Smiling Skull

Gilles Barbier
2008

It's contagious.

Goethe

Jens Stegger Ledaal
date unknown

Friedrich Schiller died in 1805 and was buried in a mass grave. Twenty-one years later, the German playwright's mortal remains were exhumed. Karl Leberecht Schwabe, the mayor of Weimar, decided that the largest of the 20-something skulls in the grave could have only belonged to Schiller.

For safe-keeping in his home, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe removed his confidant's skull from the library where his entire skeleton was displayed. Goethe later wrote the poem "Lines On Seeing Schiller's Skull."

In 1999 it was revealed that a group of scientists exhumed Goethe's skeleton to conserve it in November 1970, nearly 140 years after his death. The German polymath's skeleton also comes with paleopathological interest. Opinions on the source of Goethe's stiff gait and posture were qualified, proving ankylosis (stiffened or consolidated joints) in his spine due to loss of intervertebral discs, spondylosis deformans (degeneration of intervertebral discs), and Morbus Forestier (fusion of several vertebrae).

Busts commemorate. Whether or not the back story is commemorated in the skull piece pictured above doesn't matter for my liking. Norway-based artist Jens Stegger Ledaal carved into a ready-made bust of Goethe, revealing what we know would naturally lie beneath. Most skull pieces I've seen are standalones that never reference the face or entire head. They are sculpted or embellished, but in this case features are removed in order to create. Grim might be a characteristic that comes to mind, but clever and brainy wins out.

Résidence secondaire

Julien Berthier
2008

Let this be a cautionary tale of using limbs in art. When I was in art school, a classmate made a plaster cast of his open palms with a bird's nest delicately placed in the center. I was dying to say something; I liked the piece because I thought he was being cheeky, using hands that looked severed. He explained that the piece was about nurturing and protection... so the class, including myself, remained silent. I am all for both those things in life, but less in sculpture.

A couple of years later, Arrested Development made me feel better.


The natural association between viewer and art is a good quality, but limbs, severed ones especially, make it too didactic or hackneyed. Bones, while relatable, are less familiar. People go their whole lives without seeing their bones; it's safer to use them in art for this reason. They are mysterious.

The standalone skull is a common face (ha) in art. They come with their own cautionary history: Halloween, poison, and pirates are a few. Even Hamlet. These beg for reconciliation, which could explain their place in art. Maybe it's anthropological, bad-assy, easy to contrast, about the figure, the form, or a well-traveled bridge to science. At first I thought skulls in art was overdone, but my appreciation has grown because of the next few posts, beginning with Berthier's topiary.

Here, the skull isn't a mere object. Instead of a shrub in the shape of a squirrel or flower, the skull turns the homely art of tree sculpting against itself. The greenery is reminiscent of a welcome mat, but screams keep away. Seeing it so large, though, beckons because it is so funny.

Le terrier & La cabane

Gilles Barbier
2008

My grafting house and desk plants and big trees suddenly feels less fun.

Boy Scout

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
2008

For now, ignore the part about the boy scout, and just get a load of that bed:

1) Impossible
2) Understandable
3) Love

Here comes the sun

Alejandro Cesarco
2004

I could watch this sun rise all day.

Welcome Home

Julien Berthier
2003

My heart just cartwheeled.

40 cm higher

Massimo Bartolini
1993-2001

When I was little, I used to imagine the ceiling as the floor. Imagine the windows closer to the floor, and having to walk around the light fixture. Imagine the floor feeling like spackle. Imagine no furniture on it. I wasn't going for minimalism, but something more like Bartolini's 40 cm higher. Imagine the floor 40 cm higher, swallowing everything on it. Imagine you're 40 cm higher, and everything else is 40 cm inconvenient.

Bellevue, July 17th, 1994 (Cooling Box #5)

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
2009

When Damien Hirst made Hymn (1996), the 20-foot sculpture of an anatomical model toy, his fabricator hesitated painting over the expensive, labor-intensive, impeccable bronze. Hirst's final justification was that the paint on the outdoor sculpture would be like skin, and eventually be worn down by the elements as such.

Elmgreen & Dragset is a couple living and working in Berlin. The couple's collaborative work brings mischief to mind, but it's done so sweetly that their subversiveness becomes earnest gestures. One work is pictured above, a painted bronze sculpture of a cooler installed at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Perhaps the impetus of painting this bronze (and Hirst's) was simply the absurdity of making the material look plastic.

Tetris 3-D

Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen
2010

I started out wanting to describe the brain activity of imagining Tetris long after a game is over. Eyes closed and trying to sleep, Tetris colors and blocks descend, rotate, and accumulate still. Awake, things appear rigid and inefficient; it's as if cars, people, sidewalks, everything could get by a little easier if only they could rotate like Tetris blocks. As far as brain activity goes, what's been found is a counter intuitive learning curve. As the Tetris game gets harder, the brain requires less energy to play it; this suggests that the brain becomes more efficient at handling the stimuli.



Artists Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen have created extra-large 3D Tetris blocks. By placing the large sculptures outdoors, it's as if the artists are referring to the inescapable quality of the blocks, but also turn them into conquered standstills. Another side of the work could be folding the insular Tetris game unto itself, making the overall piece something to be shared in public and that requires multiple hands to move.

Mantra

Stefano Arienti
2007

Much of Arienti's work involves reinterpreting and resurfacing various covers, from refrigerator doors to album sleeves. Mantras are recited to help with focus and meditation, and in my favorite piece, the Italian artist took cue from the record. Here, Arienti transcribed his own mantra with the one already there.

Variable Piece #34

Douglas Huebler
1970

I imagine it went like this:

DH: May I photograph your face?
W: Me, my face, whatever for?
DH: Why, you have a beautiful face.

BOOM.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Les articulations

Gilles Barbier
2008

Flags and speech bubbles babble between two articulation surfaces of a simple joint.

It's literal, and it's hilarious.

Stadium

Maurizio Cattelan
1991

Cattelan built an extra long table-football game that would accommodate as many players as an actual football/soccer game requires. I like it just as it is, ignoring the politics of the piece: art world as a mini society, but more sobering (Cattelan's home) Italian team played by Senegalese immigrants who suffered racism in Italy versus another team wearing a Nazi slogan on their shirts. Yes, those points and the game/war comparison make it a more serious piece, but in all honesty, the resounding groan of a lost victory in a World Cup game is far more beautiful to me.

Please water the plant and feed the fish

Juliette Blightman
2008

I would water and feed the hell out of these.