Ghenie's work is on the 4th floor of the General Staff Building which, unless you take the lift, automatically confronts you with the art that has served as his inspiration, from Gericault through Degas all the way to Rousseau. If, like me, you're somewhat confused about the layout of the place, you might have even seen the Old Masters in the Winter Palace first. All of which is to say, context matters.
First, there were some sketches of Rubens and La Danse, that my art teacher had used to teach me composition, then came Rousseau's flat little creatures, which my dad loved but I hated, and lastly a Gauguin and some poetry by Joan Mirό, which took me completely by surprise. You see, I, too, grew up flicking through the pages of old art albums in post-communist Romania, only I was much more content to turn over in my mind the ideas of others. Which is why I am now here, staring at his paintings hanging on the walls.
I sent my friend photos, she asked me what was in the painting, was it dead animals? Well. Yes. That's not wrong, I guess you could say that. But it's not just any dead animals, it's a cow or maybe a sheep, because in Romania we never really butcher anything else, except pigs, and it definitely doesn't look like a pig. The brochure informs me it might even be an antelope and who am I to argue? I don't claim to have a monopoly on discerning affinity for Ghenie's work, although God knows I'm trying, but anyway, I bet whoever wrote that thing doesn't recognise the waves of corrugated AC sheets that fence in single cows and half blind horses across the suburbs of Romania's cities and towns. In villages they just tie them to a tree if they're lucky (it shelters them from the scorching summer sun), otherwise a single pole in the middle of a field will do. Or maybe they do, in which case this neurotic rant is rendered useless, the erratic ramblings of a narcissistic, untethered mind, desperately clutching at a past with which to align its present, because without it, it has no future.
Lasch talked about "the waning of the sense of historical time" and he was right, we have no past, we're all brand spanking new over here, that's what they said and they didn't like it when it turned out it wasn't true. There's a gap, one that you fill with family anecdotes and Wikipedia entries, but it still holds too much space. That's why I crossed it, to see what lay beyond. But I'm only realising that now; you see, before, I fully bought into it, this fear of being trapped. I was free because I had no roots. And here I am now, still miles away from home, desperately digging into the dirt, in hopes of finding something I can cling to.
First, there were some sketches of Rubens and La Danse, that my art teacher had used to teach me composition, then came Rousseau's flat little creatures, which my dad loved but I hated, and lastly a Gauguin and some poetry by Joan Mirό, which took me completely by surprise. You see, I, too, grew up flicking through the pages of old art albums in post-communist Romania, only I was much more content to turn over in my mind the ideas of others. Which is why I am now here, staring at his paintings hanging on the walls.
I sent my friend photos, she asked me what was in the painting, was it dead animals? Well. Yes. That's not wrong, I guess you could say that. But it's not just any dead animals, it's a cow or maybe a sheep, because in Romania we never really butcher anything else, except pigs, and it definitely doesn't look like a pig. The brochure informs me it might even be an antelope and who am I to argue? I don't claim to have a monopoly on discerning affinity for Ghenie's work, although God knows I'm trying, but anyway, I bet whoever wrote that thing doesn't recognise the waves of corrugated AC sheets that fence in single cows and half blind horses across the suburbs of Romania's cities and towns. In villages they just tie them to a tree if they're lucky (it shelters them from the scorching summer sun), otherwise a single pole in the middle of a field will do. Or maybe they do, in which case this neurotic rant is rendered useless, the erratic ramblings of a narcissistic, untethered mind, desperately clutching at a past with which to align its present, because without it, it has no future.
Lasch talked about "the waning of the sense of historical time" and he was right, we have no past, we're all brand spanking new over here, that's what they said and they didn't like it when it turned out it wasn't true. There's a gap, one that you fill with family anecdotes and Wikipedia entries, but it still holds too much space. That's why I crossed it, to see what lay beyond. But I'm only realising that now; you see, before, I fully bought into it, this fear of being trapped. I was free because I had no roots. And here I am now, still miles away from home, desperately digging into the dirt, in hopes of finding something I can cling to.
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