Wolf Kahn

ArtForum, Nov, 1996 by Alan Gussow

No doubt the seminal influence on Kahn's painting was Hans Hofmann. "The most useful idea [I gained at the Hofmann School]," Kahn reflected years later, "has been that there is such a thing as formal control, and that any influence is legitimate as it helps the artist gain it.... Accidental processes are often superior to willed ones, but still, the framework in which one works is formal intentionality." This emphasis on the formal often conflicted with his need to let the experience of nature guide the shaping and placement of forms. He resolved this conflict in his later work, adjusting his motto to "follow the brush," by beginning a work with a commitment to formal constraints, then letting his brush loose to fill in the predetermined spaces.

Who are his influences and where does he fit? Much is made in the texts of a range of European masters, and the early work with its active, impulsive brushwork and high-key color does seem to owe something to Soutine, though it is less emotionally urgent. Kahn's paintings are about sensation and the joys of putting paint on canvas, not about the experience of observation and observed moment. Indeed, looking at this book, I began to wonder whether Kahn is, in fact, a landscape painter, or more of a Color Field artist in the tradition of Larry Poons or Jules Olitski.

Given his formidable talent, and his early feeling for light and place, Kahn might have joined the pantheon of twentieth-century American landscape painting. His 1964 painting Edge of the Woods extends the landscape tradition, leaving us uncertain whether the light is advancing or retreating. Yet, in a 1987 painting on a related theme, Purple Edge of the Woods, the mystery and illusion of light has been overwhelmed by Kahn's desire to revel in a mix of juicy blues, greens, and purples.

Kahn once wrote that rivers are divided into four parts, "sky, water, left bank, and right bank." Missing is the observer's excitement coming upon the river. Gone is the landscape artist's enthusiasm for nature, the sense that our bodies, not just our eyes, have been there. Kahn creates handsome objects. What would add to their significance would be the creation of a resonating natural world.

Alan Gussow is a painter whose work was recently shown at MB Modern in New York.