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Tate Etc

In the freewheeling world of the mind Ren茅 Magritte II

The Belgian Surrealist remains an influential figure among contemporary artists. Tate Etc.鈥檚 Mariko Finch spoke to four admirers. One shares his passion for Magritte鈥檚 rarely seen postcards sent to a friend that he chose as a format for his magazine La Carte d鈥檃pr猫s Nature, while another recounts his time designing the space for a Magritte exhibition 鈥� and persuading the staff to dress in suits and bowler聽hats

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Eleanor Antin black and white photograph of 100 Boots Turn the Corner

Eleanor Antin
100 Boots Turn the Corner
At Solana Beach, California, 17 May 1971, 2pm. Postcard mailed on 9 August 1971


Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York 漏 Eleanor Antin

Back in 1999, when my retrospective opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I wanted to use a new image of my epistolary photographic hero 100 BOOTS on the announcement. I asked my curator, Howard Fox, what was the most famous painting in the museum鈥檚 collection. It鈥檚 a big collection, but, without blinking an eye, he came right back with Magritte鈥檚 This is not a pipe 1928鈥�9. It felt as if he were giving me a gift. For two and a half years, from 1971 to 1973, I had been mailing photographic images of 100 BOOTS on postcards to artists around the world 鈥� 51 images in all. The first, 100 BOOTS Facing the Sea, set them up, all 100 of them on the sand looking out to sea. In the remaining 50 pictures, sometimes they were all there and sometimes they were merely聽sub-sets.

But regardless of the number, everybody knew that that guy, 100 BOOTS, was waiting for them in their mailbox. Just as everybody knew that the twenty boots looking up at Magritte鈥檚 pipe that wasn鈥檛 and was at the same time, was really 100 BOOTS that is and isn鈥檛 at the same time. As a modernist, Magritte knew that a picture of a pipe is just that, a picture of a pipe, unlike, say, a Russian icon of St Theodosius the Great, which you better not turn your back on, or you might drown in the well. But he also knew, as we all know, that in the freewheeling world of the mind, the image of a pipe, as well as the word 鈥減ipe鈥�, is really a pipe. It can be dissected, yearned for, disapproved of, or even thrown up in the air like a ball, and in the world of the mind it may fall somewhere into a rose bush, break into pieces on a stone, or disappear forever into the air because the phone just聽rang.

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In 2006 I was invited by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to design the exhibition space for its Magritte exhibition. I decided to make a wallpaper and used the image of aerial views of the Los Angeles freeways. However, instead of covering the walls, I put it on the ceiling. For the floor I designed a carpet using Magritte-like clouds on a blue sky. In a sense I was inverting the space 鈥� the sky was on聽 the floor, and the freeway was on the ceiling. It was very聽popular.

On one of the windows I put a colour transparency that showed an image of downtown Manhattan. When you looked through the window at night, or even during the day, you would get a composite view of Los Angeles and New York 鈥� like a double exposure. In the middle of the space I put up a large column, floor to ceiling, similar to that in one of Magritte鈥檚 works. I also asked the security staff to wear bowler hats and suits 鈥� as if they鈥檇 stepped out of one of his paintings. I got a few complaints that I was being disrespectful to the artist, but it was actually more like a聽homage.

I don鈥檛 make work that is in direct response to Magritte. I think he鈥檚 influential enough that I don鈥檛 have to try to attempt that, but sometimes it happens anyway. One of the things that interests me is how he uses language and imagery interchangeably. That is fascinating, and something I鈥檝e explored in my own work. His art certainly arises out of a conscious sense of humour, but he didn鈥檛 come up with that kind of view of the world by himself, and you see traces of him continually. I have a great amount of respect for him. He鈥檚 one of those artists that I really have to think consciously about staying away from. If I have an idea, I have to say: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 so much out of Magritte 鈥� what am I聽doing?鈥�

罢丑辞尘补蝉听顿别尘补苍诲

It took me a long time to learn to like Magritte again. More often than not, his are the first artworks one encounters as a child. In my case it was the The Great Family (1963) 鈥� a picture of clouds in the shape of a dove hovering above a stormy seascape. That鈥檚 an OK picture. However, I wouldn鈥檛 be surprised that if, as a child, you had in your room a poster of The Red Model (1934), the painting of shoes that are also feet, it might have been聽traumatic.

It also took me a while to understand that Magritte is not a particular friend of painting as an act. He just paints to have a painting, and accordingly it is his notion of representation. My reappraisal and return to his work came through his writing and his short and twisted conundrums, such as: 鈥淎t about midnight the Ulm express, crammed with passengers, passes through the slumbering Mr Ruminau鈥檚 bedroom and is reflected, for a split second, in the mirror on the聽cupboard.鈥�

He sent this out on a postcard, a format he also chose for his magazine La Carte d鈥檃pr猫s Nature. Published sporadically between 1951 and 1965, he wrote and drew it himself, but also asked friends and fellow artists for contributions. The print run was thought to be around 500, but no one really knows. Some of the fourteen cards are coloured by hand, but they aren鈥檛 much of a printer鈥檚 delight. In fact, they are rather plain. Poetry, short stories and some drawings by himself and his friends centre around a form of poetic defiance of reason. Twice he started a questionnaire among his readers. In 1954 he asked: 鈥淒oes thought enlighten both us and our actions with the same indifference as the sun, or, what is our hope, and what is its value?鈥� Guy Debord鈥檚 answer was sobering: 鈥淰ery little is to be expected of the strength and power of the聽mind.鈥�

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Whenever I drive in any mountainous region in the world and look at the line against the sky, I always think of Magritte. And whenever I see beautiful, perfect clouds in the sky, he鈥檚 the first thing that comes to聽mind.

I鈥檝e always been very open to his work. I think there is a sense of humanity, a generosity and a kindness to others. He takes the viewer into account. And I have always found the economy in the creation of his images very moving. They communicate very purely and are very direct. They are painted with the minimum amount that would be needed, but he never labours a聽work.

I love the wide range of Magritte鈥檚 art, including his sculptures. One of the most profound pieces of his that I鈥檝e always enjoyed is Discovery 1928. It is an image of a woman whose flesh resembles the grains in wood. There is this aspect of Magritte about dealing with the world around us, and there is a certain materiality, a reality about that world that he creates, even though he makes these strange juxtapositions. There is always a sense of confrontation in his work聽too.

It is hard to imagine a lot of the computer programs that we work with in daily life, such as Photoshop, without the influence of Magritte. The many ways that we see the world through transparency or gradation, I believe we owe to Magritte. So I hold him in very high esteem for showing us how images can be overlapped on each other, or how they can be gradated into each聽other.

I wouldn鈥檛 say that I have ever made a piece in direct response to his work, but I think I can see that there are themes that I have worked with and works that show an interest in what he was doing. For example, take Les Id茅es Claires 1955, one of the two Magritte paintings that I have loaned to the exhibition. Here you see a rock hovering over the ocean underneath a cloud. I can associate that with one of my Equilibrium Tank sculptures of basketballs suspended in vitrines of聽water.

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