Blake Gopnik is a former Post art critic and the author of “Warhol,” a comprehensive biography of the pop artist.
Art
A misguided jury failed to see the art in Mason Rothschild’s MetaBirkins
|
|
Can we agree on a few facts?
That artists make pictures of things.
That good artists make pictures of things that are important in their culture: Christian saints, or urban life, or maybe cans of condensed soup.
That these artists — or more often their dealers, collectors or fans — title those pictures after the important things they show: “The Virgin and Child With Saint Anne,” “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” and, yes, “Campbell’s Soup.”
And then such artists very often do their very best to earn as much money as they can from the pictures they’ve made: Leonardo da Vinci and Andy Warhol both loved making a buck.
All these “facts” that I hope we’ve agreed on apply just as well to a 28-year-old American artist named Mason Rothschild. Late in 2021, he released 100 digital pictures based on the Birkin bags of Hermès, the luxury-goods giant, which are beyond iconic in our culture of consumption. Rothschild then did his best to find an audience for his new pictures, which he called MetaBirkins, and he soon found one, since they depicted something important and named it in their title. Offered for sale via the digital contracts called NFTs, they also found a fine market — which Rothschild did his very best to pump up.
On Feb. 8, a federal jury in New York somehow decided that because the culturally important subject that Rothschild had chosen to depict was trademarked — and because that trademark was also in his title and he’d worked so hard to make a buck from his depiction — he’d done something wrong and would have to pay $133,000 in damages to a company worth something like $200 billion. All this, because the jury concluded that what Rothschild did, which was so very much like what artists have always done, did not count enough as “artistic expression” — was too much about aping Hermès — to be covered by the free-speech guarantees of the First Amendment.
When Rothschild’s lawyers first came to me about the lawsuit against him, I agreed to serve as an expert witness, since I recognized the absurdity of Hermès’s case — and that it was basically an attack on art’s fundamentals. (I was paid but charged only about a third of my normal fee.)
I couldn’t see any real difference between Rothschild and the many artists, good and bad, who made art about our culture’s commerce, often by including trademarked goods: There’s Warhol and his Campbell’s Soups, Coca-Colas and Brillo Boxes, of course, but also the great political artist Hans Haacke, who made works around the trademarks of Marlboro and Mobil — they were in a major New Museum show in 2019 — and the talented photo artist Christopher Williams, whose images of Nikon cameras and other trademarked photo gear made a splash at the Museum of Modern Art in 2014. And there’s a whole bunch of less widely known conceptualists working in the Warholian tradition of “business art,” who have wanted their artmaking to be easily confused with pure commerce.
Earlier artists also profited from including trademarked goods in some of their most famous paintings, and I guess Hermès must wish they hadn’t been allowed to: Edouard Manet’s “Bar at the Folies-Bergère” has its famous bottle of Bass Pale Ale, with that signature red triangle — said to be the oldest trademark in England — and Pablo Picasso put Pernod and other notably branded liquors into his still lifes. Trademarks were too important a part of modern life to leave out.
Compared with a lot of these precedents, Rothschild’s MetaBirkins positively obscure their connection to the brand. The Birkin-ish bags Rothschild depicted could only ever have existed in his over-fertile imagination: He portrayed them covered in the most garish fake fur, such as it’s almost impossible to imagine on an actual Birkin bag. That Hermès product was born as a symbol of restrained good taste; Rothschild’s digital images were as goofy, campy and unrestrained as could be.
In the end, I was not allowed to present my findings to the jury — after the case went to trial, the judge decided that art history was not a rigorous enough discipline to have a say in his court — but I still imagined that no jury would actually prevent a young artist from making pictures of pretty much whatever he wanted, whether it bothered a great bag-maker or not. I thought the more the art bothered that bag-maker, the clearer it would be that Rothschild was on to something potent, and that the jury would see that right off.
I was wrong about that jury but hope an appeals court will realize that the jury was wrong about Rothschild’s art.
Continue Reading
|
|
It’s not every beach stroll that leads to a modernist masterpiece, let alone one set in the sea amid crashing waves.
