online: 8 march 2010 modified: 7 march 2010 7 march 2010 our changing culture
in brussels
paintings by el greco:
...in near darkness... each picture is spotlit... which seems to fit these dramatic paintings that i used to like in the days when i was learning to appreciate modern art (in the nineteen-fifties)... but now they seem sketchy and even superstitious... perhaps exaggerating the importance of religion?
...but yes indeed (as this exhibition suggests) el greco's art did inspire modern painters, even picasso... i remember john latham telling me how the sight of an el greco painting was his first inspiration when (at the end of world war 2 in italy) he came across one amidst the aftermath of the fighting... how is it that a style in painting, a way of perceiving, can be so influential... or lose or gain such influence...?
...the answer is i think obvious: it's that a new way of painting is a new way to see the world... and changing fashion and perception is the spontaneous operation of collective mind...
...one of el greco's changes was to reduce the size of the head, or to lengthen the body... (the average stature is about 7 times the height of the head but el greco's figures are at least 8 heads high, sometimes even 9 or 10)... this narrowing and lengthening i interpret as making people look more spiritual, less earthly, reducing gravity, looking towards heaven...
...yes el greco's distortions were surely what appealed to the early moderns, the liberty to reinterpret the world and also to change it, even here in the midst of the traditional images of the christian religion... now seen not as realism but as realised wish... a new world to be explored... not an old one to be obeyed...
yet now, sitting here at the entrance to the exhibition, i see mainly the age and the apparent conservatism of many people crowding obediently to look at these paintings that to me at least have lost interest... for today the new is something else...
the exhibition is at the bozar gallery
new art by felix gonzalez-torres:
and now a very different exhibition: large, almost empty enclosures and views... and scarce but powerful exhibits by felix gonzalez-torres... for instance strings of low intensity light bulbs lit and arranged in clusters without meaning or message on the floor of a vast room that contains almost nothing else except the visitors... electric light: what marshall mcluhan described as 'pure information'... (at the start of chapter one of his book understanding media)...
...then in a corner a pile of nearly blank posters of grey cloud (which one can take away) on which is also the image of a circling bird... perhaps a vulture... and in another inconspicuous corner of the gallery is a colour photograph of flowers growing on the grave of gertrude stein and alice tocklas, in paris...
...and from the topmost floor are far ranging views over the rooftops of the city.... and on the walls inside are pale grey images of names and dates... each perhaps of great significance to someone... and some to everyone... but now i learn that the whole series is a self-portrait of the artist... while to me it is a touching message and an education in what we share and also are:
(some or all of the inscriptions are to be inserted here)
...the exhibition, which is at wiels gallery, was re-curated (in this very empty form) by dahn vo... after an earlier curating (perhaps fuller) by eleno filipovic...
...i liked the emptiness, immensely...
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