Guy and dolls - the life and works of Morton Bartlett - Critical Essay

ArtForum, Sept, 2003 by Laurie Simmons

Although his photos weren't meant to be seen by anyone, one senses that Bartlett nonetheless never let himself cross the line. All the tightly controlled narratives allude to nothing less benign than fairy tales, bedtime stories, and walks in the park. It's tempting to liken Bartlett's activity to that of Henry Darger, whose cast of thousands of naked Vivian girls inhabited a threatening planet of rape, murder, and war. The source material for the Vivian girls, too, came from popular culture, and the girls were likewise anatomically explicit (with penises for genitalia in most cases), but the comparison between them and Bartlett's plaster colleens stops there. Darger's troubled youth, history of being institutionalized, and fifty-year career as a socially marginal laborer cast him in the role of "outsider" as an artist and otherwise. Bartlett lived a quietly conventional life, his bachelorhood and secret hobby being the most obvious exceptions to "normalcy."

It's interesting to speculate as to why Bartlett needed to photographically record the dolls and why he needed to make the transition from fact to fantasy. To build a set is to create a pictorial land for characters to inhabit, if only for the brief moment that they are viewed through the lens. The desire to edit out peripheral material, both physical and psychological, establishes boundaries. Camera to eye creates two walls, a floor, and ceiling, almost like a walk down a corridor. Tape and glue, rough edges, and studio detritus are momentarily deleted, and a temporary location for a subject to live and breathe comes forth. Elusive depth, unnatural light sources, and confusing reflections conspire to make a real place out of undefined territory. Other rooms and lives, pasts and futures are implied nearby. A new world is created when the shutter snaps.

Bartlett's images are far more resonant than product and catalogue shots, though on paper a description of them would probably sound like promotional material for the Ginny doll, a '50s favorite. In his Harvard class bio, Bartlett made his only known reference to his private pastime: "My hobby is sculpting in plaster. Its purpose is that of all proper hobbies--to let out urges that do not find expression in other channels." While I doubt that many stamp or coin collectors would share that sentiment, Bartlett's strong desire to let his hobby be just that, and still the outlet for his repressed urges, gave his life's work its rigor and a tension that kept the magic alive for him for nearly thirty years. In a culture where we like our dads to be dads, he played his role admirably, delivering pictures of children as beautifully complex, multilayered, and exasperating as the real thing.

Laurie Simmons is a New York-based mist.

New York--based artist LAURIE SIMMONS's first solo was at Artists Space in 1979. Included in Metro Pictures' inaugural show the next year, her work has since been presented in countless exhibitions, including "A Forest of Signs" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 1989. In 1997 she received a twenty year retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Simmons's work is currently on view in "Design for Living," a three-person show with Louise Lawler and Sarah Charlesworth that opened this month at Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles. Next spring in New York she will exhibit recent work at Sperone Westwater and screen her filmed musical puppet show at Salon 94. For this issue, Simmons examines the life and work of "outsider" artist Morton Bartlett.