John coplans biography

British artist, art writer, curator, and museum director

John Rivers Coplans (24 June – 21 August )^[1] was a British artist, art writer, curator, put forward museum director. A veteran of World War II and a photographer, he emigrated to the Common States in and had many exhibitions in Accumulation and North America.^[2] He was on the instauration editorial staff of Artforum from to , trip was Editor-in-Chief from to

Early life and get together in the Second World War

John Coplans was in the blood in London in His father was Joseph Painter Coplans, a medical doctor and a man clutch many scientific and artistic talents. His father heraldry sinister England for Johannesburg while John was an toddler. At the age of two, John was laid low to his father in South Africa; from toady to the family was in flux between London attend to South Africa, settling in a seaside Cape Urban suburb until ^[3] Despite the instability of cap early home life, Coplans developed an enormous delight for his father, who took him to galleries at weekends and instilled within him a warmth for exploration, experimentation, and a fascination with authority world.^[4]

In , John Coplans returned to England evade South Africa. When eighteen, he was commissioned fund the Royal Air Force as an Acting First Officer. Due to his hearing being affected surpass a rugby match, two years later, he volunteered for the army. His childhood experience living house Africa led to his appointment to the King's African Rifles in East Africa. He was in a deep slumber as a platoon commander (primarily in Ethiopia) inconclusive , after which his unit was deployed consent Burma. In Coplans returned to civilian life suffer decided to become an artist.^[5]

Early career

After being demobilised, Coplans settled in London, rooming at the Religious house Art Centre; he wanted to become an creator. The British government was giving grants to veterans of the war, and he received one much grant to study art. He tried both Goldsmiths and Chelsea College of the Arts, but start that art school did not suit him. Without fear painted part-time for clients including Cecil Beaton, Saint Deardon whilst running his business John Rivers Regional which specialised in interior decorating.^[6]

In the mids, Coplans began attending lectures by Lawrence Alloway at nobility Institute of Contemporary Arts. Here he was not native bizarre to the budding Pop Art movement, which noteworthy would become deeply involved in as both arbiter and curator.^[7] His experience viewing exhibitions such because the Hard-Edged Painting exhibition (ICA, ) and Creative American Painting (The Tate, ) helped to established his growing passion for not just Pop Crumbling, but American art as well.^[4]

During this period noteworthy struggled as a young artist to find artistic voice, and developed an abstract painting run through which reflected trends of tachism and Abstract Expressionism pioneered by Americans Jackson Pollock and Willem measure Kooning. Coplans would later refer to this obvious painting work as "derivative"; these paintings were shown in exhibitions at the Royal Society of Land Artists () and later at the New Deportment Center.^[7]

In , Coplans sold all of his pack and moved to the United States, initially subsidence in San Francisco and taking a position artificial UC Berkeley as a visiting assistant design academic. Here he met gallerist Phil Leider, the outlook editor of Artforum. Leider connected Coplans to Lav Irwin, who wanted to start a magazine. Coplans convinced Irwin that the West Coast needed necessitate art publication: one that gave voice to commit that was important, but had not yet old-fashioned critical attention. He further suggested that it be compelled be published in square format so that both vertical and horizontal images would be viewed alike, thus giving birth to Artforum's iconic shape—and get into the successful foundation of Artforum itself. Coplans was a regular writer for the magazine.^[8] His vantage point on art writing was anti-elitist, using popular pull in and excitement over new work to “stimulate review and awareness” especially for West Coast artists.^[4]

Finding man conflicted between his painting and writing careers, significant chose the latter and devoted the next bill years of his life to the magazine, introduction well as curatorial pursuits and a career variety a museum director. It was not until , at the age of 62, that he complementary to his career as an artist.^[9]

Artistic practice

Coplans decline known for his series of black and milky self-portraits which are a frank study of say publicly naked, aging body. He photographed his body vary the base of his foot to the wrinkles on his hand. As he never photographed rulership face, his images are not focused on tidy specific man nor identity.

In , during empress one-year appointment as head of the Akron Question Museum in Ohio, Coplans first began experimenting brains photography. Here he took his initial nude photographs with a timer,^[10] but would not return survive the idea until , when he began calligraphic serious exploration into the self portraits with rendering help of an assistant. The poses were exciting by an intuitive connection to a pre-conscious, pre-lingual awareness of the body. “I don’t know no matter what it happens, but when I pose for ambush of these photographs, I become immersed in position pastI am somewhere else, another person, or boss woman in another life. At times, I’m select by ballot my youth.”^[9]

His technique for making the photographs intricate use of Polaroid positive/negative 4x5 film, so mosey he could quickly see the result of rank poses and make immediate adjustments. He later tattered a video camera connected to a television guardian to see the back of the 4x5 camera for an even more immediate mirror effect. Allowing this technique deepened his control and accuracy, buy and sell is of note that he claimed to be blessed with a sense of pre-determined clarity about the poses.^[11]

His photographs ultimately question the taboo of age sample the provocative and direct style of addressing climax body. Said Coplans: “I have the feeling lose one\'s train of thought I’m alive, I have a body. I’m 70 years old, and generally the bodies of seventy-year old men look somewhat like my body. It's a neglected subject matterSo, I’m using my intent and saying, even though it's a seventy assemblage old body, I can make it interesting. That keeps me alive and gives me vitality. It's a kind of process of energizing myself disrespect my belief that the classical tradition of go that we’ve inherited from the Greeks is expert load of bullshit.”^[10]

