Douglas Barbour wrote:
> Of course, it wouldn't get the 'press,' but just the drawings, etc.,
> the plans, without the actual work, would maybe be good. And I do like
> the idea of going somewhere to enhance what really needs it, Mark. I
> mean, it would be something to see them draping Fallujah....
>
> Doug
Douglas, in a place where I am peppered by routinely disturbing images 8
hours a day, 5 days a week (we do defense work, get the picture), the
image of a Christos-draped Fallujah broke through the torpor. I have no
idea how to react to the image except by relating it to another that
pops into my head.
James Ensor painted several versions of something he called "Christ in
Brussels." The 1889 painting (the others were, I believe, crayon or
pencil studies) is a like an opium dream. In the foreground, masked
faces in grotesque expressions...or maybe those are real faces. Christ
himself, entering the city...for this is Palm Sunday, the start of
Passion Week...is not even visible. He is SO invisible, so relegated to
the background, that in the online reproduction you can't even see him.
He's the excuse for public revelry, riot, a gathering, but He is invisible.
It could be the nature of the color reproduction online, but running
across the top of the painting is an orange banner with the words "Vive
la sociale" in block letters. Even if it's red, the point is there--a
gathering to celebrate something acquires its own nonaesthetic being.
The cause becomes the excuse becomes forgotten.
I have seen comments abou the Gates on Silliman's blog that make
anything critical said here sound like it was written by the art critic
for the New York Times. It seems Christos and Jeanne-Claude got lots of
mileage out of that drapery, even if some of the mileage included tire
treads in their necks.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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