insite
: : kevan nitzberg
continuing
to find artistic humor and direction in an emerging world
An unadorned
window opening frames a night sky. The view is fragmented by a dark, opaque triangle
standing next to a brightly painted red organic shape, over which a tentacled
orb is floating. The quietude of the scene ends there, as a panorama of chaotic
images and creatures populate the room in a spectacle of surrealistic frivolity.
A guitar-bodied character whose circular head is split into blue and red hemispheres
sporting an impossible moustache and beard, appears all but oblivious to the insect-like
jack-in-the-box that seems to be throwing objects through the opening in it's
guitar body. A rooster-headed wiry being precariously balances on a stick figure
form (adorned with a spoked wheel and crank handle), holding a ukulele in one
hand from which musical notes are emerging.
Along
the bottom of the composition, a diminutive horned clown holds onto an end of
an unraveled ball of string. The other end is being played with by a character
resembling a red and yellow headed cat. A gradated orange ice cream cone (of sorts)
obscures their line of sight. Numerous other objects and devices populate every
conceivable portion of the space adding an increased sense of impossibility and
amusement to the setting. (1) All of the magical sense of wonder and fantasy in
"The Harlequin's Carnival", certainly helps to define one direction of humor and
delight in the surreality of Miro's world.
"Harlequin's Carnival" by Joan Miro
The
need to find humor in everything from the day to day, to events of major importance,
has been essential to providing people with some of the tools necessary for coping
with life. The rejoinders to those happenings might manifest themselves as simple,
whimsical reactions to events or thoughts that for no particular reason strike
an individual as humorous, presenting themselves slightly out of sync within the
context in which they are seen, as in one of Alexander Calder's playful stabiles.
At the other
end of the scale it might also be a rather biting, satirical view that presents
itself in response to a scenario, perhaps evoking a stronger sense of the absurd
and idiotic, seen in many of George Grosz's horrifically grotesque caricatures.
Age, culture, historical context, life events and a whole host of other sensibility
determining factors certainly come into play in terms of determining why or why
not something is looked upon as humorous and to what degree. What is the relationship
of humor to art, and how it is being used to represent humanity as we prepare
for the 21st century?
This
era, perhaps unlike any other, is couched in ever increasing complexity. What
might once have been considered mundane hardly gets a chance to become ordinary,
before it is replaced and replaced again by new and diverse technological advances
(Paul Klee's "Twittering Machine" notwithstanding). In turn, Western society is
being re-created prior to understanding past connections and what, in fact, constitutes
its present form. The future is presented in brief and varied snippets that dissolve
and change faster, before a consistent pattern or form can be discerned. While
this can create a good deal of confusion and anxiety, it also furnishes today's
artists with a great deal of material that, in turn, often provides very necessary
comic relief.
In
addition, the media available to artists has also opened up, perhaps because a
greater diversity of experiences have necessitated a larger stage on which to
present themselves. In addition to the more familiar art forms of drawing, painting
and sculpture, there are now new media, installation and performance pieces that
bend and alter traditional boundaries of how art is experienced and what, in fact,
the messages are about. Added to the mix are the materials themselves that, in
addition to the forms, have created an almost limitless workshop for the artist
to produce in. Consider, for example, the fiberglass sculptures of artists Charles
Ray and Duane Hanson, Christo's installation pieces incorporating massive amounts
of materials such as nylon fabric, the use of pistachio shells used to create
faces on painted figures by C.Thomas Blaylock, the incorporation of bottle caps
on 40 foot tall basketball hoops (and other materials) used by David Hammons,
and the use of computer generated images and animations by artists such as Takashi
Murakami. (2)
One
clear example of an artist who has consistently sought to expand the conventional
expectations of what art should 'look like' is Sandy Skoglund, whose installation
pieces tease the eye and startle the imagination as she combines real people and
sculpted forms into her works. The metaphoric nature of the titles of her works
adds to the incongruity and uniqueness of the experiences that they create, as
confounding in their own way as Miro's Carnival. Such titles as "Breathing Glass",
"Walking on Eggshells", "Radioactive Cats", "Revenge of the Goldfish" and "Raining
Popcorn", while alluding to meanings that certainly go far deeper than the visual
spectacle that these pieces present, still provide a sense of sideshow fun where
anything is possible and even likely. (3)
Romanian
born American artist, Saul Steinberg, reacted to the maelstrom of activity and
frenzied pace that has come to epitomize the mainstream of modern living, by creating
a series of ironic and playful paintings and drawings that span more than a half
century of working. The figures in his comic creations appear mechanistic, reminiscent
of wind-up toys, moving through streets that are alternately defined by buildings
that are incongruously large compared to their inhabitants, as well as impossibly
situated in settings that have no particular direction or method in their arrangement.
(4) Steinberg's work may be seen in galleries as well as on covers of magazines
such as The New Yorker, and is filled with poignantly charming sketches. Included
in the images is a catlike sphinx that is seemingly commenting on American culture,
a building on Long Island in New York shaped like a duck and pictured in sharp
contrast to the hurried passage of miniscule cars on a busy highway, and a wistful,
collapsed, bird's eye view of New York City that appears to be looking west from
Ninth Avenue towards a mythic Asia pictured in the distance. Various bodies of
water and geographic sites are labeled in between the foreground and the background
as if one was viewing a map. (5) The world, as indicated by Steinberg, is indeed
shrinking, and he seems to be suggesting that the view of it has become somewhat
skewed in regards to the relationship of people to place and the relative importance
of those places.
