Reflections on Grad School - Jack Goldstein
USC, Department of Fine Art. On Wednesday, March 12, 2003 we had a visit from artist Jack Goldstein. He gave his presentation, answered questions, and met with a few of us individually in our studios. On March 14, he took his own life.
Goldstein was already preoccupied with the deep dark, or at least its representation. He had produced piece after piece depicting doom in catastrophes both intimate and epic. Volcanoes, warfare, burning houses, disasters both natural and constructed can be seen in his work time and time again. One of Goldstein’s more memorable and frequently quoted statements about a photograph in one of his works is this: "The man committing suicide controls the moment of his death by executing a back flip."
Our department chair, my thesis advisor, came into class after we found out about Goldstein’s death and with typical insensitivity asked our group “What did you guys do to him?!” Maybe he thought it would be funny. But we didn’t laugh. At that moment I recalled my studio visit with Goldstein and felt a little sick. Not that I did anything to him, but…
I was wondering if a specific fellow grad student was also rethinking my studio visit with Goldstein. Because she had actually confronted me a couple of hours after my conversation with Goldstein. She had apparently heard some, perhaps all, of my conversation with him. The fact of her hearing was no surprise since our individual studios all had several feet of open airspace between the tops of the walls and the ceiling and sound traveled easily between the rooms. It was the tone of her reaction that left me feeling a little taken aback.
I didn’t think I had said anything striking. But she had approached me with what sounded like a hint of scandal in her tone, if I was reading her right. The moment she grilled me about was the one in which I told Goldstein that I had sometimes considered leaving grad school. Why did I mention it? I guess I just felt comfortable saying it to him, because I had the sense that he would understand. Maybe she found it odd that I had mentioned this to him because Goldstein himself had just come out of so many years of self-isolation, and here I was dwelling on my dissatisfaction, and why would I want to go there? I don’t know, it was on my mind and I said it. I said it to this man, who had seen his work celebrated for a time, who had then struggled with the relentless problem of selling art when it resists being a sellable product, who had struggled with the resentment of being an underappreciated forerunner, who had struggled with the trappings of an art world which never gives back what you put in as it always seeks out the youngest and the most surprising and nobody can ever live up to those requirements for long, and who had struggled no doubt, with whatever personal shadows he came into those experiences with.
I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about what she was landing on. I often had trouble understanding my peers, and this could well have been another instance of my awkward inability to identify and conform. I should have asked her to elaborate on her interest. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to be left wondering all of these years.
Goldstein had been somewhat dazed the entire visit, and I figured he was medicated. His struggles with substance abuse and depression were no secret. During his slide presentation to our group he had at times spoken haltingly. It was odd but not so terribly strange when his focus came in and out for the length of our meeting in my studio. Goldstein seemed distant but he managed to follow what I said and responded to my confession with a cynical smile, and remarked “It’s all bullshit sometimes, isn’t it.”
I have since gone back to my notebooks in search of anything I may have written down from my meeting with Goldstein that day. There is nothing there, which likely means that there was nothing particularly substantial said when we met. And oddly, I don’t really remember anything else from my conversation with him, except for that bit that I later discussed with my colleague when she approached me about it. If she had never asked me to clarify it for her, I might have forgotten that part as well.
It would be more than absurd if I were to believe that my conversation with Goldstein had any part in his committing suicide two days later. But I will say that there is hardly anything more deflating than the news of the suicide of a person with whom you have just spoken frankly about the futility of “following your dream” in the landscape of the Los Angeles art arena. In fact, I still feel a little sick about it, that he was already midair, performing his own futile back flip, right before my eyes.
Goldstein was already preoccupied with the deep dark, or at least its representation. He had produced piece after piece depicting doom in catastrophes both intimate and epic. Volcanoes, warfare, burning houses, disasters both natural and constructed can be seen in his work time and time again. One of Goldstein’s more memorable and frequently quoted statements about a photograph in one of his works is this: "The man committing suicide controls the moment of his death by executing a back flip."
Our department chair, my thesis advisor, came into class after we found out about Goldstein’s death and with typical insensitivity asked our group “What did you guys do to him?!” Maybe he thought it would be funny. But we didn’t laugh. At that moment I recalled my studio visit with Goldstein and felt a little sick. Not that I did anything to him, but…
I was wondering if a specific fellow grad student was also rethinking my studio visit with Goldstein. Because she had actually confronted me a couple of hours after my conversation with Goldstein. She had apparently heard some, perhaps all, of my conversation with him. The fact of her hearing was no surprise since our individual studios all had several feet of open airspace between the tops of the walls and the ceiling and sound traveled easily between the rooms. It was the tone of her reaction that left me feeling a little taken aback.
I didn’t think I had said anything striking. But she had approached me with what sounded like a hint of scandal in her tone, if I was reading her right. The moment she grilled me about was the one in which I told Goldstein that I had sometimes considered leaving grad school. Why did I mention it? I guess I just felt comfortable saying it to him, because I had the sense that he would understand. Maybe she found it odd that I had mentioned this to him because Goldstein himself had just come out of so many years of self-isolation, and here I was dwelling on my dissatisfaction, and why would I want to go there? I don’t know, it was on my mind and I said it. I said it to this man, who had seen his work celebrated for a time, who had then struggled with the relentless problem of selling art when it resists being a sellable product, who had struggled with the resentment of being an underappreciated forerunner, who had struggled with the trappings of an art world which never gives back what you put in as it always seeks out the youngest and the most surprising and nobody can ever live up to those requirements for long, and who had struggled no doubt, with whatever personal shadows he came into those experiences with.
I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about what she was landing on. I often had trouble understanding my peers, and this could well have been another instance of my awkward inability to identify and conform. I should have asked her to elaborate on her interest. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to be left wondering all of these years.
Goldstein had been somewhat dazed the entire visit, and I figured he was medicated. His struggles with substance abuse and depression were no secret. During his slide presentation to our group he had at times spoken haltingly. It was odd but not so terribly strange when his focus came in and out for the length of our meeting in my studio. Goldstein seemed distant but he managed to follow what I said and responded to my confession with a cynical smile, and remarked “It’s all bullshit sometimes, isn’t it.”
I have since gone back to my notebooks in search of anything I may have written down from my meeting with Goldstein that day. There is nothing there, which likely means that there was nothing particularly substantial said when we met. And oddly, I don’t really remember anything else from my conversation with him, except for that bit that I later discussed with my colleague when she approached me about it. If she had never asked me to clarify it for her, I might have forgotten that part as well.
It would be more than absurd if I were to believe that my conversation with Goldstein had any part in his committing suicide two days later. But I will say that there is hardly anything more deflating than the news of the suicide of a person with whom you have just spoken frankly about the futility of “following your dream” in the landscape of the Los Angeles art arena. In fact, I still feel a little sick about it, that he was already midair, performing his own futile back flip, right before my eyes.