Michael Snow

by King, James;

  For Fulford, Snow was an intellectually restless man. Someone, who like the Walking Woman, was always in motion. The same critic dubbed him the Toronto Artist. In 1962, Snow was exactly that. However, although he had accomplished a great deal, he remained uncertain what the future held for him. He was absorbed by the WW and its wide variety of forms, but — despite any impression he gave to the contrary — he was not completely sure of himself. He considered moving to New York City, although he was well aware that the finest achievements of abstract expressionism and post-painterly abstraction were in the past. He knew that minimalism was on the rise there and that pop art had from the late fifties been the new Manhattan-based “ism.”

  FIGURE 51. Michael Snow, 61-62, 1961–62.

  FIGURE 52. William Ronald, Ancient Sky, 1955.

  He wanted to become a better artist, and he wondered if living in New York City would help him achieve that goal. William Ronald had enjoyed tremendous success when he moved there and was taken on in 1957 by the prestigious Kootz Gallery. Snow would have known that although Ronald’s rise had been meteoric, his sales had plummeted by 1962.

  Snow felt that all his fellow artists in Toronto — with the exception of Rayner and Wieland — were simply, from a safe distance, observing what was happening in New York and then making weak imitations. He came to the conclusion that the environment in which he existed was provincial. If he wanted to make strong art on a large scale, he needed the kind of excitement New York could provide. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s dictum — “Make the contribution you think you can make” — he decided that to do the finest work of which he was capable he had to move.

  Joyce and Michael had visited Manhattan many times since their marriage — mainly to hear jazz and attend shows at museums and galleries. She did not wish to move to New York, but, realizing that Michael was seeing other women in Toronto, she did not wish to let him loose apart from her. “It scared me to go,” she said, “because I was comfortable [in Toronto], and I wondered what would happen to us there. I was excited but scared.” Michael told her that he was certain “he would get really good there if he went there. He just felt that’s where he should be.”14 And so in the autumn of 1962, the couple moved to the States.

  __________________

  * A bit earlier, Snow had made a series of images of the same face in Drawn Out.

  CHAPTER NINE:

  SURVEYING

  In 1962 Snow closed the book on his early career. In 1970, eight years after leaving Toronto for New York and one year after he had returned to Toronto, forty-two-year-old Snow was given a retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario: Michael Snow/A Survey. Many examples of his work up to 1962 were obviously featured in the exhibition and in the catalogue that the artist designed. WW figures created from 1963 to 1967 were included, as were stills from his film Wavelength (1967) and sculptures from 1967 to 1969.

  The catalogue, however, is dominated by pages that are (or look like) family album photographs, nineteen show images of Chicoutimi, Bradley Snow, Marie-Antoinette Lévesque, Denyse Snow, Elzéar Lévesque, various ancestors, and the bridges Bradley constructed in Chicoutimi. Even more curious is the fact that the front cover shows the Lac Clair cottage — inside the catalogue are five more exterior photographs of the same building. (All the photographs of the cottage were taken by Snow, and he intended them to act as chapter headings.) The water surrounding the island on the front cover is matched on the back cover by the view of the photograph of water — taken by Snow in New York — that ends Wavelength.

  Inside the catalogue are three pages displaying the sculpture Blind (1967); immediately following is a full-page photograph of a text in Braille. The last image in the catalogue — a photograph taken on property owned by Roberto Roig, then Marie-Antoinette’s partner — shows a deserted swimming pool that has been overtaken by weeds. Above the pool is a metal staircase, one half of which is missing.

  In constructing and ordering the catalogue, Snow, in a very Proustian manner, is reminiscing on things past. In one opening, the Lac Clair cottage sits beside Blind, as if the artist is referring to his mixed heritage. On the final page of the catalogue, there is a photograph of a bridge that leads nowhere, a wrecked swimming pool, and a weed-infested landscape — time conquers all things. The artist, however, has internalized the past and in time-present makes it live again. He has travelled from the childhood innocence of Lac Clair to the experience encapsulated in the catalogue’s final illustration.

