Words from an Irishman on his way home...

Wednesday 15 October 2008

I wanna meet the person that drew this


I'm looking for ways to fill my days at the moment. I've gotten used to being so busy that I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.
I headed into the National Modern Art Museum. They are running an exhibition called Exquisite Corpse. This is the term for a technique invented by the Surrealists int he 1920s: words or images are assembled in sequence by letting one person see what the previous person contributed, and so on.
Some of the stuff done by the professional artists was interesting enough, but I was really taken by the mural that visitors to the gallery produced by themselves. I especially want to meet the person that created the image above: out of a whole wall of some 150 cards, they were the ONLY person to subvert the image.
I'm sure Freud would have a field day, too, with the fact that the artist shows the schoolboy being eaten by the woman. I spent ages trying to imagine what sort of person the artist that drew this was.
Maybe my brother - who is doing a PhD in the philosophy of art - could explain what it means when you move from thinking about the work to thinking about the artist; does it mean the ultimate dialogue between sender and receiver; or does it mean the message has gotten lost in transmission.
Enquiring minds want to know...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers