This exhibition is based on the book “Farenheit
451”by Ray Bradbury, in which works of literature are banned and the only way
to save them is to learn them by heart. It invites the visitor to imagine
they have arrived at the Tate in the future and all the artworks are about to
disappear for ever. The visitor is supposed to “learn” their favourite artwork
and then argue the case for its survival. At the end of the exhibition the
artworks will be removed and be replaced by members of the public who will
personally recollect the missing art works with live performances of some kind.
(Tate, n.d.).
An unusual and challenging theme for an
exhibition, certainly. In fact it’s so challenging that I don’t really think it
works. There are so many different types of artworks by so many different
artists, and even though the gallery labels group the pieces by threads, it’s
difficult to follow the exhibition. It seemed more to me like an excuse for
three leading galleries (Tate, Centre Pompidou and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main) to get out some random modern
art pieces from their collections and display them – the exhibition moves
firstly to MMK and then subsequently to the Centre Pompidou when it finishes at
the Tate. That said, there are certainly some interesting pieces and in
this short reflection I will concentrate on some pieces which I interpreted as
concerning the body, mainly the female body.
Hannah Wilke’s “Elective Affinities” (1978) is a
collection of multiple small white ceramic sculptures representing female
genitalia, which are laid out in a grid pattern on a grey plinth. (The gallery
label describes grids as a masculine construct – this is the first I’ve heard
of that and as someone who regularly turns out grid-based artwork I have to
dispute it). The sculptures are all very similar but different, a comment
perhaps on struggling to find one’s identity in society. I interpreted the fact
that there were so many sculptures as a kind of “sisterhood” comment, where
women choose to stick together . The work is presented at floor level, and the
overall impression is drab and dull, a comment I suppose on women’s place in
society in the 1970s.
Birgit Jürgenssen’s “Nest” (1979) is a photograph
of a woman’s lower body. She is sitting on a hairy rug and a nest is placed at
her crotch. The hairiness of the rug and the texture of the nest are
reminiscent of pubic hair. However, the nest contains two eggs that look like
testes nestling at the top of her legs. A comment on woman as home-maker and
mother, certainly, but also perhaps a comment on gender fluidity?
I suppose no exhibition of this kind would be
complete without a piece by Louise Bourgeois, and her “Arenza” (1968/9) is on
show here. This is a sculpture made of latex and plaster and its bulging shapes
bring to mind drapery, folds, bodily forms, bubbles, lava… there is something
equally enticing and disturbing about it. Of course, you’re not allowed to
touch it, but its oozing forms just invite you to feel and fondle it.
Whilst Claes Oldenburg’s “Soft Typewriter, ‘Ghost’
version” (1963) is not overtly about the body, its droopy, soft surface evokes
thoughts of the body. It has strange round keys that defy convention. Its
colour – a kind of greyish white – provokes comparison with Wilke’s pieces. Note
here that the female artist has made hard, sharp artwork; the male artist has
made soft, floppy artwork. They are subverting convention too. The typewriter
also resonated with Bourgeois’s piece for me, somehow, in the shapes and form.
Oldenburg’s typewriter is placed close to Robert
Malaval’s “Big White Food” (1962), massive white animated egg-shaped papier
mâché forms that bobble up and down on top of a cabinet. They evoke the idea of
an organism of some kind and look for all the world like he has animated
Bourgeois’s ideas.
 |
| Alina Szapocznikow, "Tumour" |
More sinister is Alina Szapocznikow’s 1969 piece, “Tumour”
(paper, polyester, gauze and resin). She was diagnosed with breast cancer in
1968 and through this mis-shapen, lardy, yellowish sculpture, with an inverted
eye at one point, she has dealt with it creatively. Breast cancer is pretty
close to home for me and I didn’t want to look at this but I couldn’t take my
eyes off it. It’s suspended on a wire, which makes it look even more stark, and
looks hard and veiny – it makes uncomfortable viewing.
Also dealing with the body is Dorothea Tanning
with her piece “Poppy Hotel, Room 202” (1970 – 73). Fetishised lumpy body forms
appear nightmarishly out of chairs, walls and the fireplace in this recreation
of a dark, gloomy, scary hotel room. Tentacle-like, the limbs seem almost to
reach out to consume you. The lumpy forms are again reminiscent of Bourgeouis’s
piece and also of Malaval’s egg-shapes.
These are just a few of the myriad pieces in this
exhibition, but ones in which I found a common theme. They are united by the
use of sculptural forms which evoke the body, although the materials used vary
from soft and squashy, like Oldenburg’s typewriter, to hard and stark, like Szapocznikow’s
tumour. With the exception of the pink bodies disappearing into Tanning’s drab
walls, they are not colourful or vibrant. They are, however, all
thought-provoking and underline artists’ timeless interest in investigating the
body.
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