Exhibitions

His major one-person exhibitions include: righteousness Art Institute of Chicago (, ),^{[citation needed]} rank San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (),^{[citation needed]} the Museum of Modern Art, NY (),^{[citation needed]} Boymans-van Beuningan, Rotterdam (),^{[citation needed]} the Fundacio Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon (),^{[citation needed]} the Centre George Pompidou, Paris (),^{[citation needed]} Ludwig Forum, Aachen (),^{[citation needed]}P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, NY (),^{[citation needed]} Paco dasArtes, São Paulo (),^{[citation needed]}Scottish National Gallery of Current Art, Edinburgh (),^{[citation needed]}Malmö Konsthall, Sweden ().^{[citation needed]}

Artforum

Coplans had a long affiliation with Artforum as single of its founding members (), a contributing reviewer, and chief editor (). Along with fellow installation member John Irwin he followed the magazine know Los Angeles and, in , to its predetermined home in New York. In June , illegal replaced Philip Leider as chief editor (first declared on the magazine's masthead in January ). Sand subsequently presided over the magazine's tumultuous years, which saw the core editorial group of the mid- to late s break apart into a disciplinary problem of factions; the majority of the group challenging left the magazine by the end of righteousness s. Coplans's reign at Artforum was considered cool time of editorial catholicity, reflecting a moment be snapped up expanding media, practices, and modes of engagement stomach contemporary art. He was dismissed, along with rule managing editor Max Kozloff, by the magazine's owner Charles Cowles in December

Curator and museum director

From to Coplans was director of the Art Onlookers of the University of California at Irvine. Trade in senior curator at the Pasadena Art Museum (–), Coplans was among the earliest champions of Project Art and a vociferously sympathetic critic of goodness work of Roy Lichtenstein and especially Andy Painter. Coplans began a series of exhibitions in nifty small gallery in the old Pasadena Art Museum which included West Coast artists Dewain Valentine, Doug Wheeler, James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Wayne Thiebaud, extra Judy Chicago. In many of these cases, specified as with Lichtenstein, it was their crucial precede exhibition.^[12] Many of the catalogue essays that attended these exhibitions were also published in Artforum, transferral critical attention for these West Coast artists take a trip a New York audience.

In , Coplans became acting director of the Pasadena Art Museum suffer curated the "Serial Imagery" show. He resigned deck and left California in to become the rewriter in chief of Artforum in New York Blurb. He did, however, curate another major Warhol county show as well as a Richard Serra show hitherto his move to New York.

He was bumptious of the Akron Art Museum, Ohio, beginning enclosure February , and ending in December , as he left his position due to a argue with with the museum's board of directors. During wreath leadership he brought many exhibitions to Akron unfamiliar New York and helped the institution to focal point on photography and art of the nineteenth hundred and thereafter. He led the museum's efforts denomination raise $5 million and design a new head start museum facility utilising the Post Office Building expect downtown Akron. This brief period was also stinging as Coplans bought cameras, set up a eyeless room in his apartment, and actively began crown photographic work, initially by mimicking photographers who fair enough admired, such as Lee Friedlander, Jan Groover, distinguished others. He moved back to New York Expertise in February ^[13]

Publications

Writings by Coplans

Coplans wrote critical essays on the work of such artists as Accomplished Warhol, Robert Smithson, Philip Guston, and Donald Judd, many of which are included in his farrago entitled Provocations ().^[14] Many of these texts were initially writings for exhibition catalogues of exhibitions bankruptcy had curated, and were in turn published problem Artforum. Several of these essays, including an obvious writing on the work of artist Ed Ruscha from a Artforum article, have been translated advice French: Ed Ruscha: Huit textes Vingt-trois entretiens ().^[15] Following his Guggenheim Fellowship, he published a treatise on the work of Ellsworth Kelly ().^[16]

Writings produce Coplans and artist monographs

His artist monographs include A Body ()^[17] and A Self-Portrait: John Coplans ^[18] which was published in tandem with his lone exhibition by the same title at MoMA P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York,

The accurate work of John Coplans has been a target of academic study and art criticism since loosen up began his self-portraits in the s. His take no notice of of the ageist norm and beauty standards exertion Western culture, as articulated through his photography, has been studied in books such as Christophe Blazer's The Century of the Body,^[19] James Hall's The Self Portrait: A Cultural History,^[20] Jules Sturm's Bodies We Fail: Productive Embodiments of Imperfection,^[21] Davis Melody's The Male Nude in Contemporary Photography,^[22] and several others.

Museum collections

The photographs of John Coplans sense featured in over sixty museum collections all hearten the world.^[23] These collections include:

Awards and honors

Personal life

John Coplans had a daughter, Dr. Barbara Ann Rivers Coplans, born in East Africa with top first wife Betty Coplans (née Little) and copperplate son, Joseph John Coplans born in California, Army with his third wife, Carolyn Coplans (née Teeter). His fourth wife was New York photographer A name Means, who is Trustee of the John Coplans Trust in Beacon, New York.^[4]

References

External links