After a bracing walk along the esplanade beside Ondarreta Beach in San Sebastián, Spain, I coaxed my family to keep going until we arrived at the western edge of La Concha Bay. There, anchored into the rocks and bashed by waves, was the 20th-century Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida’s “El Peine del Viento” (the Comb of the Wind): three nine-ton, rust-covered sculptures. They resembled monumental claws or talons reaching out, trying to connect — a potent symbol of Basque endurance over the centuries.
It was also a sign to my husband and 11-year-old twins, Freddie and Frida, that we’d be spending the weekend seeking out art in some unusual places.
With its wildly vertiginous and verdant landscape and proud heritage, the Basque region has long been a place I’ve wanted to explore with my family. So in February, we spent three crisp, sunny, culture-focused days driving from San Sebastián to Bilbao with several worthwhile stops in between.
By the second day, my kids didn’t want our adventure to end.
San Sebastián
Driving into town earlier that day, past the grandly ornate buildings lining the final stretch of the Urumea River before it reaches the sea, Freddie declared San Sebastián “pretty cool” when he spied groups of kids carrying surfboards and heading toward the beach as they dodged fur-coat-clad shoppers hurrying along the sidewalks. With its world-renowned culinary scene, film festival and stunning natural setting on a crescent-shaped cove, San Sebastián can tick a lot of boxes for visitors with widely varying tastes. Even in February, the beach was buzzing, though only surfers in wet suits and dogs chasing sticks ventured into the water.
The city’s museums were alive with a similar mix of youthful energy and old-school European cultural appreciation. Tabakalera, a giant multipurpose art space inside a former cigarette factory, features exhibitions, film series and huge open-space lounges — some with table tennis and other amusements. It’s a place where kids can be exposed to accessible culture, but still have room to run around. There is also a vast library, a pizzeria and, on the top floor, a restaurant called LABe run by students at the Basque Culinary Center, so it can be a full-day experience.
On a rainy day, Tabakalera could be a lifesaver for a visiting family. But it was sunny during our visit, and the city’s cathedral, with its vast expanses of jewel-toned stained glass, was especially beautiful. This summer we’ll be making a trip back to San Sebastián — both to swim in that beautiful cove and to see the Lighthouse, a monumental sculpture inside a derelict lighthouse on the city’s picturesque Santa Clara Island. The Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias dug up the floor of the structure and recreated in bronze the geological features of the rock beneath it. Reached by boat, it’s only open from June through late September.
Unexpectedly, the San Telmo Museum, which we assumed would be a display of regional pride, turned out to be a highlight of our trip and, like the city itself, had something for everyone. Though one enters through a small, minimalist glass-and-concrete pavilion, the museum is built around a staggeringly beautiful Gothic monastery cloister with elaborately carved stone arches. Opening a side door to the dark and moody chapel, I was blown away to discover vast murals by one of my favorite Spanish artists, José Maria Sert, whose best-known works were sometimes painted on gold or silver leaf, and are more typically encountered in glamorous settings like Rockefeller Center or the palatial homes of wealthy clients rather than somber monastery chapels.
Around the corner were shimmering suits of armor, swords, maces and other weapons, which Frida — currently enamored of all things medieval — explained to us in all their lethal goriness.
Freddie’s most frequent question upon entering a museum is: “Do they have any cars?” Indeed, this museum did — groovy 1970s ones (along with scooters and bicycles). The vehicles highlighted the Basque region’s role in modernizing Spanish society from the 1960s to the ’80s, during the final years of the Franco dictatorship and the beginning of the country’s democracy. Going further back in time, a display of more than a dozen examples of the bizarrely elaborate 17th-century linen headwear traditionally worn by married and widowed women had Frida perplexed enough to declare (and not for the first time) that she would never marry.
At the opposite pole of this potpourri of regional art is Chillida Leku, a space dedicated to the oeuvre of just one artist, Eduardo Chillida, whose monumental sculptural works — including variations of “El Peine del Viento,” which we saw on the beach the day before — are in (or often in front of) major art museums around the world. In the 1980s, the artist purchased the property — which is near the town of Hernani on the outskirts of San Sebastián and includes a 16th-century farmhouse — to create a compendium of his works installed both indoors and outside for pastoral contemplation. And even with two kids running around the grass trying to scare each other by jumping out from behind the artist’s massive yet elementally simple steel or stone or concrete sculptures, Chillida Leku (leku means “place” in Basque) provided delicious hours of just that. I was particularly struck by the way some of the largest sculptures branched out at the top and seemed to reach for one another but never touch, like many of the ancient trees nearby.
