Michael David
Encyclopedia
Michael David, born Michael David Singer; born September 22, 1954, is an American
-born American
painter. Born in Reno, Nevada, David's family relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where he was raised. He attended SUNY Fredonia for one year and in 1976 received a B.F.A. from Parson's School of Design. David is classified as an abstract painter, best known for his use of the encaustic
technique, which incorporates pigment with heated beeswax. He is also known for his works in mixed-media figure painting, photography
and environmental sculpture
. His work is included in the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, the Guggenheim Museum
and the Jewish Museum
in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
, among others.
formed a band called The Numbers, with David on bass. The group was a fixture in New York's early Punk rock
music scene, playing in clubs alongside punk pioneers Television
, Blondie
and The Ramones
. David also played bass with Punk innovators Jerry Nolan
of The New York Dolls, Cheetah Chrome
of The Dead Boys
, Marky Ramone
, Peter Gordon
, David Van Tieghem and the free-improvisation noise music
group Borbetomagus
.
In 1977, The Numbers were approached by impresario Rod Swenson, who was seeking musicians to form a backing band for singer Wendy O. Williams
, whose radical persona he sought to exploit as punk music/performance art. The Numbers became The Plasmatics
but the attention David began to gain as an important voice in the art world caused him to leave the band to pursue his burgeoning painting career.
Gallery. That year he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
, at the time the youngest artist ever to do so, and in 1982 was awarded an American Academy of Arts and Letters prize. He went on to exhibit at galleries worldwide and was represented by Knoedler & Co. for the next 25 years.
David is best known for using the encaustic
technique of painting, which uses pigment combined with heated beeswax. David built his early career on abstraction and religious iconography, which formed the bulk of his output until 1999. Since then he has also experimented with representational painting and traditional photography.
In 2000, he developed the "Chortens" and "Populations" series, about which prominent art historian and critic Donald Kuspit
writes: "They are enigmatic works, all the more so because of the way their innumerable details form singularly monumental, intimidating wholes. Dense yet delicate, awesome yet intimate, they convey the fragility as well as grandeur of sheer being. Layer upon layer of paint piles up like layer upon layer of coral, but the textural result is more epic, not to say startling, than any coral island, and virtually any other existing abstract expressionist painting (upon which they are stylistically founded)."
In 2001, David developed bi-lateral neuropathy due to being poisoned by gases released by overheated beeswax used in the encaustic process. The disease left him with partial paralysis of his legs, slowing the production of his painting for a number of years. That year, David began painting one of his best-known series, the "fallen Toreadors", inspired by 19th century French Realist
painter Edouard Manet
's "The Dead Toreador" of 1864. Of the series, David has said, "My work (became) about compassion. Compassion for those different from us, compassion for each other, and, most importantly, compassion for oneself, for a painter who was reckless enough to hurt himself doing what he loves most."
and of friend Jackie Gross, which would become the ongoing "Jackie" series of mixed-media works. When neuropathy rendered him unable to paint during 2003, he returned to the 20x24 camera
and shot large-format Polaroids inspired by Caravaggio
; nude men and women dressed as Toreadors, and religious imagery.
greenhouses built using the actual glass negatives sold to starving farmers in the post-American Civil War
South. David has indicated that each Greenhouse will, through the display of photography and use of social networking, create a forum and exhibit for ideas and artifacts related to civil and human rights; the specifications of each Greenhouse particular to the community in which each is built.
and Art in America
, and is considered one of the last links to the New York School
of painting. Art historian Donald Kuspit
characterized David’s paintings in the following essay;
"Michael David’s abstract paintings renew immediacy, indeed, reconstitute, strengthen, and even apotheosize it. They raise it to a feverishly fresh intensity with their remarkable touch, indicating they are among the very best painterly abstractions made. To me they make it transparently clear that immediacy may be an illusion to the intellect but it is not one for the senses—for touch and sight, mingled together inextricably in ecstatic perception. For them, painterly immediacy is ultimate reality: pure sensuous intensity transcendent of ordinary, habitual understanding of the world, which is mediated by socially sanctioned language and banal meanings that force sense experience into their procrustean bed.
