to compose a piece of music to honor Buczak–the String Quartet No. 4 premiered alongside the aforementioned 1989 exhibition of Buczak’s work. A recording of it also played in a room at Gordon Robichaux which displayed a selection of Buczak’s works on paper. On one wall of the room, there were ten identically framed works. I would call these paintings on paper more than drawings. Each was 15 x 14 inches. The contents of the drawings varied wildly. In Hurdles (1984) a cool purply-gray field is adorned with an almost doodle-like bright red line drawing of a cinderblock wall, repeated three times–seemingly made from a stencil but definitely augmented each time to draw a tension between simple mechanical reproduction and individual moments of creation. In another painting, Adjustments, (1984), a scene plays out in which three men in nineteenth-century attire twist and contort the body of another man lying on a table. It evokes Manet in its simultaneous attention to detail and soft, vague mark making. The paintings take a turn for the spiritual and surreal in Buddha’s Tooth (1984), a rendering of an outsized tooth of Buddha, held aloft by—or prevented from flying away by— a gold filament that emerges from the center of a pale pink lotus resting upon a small gray plinth which is situated on a round table covered in turquoise cloth against a rich coffee colored background, lending the brushy picture an elegant tenebrism.

The other room at Gordon Robichaux predominately displayed a series of triptychs, each created by the joining of three thin, small, canvases side by side. Some were surrounded by a wooden molding painted black. Broadly, the feel of these was a little crafty but also immediate and intimate and without pretense. A favorite of these was called The Wanderer. The center panel of this triptych was Buczak’s repainting of Casper David Friedrich’s Romantic Masterpiece Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818). Buczak’s version of the painting is about one third the size, more red in color, and the details are there but less specific—it is almost as if you are looking at a color negative of a photo of the original painting. The left panel is a simple and elegant drawing (on canvas) of water pouring from a pitcher—no hand, just a levitating pitcher. It is chalky white on black. There are touches of blue that feel essential to the drawing (i.e. adding to the representation of a subject) and a touch of red that feels essential to the painting (i.e. it does not aid in representation of the subject but adds interest to the larger work). The panel on the right is a black field “decorated” with three pink ombre flames made with stencil.

When talking about painting, the word “decorate” can sound horrible. In this case what the artist was doing would be more aptly described as painting decoration. In this, and other multi-canvas works, the artist was playing in a 1980s notion of artmaking, that all images are in some way equal, especially if we, society, largely know images only through the equalizer of television or magazines. Thus, the hand drawn is no better or worse that the stenciled. The quickly stenciled is no better or worse than the meticulous painted. To place more value on one than on the other is an arbitrary choice by the viewer. The viewer’s choice making is then parallel to the artist’s choice making. Buczak’s triptych is a pastiche of a painting. His selection and combination of these images—the pitcher, the painting, the flames—was arguably no different than Casper David Friedrich’s decision to take actual landscape elements, from different areas, and combine them into his perfect, albeit arbitrary, sublime terrain.

The way that Brian Buczak worked inconsistent styles and methods creates an interesting sense of confusion. It would be too easy to say that the artist did not have a clear direction, that he was all over the place. What I think is actually happening is that the artist’s too brief career took place at a moment when the coolness of conceptual art was waning, and the era of the late-twentieth-century mega-painter was beginning. Against this backdrop, the Brian Buczak pictures presented in this exhibition appear to be largely concerned with a very personal way of seeing. He does not universalize or overwhelm, rather he invites you into a personal world limited by time but free of tragic feelings. Significantly, it feels open and full of potential. Untitled (c.1977) a simple drawing of a pencil on a largely blank page poignantly says it all—there is still a story to be told here.

The exhibition was on view from January 5 to February 17, 2024 at Ortuzar Projects and Gordon Robichaux galleries, NYC

 

Paul Moreno is an artist, designer, and writer working in Brooklyn, New York. He is a founder and organizer of the New York Queer Zine Fair. His work can be found on Instagram @bathedinafterthought. He is the New York City editor of the New Art Examiner.