Charles Dee Mitchell is the curator of Ludwig Schwarz: Some Twenty-Year-Old Works on Paper and Two New Sculptures, on view through December 4th, 2017, at The Box Company in Dallas.He worked for Half Price Books for thirty years before cashing out of his stock position in 2008. Since the 1980s, he has been a freelance writer for the arts, contributing to the Dallas Morning News, Artforum (briefly), Art in America for a considerably longer time, as well as writing catalog essays for museums and commercial galleries. When he left Half Price Books and had more free time, he found he no longer wanted to write short reviews for publication; since then, he has curated several exhibitions and written a few catalog essays. He is currently board president of WordSpace, a literary nonprofit that produces events in Dallas. We interviewed him about this show and about Ludwig Schwarz’s work.

Ludwig Schwarz, Untitled, 1990s. Twenty-four individual works on paper, approx. 8.5 x 11 in. each. Courtesy of the Artist, Charles Dee Mitchell and Conduit Gallery. Photos by Kevin Todora.

Q. You said that when you first looked at the space (at the Box Company), what you had in mind concerning Ludwig’s work was a retrospective of his drawings. As can be seen from even this one show, Ludwig works in so many different media, of which drawing is only one. What was it about his drawing, as a body of work, that was of interest to you?

A. Drawing has always been my particular interest in any artist’s work. Ludwig is most visible as a painter, and I thought that drawings and works on paper would be a valuable way to survey his career.

Ludwig Schwarz, No title. Eight photographs, tape, ink. Pre-2005, estimated c. 2000. Courtesy of the Artist, Charles Dee Mitchell and Conduit Gallery.

Q. Having read the description beforehand, I was ready to see the 24 works on paper (along the right wall) and the two sculptures as well. But along the left wall, there are also two other series of work: One is a group of eight photographs, produced for educational purposes, on which Ludwig has placed duct tape over the faces of the people in the pictures, and also crossed out the educational captions. The other is a group of eight pieces, each of which includes multiple product boxes flattened and arranged as a single composition. Can you talk about how you chose these four specific groups of work for the show, and how you decided to arrange them in the space?

A. On the most practical level, they were the works that were available. Also, I specified “works on paper” and not strictly drawings. The found educational posters have all be altered and drawn on by Ludwig. The packaging constructions are made of cardboard, which is paper on its way to becoming a more substantial medium.

Ludwig Schwarz, Untitled, 1995-97. Eight individual pieces, product packaging and tape. Courtesy of the Artist, Charles Dee Mitchell and Conduit Gallery.

Q. Here these groups of work are hung as series, so you can “read” them all in a row, from left to right. This way of installing them seems pretty important, because there’s an effect that builds as you look at them one after the other, especially with the 24 works on paper on the right-hand wall. I feel like I wouldn’t “get” them as easily if I was only looking at a single example. Is that an important aspect of the installation?

A. The installation approach is inspired by the way Ludwig has presented paintings in a uniform line. With the 24 frame pieces, I initially thought we would hang them in the random order just as they came out of the boxes they arrived in. But that random order established several relationships within the work, either visual or thematic, that I wanted to avoid. So I adjusted the order so that the progression of images would not lead the viewer toward making facile “Oh, I get it,” associations. So they are not a series, but they are a curated selection from the 150 or I had to choose from.

Ludwig determined the presentation of the altered posters and the packaging collages.

Q. In your curatorial statement, you said: “Art is philosophical decoration… Art is the broad category of things and experiences that may cause some awkwardness and tend to get in your way when you are trying to get where you think you need to be.” What do you think about the genealogy of that definition of art–does it come from Duchamp, Warhol, and postmodernism? Do you think Ludwig’s work counts as “postmodernist”?

A. When I popped off with the “art is philosophical decoration” comment, I had just sat through a fellow panelist’s long-winded, jargony exposition on art as subversion and insidious disruption of bourgeois values, etc. I was a little put out. But once I said it, I liked it. I don’t have anything to say about its art historical genealogy.

Postmodern? Although some artists still assert they are working in the modernist tradition, most art made after the 1960’s is postmodern by default.

Q. Ludwig’s work is frequently hilarious, for example, in this show, the sometimes absurd juxtapositions of different products in the packaging collages. One could argue that to effectively explore or play with problems of representation really requires a sense of humor, for example in Sigmar Polke or Martin Kippenberger. Do you think someone needs to have a sense of humor to appreciate Ludwig’s work?

A. I believe people need a sense of humor to get out of bed in the morning.

Q.  You told the story of walking into the Angstrom Gallery, having the door almost brush against the table, which you assumed was just a table, standing in the way, until you learned from the checklist that it was a sculpture by Ludwig. I hear in that story an uncanny echo of Ad Reinhardt, a painter, cattily saying “A definition of sculpture: something you bump into when you back up to look at a painting.”  It seems like you and Reinhardt are both pondering the same fundamental alternatives, namely: 1. Is art a matter of purely visual experience, a timeless moment of absorption in the contemplation of form (which Reinhardt says is best achieved by taking in a painting all at once)? Which leads to elevating artists who are “only an eye, but what an eye!”   Or, 2. Is looking inseparable from thinking, because “the eye is part of the mind”? Ludwig’s work as you present it makes a strong case for option 2 here. Do you think sculpture is a key medium for making that case? 

A. I’ve always attributed that Ad Reinhardt quote to Barnett Newman. Thanks for the correction.

I don’t think art exists separate from the idea of art. (Am I quoting Arthur Danto?) Having said, I want to add that before theory or ideology or social activism of any kind can play into one’s involvement with art, you first of all have to love the way it looks.

On Instagram there is a hashtag called #betterthansculpture. Of course it couldn’t exist, or it “wouldn’t work,” if our definition of sculpture had not become so flexible that that we can enjoy the sorts of random or functional arrangements the site offers up for our delectation…

Ludwig Schwarz, Untitled (It’s not your fault), 2017, wood, and Untitled (Still life.), 2017, television, chair, wood. Installation view, The Box Company, Dallas. Courtesy of the Artist, Charles Dee Mitchell and Conduit Gallery. Photos by Kevin Todora.

Q. To keep asking questions about medium: There is a rich variety of work in this show. But there aren’t any paintings. Of course, Ludwig is an amazing painter, and maybe even a lot of people know him best as a painter. But do you think there’s something about this show that would surprise such a viewer, who only knows about Ludwig’s work via the paintings?

A. Although I have never subscribed to the absurd “painting is dead” line, I’m not a big fan of painting. There will always be a lot of paintings and some will be better than others. I prefer artists who, because they have chosen to live their lives a certain way and pursue particular intellectual lines of thought and a physical engagement with the stuff of the world, leave works of art in their wake.

Ludwig is well known as a painter, but I remember his first painting show I saw involved on painting on display and others kept in a rack. You could request viewing another painting, and assistants would rack the painting on view and take another from the rack. So either the paintings were so special that they demanded your undivided attention, or they were simply a bunch of abstract paintings and any single paniting could substitute for another. (Obviously both readings existed simultaneously.)

And don’t forget that Ludwig did an entire series of paintings that involve sending digital files to a factory in China where academically trained painters produced the final works.

Ludwig Schwarz, Untitled, ink on paper, early 1990s. Courtesy of the Artist, Charles Dee Mitchell and Conduit Gallery Photos by Harrison Evans.