Marisa Merz (1966), Untitled (Living Sculpture), Aluminium, display dimensions variable
Following up on our recent Arte Povera seminar - I happened to visit the Tate Modern this weekend and was pleasantly surprised by the Energy and Process galleries, which feature an excellent collection of Arte Povera and other works (gathered together thematically, and a little erratically in my view, around this theme - but good to see nevertheless).
The above work is by Marisa Merz, one of the main founding artists, and married to fellow artist Mario Merz. Her sculpture - oddly weightless, but perhaps appropriately for so light a metal as aluminium - shows many of the features of Arte Povera - a paradoxical relationship between nature and culture. Here the aluminium takes organic forms that look as though they have grown - great silver jelly-fish like creatures.
Michelangelo Pistoletto (1967,1974) Venus of the Rags, Venere degli stracci,
Marble and textilesdisplayed: 2120 x 3400 x 1100 mmsculpture
Also in this fine collection are key works such as Michelangelo Pistoletto's Venere degli Stracci (Venus of the Rags) - the marble pale monochrome Venus, naked, placed against a great pile of rags - here in the Tate seemlingly holding them all back. Again, paradox. This time old and new, monochrome and multicoloured, high and low culture, the precious (a reproduction of a neoclassical venus by Bertel Thorvaldsen, 1805, The Louvre (Donna Regina Foundation, 2011)) and the ephemeral, riches and poverty. And of course, specific cultural reference to Italy and its classical heritage.
I am fond of this piece, in all it's playfulness. Something just rescues it from silliness (and I am not yet sure what that is... perhaps it is the weight of the marble, perhaps it is the poignancy of the Classical immortal Goddess of love confronting the multicoloured detritus of a consumer society). She hold in her hand an apple, to give to the mortal Paris, a reward for his beauty, but it is swamped by the rags - even her face, emmersed in rags. Classical aesthetics (the very purpose of art for a long time) submerged within the overflowing real. (The rags are real, except that consumer commodities have their own doubleness, real, and also, as Marx pointed out (1990:163), fetishes with their own magical power).
Other works in Energy and Process included those by Mario Merz, Giovanni Anselmo, Guiseppe Penone (Tree of 12 meters - his young trees revealed within the old). A highlight for me was not an Arte Povera work but a piece by Korean-born artist Do Ho Suh - Staircase III (2003) - an extraordinary installation of a staircase, replicating a staircase from his former New York appartment. Uncanny, ethereal, mysterious, beautiful - it hangs in the air, wide mesh red gauze, transparent, a ghostly remnant, supported by steel tubing which give it the quality of a three-dimensional drawing. It is worth taking a day out just to see this remarkable piece. And it's all free (for the moment at least).
Do Ho Suh (2003). Staircase III. Polyester and stainless steel.
Image source http://yayeveryday.com/images/post_images/2009-6-22/4921/1245715412.jpg
Bibliography
Donna Regina Foundation (2011). Michelangelo Pistoletto Venere degli stracci (Venus of Rags)
1967 - 1968. http://www.museomadre.it/opere.cfm?id=260&evento=45&pt=1 (Accessed March 20, 2011)
Marx, K. (1990) Capital. Volume 1. London: Penguin Classics
Tate Modern (2011). Explore: Energy and Process. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/explore/room.do?show=2338&code=01&tourid=undefined&action=4 (Accessed March 20, 2011)
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