Month: February 2019

That Which Lingers Long After – “Fountain”

Glory

Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” is a urinal turned on its side and signed– and I can’t stop thinking about it. “Fountain” is a ‘ready-made’ piece of art, meaning that it is an ordinary object that has been selected by an artist to become art, assigning something mundane a grander meaning. The artist, in this sense, has not created a new object, but created a new idea for an object.

“Fountain” was initially submitted to the Society of Independent Artists in 1917 under the pseudonym R. Mutt, but was rejected for its alleged indecency. Duchamp, who was on the board for the society quickly resigned in protest. What Duchamp had endeavored to do was test this organization’s that claimed to accept any work of art for display, and frankly, it failed. The result of this failure, however, is the infamy of “Fountain” and the IMG_20190204_125131introduction of a wholly new idea to the art world, conceptual art.

When we look at “Fountain”, it is glistening white and generally curved. When viewed straight on, it is reminiscent of the seated Buddha, or a woman’s cloaked head. This may not be purposeful, but is relevant to the way the viewer experiences the piece. Above the aesthetic is the original purpose of the object, a urinal intended to collect waste and be observed in the private space of a bathroom, rather than in the scrutinous eyes of the public. Context is important. History is important. “Fountain” challenges the institution of the museum or gallery as a home for greatness at the discretion of an elite board. “Fountain”‘ is a house guest that scoffs at its hosts.

What is most essential to “Fountain” is the idea. This is an exemplification of the transcendental quality of art making. Even less conceptual pieces take pigments and cloth and turn them into works that we regard as masterpieces, but materials are ephemeral. Despite the best conservationist’s efforts, physical materials are only capable of lasting so long. The copy of “Fountain” that the Tate Modern has on display is but a copy of the original, which has been lost. Despite this, to see it is to experience the idea that the very first “Fountain” carried within it– that physical objects can be lost, but ideas last forever.

For more information on “Fountain”, check out this Art Assignment video “Art or prank?”

Rothko’s Seagram Murals

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The Rothko room at the Tate Modern is an underappreciated treat for gallery-goers. The room is dimly lit, and feels much like a dive into the depths of a somber maroon ocean– or at the very least, that is how I suspect the room is meant to feel. Instead, the central bench was filled with people on their phones, having lunch, or disciplining upset children. It felt like the gallery-goers were present because they assumed nothing important was in there, and thus it was an excellent place to take a break from all the art.

I suspect visitors would react in this way because Rothko’s later work is an expression of simplicity and monumentality that speaks to the human drama that Rothko became acquainted with over the course of his life. The murals of this room were designed for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building in New York as a retort to the wealthy patrons that the Four Seasons would attract. Rothko intended for the deep blacks, reds, and maroons to make these bourgeois guests feel claustrophobic, as if the windows and doors had been sealed with brick. These swathes of color speak to a somber oppressiveness that gyrates and shifts along the blurred and uneven edges of each profound rectangle.

Ordinarily, stillness is attributed to Rothko’s later works, but the reflection of each spotlight transforming the color of Rothko’s work makes these in particular feel like they are writhing. Most of the works are simple and symmetrical, but they strike me as being an unexpected stroke of profundity in a museum that otherwise caters to movement and interaction.

I’m glad that Rothko pulled out of his deal with the Four Seasons and sent these works across the sea to London, as in New York they would have been pearls before capitalist swine (Rothko was very leftist in philosophy). However, I can’t help but think that there’s perhaps a better resting place for this set of holy ghosts. I think to the Rothko chapel in Houston, Texas as a proper place for somber contemplation, the sort that these pieces demand of the viewer. I know that this is wishful thinking.

For an excellent explanation of Rothko’s works, check out the Art Assignment’s “The Case for Mark Rothko”

The V&A Biscuit Tin Collection

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It strikes me that it may be somewhat idiotic to be fascinated by the Victoria and Albert Museum’s biscuit tin collection, but I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at them, and I’d like to consider why. This, of course, isn’t self psychoanalyzation, but a ponderance of why humans have decided to produce ornate biscuit tins. Any plain bag, box, or tin would work, so why make them so darn cute?

Well, we’ve been decorating vessels for centuries, our first containers for holding food and water created as far back as 9000 BCE. Fast forward as few thousand years, and in 1861, the Licensed Grocer’s Act allowed groceries to be separately packaged. From there, tins for sweets were created, and the advent of offset lithography allowed for designs to be printed on in color. Pretty cool. Why would we bother doing this?

From an advertising perspective, adding colorful designs to tins that are already full of sweets that children enjoy is common sense. That may be true, but I doubt children would enjoy a Wedgwood casket-inspired tin, nor the Edward Burne-Jones tin I was sureIMG_20190202_151802 to snap a picture of. Of course, some of these designs are novelty, and appeal to adults as well as children. There’s a tin for everyone it would seem, in a variety of shapes and designs, to fit every fancy.

All of this said, my first impression of these tins was not that they were small advertisements lined up in a display case, but that they were short glances into the daily life of the person that once owned these tins, and perhaps picked them for their own interests, or to satisfy a child’s sweet tooth. Perhaps an egyptomaniac once owned the odd tins in the shape of an egyptian vase, or a child played with the tin in the shape of a cottage long after the biscuits were all eaten.

