Last week, I read an article about a thing that nobody cares about. It has been proven that a painting of Mondrian (New York City I) has been attached in the wrong sense on the wall of the gallery for 77 years. One of the curators discovered this grotesque error by comparing it to back-then photography of it. The real painting is in fact upside-down. This anecdote actually raises profound aesthetic issues. I listed three of them.
First, of course, one can wonder how this artwork could have been displayed during so long while nobody noticing that it was on its wrong position. A story which would not happen in figurative (for instance classicism) painting. But modern art is another story. It profoundly redefined the figurative feature of painting, rethinking the very gesture of painting, not only about its technique but as well about the shape and space it conveys. Having the paradigm of modern art in mind, maybe some eminent critics jubilated around New York City I claiming its impeccable lines divide the white canvas in a sound and structural way. Maybe experts of Mondrian considered this parting without being critical about it and assumed it was in the perfect continuity with former works of Mondrian. And maybe lots of educated visitors took an inspiring posture when admiring the painting and the genius of its master. Facing this irony, we are entitled to wonder if modern art (and, by extension, contemporary art) does care that much about the esthetic quality of works or modern art is just a matter of mode and pedantry without artistic meaning. It makes me remember a contemporary art exhibition which exhibited an pineapple on a table. This pineapple was actually brought and laid there on purpose by a malicious visitor. No other visitors noticed the hoax before several days. They were even taking pictures of the fruit. This little story demonstrates that visitors – who already accept contemporary art in general as an art – turn out to be very docile and accept to like what they see so far as it is present as art.
This last consideration echoes the second point I want to address. Although they did a funny mistake, curators are not stupid. The present curator of the exhibition explains the rationale behind this long mistake. Her predecessors chose the display the work in this direction in order to match with the sense of Mondrian’s signature drawn behind the canvas. They chose to guide their esthetic intuition by the artist’s signature. Signature comes first, meaning and esthetic experience come after. Since the Renaissance and the emergence of subjectivity, painters have been signing their works. This signature is not just a means of recognition but as well an artistic gesture per se. Signing makes art existing. Signing is performative. Signing attests that the object you are seeing is considered as a piece of art deserving esthetic attention. Some artists saw in this fetishization around the status of artist something unbearable. With a pinch of irony, Marcel Duchamp displayed a urinal signed by his name. It was the beginning of ready-made and the birth of contemporary art. New York City I is a victim from both the old fetishization of signature and the curators’ willingness of elevating a technically trivial canvas into an artistic master piece.
But the juicier part is still to come. New York City I will stay displayed upside-down forever because, due to conservation issues, returning the painting on its good side would damage the thin rubber strips it is made of. The initial error of curator is made to stay. This error might even be considered as an artistic gesture like the self-destruction of Banksy’s painting after an auction at Christies’. New York City I is like the misprint stamp in the philatelist’s collection. Defects make it rare. Rarity makes it beautiful. Beauty makes it valuable. I bet that the painting gained value after this (un)fortunate discovery. In any case the painting will raise special attention from the public, critics and collectors. This mistake creates some mysticism and erotism around the painting. The reality is not as it seems. We are giving you a biased version of it. It is juicy to know that something has to be interpreted differently when we are staring at it. The bold strip lines at the bottom, representing for more 70 years the noisy and jammed streets of NYC, metamorphosed themselves one week ago into the cloudy and capricious sky of the city. What a better example of plurivocity (or bullshit, according to your sensibility) of modern art?
To sum up, this anecdote is actually an epiphenomenon encompassing interesting concepts of art theory: status of the signature, performativity and prejudices of display settings, esthetic standards of modern art, docility of the viewer, self-sufficiency of modern art… Mistakes can sometimes either force us to redefine more carefully what constitutes the esthetic gist of the world of modern art, either demonstrates that there is something rotten in this overrated kingdom.