« Armory Show: A second bidder? | Main | Weekend roundup »
January 22, 2007
Magritte and pals at LACMA
Influence shows are the new blockbusters.
On the heals of Matisse Picasso I, Matisse Picasso II, Picasso and American Art and so on, LACMA curator Stephanie Barron and the Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique's Michel Draguet have brought us the longest-titled influence show of them all: Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images.
The premise of Barron's exhibition is simple: Belgian semi-surrealist Rene Magritte had a substantial influence on contemporary art, and one of his most influential paintings, The Treachery of Images (above) is in LACMA's collection. By presenting Magrittes with the works of artists such as Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, Vija Celmins and Roy Lichtenstein, Barron lays out her case. While the show is full of wall-text it hardly needs it: A grade-schooler could look from the Magrittes on view to the insert-artist-heres on view nearby and point to the influences. (We can do it via HTML too: See SFMOMA's Personal Values and LACMA's Vija Celmins Untitled (Comb).)
At times the exhibition is an art historical duh, no kidding (see above) but that's ok -- sometimes artists borrow by way of the most direct route possible. The exhibition is rollickingly entertaining, an unabashed crowd-pleaser. (Reminder to our curator friends: Curators at major museums have a responsibility to present art to the public. If you are uninterested in a populist ethos, recede into the Octoberist halls of academia where we can ignore you forevermore.)
But what elevates Barron's show from good to superb is that it's a show for both a high school kid who thought Rene Russo's weren't the only great apples in "The Thomas Crown Affair," and his parents, who enjoy thinking about how art's history contributes not just to popular culture, but other art as well. Over a number of posts this week, I'll talk about some ideas in the show that I particularly enjoyed.
Posted January 22, 2007 7:47 AM