These tins are an excellent example of material culture, and let us know what people took an interest in during the first half of the 20th century. Britain doesn’t really make biscuit tins like this any more, as their production ceased during the rations of the second world war and didn’t become popular again after it was over.

I can’t help but wonder what traces of our 21st century life will be put into display cases and pondered.

Deification of a Soldier– A Familiar Face?

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Deification of a Soldier is one surrealist work that packs a punch. Completed by Yamashita Kikuji in 1967, Deification is a response to the U.S. occupation of Vietnam in the 1950s and 60s as well as a reaction to the global Cold War going on during the same time. Above that, it is a commentary on war as experienced by both the individual and the collective. Yamashita himself was drafted by the Imperial Japanese Army and witnessed firsthand the execution of a prisoner of war. His sensation of helplessness and regret was very personal, yet an experience many shared during the era.

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Deification of a Soldier, 1967

Looking more closely at the work, we can see that it is one central mass made up of many limbs, mouths, and eyes. What distinguishes this work as surrealist is the focus on both pleasure and destruction, or death. In this case it takes the form of the mouths, breasts, and limbs tangled together. This image is not very ‘sexy’ as a whole, but images and objects that are traditionally sexualized make it so.

Likewise, the images of death are too many to count. The barrel of a gun protrudes from the rightmost horse’s ear. The mouths here are open wide, in a soundless scream. The lower half of the work reads like a mass of either teeth or organs. The distinguishable figures here appear as apparitions, and are quite ghastly.

War plays a major role here, seen in the military helmets on both the central head of the mass and the head of a bird-like figure. We see military attire. Beyond that, we see many eyes in the work, all watching the viewer, just as the viewer looks into this mass of flesh– which brings me to the color palette of the work. While it is washed out to some degree, it appears quite fleshy, and involves both warm and cool tones. Splashes of red are the most vibrant, but the overarching colors here are beige and gray.

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Guernica, 1937

Pretty horrifying upon close inspection, but what struck me the most about this work was its likeness to a far more famous depiction of war– Guernica by Pablo Picasso. Picasso’s Guernica was created exactly thirty years before Deification, but the subject matter of both sets them together as siblings. Guernica’s grayscale palette and similar tangle of limbs does well to convey the horror and senselessness of war, and is thus regarded as one of the most influential paintings of the 20th century. It is in this same vein that Deification makes an impact on its viewer. It is unclear if Deification pays any homage to Guernica, though looking at both pieces, it is a real possibility. Either that, or the horror of war is so universal that artists decades and thousands of miles apart would produce the same sensation through their work.

Bonnard’s Baths– Transformation of Meaning

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If there’s one thing to be said about Pierre Bonnard, the man liked a good bath. Bonnard’s current exhibition at the Tate Modern provides a few of his bath scenes for the visitor to ponder, and I must say I liked them quite a lot. It’s an odd thing to paint a person taking a bath, but I find it’s one of the few situations where finding a nude person would edge more on the mundane than the erotic. Very Bonnard!

While it’s not mentioned in the text of the gallery, I know Bonnard best as an intimist, and in association with Edouard Vuillard. Both are known for their scenes of domestic life, family, friends, and the home. Marthe Bonnard, Pierre’s eventual wife is the subject of these paintings most often, which makes sense in the context of her unwellness and

bonnard bath
Nude in the Bath, 1936

tuberculosis. Hydrotherapy was a popular form of medicine at the time, and it may well account for the prevalence of baths in Bonnard’s body of work. Marthe’s baths were a part of their daily lives, particularly near the end of her life, and some of Bonnard’s scenes of her are even painted after her death. This makes me quite sad.

Bonnard’s work towards the end of his life becomes a song of color, memory, and longing. Marthe’s baths become a source of sadness, as her coming demise becomes more and more apparent. Bonnard’s color is a form of remembering, as he so often painted based on his first impression of a scene, and what he felt as a result. He called his use of color “many small lies to create a great truth”. The truth of his sadness is apparent in every color.

For example, when examining “Nude in the Bath”, the portion most shrouded in darkness is that of Marthe’s head, her face unable to be seen. The dark tones bring a melancholy that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent in a brightly colored piece. The yellows and oranges contrast the blues and purples, yet the overwhelming patterns bring about disorder for the viewer’s perspective. The patterns flatten the perspective, and this is common among both Bonnard and Vuillard as intimists. “Nude in the Bath” is captivating.

I can’t shake the feeling that Bonnard was a man who deeply enjoyed his home, and the company he kept. His book, Correspondances, is full of fictional letters to and from his family and friends, and was also on display in the gallery. Several of the letters were from family members already deceased, such as his grandfather, and this gives the work a wistful feeling of loneliness.

Bonnard was a relatively ordinary man, but the exhibition conveyed to me his similarly ordinary pain and unease. This conveyance of very common pain allows Bonnard’s work to infiltrate the viewer’s heart, which sounds quite tacky, but rang true for my own gallery experience. If we all conveyed our daily, private lives through color, they would all look quite different, but the feeling, I suspect, would often be the same.