Some of Messerschmidt's Character Heads
I was looking through the NYT Arts section when I found this article about an exhibit that just arrived in New York from Paris. The exhibit is called “Franz Xaver Messerschmidt 1736–1783: From Neoclacissism to Expressionism,” and it consists entirely of character heads. The first thing you will probably notice is how disturbing they are. Messerschmidt began working on these character heads when he developed an illness known at that time as “confusion of the head,” which caused him to have hallucinations until he became very paranoid. All of his character heads have a quality of mental disturbances, which I think makes his art so much more interesting.
Just by looking at his work, you can see that he was a very talented artist. There is so much detail present in his artwork that the character heads look life-like. But the combination of his art with Messerschmidt’s biography makes his character heads a more thought-provoking experience. The audience can sympathize with the artist by imagining what it was like to live with these hallucinations and this extreme paranoia. Because of this, I think visiting this exhibit, at the Neue Gallery through January 10, is a worthwhile trip.
Interesting. The Neue Gallery concentrates on German and Austrian art of the 20th and 21st Centuries. A lot of the money behind the Gallery is from the Lauder family (as in Estee Lauder Cosmetics).