Also this issue: Clothes-Minded Paul Fussell explores why how we dress is how we are. -Meredith Broussard Beauty Is... Big books from two very different area museums have more in common than you might think. -David Warner Consumption Junction Thomas Hine on the future of shopping, and why the malls days are numbered. -Maura Johnston Children's Books -Harriette Behringer FICTION -Debra Auspitz, Justin Bauer, J.B, Elisa Ludwig and Alex Richmond NON FICTION -A.R, Nancy Armstrong, Brian Howard, Sara Marcus and Andrew Milner

December 5-11, 2002

cover story

Easy as (Pizza) Pie

View to a thrill: Nancy Heller wants to prove that modern art can be intellectually challenging and enjoyable.

Nancy Heller comes up with a new, and delicious, approach to art appreciation.

by Lori Hill

At the International Exhibition of Modern Art at New York’s 69th Regiment Armory in 1913, one critic famously described Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase as “an explosion in a shingle factory.” An ArtNews writer referred to Cubists, Futurists and other “freakists” as “jokers of the brush.” If local art historian Nancy Heller had been there, she might have compared Duchamp to a chef, and his work to a nice tomato pie. It’s all in the composition, you see. A painting is like a pizza is like a shirt is like a building -- appreciation of each hinges on personal aesthetics.

After years of teaching (currently as professor of art history at the University of the Arts) and lecturing (about women artists and censorship, among other topics), Heller began to notice a pattern.

"Most consistently [people] would ask me to talk about dealing with abstract or otherwise nontraditional art. ... And we're talking about extremely well-educated, smart, savvy people who know about all kinds of other things -- they were intimidated by a lot of aspects of recent art and I understand why. I think art history is partly to blame for that. I think there is a small segment ... of the art world that tries to make things impossible for the ordinary mortal to understand and my feeling is that's not such a great idea."

Heller's calling from the Maryland/D.C. border, fresh off an appearance at the Smithsonian in support of her new book, Why a Painting is Like a Pizza: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Modern Art (Princeton University Press). The book is a culmination of years of thinking about how we think about art, and the apprehension many of us feel when approaching artworks that are either non-representational or use materials like car parts or elephant dung rather than paint and canvas.

"For me or for anybody, there's always that moment when you walk into a gallery or a museum and you're confronted with something you've never seen before and you have no idea who this artist is or what's going on, or even if it is an artwork as opposed to the humidity monitor or some [trash] that nobody cleaned up. ... I think it's too bad when people find themselves feeling ... ŒI don't know what the meaning is. I don't know what it's all about -- oh dear, I can't enjoy it.' My point is, actually you can."

The book sets out to deconstruct ideas about understanding and enjoying modern art by letting go of the jargon (what does Neoplasticism really mean, anyway?) and preconceived notions of what's supposed to be Important in an art historical sense: Rembrandt and Warhol are significant, to be sure, but do we like their stuff?

As a start, she suggests people simply take a deep breath and just look. Our everyday sense of what to eat, wear or buy, Heller says, "is very personal. It is reflexive, it is visceral, it is sensual, it is based on a lot of the same aesthetic issues that go into making a painting."

So, with chapters such as "Paintings That People Love to Hate" and FAQs with "common sense" answers, Heller attempts to make art not only more accessible, but a little less dumbfounding for those not used to having to accept a pile of wrapped hard candy on the floor as a work of art.

This is not to say she believes serious study and critical thinking are irrelevant. Taking classes, reading criticism, going on guided tours -- that's all very admirable behavior for someone eager to learn more about what they're seeing, says Heller. "But I think the downside is that we're made to feel that there's always going to be some message, some sort of decoding process ... a very specific, literal, one-for-one kind of meaning in an artwork and that if we don't get it as viewers, then somehow we're to blame."

Heller believes people's fears and misconceptions about abstract and experimental art begin early. The daughter of an artist, she was raised to respect diverse, difficult works of art and the skill and time involved in their creation. "I never got that idea from them," says Heller of skepticism about nontraditional art. "But I know I got it from kindergarten teachers. ... From the time you're a little tiny kid, you understand that when you do your little finger painting or your crayon work ... if a grownup comes by and says, ŒOh, what a nice doggie!' you've succeeded somehow. If they say, ŒOh that's wonderful -- it's a, um, uh, it's a -- gee, what is it?' Then you know you've screwed up. It's a very clear subtext."

In the end, appreciation of a work of art -- whether it's a landscape with trees and a lake or a square red canvas -- is a matter of simple enjoyment of all of its elements, new and strange as they may be.

"I'm very big on pleasure; I think there are a lot more kinds of pleasure, enjoyment -- fun, even -- that we can get from art. Not that we don't ever think about what does it mean ... but we don't only think about that and not let ourselves be intimidated if we don't already know. Because how could we already know?"