Balzac’s Erect Cock
Before it shut down, Surreal Girl and I sorted out schedules enough to manage to get to see the Rebels & Martyrs exhibition at the National. An examination of the image of the artist as a tortured soul and revolutionary from the late 18th to the early 20th century, in theory it was a wonderful idea. In practice, it was fantastic, flawed and frustrating.
Right from the first room, I had issues with it. Given that it partly set itself the task of looking at the myth of the artist as a ‘visionary outsider’ since the birth of Romanticism, where was the William Blake? To start in 1789 with both the French Revolution and the idea of successful artists as aggrandised members of the establishment with no reference to Blake was criminal. It felt as if someone was trying to explain the concept of soccer without mentioning something as important as the fact it is played with a ball.
Still I found it hard to disappointed when I got the chance to see Chatterton in a context investigating the bullshit that orbits the archetype of artist/author/poet/performer as a self-destructive force. Chatterton remains one of the most important and influential works of art in my life. I think it was between Wallis and Rollins I learned that to succeed in any creative endeavor you cannot afford to dissipate yourself in self-pity.
However, overall the exploration of the development of the artistic myth of genius going hand in hand with radicalism, starving in garrets and unconventionality was stuttering. The narrative only real shone when looking at the creation of Bohemia. It was great to see works by Fuseli, Delacroix, Van Gogh and Ensor up close and personal, but I was constantly left feeling that each room was lacking some key pictures that would have illustrated the point trying to be made. Some tangents, such as the intriguing cultism of the Nabis, felt they belonged in an entirely different
My biggest problem with the exhibition came in the final room – Creativity and Sexuality. It is rare that the National Gallery makes me so furious I feel my temples throbbing, but this room pushed me to that point. It felt so patronising and artificial. It was as if someone had realised that there were no works of art by women included up until that point, so quickly decided that some tokenism via Modersohn-Becker would be enough to assay any comments that they had not tackled the female perspective.
The last exhibit seen as you exited Rebels & Martyrs was a Rodin sculpture featuring Balzac’s erect cock. I am not sure how the curator intended us to read this depiction of Honoré de Balzac grasping his stubby penis. Were we meant to take from it that the very act of artists depicting themselves and other creatives as a breed apart was massively masturbatory? Or was it an in-joke, subtlety implying the whole thing was a load of old wank?
Right from the first room, I had issues with it. Given that it partly set itself the task of looking at the myth of the artist as a ‘visionary outsider’ since the birth of Romanticism, where was the William Blake? To start in 1789 with both the French Revolution and the idea of successful artists as aggrandised members of the establishment with no reference to Blake was criminal. It felt as if someone was trying to explain the concept of soccer without mentioning something as important as the fact it is played with a ball.
Still I found it hard to disappointed when I got the chance to see Chatterton in a context investigating the bullshit that orbits the archetype of artist/author/poet/performer as a self-destructive force. Chatterton remains one of the most important and influential works of art in my life. I think it was between Wallis and Rollins I learned that to succeed in any creative endeavor you cannot afford to dissipate yourself in self-pity.
However, overall the exploration of the development of the artistic myth of genius going hand in hand with radicalism, starving in garrets and unconventionality was stuttering. The narrative only real shone when looking at the creation of Bohemia. It was great to see works by Fuseli, Delacroix, Van Gogh and Ensor up close and personal, but I was constantly left feeling that each room was lacking some key pictures that would have illustrated the point trying to be made. Some tangents, such as the intriguing cultism of the Nabis, felt they belonged in an entirely different
My biggest problem with the exhibition came in the final room – Creativity and Sexuality. It is rare that the National Gallery makes me so furious I feel my temples throbbing, but this room pushed me to that point. It felt so patronising and artificial. It was as if someone had realised that there were no works of art by women included up until that point, so quickly decided that some tokenism via Modersohn-Becker would be enough to assay any comments that they had not tackled the female perspective.
The last exhibit seen as you exited Rebels & Martyrs was a Rodin sculpture featuring Balzac’s erect cock. I am not sure how the curator intended us to read this depiction of Honoré de Balzac grasping his stubby penis. Were we meant to take from it that the very act of artists depicting themselves and other creatives as a breed apart was massively masturbatory? Or was it an in-joke, subtlety implying the whole thing was a load of old wank?
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home