Inside the beautifully restored stone and wood farmhouse, a gallery attendant named Anabel got us all talking about the sculptures and provided a wealth of fascinating details about the artist, such as the fact that he trained for years with the local blacksmith — which explains why some of his early works incorporate elements of farm tools.
Driving west
The seaside hamlet of Getaria, about 30 minutes west of San Sebastián, may be tiny, but it gave the world two titans who changed history in one fashion or another. The first was Juan Sebastiáno Elcano, the Spanish explorer who completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522 after Ferdinand Magellan was killed midvoyage in what is now the Philippines. He made it back to Spain after some 1,200 days at sea, returning with just one ship and only 19 men (five ships and some 265 crewmen departed Spain in 1519). He is a celebrated hero in his homeland, but is largely unknown outside Spain, where credit for the voyage goes almost entirely to Magellan.
In contrast, Getaria’s other native son has a name that is known far and wide and has become a global brand. Cristóbal Balenciaga — the couturier whom Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and other designers considered, in Dior’s words, “the master of us all” — was born here to a local fisherman and a seamstress in 1895. By his teens, he had clients among the Spanish nobility and eventually the royal family. He moved to Paris during the Spanish Civil War, where his talent and list of clients became legendary.
To great fanfare, the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum opened in Getaria (in the former palace of his most ardent early client) in 2011, bringing the rarefied world of haute couture to this quaint village. Many of the stunning dresses on display were donated by the likes of Princess Grace of Monaco; the American philanthropist Rachel Mellon, known as Bunny; Balenciaga’s friend and protégé, Hubert de Givenchy; and other beau monde figures. It’s a fun romp for kids through the dimly lit galleries of fanciful clothing from a different age. This year’s exhibition, “Balenciaga Character,” focuses on the essence of his designs and what made them so innovative and beautiful that other designers felt almost obligated to follow his lead for decades.
How many UNESCO World Heritage sites allow you to drive your car on them? Heading farther west from Getaria, we bypassed downtown Bilbao and went straight to Las Arenas, the posh seaside enclave where the Nervión River meets the Bay of Biscay. Our goal was to see (and use) the Vizcaya Bridge, a pioneering type of suspension bridge built in 1893 and recognized by UNESCO in 2006. It was designed by Alberto de Palacio y Elissagüe (who also designed the iconic Atocha rail station in Madrid). The brief was to create a link between the towns of Guecho and Portugalete on opposite sides of the river without impeding the shipping traffic that was crucial to Bilbao’s booming steel industry. Palacio’s novel design was not a roadway but a suspended gondola that today shuttles about eight cars and a fair number of pedestrians across the river in one minute — as thrilling for my husband and me as it was for the kids. The deck supporting the gondola is more than 150 feet above the water, so even today’s tankers, aircraft carriers and a few airplanes have managed to get under it.
Back when it opened, there were set fares for pigs, cattle and funerals — today it’s just cars, scooters, bikes and pedestrians (1 euro, or a little over a $1, round-trip for pedestrians). As we approached the soaring tower on the Portugalete side of the river, Freddie squeezed my hand and said, “This is the best day ever” — words he also uttered amid the giant redwoods of the Sequoia National Park in California.
Bilbao
Ever since the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Bilbao opened in 1997, the city has occupied an important perch on the European cultural travel circuit. Many kids will go bonkers over the giant floral puppy, a large petunia-based sculpture by Jeff Koons that stands in front of the museum. If you’re visiting in the summer, you’ll want to know about the nearby “water park,” a fountain with variable jets of water spouting from the ground, where children and adults can cool off in the midday heat.
Whatever exhibitions are on view (until May 28, there’s a beautiful Joan Miró painting exhibition focused on the artist’s early years in Paris), a ride up the glass elevators in Gehry’s torquey, bendy central lobby is enough to satisfy most kids. Do not miss the long gallery of monumental spiral sculptures by Richard Serra; exploring the mazelike spaces created by the circular steel walls is, I’ve found, a home run for children.
