Three odd incidents of painting and populism
In response to Friday’s news round-up by Sam Thorne, I wonder what Vladimir Putin’s first painting, the Prado’s new presence on Google Earth, and Czech artist David Cerny’s monumental painting at EU Brussels headquarters have in common?
I.
Vladimir Putin’s painting which sold in a Moscow charity auction for more than 700.000 £ depicts, in simple faux-naïve strokes, a frosted cabin window with ‘Ukrainian pattern’ curtains. It is a stone killing at least two birds: one being that Putin, having added another skill to his portfolio at just the right time, can still consider himself – even despite basketball-playing, Nietzsche-knowledgeable Obama – the leading polymath amongst the world’s leaders. The other dead bird is of course the smouldering, or rather shivering, conflict over gas pipeline supplies to Europe, smugly alluded to by Vladimir ‘Frosty the Gasman’ Putin with the homey choice of motif. Early art aspirations of a notorious German dictator aside, it is Ike Eisenhower’s fondness for the canvas that comes to mind, famously put into perspective by Dan Graham in his essay ‘Eisenhower and the Hippies’ (1967), which on the occasion of an exhibition of Eisenhower’s paintings in New York ironically pointed out surprising parallels between the 1950s president’s and the hippies’ avoidance-of-conflict strategies. While we’ll have a harder time to detect the hippy in Putin, his variety of populism nevertheless does continue the tradition of tough-guy-folksiness.
II.
What to make of Google Earth’s new feature – Madrid’s Prado in its virtual version including a link to 12 of its masterworks displayed in ultra-high 14,000-megapixel resolution (amongst them Velsasquez’ La Meninas, or Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights)? Of course one could assert the obvious reservation that getting close up to the paintings as if under a digital microscope – it feels as if you where literally hitting the canvas with your nose – doesn’t mean you understand them better (you might even understand them less). But on the other hand there is no need to complain, like Jonathan Jones in the Guardian, that there are only 12 Prado paintings online (as if that precluded future digitalizations of this kind) or that this can’t replace a visit to the museum (no, really?). In line with Ron Jones’ recent argument on the occasion of Leonardo’s The Last Supper having undergone a similar treatment, I’d rather think this is a truly democratic achievement for both expert scholars and ordinary art lovers. I for my part can’t get enough of the brightly yellow trousers in Goya’s The Third of May, while being aware that this is like enjoying the pretty beach in Apocalypse Now. If these digital doublings are a populist distortion of what painting is all about, than I guess I’m a happy victim of that kind of populism.
III.
David Cerny’s works are jokes, and some of them work fantastically and some fall flat. His most famous work is the Soviet tank monument in Prague that in 1991 he painted pink. Another great piece is his parody of the St. Wenceslas statue on Wenceslas square, for which he made a same-size copy, only that this time the Czech patron saint is not sitting on the back of a great horse but on the belly of a dead, ‘inverted horse’ with its legs towards the ceiling. He’s also done a lot of crap, heavy-handed jokes that always make you wonder whether it’s worth moving tons of bronze or fibreglass for the sake of a lame joke.
Cerny’s scandal-provoking Entropa installation currently on display at the European Council building in Brussels sits, or rather hangs, somewhere in-between. What is boring about it is the over-used allegory of the plastic model kit blown up to monumental size, but quite entertaining is the use of cliché for each country (Germany’s Swastika-Autobahn, France on strike etc.), particularly since Cerny had created fictitious artists for each country (including short CVs and statements, see this pdf ) that supposedly contributed the respective designs. And so Sweden’s Sonja Aaberg presents her country as an Ikea-package, while Bulgaria’s Elena Jelebova’s turned her country into a Turkish toilet, and Britain’s own Khalid Asadi – true conceptualist – left the model kit space for the island empty, alluding to London’s distanced relation to Brussels. In a press statement Cerny says ‘we wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself.’ I’m sure he knew at least some wouldn’t be amused, but that was worth it: because at the same time he also exposed the incompetence of those who commissioned him, who not even bothered to do the slightest research on the work of the artists supposedly commissioned. If this is great art I don’t know – it feels like Maurizio Catellan minus the conceptual twists, or like Kippenberger minus the ‘serious’ engagement with what it means to make a sculpture or painting etc. – but it surely is entertaining spoofery.
IV.
So what do Putin’s painting, Google Earth’s Prado pictures, and Cerny’s fake EU-artists’ sculpture have in common? They all pretend to be messages about art speaking to large audiences – when in fact art only concerns them tangentially, or not at all. In other word’s, art becomes a pretext. The question is of course: for what? If the ultra-high definition images are actually simply about the nerdy enjoyment of making something technically possible, why not, so be it; and if Cerny’s stunt is all about, well, the stunt, again: why not. But if Putin’s latest demonstration of ‘skill’ – even if on the occasion of a charity event, and even if presented with a smug sense of irony – smacks a little of Kim Jong-Il’s poetry, then I guess that’s not a very good sign.
