Spewing on Art
Andy
From news.ccs.queensu.ca!not-for-mail Sat Nov 30 10:26:27 1996
Path: news.ccs.queensu.ca!not-for-mail
From: 3a...@qlink.queensu.ca (Andy)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre.misc
Subject: Spewing on Art
Date: 30 Nov 1996 15:26:18 GMT
Organization: Queen's University, Kingston
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From the (Toronto) Globe and Mail, 30 Nov 1996
Student can't stomach certain famous paintings
by Elizabeth Renzetti
TORONTO-- Jubal Brown, a student at the Ontario College of Art and Design
is working on an unusual project that might get him kicked out of school
or worse. He is deliberately vomiting the brightly coloured contents of
his stomach on famous paintings.
So far, he has thrown up on two, a Mondrian at New York's Museum
of Modern Art earlier this month, and a Dufy at the Art Gallery of
Ontario in May, in a protest against art that he terms "stale, obedient,
lifeless crusts." Neither painting suffered permanent damage.
The OCAD is holding a series of meetings with Mr. Brown, 22, to
see whether his actions contravene the school's code of conduct.
Both galleries have kept the matter as quiet as possible, and
neither has launched a legal action against Mr. Brown.
The AGO realized only yesterday that the Dufy incident was a
deliberate act, and a spokesperson said the gallery would now be seeking
legal advice.
Mr. Brown, who also does "nice, happy Sunday paintings" and draws
on objects he finds, said in an interview that hsi intent is to "destroy
art, to liberate individuals and living creatures from its banal,
oppressive representation."
To achieve this, he plans to vomit one of the three primary
colours -- red, blue and yellow -- on a work of art that he feels is so
bourgeois that it makes him physically ill. He is two-thirds of the way
through his project.
On Nov. 2, Mr. Brown and two friends visited the Museum of Modern
Art in New York. He had fortified himself with a feast of blue food --
blue Jello, blue cake icing -- when he spotted his target, a typically
geometrical canvas by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian.
Actually, he was having trouble deciding between a Picasso, and
the Mondrian, but "Composition in Red, White and Blue" won "by the sheer
force of its banality," he said.
He said he did not induce the vomiting by, for example, sticking
his finger down his throat. "I found its (the painting's) lifelessness
threatening and it made me sick."
Mr. Brown, who sports shaved eyebrows and a pierced lower lip,
provided a photo of himself in front of the blue-spattered Mondrian.
When he vomited red matter on French painter Raoul Dufy's "Harbour
at le Havre" at the AGO in May (an incident the gallery did not
publicize), he invited a group of 15 friends to witness the performance.
There was no audience at the MOMA, apart from startled gallery patrons and
security staff.
Mr. Brown siad he was "interrogated" for several hours in the
basement of the MOMA by the gallery's security and New York police. He
said he explained to them the intent of his project.
However, the incident was characterized as an accident in a New
York Times story on Nov. 9. The story raises the possibility that the
incident was vandalism, but it quotes the museum's director of
communication, John Wolfe, as saying, "It was an unfortunate incident, a
fluke."
No one could be reached yesterday at the MOMA, which was closed
for the US Thanksgiving holidays.
The galleries are eager to keep this matter as quiet as possible
to avoid copycat actions. "I have no comment to make -- I don't want to
give anyone like this undue publicity," said Sandra Lawrence, the AGO
conservator who cleaned the Dufy canvas.
The AGO issued a statement late yesterday that read in part, "Now
that a person has come forward to claim responsibility for this deliberate
act, we are taking this very seriously. As the custodians of the AGO's
collection for all the people in Ontario, we will be seeking legal advice
in order to determine appropriate actions."
MOMA director Glenn Lowry, who jointed the museum after leaving
the AGO in 1994, wrote a letter to OCAD officials early this month, and
they began an investigation. The school will not reveal the contents of
that letter, but it says Mr. Lowry did not ask for Mr. Brown's expulsion.
Expulsion is a "worst case scenario," said Jack Kado, e school's
manager of public relations, "but this is premature to talk about. We're
conducting some interviews with Jubal, trying to find out what happened."
Mr Brown said he has been asked to write a letter of apology to
the MOMA, an option he is considering.
Mr Brown, whose future show at Toronto's A Space gallery also
promises unspecified acts of vandalism, is aware that there is something
perverse about paying to study art while seeking to destroy it. "Life is
full of contradictions. That's what makes it beautiful," he said.
Despite the threat of legal actions, Mr. Brown still intends to
implement Phase III, a spew of yellow, on an unspecified target. He
considers his vomit project to b e art, but he said it is short-lived and
therefore saved from the decrepitude of all other art.
"It doesn't get stale like the rest of the art in the gallery. It
only lasts for a few minutes before they bring out the Kleenex and take it
away."
--
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