Charles Clough
Encyclopedia
Charles Sidney Clough is an American painter. His art has been exhibited in over 60 solo and over 150 group exhibitions throughout North America and Europe and is included in the permanent collections of over 70 museums.
where he attended Hutchinson Central Technical High School
. He then attended Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn from 1969-1970 where the two-dimensional design teacher Joseph Phillips, introduced Artforum
magazine to him. Clough dropped out and on January 5, 1971 decided that he would devote his life to art. He traded his sculptor’s assistant services for studio space with artist Larry W. Griffis Jr., at the Ashford Hollow Foundation’s 30 Essex Street former ice-house facility. From 1971-1972 he attended the Ontario College of Art and was introduced to the artists and galleries of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He observed closely the organization of A-Space, a not-for-profit gallery which exhibited emerging artists. This model along with that of Artists Space in New York provided the example that Clough followed in forming Hallwalls
Center for Contemporary Art.
By 1973 many of the University at Buffalo’s and Buffalo State’s art professors had rented studios at 30 Essex Street. One of these, Joseph Panone, brought his student, Robert Longo
and introduced him to Clough, which resulted in the program of exhibitions and artists’ visits which became Hallwalls
in 1974. Larry W. Griffis Jr. and the Ashford Hollow Foundation shared its space and its Internal Revenue Service’s 501 c3 status to seek and be awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Arts
and New York State Council on the Arts. Panone, his wife, Linda Brooks, Longo and his girlfriend, Cindy Sherman
, Diane Bertolo, Jeff Catalano, Ken Davis, Kitty Hamilton, Joe Hryvniak, Gary Judkins, Pierce Kamke, Larry Lundy, Philip Malkin, Chris Rusiniak, Rick Zucker and Michael Zwack assisted in presenting, amongst many others, Vito Acconci
, Kathy Acker
, Laurie Anderson
, Lynda Benglis
, Ross Bleckner
, Barbara Bloom
, Eric Bogosian
, Jonathan Borofsky
, Chris Burden
, Tony Conrad, Robert Creeley
, Eric Fischl
, Philip Glass
, Jack Goldstein
, Dan Graham
, Robert Irwin
, Sol LeWitt
, Robert Mangold
, Sylvia Mangold, Malcolm Morley
, Ree Morton, David Salle
, Julian Schnabel
and Michael Snow
.
In 1978 after separating Hallwalls
from the Ashford Hollow Foundation, establishing its board of directors and obtaining its own 501 c3 status, Clough returned to New York City
to pursue his art.
Pepfog Clufff includes the following categories of works: 1. The Arrow 2. The Composites 3. Flung, Stroked, Squeegeed, and Ground 4. The Studio Notes 5. The Photo Reveals and the Paint Conceals 6. Clouds 7. Paint Creatures 8. Male and Female 9. Group Portraits 10.The History of Foolish Hope 11. Old Masters and Utopias 12. C-notes 13. Display Models 14. The Airbrush Detour 15. The Big Finger 16. The Vortices 17. Sun Wei 18. Arena Painting 19. The Stereos 20. Sticks and Stones 21. The Polychromes 22. Tinnitus and the Movies 23. Caesura 24. The Zodiac Conclusion 25. The Zodiac Macros 26. The Terminal Painting 27. Stream 28. The Tributaries 29. The Westerly Sculpture 30. The Books 31. The Segue 32. Pepfog.
Pepfog Clufff includes "Chance and Choice," Clough’s statement of concerns, excerpted here: “My subject is a web of metaphysical categories including:
1. Unity: wholeness, integrity, fragmentation, connectedness, and cosmic parameters.
2. Identity: similarities and differences, sums of distinguishing characteristics, units of consciousness and processes of projection, introjection, and transference.
3. Freedom: the fixed limits of nature, the shifting limits of society, the free exchange of ideas, and the boundless imagination.
4. Creation: the process of nature as a metaphor for thought and action and the correlation of form and content to establish the symbolic realm.
5. Truth: the limits of nature, the nature of belief, and the interpretation of the ambiguous.
6. Utopia: progress or a timeless ideal, perfect moments or a state of grace.
7. Nothingness: death, oblivion, the absolute, the infinite and/or the unimaginable.”
Beginning in 1978 Herbert and Dorothy Vogel
(New York City) began collecting Clough’s art and since then acquired over four hundred works, many of which were distributed to a museum in each of the fifty (United) States through a project implemented by the National Gallery of Art (Washington).