By the time we got to Bilbao’s maritime museum, Itsasmuseum, we were pretty exhausted, and I told the ticket seller we’d be in and out in 30 minutes. In the end, the guards had to move us out at closing time as we were so engaged with the displays of antique model ships and paintings of historic shipwrecks. There are also more modern exhibitions about surf culture and the role of the river and the sea in Bilbao’s development, as well as what’s being done in the city to adapt to global warming and preserve the ecosystem that’s been its lifeblood. In warmer weather, a small dry dock in front of the museum allows visitors to explore various types of vessels in use on the city’s waterways.
Like San Sebastián, Bilbao has its own vast multipurpose cultural center in the Azkuna Zentroa Alhóndiga, a former wine and olive oil warehouse that sat empty for 30 years until the architect Philippe Starck reimagined it as a library, exhibition space and gym, where there are two indoor pools on the roof that anyone can visit for a few euros per day.
And splashing around in pools designed by Mr. Starck — one of which has a glass floor that looks down on the galleries below — counts as a cultural activity, no matter your age.
Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023.
|
|
Getty ImagesThe Florence museum that houses Michelangelo’s statue of David has invited teachers and students from a Florida school to visit, after an uproar over an art lesson.
The school’s principal quit after a complaint about a sixth-grade art class that included an image of the statue.
A parent had complained the image was pornographic.
Cecilie Hollberg, director of Galleria dell’Accademia, has now issued the invitation to the class.
She said the principal should be “rewarded, not punished”.
“Talking about the Renaissance without showing the David, an undisputed icon of art and culture and of that historical period, would make no sense,” Ms Hollberg said.
The controversy began when the board of Tallahassee Classical School – a charter school in Florida’s state capital – pressured principal Hope Carrasquilla to resign after three parents complained about a lesson that included a photo of the 17ft nude marble statue.
The statue, one of the most famous in Western history, depicts the biblical David going to fight Goliath armed only with a sling and his faith in God.
The board reportedly targeted Ms Carrasquilla because the parents claimed they weren’t notified in advance that a nude would be shown, with one parent calling the statue “pornographic”.
The incident has left Florentines and experts on Renaissance art bewildered.
The David is considered a masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance and a symbol of humanist values. It has been displayed in the Galleria dell’Accademia since 1873.
Ms Hollberg said she was “astonished”, stating that to think that the David statue could be considered pornographic means not only failing to understand the Bible, but Western culture itself.
“I cannot believe that actually happened, at first I thought it was fake news, so improbable and absurd was it,” she said.
“A distinction must be made between nudity and pornography. There is nothing pornographic or aggressive about the David, he is a young boy, a shepherd, who even according to the Bible did not have ostentatious clothes but wanted to defend his people with what he had.”
The mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, also invited the teacher who showed the students the image of Michelangelo’s David to visit the city and its works of art.
“Mistaking art for pornography is simply ridiculous,” he tweeted. “Art is civilisation and those who teach it deserve respect.”
In an interview with Slate online magazine, Barney Bishop, chairman of the school board, said that last year the principal sent a notice to parents warning them that students were going to see Michelangelo’s David, but this wasn’t done this year.
He called it an “egregious mistake” and said that “parents are entitled to know anytime their child is being taught a controversial topic and picture”.
Getty Images
According to Florentine art historian and dean of the University for Foreigners in Siena, Tomaso Montanari, such an attitude is “disconcerting”.
“First comes the dismay at the absence of educational freedom, as it should not be restricted or manipulated by families,” Mr Montanari said.
“On the other hand, from a cultural perspective, the Western world has a tendency to associate fundamentalism and censorship with other societies, believing it possesses the capability to spread democratic ideals worldwide.
“But this cultural backsliding clearly highlights the presence of fundamentalist views within the West as well.”
While several parents and teachers plan to protest Ms Carrasquilla’s resignation at the school board meeting, she isn’t sure she would take the job back even if it were offered.
“There’s been such controversy and such upheaval,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I would really have to consider, ‘Is this truly what is best?'”
Back in Florence, Ms Hollberg remarked: “From majestic statues to charming fountains and paintings, Italy is overflowing with works of art, not just in its museums, but in all its cities, squares and streets, with some featuring naked figures.
“Does that make it pornography? Should entire cities be shut down because of the artistic depictions of the human form?”
|
|
Sotheby’s paused its “Glitch-ism” auction Sunday, days after its March 24 launch, after prominent glitch artists pointed out that the auction, held by Sotheby’s digital art marketplace Metaverse, didn’t have a single woman artist represented.
