CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/6/2015

What Nerve!

"Her Face Fits" (1968), by Jim Nutt, is reproduced from What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present, the companion publication to the exhibition opening at Matthew Marks Gallery Tuesday night. Nutt was a key member of the Chicago-based Hairy Who, whose new book, The Collected Hairy Who Publications 1966-1969 launches Wednesday at the 523 West 24th Street gallery. "The Hairy Who shared an attitude toward vitality and visual imagery in painting," Nutt is quoted in What Nerve! "About that time people were starting to say painting is dead. That old warhorse raises its head continually. I think if anybody said that to us, we would have said, What do you mean 'Painting is dead?' I'm trying to paint... We wanted to do things that were extreme and exaggerated and didn’t just look like other things we’d seen. Franz Schulze thought we were kidding about some material and ideas behind the paintings. He thought the grittier it was, the more we would like it, and that was never the case. I think it differed from artist to artist. We didn’t have a manifesto. We didn’t set down principles. We just seemed to have an understanding. That’s probably what made it work. I had the feeling that if I did something that I thought was really good, it would take care of itself."