Laura Bell, Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, dryer lint, 2011(?)
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Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum has acquired this piece. It joins their collection of Last Supper works on a grain of rice, on a dime, and made from burnt toast.
It was not the Last Supper that inspired her so much as another dryer lint work. The urge to make something significant out of something insignificant. I also found it compelling to consider the work she put in to her art: purchasing the right towels to get the colors she wanted, 700-800 hours of laundry, 200 hours of assembly. There's certainly no question that she was attentive to the process of her art as much as any other fabric artist (the crochet artist Olek or quilter Sue Reno).
But there's no question, in my mind, that it is kitsch. It is a sentimentalized view of the Last Supper. It remakes an iconic image in superficial form. It derives its value solely from the novelty of its material.
We are a strange species. We take what we are moved by and remake it--to possess it. Where art breaks new ground of understanding--and this is undoubtedly what Leonardo was doing in his composition by creating a human/Humanist moment of the spiritual moment--kitsch revisits old paths of understanding. It traces old lines, old interpretations. And I think there's no question that as a culture, we NEED kitsch. It fills the mind just as easy starches fill the belly; we're emotionally drawn to these in the same way salt/sugar/grease became (an American?) biological imperative. But if you cannot live on Pringles (which are made from potato slurry, which makes them the kitsch of the snack food world); you need complex proteins and salads made from fresh greens too.
When Renee Cox looks at the Last Supper,
there's a host of other issues being explored--the physical embodiment of Christ and the identity of that Body for the faithful, the consumption of bodies (especially gendered female bodies in both the sexualized gaze and pregnancy), the role of women in the Catholic/mainstream Christian denominations, the discussion/avoidance of race in religious context and modern culture. It ain't just lint.
Huh. When I think about a Last Supper made out of lint, it raises lots of issues for *me* - is the transformation of quotidian lint into sublime image meant to echo the transubstantiation of ordinary bread into divine body? If you believe that Jesus came "for the least of these", to save the refuse of society, then does making art out of a garbage material cast the artist in a godlike role?
ReplyDeleteMaybe these aren't good questions, but it feels (to me) like the same kind of response I have sometimes to other thought-provoking art. So what's going on, if I'm having this art-like response to a non-art object? Is it art to me even if it isn't art to you? Or am I just wrong in the same way that I would be if, I don't know, I was for some reason having a bird-like response to a frog?
Amy--These are great questions and a totally valid response which made me rethink my original answer.
ReplyDeleteI totally love the answer you gave about the material and I like the way it provokes theological questions. And I think the hold-up for me on the art vs. kitsch is on the image itself. Bell doesn't choose her own conception of the Last Supper. Had she made her own view of the Last Supper, rather than copying Leonardo's composition, I would have been far more sympathetic. For me, the copying makes it somewhat a "paint-by-numbers" reproduction. The nuances in shade, color, composition, expression, line that make Leonardo's work so compelling are lost in the flattening copy. I think that the less-self-reflective copying is part of what creates the distinction of art vs. kitsch (for me). Bell seems to want a sincere one-for-one copy, just in lint rather than fresco. When Renee Cox uses Leonardo's work, it is as a jumping off point--her photograph is reminiscent of the original, enough to signal the connection, without trying to reproduce the original.
But the question you raise about "art for me if not art for you" is a really interesting one. I think that art is about the personal response and that (monetary) value is ascribed by that response. And of course, the other aspect of this is what value gets assigned to the work by its context. Bell's value has to do with the process of creating. Ripley's value is in novelty. Would MOMA buy it as a work of modern art? I don't know for sure but I think not; I think the kitsch designation would win out.
Complicated ain't it. Art is different one to another, and that's what makes appraisal interesting and fun.
That makes sense about copying vs using a jumping-off point, that's a useful distinction. I'm not sure I like the MOMA argument, though - MOMA must fail to buy thousands (millions?) of valid works of modern art, they've only got so much space (and money).
DeleteOh, yes; what MOMA buys and doesn't buy is a long-standing hoo-hah of epic proportions.
ReplyDeleteI was sloppy.
What I meant to suggest was that most art historians of modern art make this distinction of art and kitsch. The discussion is part of the major wave of art history that happened in the 1930s with people like Adorno and Clement Greenberg. One of the things they were looking to do was define what they were seeing in radical abstraction and define the values that artists were exploring in the wake of WWI. There was a general resistance to sentimentality and narrative art (in part because story-telling was part of Nationalism and propaganda and the differences they saw as leading to war). They also wanted to see a distinction between the Establishment and the avant-garde; they resisted the "culture industry" that they felt was producing easily digested, traditional forms of art. It was an argument also born of the Impressionists breaking the Academy system in the late 19th c. so Adorno and Greenberg were attempting to define a system of art in culture that accounted for waves of action and response (think too of the social operation of Marxism/Socialism). Greenberg was especially trying to define the work of the Abstract Expressionists.
Kitsch was partly embraced by the Pop artists, largely in response to the abandonment of images and narrative by the Abstract Expressionists. The discussion becomes particularly difficult when you look at Andy Warhol's soup cans or Lichtenstein's comic art. How is this not kitsch? One argument is that it takes the mass produced image (mass produced as an often element of kitsch) and reintroduces new approaches to it (changing size, format, number, etc.) The idea is that Pop Art avoids kitsch because it isn't sentimental; it doesn't take the image of Marilyn Monroe at face value but tries to create commentary through the exaggerated color or repetitions or composition.
I believe there is a strong value to kitsch, even while I don't think it is ART. I think the way a culture understands the great piece of art and reproduces it says a LOT about what we value as a society. I think about the offensive jockey figures in front of stately homes in the early part of the 20th c.--values of racism that are prevalent in the country--that disappear as acceptable as the Civil Rights Movement (and after) begin to change attitudes.
I don't see Bell's work as ironic particularly. I see her as accepting the elements set forth from Leonardo. The material is ironic. But I think the elements of subject and composition limit our receptiveness to that element.