David may be the most innovative master of immediate surface since the Abstract Expressionists. He has acknowledged his debt to Abstract Expressionism
, but he has transformed it. Where the Abstract Expressionist paintings of the forties and fifties seem like modern cave paintings, as their crude, unfocused, often meandering, turbulent painterliness suggests, and as such to reinstate prehistory, David seems to turn the cave into a temple, as his more considered, concentrated, indeed, dense, contemplative painterliness indicates, so that his paintings have the aura of post history. The sublime is gained with no loss of force—no sacrifice of painterly dynamics. Indeed, there is a gain in the sense of bodiliness: each of his works has a certain “body”—density of presence—so that it seems to embody the sublime, not simply evoke it. His paintings make the abstract sublime vividly concrete, as though it could be grasped rather than existed as some numinous beyond."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter. Born in Reno, Nevada, David's family relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where he was raised. He attended SUNY Fredonia for one year and in 1976 received a B.F.A. from Parson's School of Design. David is classified as an abstract painter, best known for his use of the encaustic
Encaustic painting
Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used...
technique, which incorporates pigment with heated beeswax. He is also known for his works in mixed-media figure painting, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and environmental sculpture
Environmental sculpture
The term environmental sculpture is variously defined. A development of the art of the 20th century, environmental sculpture usually creates or alters the environment for the viewer, as opposed to presenting itself figurally or monumentally before the viewer...
. His work is included in the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
and the Jewish Museum
Jewish Museum (New York)
The Jewish Museum of New York, an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, is the leading Jewish museum in the United States. With over 26,000 objects, it contains the largest collection of art and Jewish culture outside of museums in Israel. The museum is housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in...
in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
, among others.
Plasmatics and Late-1970s New York Music Scene
In 1976 David, erotic photographer Roy Stuart and Fredonia friend Richie StottsRichie Stotts
Richard Eugene Stotts was the first guitarist and one of the founding members of the punk/metal group Plasmatics.In 1978, Richie was among the earliest musicians to sport a Mohawk,...
formed a band called The Numbers, with David on bass. The group was a fixture in New York's early Punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
music scene, playing in clubs alongside punk pioneers Television
Television (band)
Television was an American rock band, formed in New York City in 1973. They are best known for the album Marquee Moon and widely regarded as one of the founders of "punk" and New Wave music. Television was part of the early 1970s New York underground rock scene, along with bands like the Patti...
, Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
and The Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
. David also played bass with Punk innovators Jerry Nolan
Jerry Nolan
Jerry Nolan was an American rock drummer, best known for his work with The New York Dolls and Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers.-Career:...
of The New York Dolls, Cheetah Chrome
Cheetah Chrome
Cheetah Chrome is an American musician who achieved fame as a guitarist for Rocket From the Tombs and the punk rock band, The Dead Boys....
of The Dead Boys
The Dead Boys
The Dead Boys were an American punk rock band from Cleveland, Ohio. Among the first wave of early punk bands, the Dead Boys were initially active from 1976 to 1979, briefly reuniting in 1987, 2004 and 2005.-Formation and 1970s punk rock era:...
, Marky Ramone
Marky Ramone
Marky Ramone is an American musician. He is best known for being the drummer for the Ramones, but has also played in other notable bands like Dust, Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, and the Misfits.Although he is not the original drummer , Marky is the only living...
, Peter Gordon
Peter Gordon
Peter Gordon may refer to:* Peter Gordon , celebrity chef from New Zealand* Peter Gordon , composer and musician based in New York City* Peter Gordon , radio presenter in Surrey, England...
, David Van Tieghem and the free-improvisation noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
group Borbetomagus
Borbetomagus
Borbetomagus are a free improvisation/noise music group. They are cited by critics as pioneers of aggressive improvised noise music.- Biography :...
.
In 1977, The Numbers were approached by impresario Rod Swenson, who was seeking musicians to form a backing band for singer Wendy O. Williams
Wendy O. Williams
Wendy Orlean Williams , better known as Wendy O. Williams, was the lead singer for the American punk band the Plasmatics, as well as a solo artist...
, whose radical persona he sought to exploit as punk music/performance art. The Numbers became The Plasmatics
Plasmatics
The Plasmatics were an American heavy metal and punk band formed by Yale University art school graduate Rod Swenson with Wendy O. Williams. The band was a controversial group known for wild live shows that broke countless taboos...
but the attention David began to gain as an important voice in the art world caused him to leave the band to pursue his burgeoning painting career.
Painting Career
David's first one-man show was in 1981 at the historic Sidney JanisSidney Janis
Sidney Janis was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York in 1948. His gallery quickly gained prominence, for he not only exhibited the work of most of the emerging leaders of Abstract Expressionism, but also that of such important European artists as...
