“Pricked: Extreme Embroidery” at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York City until the 27th of this month is an exhibition that subverts expectations. You think of embroidery as insipid doilies decorated with flowers and curlicues, but then see military uniforms stitched with visual homages to disfigured soldiers; a five-dollar bill with the head of Abraham Lincoln threaded with an Afro and sideburns; and a performance piece where visitors enter a “lying booth” and add their own falsehoods to the ones embroidered on the wall.
Rarely nowadays is skill in art discussed, let alone used as a basis for evaluation, but this exhibition showcases how mastery mesmerizes. Angelo Filomeno’s Death of Blinded Philosopher is a large panel that depicts a human skeleton with its eyes gouged out by a scaly, disembodied claw. The skeleton faces a stylized scarlet cloud—possibly the resulting blood splatter—of foliage and flowers and bugs. The detail and intricacy of the scene, created entirely using silk thread on linen, attest to the boggling ability of the artist.
What especially impressed me is that the works in the show were not conspicuously self-conscious of the craft they display. The form did not override or rob the pieces of expressiveness. Instead, it seemed like the pieces could only exist as embroidery; the intent of the artists could only be communicated this particular way.
A few pieces were over the top. One artist made a nightgown out of chemically-peeled skin. And there were a few too many subcategories. But overall, “Pricked” showed that when artists are committed to making relevant and significant works, there are no limits to an artistic medium or craft.
Photo credit: Sonya Clark, American, born 1967. Afro Abe II, 2007. Hand-embroidered, French knotted thread on five dollar bill. Overall: 3 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (8.3 x 15.9 cm). Collection of the artist.
Discussing the preeminence of color in painting last week got me thinking about how we really experience art—with our eyes or in our minds. It seems like such a simple, straightforward question, yet it always stirs controversy.
We don’t hear, smell or taste art (kissing doesn’t count). Above all, it appeals to our sense of sight. Rich colors, overpowering size, delicate details—characteristics like these can be described, but many believe that when it comes to art there is nothing that compares to seeing a work with your own eyes. Ask any art history professor and he or she will wax tirelessly about firsthand viewing and the necessity of seeing art in person, not on a gritty slide. To a certain extent, I’d have to agree. My moment of conversion came at the Galleria Borghese. I had researched and studied Bernini’s work exhaustively; read all the scholarship and seen countless photographs. But as much as I knew that he was a consummate sculptor, nothing prepared me for seeing the Rape of Proserpina with my own eyes. That hand indenting the flesh on that thigh—the virtuosity of it is beyond words, but not beyond sight.
On the other hand, much of modern art has been created around various intellectual orthodoxies. The pursuit of abstract expressionism was about tapping into the essence of painting—the flat canvas and the gesture of the artist. Conceptual art budded in the 1960s and with it came the philosophy that the execution of an artwork was beside the point. It was the compelling idea for the work that was crucial. Even impressionism, credited as one of the most aesthetically pleasing art movements, explored the heady idea that painting should give a sense of immediacy and reflect how the eye interprets motion.
Obviously the answer to this question isn’t mutually exclusive. Appreciating art doesn’t preclude the visual or intellectual. But only after isolating each argument does one get a sense of how effective art is.
Have you seen the latest crop of album covers? It is a rather uninspiring diet of head shots and text, with the occasional hip or grungy urban backdrop.
Like most people, I got into music via my parents. I spent hours playing the records in their collection, but I also spent those hours equally captivated by the packaging the music came in. I remember being hypnotized by the yin-yang design in the center of the “Day Tripper” single’s label, and studying every inch of the Beatles’ “White Album” until the cover’s cardboard went soft. When I was old enough to buy my own music in the late 70s, my first treasures included the likes of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” as much for the art as for the tunes. I got into Yes because of Roger Dean’s intensely mysterious covers. I even started playing around with marbling paint in my studio after studying “Views,” the book of his early work.
Remember all the different Chicago covers? Rendered in multiple ways, from skyscraper to chocolate bar, that logo immediately heralded something new from the familiar in quintessential graphic tradition. And on Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” what about the New York City skyline built from restaurant products? H.R. Giger’s treatment of Debbie Harry’s face on her first solo album, and similar honors for “Brain Salad Surgery” by Emerson, Lake and Palmer? Both Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell ably illustrating their own album covers with self portraits? And all those covers for Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Genesis and Pink Floyd created by the Hipgnosis team – could there be a more conceptually perfect cover than that of “Dark Side of the Moon“?
Where are the big art campaigns now? Blame it on the CD – the tidy little five by five window demands a different graphic treatment than the acreage of the twelve inch LP cover. On the LP, not only could you get into detail, you could frame a whole album’s concept in the illustration (and no, I’m not going to touch the death of the concept album here). And let’s face it, in this age of buying music electronically, the album art is further reduced to thumbnail on the computer screen, or a PDF addition to the download. I haven’t even opened the PDF for the last album I bought. It didn’t look interesting enough to spend time with.