“Sotheby’s is pausing Natively Digital: Glitch-ism to redress the imbalance in representation within the sale, and will relaunch with a more equitable and diverse group of artists at a later date,” read a Tweet by Sotheby’s Metaverse published Sunday.
Artist Patrick Amadon announced Sunday on Twitter that he was pulling his artwork from the sale in “solidarity” with female and queer glitch artists. He was the only artist to do so.
A part of Sotheby’s recurring Natively Digital sale, “Glitch-ism” was supposed to be a historic moment for “glitch art,” which hasn’t been represented in a major auction before. Glitch art defines an interest in the aesthetic, poetic, and political suggestions represented by the glitch, from eruptions of static to “deep fried,” pixelated video.
The “glitch,” as the representation of a failure, and the opportunities and slippage that can entail, has attracted many female and queer artists, including, for example, curator Legacy Russell, whose book Glitch Feminism introduced audiences to the feminist connection to the medium when it was released in 2020.
“To have an all-male show in 2023 seems entirely out of tune. But to do this in to the glitch genre is just whack,” Rosa Menkman, a glitch artist, told ARTnews.
Menkman noticed that one of her works was being used in the auction’s description of the history of glitch art, in which Menkman was credited not only for her pioneering work in the field, but also for her theorization. While Sotheby’s recognized her contributions, the auction house didn’t include her. What really bothered Menkman, however, wasn’t her own exclusion, but a lack of historical awareness about glitch art as a movement molded since its inception by female and queer artists.
“I don’t believe an auction house needs to define a genre, nor its aesthetic or its genealogies. But, like any institution, they need to take some responsibilities and show a certain level of care.” said Menkman “If they don’t – it’s bad for everything including their own credibility,
Davis Brown, a Sotheby’s pre-sale coordinator who organizedd the sale, reached out to glitch experts like Dawnia Darkstone to get more background research on the genre and recommendations for artists that would be a good fit. In a series of emails that Darkstone published on Twitter Sunday, Darkstone made clear to Brown that she would love to consult on the show, just not for free. Brown was apparently not interested.
“I was quite irritated with them for asking for my consultation without compensation, but when I opened the sales page and saw Rosa Menkman’s work front and center I was still excited,” Darkstone told ARTnews. Then she realized that neither Menkman nor any other female or queer artists had been included. “That felt like a slap in the face,” she sadded.
As conversation about the show heated up online, Amadon, who who recently had a work censored in Hong Kong, caught wind and decided to pull out.
“It just didn’t feel right participating in the show and I wanted to be in solidarity with female and nonbinary glitch artists,” Amadon told ARTnews. “I’m very aware that [being excluded from] sales can perpetuate a cycle in which people who are deserving of representation get cut out, because sales create their own momentum.”
Menkman and Darkstone said that they have since been contacted by Sotheby’s with tentative offers to participate in the show as an artist and curator respectively. Darkstone said the outcome was an exciting result from a moment of protest.
“I feel cautiously optimistic,” said Darkstone. “I think it shows that art communities coming together and speaking out against injustice can really make a difference.”
Investment5 hours ago
For the ultimate in cheap investing, check out the Freedom .08 ETF Portfolio
Tech6 hours ago
Is Shimano about to ditch derailleur hangers? Patent reveals direct-mount derailleur design
Health6 hours ago
Respiratory Outbreak Over: Jasper Place – Thunder Bay District Health Unit
-
Economy20 hours ago
Budget 2023: Canada’s economy faces mounting challenges – here’s how we overcome them
-
News19 hours ago
Tuesday’s budget to include grocery rebate for lower income Canadians: source
-
News8 hours ago
Grocery rebate coming in federal budget 2023
-
Tech20 hours ago
Nintendo will show 10 minutes of ‘Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’ gameplay tomorrow
-
News20 hours ago
Grocery rebate coming in federal budget 2023
-
Health18 hours agoPioneering tech enables Dal experts to uncover health threats in the water
-
News18 hours ago
Canada and the U.S. ready to ‘take on China’ on defence, trade: ambassador
-
Art22 hours ago
Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin to stage first UK visual art show