  The photographs of the cottage on the island have a romantic tinge to them and recall Courbet and Turner’s treatments of the fabled castle on the water in Chillon near Montreux, Switzerland. The Lac Clair cottage dominates the catalogue because there Michael Snow came into being as an artist.

  Becoming an artist is sometimes not an option — it is a choice made by inner forces. When Michael Snow discovered he was destined to become an artist, a change in character ensued. No longer wondering what he wanted to do with his life, he knew that art was his life. When that insight came to him, he searched for reasons why this particular destiny had been bestowed upon him, and he realized that, to a large extent, his gifts had been given to him by his parents and his ancestors.

  FIGURE 53. Michael Snow, spread from Michael Snow/A Survey, 1970.

  FIGURE 54. Michael Snow, last page of Michael Snow/A Survey, 1970.

  PART TWO

  1962–1970

  CHAPTER TEN:

  COOL CITY

  From first-hand experience, Snow knew that New York City was a much more frenetic place than Toronto. By 1962 Manhattan had conquered the art world through abstract expressionism and, in many ways, had triumphed over Paris as the centre of contemporary art. Although the abstract expressionism and post-painterly abstraction no longer had the status they once enjoyed, many abstract artists remained there. The new idioms were pop art and minimalism. This was not of concern to Snow because he was simply looking for a different urban milieu, one that would energize him. He had no set agenda regarding how he wished to develop as an artist.

  Apart from its place as the centre of visual arts, Manhattan held other attractions for Michael. He was especially drawn to the city since it was the centre of experimentation in various idioms of jazz, and that part of the city’s cultural life had been the real draw when he and Wieland had visited there in the early sixties.

  Not only did Manhattan have a vital arts scene, the city was a place of political euphoria — the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 had provided a boost to it. Many of the city’s residents thought of themselves as liberals, and a sense of new beginning after the dreary Eisenhower years infiltrated the metropolis. In every possible way, New York was exciting, especially in comparison to sedate, Anglo-Saxon Toronto.

  Of course, New York had an almost unparalleled number of public museums and galleries that featured works of contemporary art. In addition to the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney, there was the sensational and controversial Frank Lloyd Wright version of the Guggenheim Museum: “that spiraling drumroll of a museum, with its surprising mix of buoyancy and weightiness had an immediate iconographic power … you could feel the power in” that building.1 Then there were the private galleries — lots of them in comparison to Toronto. Snow could see a lot of modern art, and he could visit the premises of the dealers to find a suitable one for himself.

  In the 1950s, a new Manhattan had even emerged in architecture. Many of the buildings that had been constructed using the precepts of beaux-arts neoclassicism or touches of art deco had been replaced in the midtown thoroughfares by sleek, stark, glass-fronted and air-conditioned skyscrapers. This was New York modern, the place where anything could — and often did — happen.

  Then there was the music scene. Until about 1955, bebop had reigned supreme in jazz. And then varieties of “cool jazz” emerged and proliferated. Earlier jazz had employed harmonic progressions and chords whereas the new jazz used “modes” as a way of focusing on melody. As a result, this n
ew music allowed a new sense of space and freedom to emerge. Snow, as can be seen in Toronto Jazz, was well aware of what was happening in the jazz world and responded positively to this new sound, but the centre of that world was Manhattan.

  Before leaving for the States, Snow decided he would not seek part-time work as a musician. Still, the new sense of experimentation in the jazz world beckoned him, almost as if he knew it would contribute to the type of artist he wanted to become. One friend, David Lancashire, lamented this decision: “You should have heard him in the forties and fifties. He was extraordinary. There’s no question in my mind that Mike would have been one of the world’s great piano players. But I think he deliberately sacrificed that for painting.”2

  Overall, Snow sought an environment that would challenge him, force him to transform himself into the best possible artist. He wanted to put himself to the test, imagining his new surroundings would give him the opportunity to pit himself against other highly talented, ambitious, and risk-taking individuals. He was open to change, anxious to forge his destiny in a way that had evaded him in Canada.

