DExperience shows that curators who, when outlining the subject of their exhibition, jump from thought to thought, string association after association, quote after quote, are not to be trusted. In the catalog foreword to the exhibition “Les Choses” that she organized for the Louvre, Laurence Bertrand Dorléac goes from the hundredth to the thousandth, draws a line from the ancient Greek mosaicist Sosos to the New York photographer Nan Goldin, from ancient sacrificial rites to the Wannsee Conference, from the Venus von Laussel on robots and lists no fewer than 47 philosophers and writers. But what the show is about is not quite clear.
The introductory text panel in the Hall Napoléon is much less tortuous. “Une histoire de la nature morte” is its headline, succinct and clear. A story of still life. Except that numerous exhibits here, with the best will in the world, cannot be assigned to this category. Giacometti’s bronze “Table surréaliste” is not a still life, any more than Van Gogh’s “Bedroom in Arles”. Neither are installations, assemblages, or ready-mades, unless terms no longer have any meaning and writing art history becomes waste. With the same lack of justification with which genre and interior paintings, proclamations and animal pieces, sculptures and feature films are passed off as still lifes here, one could also put Zimtstern and Forelle Müllerin Art together because both contain almonds, or funeral march and ragtime because of the duple meter.
A representative of the world of things in the picture should be enough
The objection that works from other genres function in this show as evidence of some kind of argument, as illustrations of what lies beyond the boundaries of the genre, or as sources of inspiration or creations inspired by still lifes, does not stand up. Without any explanation, they are here under full-fledged natures mortes mixed as if they were themselves, instead of, on the contrary, the multiple ramifications of the genus being exposed: In the course of its two and a half thousand year history, this genus has developed into flower and fruit paintings, into pieces of forest soil, laid tables and monochrome banquets, into hunting, fish and , market, pomp, kitchen, tobacco, weapon, vanitas still lifes, fanned out in trompe-l’oeil and a number of other subgenres.
While the last German-language overview on the subject, Sybille Ebert-Schifferer’s four hundred-page “History of Still Life”, pursued exactly this type of differentiation – based on profound knowledge of the economic, social, political, scientific, religious and moral background – Dorléac chose a radical one other way. Probably bored with iconographic nitpicking, the art historian and President of the Sciences Po Foundation in Paris changes the French generic name “nature morte”, which she feels is inappropriate – “nature is always alive, especially when artists try to depict it”, is her complaint – to “chosen”. And redraws the contours: in the exhibition, any work of art in which at least one representative of the world of things can be seen is considered a still life, or rather a “thing”. This potentially means that the largest part of the art production of all countries and epochs falls within the area of responsibility of the hopelessly sprawling company – which the course of the exhibition also makes clear.
No shortage of masterpieces
The fact that one leaves “Les Choses” more frustrated than really upset is due to two qualities that save the show from shipwreck. First, it ranks masterpiece after masterpiece, including many icons of the genre, from a famous memento mori mosaic from Pompeii to classics by Willem Kalf and Lubin Baugin, Oudry and Chardin, Courbet and Manet, Cézanne and Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso, to throws highly recognizable from the hands of “living national treasures” such as Gerhard Richter (a slack skull) and Miquel Barceló (a grisaille with a selection of the Balearic native’s favorite motifs). Top-notch objects don’t make for a successful show, but they do offer handsome compensation in the event of conceptual failure.
Second, many of the fifteen chapters are disconcertingly vague. A few sections, however, which are of a more classic design, are quite convincing. In addition to that on the vanitas subgenus, the chapter on dead or bound animals shows how still lifes – in slaughterhouse scenes by Rembrandt or Goya – can be charged with crude intensity, even bloody pathos, but how they can also – in one of Zurbarán’s “Agnus Dei” images – able to graft Christian symbolism onto the typology of the Spanish Bodegones. Finally, the selection of modern and contemporary exhibits is of mixed quality – a worm-eaten bronze skull by the Chapman brothers or a film by Sam Taylor-Johnson showing fruit rotting in fast motion seem all too bold or simplistic – but some have imaginative dialogues with the works of old masters. Such a monumental table setting variation by Matisse with its template by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, a photograph by Joel Peter Witkin and an animated film by Jan Švankmajer featuring two of the composite heads from Arcimboldo’s The Seasons.
The bottom line: a poorly designed show – but still a lot to see and some things to think about.
Les Choses. In the Louvre, Paris; until January 23rd. The catalog costs 39 euros.
Les Choses. In the Louvre, Paris; until January 23rd. The catalog costs 39 euros.