Clough has been awarded grants by National Endowment for the Arts (1982, 1989), New York State Council on the Arts (1983) and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2009). [1] His work was included in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Pictures Generation
, 1974–84, from April 21-August 2, 2009.
Early life and education
Charles Clough was born and raised in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
where he attended Hutchinson Central Technical High School
Hutchinson Central Technical High School
Hutchinson Central Technical High School, informally known as Hutch-Tech, is a high school in the City of Buffalo, New York. Its founding on September 14, 1904 under the name Mechanics Arts High School marked the beginning of technical education on the secondary level in the city of...
. He then attended Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
in Brooklyn from 1969-1970 where the two-dimensional design teacher Joseph Phillips, introduced Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
magazine to him. Clough dropped out and on January 5, 1971 decided that he would devote his life to art. He traded his sculptor’s assistant services for studio space with artist Larry W. Griffis Jr., at the Ashford Hollow Foundation’s 30 Essex Street former ice-house facility. From 1971-1972 he attended the Ontario College of Art and was introduced to the artists and galleries of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He observed closely the organization of A-Space, a not-for-profit gallery which exhibited emerging artists. This model along with that of Artists Space in New York provided the example that Clough followed in forming Hallwalls
Hallwalls
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is a non-profit organization in Buffalo, N.Y. that showcases artists of diverse backgrounds in film, video, literature, music, performance, media and visual arts. Since its inception, Hallwalls has been dedicated to promoting artists from multiple backgrounds and...
Center for Contemporary Art.
By 1973 many of the University at Buffalo’s and Buffalo State’s art professors had rented studios at 30 Essex Street. One of these, Joseph Panone, brought his student, Robert Longo
Robert Longo
Robert Longo is an American painter and sculptor. Longo became famous in the 1980s for his "Men in the Cities" series, which depicted sharply dressed businessmen writhing in contorted emotion.-Early life and education:...
and introduced him to Clough, which resulted in the program of exhibitions and artists’ visits which became Hallwalls
Hallwalls
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is a non-profit organization in Buffalo, N.Y. that showcases artists of diverse backgrounds in film, video, literature, music, performance, media and visual arts. Since its inception, Hallwalls has been dedicated to promoting artists from multiple backgrounds and...
in 1974. Larry W. Griffis Jr. and the Ashford Hollow Foundation shared its space and its Internal Revenue Service’s 501 c3 status to seek and be awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
and New York State Council on the Arts. Panone, his wife, Linda Brooks, Longo and his girlfriend, Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
, Diane Bertolo, Jeff Catalano, Ken Davis, Kitty Hamilton, Joe Hryvniak, Gary Judkins, Pierce Kamke, Larry Lundy, Philip Malkin, Chris Rusiniak, Rick Zucker and Michael Zwack assisted in presenting, amongst many others, Vito Acconci
Vito Acconci
Vito Hannibal Acconci is a Bronx, New York-born, Brooklyn-based designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist.-Education:...
, Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, punk poet, playwright, essayist, postmodernist and sex-positive feminist writer. She was strongly influenced by the Black Mountain School, William S...
, Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
, Lynda Benglis
Lynda Benglis
Lynda Benglis is an American sculptor known for her wax paintings and poured latex sculptures. After earning a BFA from Newcomb College in 1964, Benglis moved to New York, where she lives and works today...
, Ross Bleckner
Ross Bleckner
-Life and work:"'I always absolutely thought there was a difference between being a young artist and an important young artist,' said Mr. Bleckner, who grew up in Hewlett, L.I., graduated in 1971 from New York University and earned an M.F.A...
, Barbara Bloom
Barbara Bloom
Barbara Bloom is an American writer and TV programming executive. She earned a bachelor of science degree in theater from Skidmore College.-Career:...
, Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent.-Personal life:Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College,...
, Jonathan Borofsky
Jonathan Borofsky
Jonathan Borofsky is an American sculptor and printmaker who lives and works in Maine.Borofsky was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University in 1964, after which he continued his studies at France's Ecole de Fontainebleau and received his...
, Chris Burden
Chris Burden
Christopher "Chris" Burden is an American artist working in performance, sculpture, and installation art.-Education:Burden studied for his B.A...
, Tony Conrad, Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
, Eric Fischl
Eric Fischl
Eric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker.-Early life:Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967...
, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Jack Goldstein
Jack Goldstein
Jack Goldstein was a Canadian born, California-based performance and conceptual artist turned painter in the 1980s art boom.-Early life and education:...