  Settling into New York City was not an easy task. The going rates for rents were staggeringly high, especially for two Torontonians who were not working at other jobs. At first, Michael and Joyce stayed with Betty and Graeme Ferguson at their large Upper West Side flat at 924 West End Avenue near 105th Street. Four years earlier, the Fergusons had moved there from Toronto when Graeme found work as a freelance filmmaker.

  The stay with the Fergusons was not only convenient and financially beneficial, it was also one that affected them emotionally as a couple. Both Michael and Joyce were entranced by the Fergusons’ son, Munro, who, according to family lore, was the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Snow played word games with Munro. Inspired in part because of her devotion to Munro, Joyce, in December 1962, had herself retested for tubal insufflation — a process that was supposed to determine if her Fallopian tubes were blocked.

  The Manhattan to which Snow and Wieland moved had changed a great deal since the legendary, brawling encounters of Pollock and de Kooning at the Cedar Tavern. Snow, who was not a heavy drinker, occasionally visited the new in-spot, Max’s Kansas City at 213 Park Avenue South, where Andy Warhol and his entourage controlled the back room. Donald Judd, Larry Rivers, and Philip Glass could often be seen there.

  Snow and Wieland tried to take advantage of all that New York City could offer. They attended performances by the John Coltrane Quartet, became devotees of the dance performances of the minimalist artist Robert Morris and his wife Simone Forti, and attended openings of galleries such as Leo Castelli’s.

  By the spring of 1963, the couple had rented a loft for fifty-five dollars a month at 191 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan. Such occupancies were banned — the landlords were acting illegally in renting such properties and the tenants were also breaking the law by occupying properties in extremely substandard conditions. In every way, the living accommodations were spartan — there was no heating and no plumbing. The couple reconnected the existing plumbing, which allowed them to install a sink, toilet, and shower; they also tapped in to electricity lines. The walls were bare brick; there were large windows at both ends of the long living space; the stove was an ancient coal one. The furniture consisted of castaways found on the street.

  Despite the apartment’s terrible conditions, it had not been easy to get. In order to convince the landlord that she and her husband were hip, Joyce claimed that Michael played the piano like John Coltrane played tenor saxophone. Of course, there was no piano in the apartment. However, various WW inhabited the loft: Michael constructed a coffee table in her shape, stencilled her on the white enamel cupboard door next to the stove; she was imprinted on the wallpaper, drapes, and kitchen table. Michael’s studio was on another floor; one end of the loft was Joyce’s.

  The neighbourhood was sketchy. The couple were a bit taken aback when a burning mattress was thrown out a window onto the street. However, they soon settled in. They discovered a lucky sign about the place: a small sign outside the building indicated that Steve Swallow, the jazz bassist and composer, apparently lived there on the first floor (he had left by the time Michael and Joyce occupied the apartment above). As a result, Michael named his studio “Swallow Studio,” and used that as a mailing address until there was concern the electric company would investigate the space thoroughly to discover why none of its invoices had been paid.

  Settling into New York was not too difficult emotionally for Michael, although he was later completely taken aback by Kennedy’s assassination: that “death obviously floored me,” he told Av. “It is if all the air had been taken away. It’s hard to describe how he created the environment in which we were living. The whole situation is fantastic. I’ve never experienced anything like the last few days.”3

  Michael and Joyce became friends with their next-door neighbours, Paul and Jo Haines, with whom they listened to jazz recordings and smoked pot. Joyce became sufficiently close to Jo to tell her that she desperately wanted a child but had experienced great difficulty in becoming pregnant.

