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Take Apart Art by Tøm, GYØ Neil
December 1st, 2007 3:43 PM
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I always hated that painting. One more worthless piece of art that has been canonized unnecessarily.
Given historical context, Revolutionary, I find your comment lacks understanding (or willingness to include for sake of rhetoric) the complexities and subtleties of forces that brought this piece into the cannon. To brush it off as you did is sweeping at best and ignorant at worst. The revolution deserves better.
Indeed, the problem here is this piece is NOT in the cannon. If it were in the cannon (or immediately afterward) it would not need to be taken apart!
And Mona's been reduplicated so many times she's become a symbol of herself. It's now impossible to see her as anything but her physical artifact. I say we send six pallbearers to the Louvre, roll her up and place her in a fine casket, send the long funeral progression to Père Lachaise, give her a twenty one gun salute, and bury her as she is Dead as Art.
FA-
actually that's pretty funny.
But Rev? not so much.
Consider the multitudes of artworks that are not canonized, in preference of this minor work by an old dead white man.
Consider all of Asia, and how they forget to teach it to you in Art History 1Ø1.
Consider the ignorance of material that Academia would rather not know, like Haiti.
Oh, I think consideration of all of those, and of many other categories left outside the canon to be vital. I just dont think that throwing all of the "recognized" canon needs to happen to recognize others. Same as I feel about UofA, actually.
As for burying her... TThere is a part of me that likes that... that she's outstayed her welcome... but then where would we find another example of art that has self replicated to such an extent. Did Warhol do a Mona Lisa? He should have. Mona Lisa is a better comment on mass production/consumptioin of an image than any other piece of art, ever, and she doesn't even have to do anything anymore to keep that going. Where else are we going to find a piece that teaches us that lesson so strongly, so clearly, and at just larger than a sheet of paper?
Actually my intro-level art history class did go over Asia...
...but that's because it was called "East Asian Art Survey 1." It was about Chinese art through the end of the Imperial period, with East Asian Art Survey 2 covering Japan and Korea.
Honestly I don't find the Mona Lisa all that impressive either. But there's room in the canon for it to go alongside the (IMO worthier) works of such greats as Ma Yuan or the anonymous artists responsible for the Book of Kells.
all I'm saying is it wasn't funny, baby. Mona is as Mona does and I didn't say jack to defend the "canon." So
she's like an upside-down pineapple!