Gallery. That year he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
, at the time the youngest artist ever to do so, and in 1982 was awarded an American Academy of Arts and Letters prize. He went on to exhibit at galleries worldwide and was represented by Knoedler & Co. for the next 25 years.
David is best known for using the encaustic
Encaustic
Encaustic may refer to:*Encaustic painting*Encaustic tile...
technique of painting, which uses pigment combined with heated beeswax. David built his early career on abstraction and religious iconography, which formed the bulk of his output until 1999. Since then he has also experimented with representational painting and traditional photography.
In 2000, he developed the "Chortens" and "Populations" series, about which prominent art historian and critic Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. He was formerly the A....
writes: "They are enigmatic works, all the more so because of the way their innumerable details form singularly monumental, intimidating wholes. Dense yet delicate, awesome yet intimate, they convey the fragility as well as grandeur of sheer being. Layer upon layer of paint piles up like layer upon layer of coral, but the textural result is more epic, not to say startling, than any coral island, and virtually any other existing abstract expressionist painting (upon which they are stylistically founded)."
In 2001, David developed bi-lateral neuropathy due to being poisoned by gases released by overheated beeswax used in the encaustic process. The disease left him with partial paralysis of his legs, slowing the production of his painting for a number of years. That year, David began painting one of his best-known series, the "fallen Toreadors", inspired by 19th century French Realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
painter Edouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
's "The Dead Toreador" of 1864. Of the series, David has said, "My work (became) about compassion. Compassion for those different from us, compassion for each other, and, most importantly, compassion for oneself, for a painter who was reckless enough to hurt himself doing what he loves most."
Photography
In 1993, David experimented at the "20x24" Polaroid studio in Manhattan, which resulted in a series of portraits of playwright Edward AlbeeEdward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
and of friend Jackie Gross, which would become the ongoing "Jackie" series of mixed-media works. When neuropathy rendered him unable to paint during 2003, he returned to the 20x24 camera
Polaroid 20x24 camera
The Polaroid 20×24 camera is a very large instant camera made by Polaroid, with film plates that measure 20 inches by 24 inches. It is one of the largest format cameras currently in common usage, and can be hired from Polaroid agents in various countries...
and shot large-format Polaroids inspired by Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
; nude men and women dressed as Toreadors, and religious imagery.
Environmental Sculpture - The Greenhouse Project
In 2002, David began to develop The Greenhouse Project, an evolving "architectural construct" based on historical American AntebellumAntebellum architecture
Antebellum architecture is a term used to describe the characteristic neoclassical architectural style of the Southern United States, especially the Old South, from after the birth of the United States in the American Revolution, to the start of the American Civil War...
greenhouses built using the actual glass negatives sold to starving farmers in the post-American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
South. David has indicated that each Greenhouse will, through the display of photography and use of social networking, create a forum and exhibit for ideas and artifacts related to civil and human rights; the specifications of each Greenhouse particular to the community in which each is built.
Critical Response
David's work was reviewed in ArtforumArtforum
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...
and Art in America
Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
, and is considered one of the last links to the New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
of painting. Art historian Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. He was formerly the A....
characterized David’s paintings in the following essay;
"Michael David’s abstract paintings renew immediacy, indeed, reconstitute, strengthen, and even apotheosize it. They raise it to a feverishly fresh intensity with their remarkable touch, indicating they are among the very best painterly abstractions made. To me they make it transparently clear that immediacy may be an illusion to the intellect but it is not one for the senses—for touch and sight, mingled together inextricably in ecstatic perception. For them, painterly immediacy is ultimate reality: pure sensuous intensity transcendent of ordinary, habitual understanding of the world, which is mediated by socially sanctioned language and banal meanings that force sense experience into their procrustean bed.
David may be the most innovative master of immediate surface since the Abstract Expressionists. He has acknowledged his debt to Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, but he has transformed it. Where the Abstract Expressionist paintings of the forties and fifties seem like modern cave paintings, as their crude, unfocused, often meandering, turbulent painterliness suggests, and as such to reinstate prehistory, David seems to turn the cave into a temple, as his more considered, concentrated, indeed, dense, contemplative painterliness indicates, so that his paintings have the aura of post history. The sublime is gained with no loss of force—no sacrifice of painterly dynamics. Indeed, there is a gain in the sense of bodiliness: each of his works has a certain “body”—density of presence—so that it seems to embody the sublime, not simply evoke it. His paintings make the abstract sublime vividly concrete, as though it could be grasped rather than existed as some numinous beyond."