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Jack Goldstein (September 27, 1945 – March 14, 2003) was a Canadian born, California and New York-based Performance art and Conceptual art artist turned post-conceptual Painting in the 1980s.
In the early 1970s as audio art and video recordings became more accessible to the general public, Goldstein seized the opportunity and began producing his own art records. Among his records were A Swim Against the Tide, A Faster Run (a recording of a stampede), The Tornado, Two Wrestling Cats and The Six Minute Drown. The Six Minute Drown in particular gained attention within the art world. In it, the dreary, agonizing sounds of a drowning man reverberate for six minutes.
Goldstein eventually became one of the linchpins of the Pictures Group, which gained its first recognition at Artists Space in New York City in the fall of 1977. During this time, he shared a studio building with James Welling.Karen Rosenberg (May 16, 2013), An Artist With an Ever-Increasing Desire to Disappear: ‘Jack Goldstein x 10,000’ at the Jewish Museum New York Times.
The Pictures artists, including Goldstein, Robert Longo and Troy Brauntuch came to the forefront of the early-1980s and flourished to varying degrees as the decade wore on. Goldstein began seriously to make paintings at this time. Eventually he became known for what he referred to as "salon paintings", designed both to be sold and secure for the artist a place in art history. Although he was accused by some of "selling out" to a bull market in painting, this tactic appropriated the art star mantle that Goldstein's work always has assumed.
Goldstein began to concentrate on painting in the late 1970s.Suzanne Muchnic (March 20, 2003), Jack Goldstein, 57; Artist Explored Emptiness Los Angeles Times. His paintings were based on photographic images of natural phenomena, science, and technology – the result of Goldstein's intent to record "the spectacular instant," as previously depicted in photography. Many of them depict streaking , , exploding nebulae and city skylines illuminated by fireworks or bombing raids.Roberta Smith (March 19, 2003), Jack Goldstein, 57; Helped to Explore Post-Modernist Art New York Times. Using found photographs, and highlighting the reproduction or copy, Goldstein blew up details to near abstraction and then hired painters to apply them to canvases on boxlike stretchers that stand more than six inches off the wall. He was among the first contemporary painters to hire others to make his works.Martha Schwendener (September 12, 2014), The Process Behind the Painting: A Review of ‘Rothko to Richter: Mark-Making in Abstract Painting from the Collection of Preston H. Haskell’ in Princeton New York Times.
By the mid-’70s, Goldstein had stopped appearing in his films and performances and instead hired actors, stuntmen and light and sound technicians from the film industry.Karen Rosenberg (May 16, 2013), An Artist With an Ever-Increasing Desire to Disappear: ‘Jack Goldstein x 10,000’ at the Jewish Museum New York Times. His films include the well-known Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (1975), a two-minute loop of the film studio’s roaring lion mascot on a blood red field, and Shane (1975), named for the trained German Shepherd that barks in response to inaudible commands from someone behind the camera.Karen Rosenberg (May 16, 2013), An Artist With an Ever-Increasing Desire to Disappear: ‘Jack Goldstein x 10,000’ at the Jewish Museum New York Times.
Most of Goldstein's work revolved around the concept of experience, the concept of grappling with the conflation of experience and our recording of it. It asks whether documentation has become primary in our experience.
As the 1980s continued there was less and less call for his paintings and Goldstein's work sold less well than some others'. Reluctant to teach rather than practice full-time, Goldstein left New York in the early 1990s and returned to California where he lived out the decade in relative isolation.
His early work was revived at the turn of the century and he resurfaced briefly to some renewed acclaim. He was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial as a major film influence alongside Stan Brakhage, less than a year after he committed suicide by hanging himself Laurels Too Late, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Los Angeles Times, January 18, 2004 HiLobrow (includes photo) in San Bernardino, California on March 14, 2003.
Goldstein may be remembered for a certain post-conceptual representational approach to painting that helped shape a generation of artists and beyond, even though they might not even be aware of him.
A posthumous documentary was made on Goldstein in 2014, titled Jack Goldstein: Pictures and Sounds: ART/New York No. 67
He has also been the subject of solo presentations at Venus Over Manhattan: Where is Jack Goldstein? in 2013 and Jack Goldstein in 2017.
Krygier, Irit audio interview with Philipp Kaiser regarding the exhibition Jack Goldstein x 10,000 http://www.conversationsonthearts.com/Philipp_Kaiser_Interview.mp3
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