Stephen Kaltenbach: The Beginning and The End, Manetti Shrem Museum, Davis, CA

January 25, 2020

Stephen Kaltenbach: The Beginning and The End, Manetti Shrem Museum, Davis, CA

Stephan Kaltenbach

On view January 26–May 10, 2020

Manetti Shrem Museum

Artist Talk: Sunday, January 26, 3:30 PM

Stephen Kaltenbach’s Portrait of My Father is very familiar to me because it is in Crocker Art Museum’s permanent collection. This painting was invited to Manetti Shrem Museum's current exhibition, The Beginning and the End. It is a beautiful painting through which I could see how much Kaltenbach admires his father. By seeing the enormous face of his father, I feel the intimacy as he depicts his relationship with his father, and it reminds me of my time with my parents. However, after appreciating his artwork in the museum, I understand that this painting can not say everything about who he is and what he makes.

Before the lecture started, I went to see his exhibition first. There are several sculptures that are time capsules. There are work descriptions that say its creation time begins the year it was made through the present. The setting of the process of artmaking feels very ambiguous. I have become interested in considering time and space. Artwork could symbolize a short or long period of time but the work itself is evidence of my action for the future audience to see although it was created in the past. The duration of the art creation of Kaltenbach solves this contradiction by continuing the art making process.

There were many people, layers of them standing, for Kaltenbach’s talk in the lecture room. The lecture hall was designed with genius advertising quotes that appeared in Artforum magazine in 1968. I think some of them could have been from his students when he taught at Sacramento State University.

One of the artworks, Modern Drapery, is a really interesting piece. Its description says the location and form of the drapery can be changed by UCD art department Professor Robin Hill and her students. Indeed, I went to the museum again on February 6, 2020, and I saw it was on the wallboard. Even though I already knew who had moved the drapery, it gave me the feeling that it could move by itself.