Flashback Friday: Picasso's Guernica Revisited

Steve Martin, in his autobiography Born Standing Up, describes the impression he received during his first visit to the Museum of Modern Art (affectionately referred to as the MoMA) as he came face to face with Picasso's Guernica. It stuns, and stops you in your tracks. When you see this painting reproduced in books it's difficult to comprehend its massive scale and the powerful effect it produces. Martin then rounds a corner and there finds himself awed by this miniature Dali, equally famous, The Persistence of Memory. It's an experience unforgettable.

Both of these share a prominent positions on many lists of the most significant paintings of the 20th century, Guernica topping the list and Dali's delicately rendered dreamscape third. (Duchamp's earth-shaking Nude Descending A Staircase, second but no second fiddle, hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

The MoMA has as many as 300 Picassos, but Guernica's the one that makes your hair stand on end. The painting was brought to mind by an article earlier this week in the ArtDaily about a newly released documents and research about the famous painting.

Those familiar with the story recall that Guernica was painted in response to the bombing of a Basque town on April 26, 1937 by German and Italian air forces under the orders of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. The horror was committed not against an army but against a village. Hundreds died, a foreshadowing of the bombings that would later occur in World War II by both the Allied and Axis powers.

That same year Picasso had been commissioned to produce a painting for the 1937 World's Fair in France. Before the bombing he was having the equivalent of writers block. The horror of the bombing ignited Picasso's imagination and this monumental work was the result.

The online exhibit Rethinking Guernica is an extensive exploration of the history of the painting, its influence, its role as a political symbol, its influence, the controversies it generated and Picasso's own perspective on the painting. If you don't have time to check it out today, take a minute to visit the page and bookmark it.


LOCAL ART SCENE 
Small Business Saturday

Mandala with Southwestern Influence, Terry Millikan

Artists and authors are small businesses. Before you spend all your Christmas shopping money on Black Friday, be sure to save a little for small bookstores like Zenith (Central Avenue) across the parking lot from Beaners. There are numerous local art venues clustered here and there, including SiVi's, Art Dock and Northern Waters within walking distance of one another in Canal Park.

In Downtown Duluth, we have Lake Superior Art Glass, Art in the Alley, Zeitgeist, the new Ryan Tischer Gallery and Lizzards within walking distance of one another. If you park nearby and do your walkabout Saturday afternoon, you can catch the Terry Millikan art opening titled Meditations at Lizzards from 1-4 p.m. at 11 Superior Street W.

BONUS TRACKS
All Creative Work Involves Decisions
Guernica in 3-D

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Get into it. 

Tilda Swinton's Most Current Performance Is Definitely a Maybe

I heard a joke recently about an agnostic who upon dying finds himself at the pearly gates where he meets St. Peter standing there. "Well," says the agnostic. "Do I get to go in?" Peter replies, "I'm not sure."

This little story came to mind as I read the reviews of Tilda Swinton's current performance as art, or art performance, or maybe an artsy conceptual piece involving performace called The Maybe. Maybe you've heard about it. It's a 2013 show at the Museum of Modern Art  (MoMA) in New York.

Essentially, The Maybe is a reprise of a similar performance she did in 1995 at London's Serpentine Gallery, and then again later in Rome at the Museo Barracco. Evidently there is a large glass box that looks like a large aquarium with a mattress, pillow and some drinking water. On certain days she will show up unannounced and while away the hours inside the glass cage. I assume that spectators who are lucky enough to see her will take away meaning from this encounter/experience, though a certain amount of meaning can be extracted from looking at the box when it is empty is well, I am sure.

The Maybe has no schedule, no artist statement as regards it's aims or importance or what the heck it's about. The glass box will also be moved to random locations around the MoMA so if you saw it March 25 and want to see it again, you'll have to find it somewhere else next time. Good luck, as it may or may not be there.

My first thoughts about The Maybe went like this.
1. Why not give the sleeping space to a homeless person?
This was before I saw the size of the aquarium-display case. To force a homeless person into that space would be deemed something on the order of cruel and unusual punishment. There would most certainly be lawsuits.

2. Is The Maybe making a statement about celebrity?
The Scottish actress Tilda Swinton is a superstar for sure, has been stellar in a number of great films. She plays an amazing White Witch in the Narnia films, and is equally icy in Michael Clayton. My guess about the performance piece was taken for a loop when I saw that it was conceived and performed almost two decades ago, long before her superstar status. But then, when I notice how much her appearance corresponds with the superceleb David Bowie, it makes me think that maybe it's a statement about celebrity after all. It might be even more interesting if on one or two of the occasions it really was David Bowie in the box instead of Swinton.

Actually, my next line of inquiry has to do with how the whole thing came to be in the first place. I suppose Swinton's agent submitted a proposal. The MoMA reviewed it and said, "Ah, this is one way to keep the museum stocked with visitors." Or maybe her Rome show got rave reviews and the MoMA had to bring her to the Big Apple so American audience could get their measure of aesthetic pleasure from the experience.

What is the ultimate aim of this performance? Is The Maybe an effort to convert people who are agnostic in their beliefs about modern art to become believers? I'm not sure.

Is it a modern concept or post-modern? Maybe.

Is it a serious work of art? Could be.

Are you sure? Maybe.

What if the work were performed in an office building? That could be interesting. Would it be art if it were performed in a subway terminal? What if smaller towns had boxes like these where they hire big-name celebrities to show up unannounced and without explanation to spend a day sleeping, on display? Maybe we can get one in Duluth. What if we just made the glass box with mattress and pillow and announced that a super-big-name celebrity was going to show up unannounced sometime in the coming year? 

Then again, maybe not.