Untitled, 2009

Ain Cocke, a young artist currently based in Bejing, just opened first New York solo show, simply titled New Paintings, at Goff + Rosenthal Gallery last Friday. His “traditional,” Baroque-style portraits of World War I and II–era soldiers evoke a certain bygone era of intimacy among men which has disintegrated under the pressure of a broad array of new modern male identities. VMAN spoke with him about his creative process, the fundamental nature of masculinity, and what he finds so intriguing about soldiers.

Nicholas Weist: You paint and draw from collected photographs. Do you think of yourself as someone who paints from life? Or perhaps from death?
Ain Cocke: I don’t really think about my practice as “painting from photographs.” I do have a collection of specific kinds of photographs that I hunt down, wherever the hunt is to be had, and I do consider my interest in and acquisition of these images to be part of my art-making process. Although I don’t really think of these photographs as photographs; I think about them as images. This distinction of language is important to me: it allows me to interpret the image as if it were my own, as if I had seen or remembered it. So I don’t paint from photographs per se—it’s more of an interpretation, even in a physical and material sense, of collective experiences, my memories, and the visual record. This, I feel, is somewhat in opposition to just rerecording the dead object—the photograph (a mere stone)—into a different medium. I try to paint from slices culled from the collective narrative, the life that was and is. These collected images are the stimuli for the images I paint: they act as anchors for the paintings. They are a locus. So, to answer your question, I paint from life. I paint from life through the filter of death. I paint from the collective narrative that is the “life” we inherit from the dead.

Your subjects demonstrate a specifically nonsexual kind of love for each other. What interests you about these kinds of male relationships?
One reason these relationships interest me is because they represent a love centered around the anticipation or activity of violence. These relationships constitute love for men who exist in a hyper-masculine state. Also, in some cases, states of victory or domination, where virility oozes—hyper-sexual states. It seems to me that the normal definitions of masculinity (virility, muscles, odor, etc) are too limited. Love and companionship are also part of masculine activity. As David Bowie said, “The church of man love is such a holy place to be.”

The link between domination and sexual states is much discussed by writers and theorists like Georges Bataille and Jean Genet. Are there any writers who have influenced you?
I read Bataille in school. He seems like a decent enough chap. I always liked The Story of the Eye, mostly because a friend is missing one and he would always talk about that work. I’ve looked at The Transvestite Memoirs by Abbe de Choisy—It’s a funny little book about transvestism and sex with little girls that was actually written by a person in the Court of Louis IV. This book talks loosely about some of the origins of camp. Another important book for me is The Sexual History of the World War by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. He was developing a theory of a third sex and was interested in the study of sexual and erotic urges, at a time when the early labels of sexual identity were still being formed. I like Susan Sontag, and I also just picked up a new Mel Bochner book of writings and interviews. That guy is razor-sharp. He said a few things to me in conversation at grad school that I still consider regularly. I also like [Ferdinand de] Saussure and [Jacques] Derrida, although he’s a little thick to wade through. I must admit I’m a bit of a dilettante when it comes to reading. I’d rather see the movie.

Could you share some thoughts about the linkage between love and romance with colonialism?
I think love and romance are the major ingredient, besides acquiring physical resources of course, in colonialism. I mean, in colonialism you have to carry on a romance with yourself (as a people), right? Now that colonialism has mostly disappeared, we have postcolonialism, which is just like secretly being in love with yourself. The structure that thought it was the “center” for most of history actually still thinks it’s the center, secretly. Romance and love are things that definitely need to be inspired by the colonizing or invading force. Thus, the myth-making and romance of the soldier identity.

You have an incredible gift for rendering, although your colors are a little brighter than our dull world. Is it important to you that your work is physically realistic?
Yes. Painting itself is a sign, and so is the manner in which it is painted. I aspire to a certain kind of realism that connects me with the right historical references. It is important that the paintings are realistic so that they confirm a real relationship with the viewer, as well as locate the work in a certain time and place, but not necessarily that they be real-looking. I don’t want the paintings to act as a window that a viewer is supposed to walk through and wander around in. I don’t have anything for you inside the depiction of my world. The work is a collection of signs presented on the surface of the canvas, to be read, felt, or disregarded. Color is beautiful and sensual, and it is another sign. How do you create a two-dimensional representation to life? Color is a good way. The paintings’ life must be in the paint. Color’s hyper-reality cues our consciousness to its inability to distinguish what is real from what is fantasy. And, in other cases, it tells the consciousness what is actually to be seen as real.
I just spent three days in Vienna, which has the most amazing collection of historical paintings. I tried to see them all. What struck me about most of them was how dull they were in use of color—even the paintings from the twentieth century.

What other artists do you look at?
I like to look at Michaël Borremans. Kurt Kauper, of course. I also like to keep a dialogue going with artists like Justin Lieberman. The technique is quite different, but there is much to be discussed.

What inspired the florid borders you include in your drawings? And why do they differ from the staid ovals in your paintings
I actually think that they are the same—or rather, they function in the same way. One is just more obviously decorative than the other. The ornate borders that are in many of my drawings are ideas, or extrapolations of ideas, that I have pilfered from the history of portrait-making. I’m always looking for interesting solutions to the figure/ground relationship problem. These borders, or solutions (whatever they may be) are just visual cues, signs that tell the viewer how to look at the work. These devices connect the drawings to a location in art history. But most of all, they are just pretty to look at. As far as eliminating that decorative element in the borders of the paintings, I just thought it was too much. The quiet sign says the same thing as the embellished sign. The effect is often that the embellishment within the oval is increased with just the simple line sign.

Why only soldiers? What about them intrigues you?
Well, if you really want to know, I just stumbled on a really great way to keep playing with GI Joes.

New Paintings is on view at Goff + Rosenthal through April 11.

Untitled, 2009

 
Army Wreath, 2006 (left); Sailors Wreath, 2006

KEYWORDS: Ain Cocke, art, Masculinity, Painting

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