The Musée de la Monnaie had been renovated and re-opened its doors again last year. For the opening, the choice of artist, Paul McCarthy and the work itself was hardly appropriate for the Parisian spectator.
A controversial green art installation on Paris' Place Vendome (one of Paris's chicest square) was taken down after being vandalized overnight.
The inflatable sculpture called "Tree" vaguely resembled a Christmas tree but evoked for others, including its creator, Paul McCarthy, a giant anal sex toy.
The sculpture was deflated and folded up….
I had seen the exhibition - all in chocolate and frankly was not impressed. Sex toy or not, all those so called Christmas Trees lined up was quite sickly.
So what would it be like this time? The second exhibition was with Marcel Broodthaers. I had discovered this rather strange artist during a visit to Brussels - a long time ago now. The title intrigued me
« Musée d’Art Modern - Département des Aigles »
He was born in Brussels in 1924 and died in Cologne in 1976. Marcel was a multi-disciplined artist, poet, visual artist, filmmaker and photographer. This exhibition was to be a reflexion on the relationship between the work of art, the museum and the public. He was studying chemistry which he gave up in 1942 to follow all these different artistic metiers. He was inspired by Magritte, Mallarmé along with Courbet, David, Ingres and Corot. A strange collection of artists.
He proclaimed himself « director » and « curator » of the "Museum of modern art, Department of Eagles", which he opened for the 19th century section in his house in Brussels. It consisted of postcards, a projection of empty crates for shipping works of art. This section of his work was the start of his International fame. Each new section opened in another city and for four years the value of art itself was in the context of the exhibition.
First of all you came in on his Salle Blanche which made me wonder at once what it was all about. The little brochure was essential.
In La Salle Blanche (The White Room) (1975), a life-size copy of a room and a half in Broodthaers' home in Brussels, the wooden walls of the empty, unfurnished rooms are covered with printed words in French—such as museum, gallery, oil, subject, composition, images, and privilege—all intended to examine "the influence of language on perceptions of the world and the ways museums affect the production and consumption of art ».
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| The Salle Blanche |
I still was not very sure if I understood what he was trying to say.
Then I went into the next room and saw this packing case. It reminded me at once of when the removers came to pick up 30 crates of my Mother’s work to ship them to Melbourne. I was to learn that the four men who did the work, were art historians and had just packed the Rubens exhibition to be sent to another European country. I am quite sure that my Mother would have been very impressed by the white silk gloves each man wore and the care taken to prepare her work for shipping.
This was a little like that except all the major artists which I mentioned above were projected onto the packing case. The story goes that when Broodthaers had the opening for his new museum, some artist said to him
« Can’t you open the case so we can really look at the paintings »….A virtual beginning to his virtual museum.
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| Ajouter une légende |
Was that why he was compared to an Eagle ? Everything we saw was related to the bird or vulture. One who flies high, circling before it dives onto its prey. Everything had this symbol.
In his Section of Publicity he focuses on the reproducibility of works and questions the consumer in the form of documents and photographs. He seems to always be playing with the ambiguity of the relationship between the original and the reproduction adding a layer of interpretation linked with advertising:
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« In advertising, the eagle has retained all of its characteristics of magical suggestions at the service of industrial products……The critical form under which it is presented here consists in a double projection : on the one hand, we see eagles in the history of art and on the other, nothing but advertising images » (interview with M.B)
Then he declares bankruptcy but in the Financial Section. He actually made a one kilogram gold ingot stamped with the museum symbol. The ingot as a work of art has a sale price calculated at twice the market value of gold, the increase in value representing the value of art…..haven’t you heard such a story with some of our artists’ today? The outrageous price of their work because of it’s « collector’s value ». ?
He added
« You shouldn’t feel like you’re sold before you’ve been bought ».
It was a weird mixture of objects, displays, film…..most of the time I found it difficult to relate to his virtual museum - until I became memorized by the Eagles……they were everywhere. Here are just a few samples......
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| So where is the eagle ? |
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| There was no explanation but he did turn his head...... |
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