A new exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) delves into the complex relationship between status, celebrity, and art, featuring a rare portrait that was once attributed to Vincent van Gogh.
The Power of Status: Mona’s Latest Exhibition
Objects, when touched by fame or infamy, often gain a rare mystique. This allure is only broken when the historical connection becomes a fiction. Take ‘Head of a Man‘ (1886), a painting supposedly done by the Dutch great Vincent van Gogh. For decades, it was displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria as an obscure addition to Van Gogh’s oeuvre. It may no longer receive prime position at that institution, but it does in the Museum of Old and New Art’s ‘Namedropping‘, a new exhibition mapping the contours and complexities of status and celebrity.
Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter born on March 30, 1853.
He is known for his vibrant and expressive works, including 'Sunflowers' and 'Starry Night'.
Van Gogh suffered from mental illness and struggled with poverty during his life.
He sold only one painting while alive, but after his death, his work gained immense popularity.
Today, he is considered one of the greatest painters in history, with over 2,000 paintings to his name.
The Nature of Historical Allure
The Australian show is interested in how art and ephemera gain power and potency through their associations with history—or rejection from it. MONA chose to spotlight the inauthentic portrait, alongside other genuine artworks, in an exercise examining the nature of historical allure. Developed over four years and featuring about 250 works, ‘Namedropping‘ is MONA’s largest show in a decade and extends over fifteen enormous rooms.
The Mona Lisa is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, created in the early 16th century.
It is one of the most famous paintings in the world and is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of art ever produced.
The subject of the painting is believed to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy merchant named Francesco del Giocondo.
The painting is known for its enigmatic smile, which has been interpreted in many different ways over the years.
A Mixed Bag
The iconoclastic museum argues that these ‘special objects and their history give us a sense of having acquired something of themselves.’ The exhibition features a rare book that belonged to mathematician Isaac Newton; David Bowie‘s handwritten notes detailing lyrics for 1972’s ‘Starman‘; and an array of celebrity autographs, including from the cast of ‘Casablanca‘. Here, everything from pop culture memorabilia to classical paintings clashes and collapses haphazardly under a unifying theme: the specter of status.
David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was a British singer, songwriter, actor, and fashion designer.
Born on January 8, 1947, in London, England, Bowie was a pioneer of glam rock and a major influence on popular music.
With hits like 'Space Oddity' and 'Changes', he released 28 studio albums during his career.
Bowie's innovative style and boundary-pushing artistry earned him numerous awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
He passed away on January 10, 2016, leaving behind a legacy of creative genius.
A Forceful Exhibit
A forceful exhibit is ‘Power Vest 6‘ (2020), a wry overlap of the legacies of neoliberalism and class exploitation by New Zealand artist Simon Denny. The puffer jacket is made from a scarf supposedly once worn by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. There’s a clever metaphor in the garment, with puffer vests typically aimed to protect from the cold, created no less by someone who refused to protect one class of worker in 1980s Britain.
Intrinsic Ciphers
Intrinsic ciphers, elsewhere, are buried in relics from both history and modern living. Danh Vō’s (1975–) ‘16:32, 26.05‘ (2009), a disassembled chandelier that once sat in the room where the Paris Peace Accords were signed, ending the Vietnam War. Not too far away is a plasticized Big Mac burger, the protagonist of Emma Bugg’s (1981–) ‘Big Mac Brooch‘ (2016). The burger was first purchased a decade ago and, alarmingly, wears few signs of deterioration while encased in a brooch clasp.
A Question of Authenticity
Like the celebrity autographs peppering ‘Namedropping‘ (the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe), the small presence of an association—like a movie star’s scrawling—elevates an object’s worth to a majestical level. But with the disorder sometimes found in the cavernous halls, where Marcel Duchamp’s bicycle wheel meets a first-edition copy of Shakespeare’s collected plays amongst 200-plus other pieces, there’s a perplexing feeling walking the floors against these rarefied displays.
A Beguiling Exercise
‘Namedropping‘ is a beguiling exercise in all, probing the way status enchants us—via celebrity souvenirs, fabrics once touched by our most powerful and even fake art—with discordant randomness. MONA, with its disjointed pieces and silent walls, vainly stresses how our desire to encounter eminence or witness notoriety plays such a constant role in our lives. But the indiscriminate execution, lacking wall displays and collapsing endless pieces together, may make you wonder: Is MONA really musing on these rarefied pieces or simply bragging about its lush loot?