  After one or two years on Greenwich Street, the couple moved into a twenty-four metre, third floor loft at 123 Chambers Street, an industrial area just west of city hall. The space they took over was filled with ships’ gear, perhaps the leftovers from a chandler’s shop marketing such items. Similar to their previous abode, their new residence had no plumbing, gas, or electricity. Friends wired the loft and tapped gas lines to make the place inhabitable. Makeshift plumbing was reconnected by two men doing this work in order to eke out a living: the sculptor Richard Serra and the composer Philip Glass.

  There was a living area at one end of the flat. Since this new space was illegal, a peephole was installed so that they could scan who was at the door. The couple carried their garbage several streets over so that no such telltale evidence revealed their presence. Years before, Willem and Elaine de Kooning had taken similar steps to evade detection.

  One evening, the lights in the loft began to sputter. Afraid that he and Joyce had finally been caught using electricity illegally, Michael looked out the window and saw no sign of any kind of law enforcement officer. He walked out to the street and saw lights spluttering everywhere. Then total darkness. This was the Big Blackout of 1965.

  To keep financially afloat, Michael worked from time to time for a low-rate firm of movers managed by Serra; the other labourers included Glass, the musician Steve Reich, and the artist Chuck Close. Michael had largely abandoned playing in a band when he arrived in Manhattan but took the odd gig. He stopped completely after a New Year’s Eve party where the audience hated the musicians and the musicians disliked each other.4

  Living across the street was Roswell Rudd, a trombonist, who played the new “free” music, although his background was in Dixieland. “Roswell was broke and wanted to sell his piano. I bought it for 50 bucks and moved it into my loft.” Michael then allowed the trombonist and his group to play at his place. There were many sessions there (with, among others, Paul Bley, Archie Shepp, and the Jazz Composers Orchestra), although Michael did not play with them because he was unfamiliar with their kind of music. “I would only try to play after a session was over.”5

  CHAPTER ELEVEN:

  EYE AND EAR CONTROL

  In addition to pursuing their own artistic practices and soaking up a great deal of jazz, Joyce and Michael shared a strong interest in film. Wieland’s taste was much more eclectic than her husband’s: he tended to be interested in film as process whereas she enjoyed traditional narrative film, albeit those with experimental edges such as Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad. In 1953, she had made her first film, A Salt in the Park, in which she performed a Lillian Gish–type role.

  While considering their move to Manhattan, the couple had stayed with Bob Cowan, a filmmaker and friend who was heavily involved in the independent film movement. The Toronto-born Cowan, two years younger than Snow, had attended UCC and OCA; William Ro
nald had convinced Cowan to move to Manhattan, where he studied painting with Hans Hoffman. Gradually, Cowan shifted his attention to the new experimental filmmaking in his adopted city.

  Once Snow and Wieland were settled in the city, Cowan introduced them to George and Mike Kuchar, teenage twin brothers who were both experimental filmmakers; Cowan had been in a Kuchar film. Later, Michael and Joyce met Ken and Florence Jacobs, who often screened films at their apartment. When the Jacobs moved to Chambers Street, the couples became good friends.

  Their mutual preoccupation with film — and their new circle of friends who were similarly committed — led the couple in the direction of the underground films being made and discussed in New York City. Soon afterward, they were drawn into the orbit of Jonas Mekas, the Lithuanian-American correctly dubbed the “godfather of American avant-garde cinema.” In 1949, he had immigrated to the United States, purchased a Bolex 16 mm camera, and begun to record key moments in his life. He came upon avant-garde cinema at Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16 and then began curating such films at Gallery East and the Film Forum. In 1954, he founded the periodical Film Culture and four years later began writing his “Movie Journal” for the Village Voice. When Michael and Joyce arrived in New York, he had just become one of the founders of Film-Makers’ Cooperative. Charming, knowledgeable, and feisty, Mekas was the experimental film go-to person in Manhattan in 1962.

  The type of cinema that fascinated Mekas can be said to originate with the Russian Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), a film about perception. Vertov labelled his technique as accessing his “cine eye.” Through his viewfinder, he saw space and perspective and movement in a revolutionary way.