Bull head sculpture
One thing that struck me about a great deal of the artwork in the galleries in Chelsea was the forced tone of its delivery. In many cases, I could feel a message straining to get out, as though the art lacked the strength to support itself without the help of some interpretive context, some statement concerning life and the human condition. There was, in the endless contortions of plastic and Styrofoam and trash we call “modern art,” a desperate reaching towards the profound and “strikingly original.” This was originality for its own sake, ingenuity deprived of direction, emotional significance, or beauty. In one gallery, the walls were covered in words, scrawled end to end in overlapping chains, declaiming such grand notions as “Death,” “Home,” “Work,” and “Pain.” I looked, and felt nothing. There was no Home, no Death, and no Pain, only words.
One of the few pieces of art I felt a real connection to was one which lacked anything in the way of context or message. It held no subtle implications and contained no social critique. It gave nothing but the weight of its own presence. I cannot remember which gallery it was in, or in what exact setting it was presented, but I don’t think it matters. In describing it, I will of necessity shift to the present tense. It is the only tense which does justice to the moment. Everything of importance was realized in that single moment of first contact.
The head of a bull stares down at me from the white face of the wall. Its red eyes are leering, angry, defying me to look away. There is no sense of the interpretive in this piece of art. No meaning can be wrung from its silent jaws, only raw and unyielding power. It is an expression of the bestial, the utterly primal, ferocious in its contempt for the works of Man. Formed of paper machier and some kind of clay, its wrinkled, leathery exterior hangs in mute testament to some ancient and unfathomable force. Its gaze holds the finality of Judgment Day, and hellfire waits in the gaping inferno beneath its brow. The horns are sharp and viciously curved. Protruding savagely from the sides of the forehead, they seem to glisten with the blood of uncounted thousands. Here is Pain. Here is Death.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
well I think… that maybe not for you, but to some people, simple words can say a lot. reading the beginning of your entry, reminded me of this video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WLaOzISHjSs
i imagine that perhaps that’s what the artist was trying to do for people…
September 25th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I agree with you that a lot of contemporary art is forced and the message that the artist attempts to convey comes off as overly serious and feels more contrived that natural. Regardless of issues with modern art, your description of the bull head was very interesting. You really had a visceral reaction to it and seems justified considering your description.
I was in Spain this past spring and attended a bull fight. I was torn on the subject because part of me wanted to see another culture and experience it firsthand, but part of me disagreed with the brutal treatment of the animals. The way you described the bull head sculpture really brought back the moment I saw the first bull enter the ring. Raised without human interaction, it was as though I was watching it emerge from over a hill in some pasture in the wild. The primal nature it exuded, through both its reactions to the matadors and the crowd, was incredible. This beast had no idea it was about to die, but it automatically became hostile when it picked up the energy of the crowd. I was sitting in the nose-bleeds, but you could clearly see its eyes and they were pitch black voids - it was though you could not penetrate its mind and discover its thoughts and fears, so it was as if it had no fears. It truly was pain and death wrapped into one, but it was also hope because it fought as though it felt it had a chance.
Yet, once its head is mounted on a wall, that hope leaves the eyes (mostly because taxidermists replace eyes with glass ones). Perhaps the statement was that it was a bull in defeat, and already a prize? Most bulls do not draw blood from the matadors, it is the other way around.