MAKING FACES
At some point, however, the aging process might indicate to the person involved less the onset of wisdom and more the onslaught of decrepitude and death. Ed Paschke may be reaching that point. The wrinkles on his face are apparent at 20 paces, the jowls are settling, the hair is white.
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The best of these works, including Facade, in which Paschke has left nine vertical hatch marks in the center of his face, and the double portrait The Decision, are private rather than personal. And if you’re being honestly private it’s impossible to be sentimental. An analogy might be made between letters, which are personal–that is, meant for another person with whom the writer is familiar–and journals, which are private, not meant for anybody to read. In Paschke’s case the journals contain nothing scandalous, or even remotely revealing. They contain factual and somewhat mundane data.
Paschke is frequently compared to Andy Warhol because he too has painted such standard Pop subjects as Marilyn, John Wayne, and Elvis. Yet there’s a current of morality running through Paschke’s oeuvre that is absent from Warhol’s. Perhaps that lack is what accounts for the latter’s superstardom. Besides, Warhol was born a celebrity, and just happened to be one who made pictures.
This bit of self-aggrandizement works two ways, as Picasso is the better painter and the more handsome man, but perhaps there is more to it than self-aggrandizement. Many 20th-century artists have imagined themselves in Picasso’s shoes–Jasper Johns, for instance, and Jackson Pollock–but most have done it by imitating the way he painted. Such attempts are usually doomed to failure: Picasso’s specter mocks the audacity of any merely talented artist following in his footsteps. By imagining himself with Picasso’s face, with those famous eyes, Paschke can become Picasso, and therefore eliminate any need to paint like him.
