Should it be, because we lived through a world changed by the pandemic, that the world of THINGS changed? I find it interesting that my pencil talks to me as I write this…. The wood in the shaft speaks about its origins, and the lead about its destiny. Objects speak to us!
Before I get too esoteric, museums housing the world’s great objects shut down during COVID, but they didn’t fall dormant. The solitude they endured actually benefited art scholarship across the world. I want to discuss some NEW findings at some GREAT and small museums and public forums for art.
Vermeer’s “Painting of the Girl at a Window” (1657-1659)
This masterpiece went under the microscope in a German museum. X ray investigation uncovered the BLANK wall behind the girl reading the letter was NOT BLANK. Historians discovered Vermeer painted a magnificent huge Cupid portrait framed behind her ON that wall. Indeed, in his OWN house, Johannes Vermeer HUNG such a Cupid painting from an unknown artist. This begs the question…did Vermeer “over-paint” the Cupid he originally painted into that work? Or did a later “restorer” paint that wall BLANK? Which version did Vermeer intended the world to SEE? In any event the Museum restoring the work decided to INCLUDE the Cupid on THAT magnificent blank wall…
My Favorite Story About the Changing Nature of Art
Aristotle said the role of art was not to picture the outward image, but the inward image. Nothing says this better than a Quilt artist who sews SEEDS into her quits and then lays them on the grand and “plants” them. Where there were once stylized flowers are real flowers growing: living quilts. This is the artist’s way of pointing out our changing climate.
Controversy and a Legal Battle
One of the most controversial objects of art in our time is now public sculpture, because we all focus on and rethink our LOCAL environments. In Mexico City the HUGE sculpture of Christopher Columbus was taken down and artist Pedro Reyes created a monument to the indigenous woman called Tlalli, the Nahuatl word for both land and woman.
Finally, a legal battle grows over the estate of artist Robert Indiana who created the iconic graphic art image “LOVE.” The word in colorful bold caps with a slanted “O” made it onto postage stamps and posters in the 1970’s. When alive he declined to either sign or copyright his work, as he felt an artist should be a “voice” for the culture. His views also influenced that “HOPE” poster for Obama. NOW the courts are deciding WHO gets the rights to his work.
A New World For the Changing Nature of Art
So, we see it is a different world for museums, scholar, restorers, conservators, and artists, in the midst of accountants, lawyers, and copyright experts. Not to mention NFT entrepreneurs.
A little bit more about the interior nature of the art world in the latter months of the pandemic. Not only did the Santa Barbara Museum of Art undergo a complete retro-fitting, and reopened with fantastic results, but the great San Diego Mingei Museum, which focuses on art of many cultures, is now being re-imagined and renovated. Also the University of California Santa Barbara’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum reopened this week after re-organization. Exciting times in the midst of solitude. Objects indeed SPEAK.