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Thursday, February 9, 2012

Visual Art Don't Call It A Gauguin Show

Posted by Jen Graves on Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 12:13 PM

Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum, London

That's a better image of the Rapa Nui (Easter Island) figure I posted about yesterday, in the Gauguin & Polynesia show at SAM. You can see more clearly here from the extreme curvature of his spine that he was meant to be held, not to stand. (He is incapable of standing alone; I don't know what kind of photo-voodoo here makes him look like he's doing it.) You can't quite get the intensity of his stare in this picture. There's no single image that's capable of capturing his power, really.

Gauguin & Polynesia was in Copenhagen first and will not be seen anywhere else after this. It's already proving to be a crowd magnet at SAM, but it's much more than that. Rather, it contributes to the historical processing of not just one lone guy named Gauguin but the entire colonial-modernist adventure. By the time you come to the end of the show, my guess is you'll no longer think of it as "a Gauguin show."

Lots more images and thoughts to come.

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Comments (3) RSS

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If want a truly miserable cinematic experience, see Donald Sutherland's portrayal of Gauguin. The scenes when he returns home are truly excruciating.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on February 9, 2012 at 12:34 PM

there's a loop carved into the neck that would allow the figure to be suspended, rather than held. you can see it in this photo.

the piece is held upright in the display case by a plexiglass brace along the back of one leg, with fishing line that loops around his body & under the belly crease.

Posted by Max Solomon on February 9, 2012 at 2:07 PM