JANUARY 2023
What is easy is seldom excellent | Garry Kaulitz
Prior to his emigration to Ecuador in 2017, Garry Kaulitz was a driving force at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he taught from 1993-2016. He has been noticeable for his work both within UAA and the wider Anchorage art scene and beyond, as well as for his support of students and artists generally. His contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, grants and residencies including the 2015 Rasmuson Foundation Distinguished Artist award. This new exhibition is of selected works from sixty years of active art production including paintings, prints and drawings.
This exhibition is taking place concurrently with another exhibition of Garry’s work at Off Arte Contemporáneo in Cuenca, Ecuador. What is easy is seldom excellent is curated by Graham Dane and produced by Bob Curtis-Johnson /SummitDay.
Curator’s Statement
Garry Kaulitz was a leading figure in the Anchorage and Alaskan art scene, He taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage from 1993 to 2014, when he retired. Throughout this time he made art. Before this he had been running his own print shop in Louisville (1981-93); three of his screen prints from this time are included here, one of which gave rise to the exhibition’s title, What is easy is seldom excellent.
First time I saw a large exhibition of his work was a one-person show at what was then The Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Poignant, honest and deeply personal, it dealt with tragic moments of his life, difficult issues, but then Garry’s never been shy about producing work that deals with the dark and unsavory aspects of life, what he referred to as the human condition. His work deals with the enigmatic, visual and autobiographical nature of existence utilizing the juxtaposition of figurative, landscape and object elements with mind fictions and frictions. As Ken Deroux said, “You've taken on big themes in your work: domestic abuse, sexuality, the war in Iraq, and your own dysfunctional family upbringing.”
I’ve known Garry for over twenty years. Being asked to curate from over fifty years of artistic output was a first and was a surprise, and a show of trust to be asked. How does one show work to represent nearly sixty years of production? To look through so much work, to attempt to find either “the nuggets” or to pick work that tells a certain narrative is probably the hardest thing I’ve been involved with exhibitions-wise.
Within this small and limited survey of Garry’s output are some of the oldest pieces (a portrait of a friend from graduate school, a landscape with a barbed wire fence) to the last print that he produced in Cuenca (Ecuador) where he and Kathy, his wife, are now resident. As he wrote to Ken Deroux,
“My BFA from RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) was in illustration (in those days heavy into process and concept), and I had planned on being an illustrator. However, in the process of getting my MFA I made the decision to pursue teaching so I might not have to make art for other people, and could follow my own artistic dictates.”
Thanks to
Garry and Kathy Kaulitz
Graham Dane
Joe Carr, Karinna Gomez and Hans Hallinen /IGCA
Conservator Janelle Matz /ArtCare
Gabrielle Owens Thorndyke /SummitDay
Hal Gage /Gage Photographics
Leslie Matz /ArtCare
Bryce Frederick
Mark Heinrichs
Marilyn Doore
— Bob Curtis-Johnson and Graham Dane
