All hanging out at the Guggenheim
Installation shot in the Guggenheim rotunda
A new venture for the New Year. In the time-honoured manner of guest editors on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, I am hosting a 'guest' blog. This is something I would like to do regularly, featuring exhibitions which I can only visit by proxy. The first contribution comes from Dr. Gregory Lim, my regular companion at many exhibitions featured in this blog ...
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Until January 22nd 2012, the Guggenheim in New York is hosting a retrospective of almost the entire catalogue of works (either originals or reproductions) by the provocative sculptor Maurizio Cattelan. All, as the exhibition is concisely entitled, does not, however, adhere to the standard gallery format. Instead of using the wall space of the ascending, helical ramp in the rotunda for which the Guggenheim is so famous and which so readily lends itself to a linear, sequential display, nearly 200 works of art are suspended from the central oculus and dangle in a seemingly haphazard and perilous fashion in the usually vacant central void.
Cattelan, who has never shied away from controversy (famous works on display include life-size models of Adolf Hitler kneeling as if in supplication or prayer, and Pope John Paul II being struck by a meteorite), has deliberately and ingeniously flouted the conventional rules of curatorship. Suspending the sculptures allows them to be viewed from novel angles and this experience is enhanced by the spiral shape of the Guggenheim walkway. Further exhibits are revealed to view as visitors ascend, and can be seen in ever-changing juxtapositions, contexts, and relationships with the surrounding objects. These novel interactions have been carefully created by placement of the sculptures within three-dimensional space because, despite the initial illusion of chaotic disarray, they gradually resolve into some degree of form, structure, and order.
Nevertheless, inherent problems exist. The viewer is restricted to the walkway and cannot move around, or get as close to the sculptures as one might in a ‘normal’ gallery. Furthermore, the exhibits lose some of their independent meaning and provocative power, and are at risk of being reduced to constituent parts of a tumbling cascade of artwork. Admittedly, Cattelan has maintained his reputation for innovation and disrespect of the establishment; with each sculpture hanging as if with a noose around its neck, he likens this exhibition to a mass execution of his art. This departure from convention undoubtedly suits these items and this artist very well. Although each exhibit might have surrendered some of its individuality to create the profound overall effect, my time at the Guggenheim was unquestionably a visually stimulating way to ‘hang out’.