Like a freeze-frame in a movie, Alex Katz idealized faces, bodies, and landscapes are refined and reduced to the least amount of lines and colors deemed necessary. Seen as a precursor to Pop art with the bold, minimal color in his paintings, this survey of his black and white prints becomes an interesting exploration of what is happening in his compositions at the basic level of line, light, and repetition; color can be intoxicatingly confronting, can’t it?
Many of the prints on display have also been realized in paint, but might not be on display, but the series of four replications of “Ariel, 2016” is a great color theory 101 to show the striking power of color, but also the power of solid black and white line work. Though it’s the same trio of Ariel posing in a swimsuit holding a sunhat, there subtle differences between the colored print, black and white print, oil painting, and inks on shaped aluminum. As someone who favors some heavy paint handling, Katz doesn’t give you much to grasp in terms of tactility, that even his paintings’ flat surface could be easily mistaken for his lithographs.
Putting up an emotional wall is a sort of strange thing to do in traditional portrait painting, but Katz has explained that he isn’t interested in a sitter’s inner feelings. Katz seems to break the connection, rather than build one, between the sitter and the viewer, which feels like a timely issue as this feels very symptomatic of a plugged-in generation where people have difficulty connecting to others in real life. “The Swimmer, 1990,” one of the few colored oil on linen paintings in the show, pictures a Baywatch-eqsue woman in a red bathing suit, with her hands on her hips (some of the most beautifully rendered hands, I might add). Instead of painting a “portrait,” per say, Katz prefers the term “style” to describe his sleek figures. As the type of work that can be read from far away like a billboard, it’s about sending a clear, cool message where the content of his work is simply tasteful style.
Lingering over Katz’s swimmers (especially Ada with her swimcap) is a great way to dive right into Who Shot Sports in the next room. Just as Katz captures moments of elegance in his body of works, sports photography captures the body performing practically immortal physical feats.
As a former athlete, I couldn’t help but notice the gender imbalance (not that there needs to be an exact 1:1 ratio), but especially in the section “Lens on Tampa Bay Sports.” Out of the approximately 40 images (mostly your typical crowd-pleasing teams), want to know how many women athletes are featured? Zero (I’m not counting the sole shot of cheerleaders, since cheerleading has been dismissed with the title “Pregame Flip,” instead of being seen as the competitive sport it is in its own right). Instead of just becoming a mirror to the inequalities seen in sports media, this could have been a great opportunity to make a bold statement and show off the diversity of lesser-known, talented sports teams in the area.
That main gripe being laid out, whether you’re a fans of sports or not, can find amazement in the incredible physical feats our bodies can accomplish. Between these two exhibitions, the freeze-frame reigns supreme, where the image strives to become an icon for our moment: this moment.
Alex Katz: Black and White and Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present.
Tampa Museum of Art, 120 W. Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa. Through May 29. $5-$15. 813-421-8380. tampamuseum.org.
This article appears in Mar 23-30, 2017.