Robert Janz: Across that Borderline Now

 

We bought these paintings from the master artist Robert Janz a number of years ago. Can't quite remember when. That's how it is in the autumn of your years. To me they've always been the "howling beasts" from Dylan's "Idiot Wind": "I kissed goodbye the howling beast / On the borderline which separated you from me." Often when I see them I recite that to myself. Well, a few days ago, Robert traveled across the ultimate borderline, leaving in his sleep just a few weeks from his 89th birthday. My guess was that the passage was easy, you see, because he wouldn't have traveled by cold overland passage. No, Robert's way would be simply to evaporate. Here, then gone, back into the air.

This was the way of his art, indeed, literally, in his water paintings. He would go to a body of water, gather some, and then apply the water by brush to a rock to create some of his signature figures. Or sometimes he would do them in the city. Same thing, paint then watch them vanish. Yep. If the favored image of the artist is the heroic egotist, then Robert was . . . well, he wasn't that. Sure he had an ego, you have to to be an artist, to believe that you have something to offer that the world really needs to see. But what he was offering wasn't a testimony to himself. He himself said it best in a recent, profound and provocative interview with Up Magazine.

    Interviewer: Would you mind saying your name for the microphone?

    Robert Janz: My name? Oh, I've forgotten. I'm too old for those kind of details. Well, I'm Robert by day. After 6:00 I'm Roberto. I'm not interested in me as a personality. I bore myself.

Perfect. The word Zen gets tossed around these days, usually in reference to things that have nothing to do with Zen, but Robert truly was Zen. Which means his great topic was the ephemeral nature of existence. Thus, the water paintings, and his late career creating street art at construction sites that would at some point get torn down or painted over. The idea, the philosophy, behind his art was strong. But here's the thing, and this is big for me. His art was always created with sure technique and a sensual, tactile quality of great beauty. I hate when the idea is the only thing happening in art. Not a problem with Robert. If you look at video of the water paintings you can see how expertly and quickly the water is applied. Painting with water ain't easy! And I think of his found object sculptures, consisting of debris from the streets of NYC. They simply looked fantastic.

Often those sculptures would take the form of mythic-looking beasts, such as those in the paintings shown here. This is because, in addition to his concern with ephemerality, Robert continually sought to incarnate the spirit of the ancient cave paintings, the earliest form of "art" we know of. Thus, he adopted the name glyffiti for his street art, to which he was devoted, spending many days, even in his 80s, out on the streets of Lower Manhattan, conjuring creatures and mountain vistas, sacralizing the profane corridors of power with the spirits of our ancestors. Maybe he is sitting right this minute with those elders of the aesthetic spirit, grouped around a fire, at peace beneath a zillion stars. Who knows, maybe he is the one painting those cave paintings at Chauvet, in a realm outside of time. So paint in peace, Robert. And have a laugh at how crazy this whole scene is, especially when we cling too tightly to it. 

If you click on the label Robert Janz below you can view all of the posts I did relating to Robert over the years. Please do. Plus, I'll post more images and stuff over the coming weeks.