, Dan Graham
Dan Graham
Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....
, Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin may refer to:* Robert Irwin , Canadian politician* Robert Irwin , American installation artist* Robert Irwin , British historian, novelist and writer on Arabic literature...
, Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold is an American minimalist artist.- Works :“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good...
, Sylvia Mangold, Malcolm Morley
Malcolm Morley
Malcolm Morley is an English artist now living in the United States. He is best known as a photorealist.-Early life:Morley was born in north London. He had a troubled childhood, and did not discover art until serving a three-year stint in Wormwood Scrubs prison...
, Ree Morton, David Salle
David Salle
David Salle is an American painter who helped define postmodern sensibility by combining figuration with a varied pictorial language of multi-imagery...
, Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....
and Michael Snow
Michael Snow
Michael Snow, CC is a Canadian artist working in painting, sculpture, video, films, photography, holography, drawing, books and music.-Life:...
.
In 1978 after separating Hallwalls
Hallwalls
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is a non-profit organization in Buffalo, N.Y. that showcases artists of diverse backgrounds in film, video, literature, music, performance, media and visual arts. Since its inception, Hallwalls has been dedicated to promoting artists from multiple backgrounds and...
from the Ashford Hollow Foundation, establishing its board of directors and obtaining its own 501 c3 status, Clough returned to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to pursue his art.
Artwork
In his autobiographical, Pepfog Clufff, Clough has written of the period following his commitment to art that: “my examination of impulses, desires, and intentions finally began to coalesce in my journal-like Studio Notes with which I have developed the themes and procedures which articulate my meanings to this day. At that point I had abandoned illustrational strategies for paint-as-material processes, generally, as established by Pollock and his progeny. My wood carving gave way to making maquettes for Tony Smith-like sculptures. My photographs reflected Walker Evans on the one hand and Jan Dibbets on the other.”Pepfog Clufff includes the following categories of works: 1. The Arrow 2. The Composites 3. Flung, Stroked, Squeegeed, and Ground 4. The Studio Notes 5. The Photo Reveals and the Paint Conceals 6. Clouds 7. Paint Creatures 8. Male and Female 9. Group Portraits 10.The History of Foolish Hope 11. Old Masters and Utopias 12. C-notes 13. Display Models 14. The Airbrush Detour 15. The Big Finger 16. The Vortices 17. Sun Wei 18. Arena Painting 19. The Stereos 20. Sticks and Stones 21. The Polychromes 22. Tinnitus and the Movies 23. Caesura 24. The Zodiac Conclusion 25. The Zodiac Macros 26. The Terminal Painting 27. Stream 28. The Tributaries 29. The Westerly Sculpture 30. The Books 31. The Segue 32. Pepfog.
Pepfog Clufff includes "Chance and Choice," Clough’s statement of concerns, excerpted here: “My subject is a web of metaphysical categories including:
1. Unity: wholeness, integrity, fragmentation, connectedness, and cosmic parameters.
2. Identity: similarities and differences, sums of distinguishing characteristics, units of consciousness and processes of projection, introjection, and transference.
3. Freedom: the fixed limits of nature, the shifting limits of society, the free exchange of ideas, and the boundless imagination.
4. Creation: the process of nature as a metaphor for thought and action and the correlation of form and content to establish the symbolic realm.
5. Truth: the limits of nature, the nature of belief, and the interpretation of the ambiguous.
6. Utopia: progress or a timeless ideal, perfect moments or a state of grace.
7. Nothingness: death, oblivion, the absolute, the infinite and/or the unimaginable.”
Beginning in 1978 Herbert and Dorothy Vogel
Herbert and Dorothy Vogel
Herbert Vogel and Dorothy Vogel are American art collectors. Herbert Vogel was the son of a Russian Jewish garment worker from Harlem. He never finished high school and worked as a clerk for the United States Postal Service until retiring in 1980...
(New York City) began collecting Clough’s art and since then acquired over four hundred works, many of which were distributed to a museum in each of the fifty (United) States through a project implemented by the National Gallery of Art (Washington).
Clough has been awarded grants by National Endowment for the Arts (1982, 1989), New York State Council on the Arts (1983) and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2009). [1] His work was included in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Pictures Generation
The Pictures Generation
The Pictures Generation was both the name of an exhibition at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art and a means to an end in being the first formal labeling of a group of artists exhibited around their appropriation of images from the consumer and media saturated age in which they grew to maturity...
, 1974–84, from April 21-August 2, 2009.