"A Brief History of the Future" (a real canard)
That is the title of the exhibition at the Louvre right now, an attempt by the vaunted museum, known for its collection of Old Masters and Antiquities, to be hip, cool, and young. The exhibition itself is extremely uneven, juxtaposing the old and the new, and as a result, the fabric of the exhibition tears at its seams and doesn't hold water; there is no "wine" in this exhibition perhaps only its homonym.
An example of this, the most blatant example of this, is in the middle of the exhibition. At the end of the corridor leading to the second large room of the exhibition space that features the five paintings of Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire," under the theme of "the great empires," there is a Mesopotamian stone sculpture carved in the form of a duck, in all its Brancusian simplicity, placed facing a Jeff Koons, a painting/sculpture, featuring of all things a plaster cast and a simulacrum of Hellenistic sculptures stuck to one of his super polished blue balls . . .
The teenager in me had a major freak-out:
1. OMG, that Koons is totally an eye-sore.
2. Is this an inside joke, "blue balls," metaphorically-speaking, facing the past?
3. Uuugh, is this an attempt to increase the value of the Koons by exhibiting it inside the Louvre?
4. Js*Fk*Ch*, the Koons is worst than an eye-sore, it is smug, industrial, sadistic and like totally ruining it for me.
5. I am just going to turn around and look at the big canard, ouf.
Here, when one is critical of the contemporary or new, one is often called a reactionary "ringard." To think about it, it is like the GOP presidential candidates calling every question they don't like a conspiracy of the left-wing liberal media during their recent "debate" (can so much gas be called a debate?). It is sort of like the PC police censoring everything that isn't to its standards of correctness, and it is curiously inane and stupid.
Didier Ryckner of the journal La Tribune des Arts wrote about the exhibition:
L’exposition du Louvre est ... Un mélange d’art de toutes les époques, relié par une prose prétentieuse et vaine, à laquelle personne ne comprendra rien mais que tout le monde fera semblant de trouver très intéressante, et très audacieuse, car ils auront trop peur de passer pour des hyperimbéciles. . . . Il ne s’agit plus ici d’inclure quelques œuvres contemporaines au sein des collections anciennes. Il n’est même pas question d’une exposition transversale qui aurait un vrai propos. Le Louvre nous présente désormais une exposition d’art contemporain avec un peu d’art ancien dedans, ce qui est très différent.
Not finding the English version of this article, here is my translation:
The exhibition at the Louvre is . . . a mixture of art from many periods, strung together by a vain and pretentious discourse, one which nobody will understand but every body will fake finding interesting and very audacious, because they are afraid of looking like complete morons. . . . It isn't an attempt to include a few works of contemporary art within the collection of Old Masters and Antiquities. It isn't even a question of a transversal exhibition, which would have had a real discourse. The Louvre presents to us an exhibition of contemporary art with a few antiquities and Old Masters dropped inside.
To speak negatively of the empire of contemporary art and especially the kingdom that is Jeff Koons is like beating a dead horse really. But my issue isn't really with Koons per se as I can usually avoid him by not going to places where he is shown (i.e. Chez Gagosian, his retrospective at the Pompidou Center . . .) Either way, I was not prepared to have him shoved in my face at the Louvre. In fact, the histrionics of the teenager inside me when confronted by Koon's blue balls was perhaps simply nausea. I also felt cheated, like when one goes to the Orsay Museum wanting to see Cézanne and one is instead smacked in the head and assaulted by Bouguereau and his Pompier brothers. I guess one shouldn't be surprised that the nation that celebrated its Pompiers would also salute with open arms the 21st century version of it.
If this is the way the Louvre is looking to rejuvenate itself, I really wonder what other canards of an exhibition they are going to serve up.
An example of this, the most blatant example of this, is in the middle of the exhibition. At the end of the corridor leading to the second large room of the exhibition space that features the five paintings of Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire," under the theme of "the great empires," there is a Mesopotamian stone sculpture carved in the form of a duck, in all its Brancusian simplicity, placed facing a Jeff Koons, a painting/sculpture, featuring of all things a plaster cast and a simulacrum of Hellenistic sculptures stuck to one of his super polished blue balls . . .
Mesopotamia, Weight in the Shape of a Sleeping Duck, c. 2000 - 1500 BCE, carved limestone, length 35.2 cm
Jeff Koons. Gazing Ball (Gilded Bikini), 2013, Oil on canvas, glass, aluminium
The teenager in me had a major freak-out:
1. OMG, that Koons is totally an eye-sore.
2. Is this an inside joke, "blue balls," metaphorically-speaking, facing the past?
3. Uuugh, is this an attempt to increase the value of the Koons by exhibiting it inside the Louvre?
4. Js*Fk*Ch*, the Koons is worst than an eye-sore, it is smug, industrial, sadistic and like totally ruining it for me.
5. I am just going to turn around and look at the big canard, ouf.
Here, when one is critical of the contemporary or new, one is often called a reactionary "ringard." To think about it, it is like the GOP presidential candidates calling every question they don't like a conspiracy of the left-wing liberal media during their recent "debate" (can so much gas be called a debate?). It is sort of like the PC police censoring everything that isn't to its standards of correctness, and it is curiously inane and stupid.
Didier Ryckner of the journal La Tribune des Arts wrote about the exhibition:
L’exposition du Louvre est ... Un mélange d’art de toutes les époques, relié par une prose prétentieuse et vaine, à laquelle personne ne comprendra rien mais que tout le monde fera semblant de trouver très intéressante, et très audacieuse, car ils auront trop peur de passer pour des hyperimbéciles. . . . Il ne s’agit plus ici d’inclure quelques œuvres contemporaines au sein des collections anciennes. Il n’est même pas question d’une exposition transversale qui aurait un vrai propos. Le Louvre nous présente désormais une exposition d’art contemporain avec un peu d’art ancien dedans, ce qui est très différent.
Not finding the English version of this article, here is my translation:
The exhibition at the Louvre is . . . a mixture of art from many periods, strung together by a vain and pretentious discourse, one which nobody will understand but every body will fake finding interesting and very audacious, because they are afraid of looking like complete morons. . . . It isn't an attempt to include a few works of contemporary art within the collection of Old Masters and Antiquities. It isn't even a question of a transversal exhibition, which would have had a real discourse. The Louvre presents to us an exhibition of contemporary art with a few antiquities and Old Masters dropped inside.
To speak negatively of the empire of contemporary art and especially the kingdom that is Jeff Koons is like beating a dead horse really. But my issue isn't really with Koons per se as I can usually avoid him by not going to places where he is shown (i.e. Chez Gagosian, his retrospective at the Pompidou Center . . .) Either way, I was not prepared to have him shoved in my face at the Louvre. In fact, the histrionics of the teenager inside me when confronted by Koon's blue balls was perhaps simply nausea. I also felt cheated, like when one goes to the Orsay Museum wanting to see Cézanne and one is instead smacked in the head and assaulted by Bouguereau and his Pompier brothers. I guess one shouldn't be surprised that the nation that celebrated its Pompiers would also salute with open arms the 21st century version of it.
If this is the way the Louvre is looking to rejuvenate itself, I really wonder what other canards of an exhibition they are going to serve up.
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