Untitled (Swordfish)
Artist
Gordon Newton
(American, 1948-2019)
Date1983-1984
MediumCanvas, paint, taxidermied swordfish, tricycle, maracas, tinfoil, wood, staples, radio
Dimensions67 1/8 × 106 × 24 1/2 in. (170.5 × 269.2 × 62.2 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of James Pearson Duffy, 1992
Object numberUAC2519
DescriptionAnybody can mount a stuffed swordfish on the wall, but leave it to one of the leading lights of the Cass Corridor’s grungy scrap-assemblage aesthetic, Gordon Newton, to come up with a trophy that you won’t find decorating your average rec room or sports bar. Newton’s fish — technically a sailfish, not a swordfish — is just one element of this crude conglomeration of macho detritus. Strapped to its side is a jet-black vintage Big Wheel, tricycle of choice for cool kids throughout the ‘70s, and dangling suggestively below the sea creature’s midsection is a pair of green maracas. It’s equipped with a stereo too, ready to kick out the jams, and the whole collection is held up by a wooden frame encrusted in tin foil, like a prop from a B-grade sci-fi movie. Bizarre as it is, this collection of odd stuff is merely an elaborate spine for a sort of oversized artist’s book made from pieces of staple-studded canvas, painted and stenciled in red and black with images of hot rods and cassette tapes (and possibly a reference to pop-rocker Pat Benatar’s 1984 song “Diamond Field,” which recalls Newton’s important earlier sculpture, Diamond Follow, also in the Wayne State collection). Eccentric even by his standards, this piece is a Gordon Newton two-fer, showing off both the vigorous, expressionistic drawing and the found object collage technique for which he was known.Text by Sean Bieri
Born in Detroit in 1948, Newton migrated around the Midwest with his family for a time before settling back in the city in 1969 and beginning his art studies at Wayne State. Local critic Marsha Miro called Newton “the prototypical Cass Corridor artist”; indeed, his rough-hewn assemblages are so closely linked with the scene that his work appears on the covers of two books on Corridor art, including the catalog to the important 1980 DIA show, Kick Out The Jams. Though many believe he could have succeeded at the national level, he was ill at ease in the New York art world, and generally averse to the spotlight. He remained a lifelong Detroiter, and died in his home on the southwest side in 2019 at the age of 71. Fellow artist Nancy Mitchnick said in his obituary that Newton, “was a kind of space alien… brilliant beyond comprehension, but… a brat too. I always longed to make work like Gordie. It pulled you in deep.”
