Man Ray, Woman with Long Hair. 1929
Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Neil Gaiman
Pablo Picasso. Leaning Harlequin, 1901. Metropolitan Museum, New York. This painting marks the beginning of Picasso’s blue period. It is believed that Picasso painted this sad clown upon learning of the death of a good friend.
Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky). Sleeping Woman (solarization). 1929. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Man Ray was born in America from immigrant Jewish parents. He moved to Paris in the 20s and was not bound by one art medium, but experimented in photography, film, painting, and sculpture.
Graciela Iturbide. Mujer angel. Desierto de Sonora. 1979. Museum of Modern Art, New York. ‘The Angel Woman is moving gracefully between different worlds. Crossing the desert on foot while listening to recorded music, she combines old ways with modern ones. And like an angel, this Seri Indian woman seems to hover between ground and sky, heaven and earth.’
Definition
In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior. (Wikipedia)
Artists as Tricksters
As I looked for the trickster in art, I see that art is about ‘disobeying normal rules.’ In fact, art disobeys the most basic rules of life - it copies life and pretends that the copy is real.
Deborah Roberts. That’s Not Ladylike No.2. 2019. “The works of Deborah Roberts question the common understanding of ‘Ideal Beauty’. She sees her work as a social commentary, making room for women who are not included in the stereotypical imagery of the beautiful woman of fashion magazines. ..Her works answer the need to critically reconstruct our idea of Beauty and the authority of the Female Figure.” (Kooness)
Artists are either proud of disobeying rules or they defend art as a snapshot of life. Different genres of art arise out of this age old philosophical debate. Is art real? Or, of course, not. Art is art. And grass is grass. And I am me.
Picasso grappled with this concept by writing, “The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”
WORDS: Maureen Fitzmahan
Maureen Fitzmahan (Tokyo, Japan) is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).