In response to Friday’s news round-up by Sam Thorne, I wonder what Vladimir Putin’s first painting, the Prado’s new presence on Google Earth, and Czech artist David Cerny’s monumental painting at EU Brussels headquarters have in common?
I.
Vladimir Putin’s painting which sold in a Moscow charity auction for more than 700.000 £ depicts, in simple faux-naïve strokes, a frosted cabin window with ‘Ukrainian pattern’ curtains. It is a stone killing at least two birds: one being that Putin, having added another skill to his portfolio at just the right time, can still consider himself – even despite basketball-playing, Nietzsche-knowledgeable Obama – the leading polymath amongst the world’s leaders. The other dead bird is of course the smouldering, or rather shivering, conflict over gas pipeline supplies to Europe, smugly alluded to by Vladimir ‘Frosty the Gasman’ Putin with the homey choice of motif. Early art aspirations of a notorious German dictator aside, it is Ike Eisenhower’s fondness for the canvas that comes to mind, famously put into perspective by Dan Graham in his essay ‘Eisenhower and the Hippies’ (1967), which on the occasion of an exhibition of Eisenhower’s paintings in New York ironically pointed out surprising parallels between the 1950s president’s and the hippies’ avoidance-of-conflict strategies. While we’ll have a harder time to detect the hippy in Putin, his variety of populism nevertheless does continue the tradition of tough-guy-folksiness.
II.
What to make of Google Earth’s new feature – Madrid’s Prado in its virtual version including a link to 12 of its masterworks displayed in ultra-high 14,000-megapixel resolution (amongst them Velsasquez’ La Meninas, or Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights)? Of course one could assert the obvious reservation that getting close up to the paintings as if under a digital microscope – it feels as if you where literally hitting the canvas with your nose – doesn’t mean you understand them better (you might even understand them less). But on the other hand there is no need to complain, like Jonathan Jones in the Guardian, that there are only 12 Prado paintings online (as if that precluded future digitalizations of this kind) or that this can’t replace a visit to the museum (no, really?). In line with Ron Jones’ recent argument on the occasion of Leonardo’s The Last Supper having undergone a similar treatment, I’d rather think this is a truly democratic achievement for both expert scholars and ordinary art lovers. I for my part can’t get enough of the brightly yellow trousers in Goya’s The Third of May, while being aware that this is like enjoying the pretty beach in Apocalypse Now. If these digital doublings are a populist distortion of what painting is all about, than I guess I’m a happy victim of that kind of populism.
III.
David Cerny’s works are jokes, and some of them work fantastically and some fall flat. His most famous work is the Soviet tank monument in Prague that in 1991 he painted pink. Another great piece is his parody of the St. Wenceslas statue on Wenceslas square, for which he made a same-size copy, only that this time the Czech patron saint is not sitting on the back of a great horse but on the belly of a dead, ‘inverted horse’ with its legs towards the ceiling. He’s also done a lot of crap, heavy-handed jokes that always make you wonder whether it’s worth moving tons of bronze or fibreglass for the sake of a lame joke.
Cerny’s scandal-provoking Entropa installation currently on display at the European Council building in Brussels sits, or rather hangs, somewhere in-between. What is boring about it is the over-used allegory of the plastic model kit blown up to monumental size, but quite entertaining is the use of cliché for each country (Germany’s Swastika-Autobahn, France on strike etc.), particularly since Cerny had created fictitious artists for each country (including short CVs and statements, see this pdf ) that supposedly contributed the respective designs. And so Sweden’s Sonja Aaberg presents her country as an Ikea-package, while Bulgaria’s Elena Jelebova’s turned her country into a Turkish toilet, and Britain’s own Khalid Asadi – true conceptualist – left the model kit space for the island empty, alluding to London’s distanced relation to Brussels. In a press statement Cerny says ‘we wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself.’ I’m sure he knew at least some wouldn’t be amused, but that was worth it: because at the same time he also exposed the incompetence of those who commissioned him, who not even bothered to do the slightest research on the work of the artists supposedly commissioned. If this is great art I don’t know – it feels like Maurizio Catellan minus the conceptual twists, or like Kippenberger minus the ‘serious’ engagement with what it means to make a sculpture or painting etc. – but it surely is entertaining spoofery.
IV.
So what do Putin’s painting, Google Earth’s Prado pictures, and Cerny’s fake EU-artists’ sculpture have in common? They all pretend to be messages about art speaking to large audiences – when in fact art only concerns them tangentially, or not at all. In other word’s, art becomes a pretext. The question is of course: for what? If the ultra-high definition images are actually simply about the nerdy enjoyment of making something technically possible, why not, so be it; and if Cerny’s stunt is all about, well, the stunt, again: why not. But if Putin’s latest demonstration of ‘skill’ – even if on the occasion of a charity event, and even if presented with a smug sense of irony – smacks a little of Kim Jong-Il’s poetry, then I guess that’s not a very good sign.