In
addition to his whimsical landscapes, Steinberg also was known for his illustrations
of people communicating with one another, using a variety of carefully orchestrated
lines and images to suggest the content, tone and manner of what is being said
without the use of letters or words. Within the comic structure of the images
are a variety of elements that constitute the makeup of line that, through the
use of angle, curve, thickness, complexity or simplicity, convey the nuances of
the communication taking place. (6) It is interesting to note that Steinberg's
humorous illustrated dialogs pose a fascinating commentary on how easily we seem
to be able to supply meaning to visual cues in order to interpret and interact
with our surroundings.
"Hey Morton what'yre thinking about now?" by Saul Steinberg
Dr.
Jason Ohler from the University of Alaska Southeast and a speaker in the area
of educational technology, has discussed the increasing importance of students
mastering the use of multimedia tools and the creation of digitized images as
we move further into the digital / information age. There is a greater reliance
more than ever on visual communication as opposed to the written. Dr. Ohler believes
that the understanding of those skills will be essential for success in the modern
work place and will necessitate a shift in both thinking and communication skills
to be more closely aligned with those of an artist. (7) Even without computer
based imagery, Steinberg's drawings seem to underscore what was alluded to by
Dr. Ohler. It is curious to consider that the new renaissance being ushered in
by technology should also be tied to a greater need for visual literacy. Perhaps
this is one more example of the various purposes of humor in art, as it underscores
a deeper perception of a changing dynamic in society as it moves into the new
millennium.
Another
component of the changes being heralded in with the new millennium is the blending
of populations and cultures that is becoming more pronounced as technology further
shrinks both real and imagined distances both geographic and societal in nature.
The anomalies that occur as a result of new combinations provide a rich source
of material for the wry commentary of many of today's artists.
"I Need
Some More Hair Products", by Ken Chu (9)
Ken
Chu's work, "I Need Some More Hair Products" (acrylic on foamcore - 1998), explores
some of that resulting cultural juxtaposition as he depicts himself as part of
the American mainstream. In this work, Chu surrounds the dominant Asian figure
that is himself, with icons of American culture (bowling pin, sports car, surf
board), while imagining (as conveyed in the depiction of a thought bubble), that
he is a blond, Caucasian male whose reflection he is seeing in the mirror as he
combs his 'coiffure'. (8)
Keith
Haring is another contemporary artist whose images have a cartoon feel about them.
His work began showing up as public art on blank subway walls in New York City
before he began to get public attention. In contrast to Ken Chu's work described
above, and much of Steinberg discussed earlier, Haring uses his style of work
to confront imminent dangers in society such as in his "Crack is Wack" billboard
(industrial paint on concrete), that he painted alongside the FDR Drive on 128th
St in New York City. (10)
While
the images are playful and childlike, their meaning is anything but as skulls,
burning money, and a figure being lowered into the maw of a multi-eyed, heavily
fanged beast, combine with other visual cues to suggest the inescapable destructiveness
of crack cocaine addiction. Here the humor that is typically associated with cartoons
finds itself swallowed along with the figure portrayed in the work, in a violent
parody of one facet of modern urban life.
Of
course, Norman Rockwell had found a great deal of humor in many of his portrayals
of mainstream American culture earlier in the 20th century. In works such as the
flustered teenager so obviously over her head in the painting "The Babysitter",
a lighter take on what has so often been labeled as baseball's quasi-official
status as America's pastime in "Dugout", and the tongue in cheek depiction of
a fairly conservative visitor to an art museum who is shown studying an abstract
expressionist work in "Connoisseur", Rockwell has portrayed a gentler comic view
of many aspects of ordinary life and culture within the US. (11) Not all of Rockwell's
paintings were as humorous as the ones discussed here, but their presence in his
oeuvre certainly suggests humour was of equal importance as a theme. Examining
various elements of cultural idiosyncrasies and behaviors, both wistful as well
as cautionary, becomes yet another resource for the artists' portrayal of humor
in art.
"Dugout" by Norman Rockwell
With
a new age comes new directions and combinations of expressions that provide indicators
for the paths we will discover along the way. What is found to be humorous in
light of what will become current trends and beliefs, is bound to take on an almost
infinite variety of shapes and forms. Perhaps the only thing that we may say with
any degree of certainty is that the artworks produced will always help to keep
the remarkable elasticity of creativity forever fresh and alive. Our ability to
create, in fact, may be the most singularly valuable capacity we have to help
us reach whatever potential we possess both individually and collectively. That
ability, along with the capacity to find humor in ourselves and the events that
take place around us, certainly will allow us to continue to enjoy the journey.
(1) The Story
of Painting, by H.W. Janson and Dora Jane Janson, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ,N.Y.
(2) Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education, edited by Susan Cahan and
Zoya Kocur, Routledge, N.Y. and London
(3) "Sandy Skoglund Art Site", http://www.sandyskoglund.com/
ArtsEdNet, http://www.getty.edu/artsednet/resources/Skoglund/index.html
(4)
"Saul Steinberg", by Donald Kupsit; Artforum International, v31, n7, March, 1993
(5) "Saul Steinberg", Almanac, University of Pennsylvania, v 42, n11, November,
1995
(6) "Saul Steinberg and the Symbolism of Space", Alice Coleman, Editor,
The British Institute of Graphologists Magazine, 2002 http://www.britishgraphology.org/saul.htm
(7) "Art Becomes the 4th R", by Dr. Jason Ohler; Educational Leadership,
v58, n2, October, 2000
(8) Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education,
edited by Susan Cahan and Zoya Kocur, Routledge, N.Y. and London, 1996
(9)
"Self Images of Chinese Americans" http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/post_colonial/example/chinese_a.htm
(10) http://66.113.241.131/master_art_map.htm
(11) "Artcyclopedia.com",
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/rockwell_norman.html
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