I went to see the Edvard Munch exhibit at the MoMA when I was in New York a couple of weekends ago. To be honest, I had never given him very much thought to him before, besides The Scream. I was actually sort of shocked at his work. He was really tortured and I was surprised to see such raw emotion and provocative images. (Maybe I'm a prude? Maybe I'm being biased towards his era-- is it something about how each generation thinks they invent sex?) There was one painting called The Day After (1894-95) that depicts a woman lying on a bed, looking passed out with her arms and legs akimbo and her blouse partially off. Am I wrong to be a little shocked at the raw and somewhat dismissive sexual content of the painting? (I'm only shocked given the time it was painted.) She almost looks dead. There was another painting called The Inheritance that depicts a mother coughing up blood all over her baby. His mother died of tuberculosis, as did his favorite sister. I think he blamed his mother for his sister's death. The baby in the painting looks almost alien, though. It's striking and creepy. He was so unhappy and seems to have dwelt on his pains profusely. I was drawn to him, though, and couldn't resist buying a postcard of the self-portrait above. He looks sort of dangerous in his austere beauty, like you know he's going to hurt you but you can't help yourself. He's hanging in my cube among some sunnier postcards.
My favorite thing at the MoMA, though, was a new acquistion by an English artist (who won the Turner prize in 2003) named Grayson Perry. It was an etching titled A Map of an Englishman. It is made to look like an antique map of an island, but the points of interest and towns and cities are all states of being and consciousness. There are fortifications called "Sex" and "Love"-- Sex is peppered with villages named after body image issues and humiliation. There is an auxillary island called "Dreams." I wish that I had written more of the towns down-- things like "Pissed" and "Chick Flick" and my favorite burg "Argh." There is even a region called "Cliche." It was a huge crowd pleaser as well, and there were perpetually a group in front of it, peering at its inkiness.
I also checked out the exhibit called "On Site: New Architecture in Spain" and really, really loved it. There were models of these really cool, modern, creative and colorful buildings that are sprouting up all over Spain. It makes me want to go on an extended trip through Spain, hunting down these new architectural feats.
I'm jealous. I've never seen any of Munch's work outside of a book. You're right, even on the page, it's shocking stuff. I'm like you---some of the shock for me is because of the period when he was painting. Compared to the Impressionists and post-Impressionists, his work is startling. But it's also the pain of it. He shows how much life hurts your soul.
Posted by: Lance Mannion | March 22, 2006 at 10:59 PM