Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images

by Justin Izbinski

Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images
Installation view at LACMA

Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images is an exhibition at LACMA that draws correlations from one of the seminal figures of surrealism and his influence on contemporary artists from 1945 to the present. All of Magritte's key works are on display and some of his lesser known works like those from his vache1period. Before entering the exhibition, museum-goers are given a glimpse of what is to come. An enormous monolithic die-cut silhouette of Magritte's trademark work of a man in a bowler hat stands outside of the exhibition. Upon entering the exhibition, a three dimensional recreation of Magritte's The Unexpected Answer acts as a doorway to the beginning of the exhibition. Once inside, museum-goers are turned on their heads. White puffy clouds lay at your feet while the ceiling is made up of a freeway transit system, undoubtedly that of Los Angeles. Conceptual artist John Baldessari was invited to create a site-specific installation suitable for the exhibition. The seemingly u nalterable white cube has been compromised; not even the once ignorable ceiling is safe. Baldessari intentionally set out to create an installation that was "theatrical" and over the top. The effect of Baldessari's gesture finds itself as context as content. In this, the once subversive works housed within the exhibition become mundane and lose their, for lack of a better word, edge.

Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images
Installation view at LACMA

This is not the first time an artist has mounted an installation within a full gallery. Marcel Duchamp performed similar gestures like 1,200 Bags of Coal in the International Exhibition of Surrealism in 1938 and the First Papers of Surrealism in 1942. 1,200 Bags of Coal like the installation in Magritte stand the viewers on their head. Brian O'Doherty recognizes that, "This inversion is the first time an artist subsumed an entire gallery in a single gesture—and managed to do it while it was full of other art."2 During its time, Duchamp's gesture was avant-garde and within the school of surrealism as far as the works exhibited and the context of the exhibition was concerned. Magritte exhibits works from pop to conceptualism; they do not share the same agenda as far as how their work is received by its viewing audience. In this, Jeff Koon's Rabbit loses its clout as an object that seems tangible but in actuality is obtuse and dense. Within the context of the exhibition, it just seems fun. The same is true with Vija Celmins' Comb. Influenced by Magritte's Personal Objects, Celmins' act of reproducing an everyday object in an unusable size falls into this fun house effect.

Walls are painted in a trompe d'oeil fashion with an interior perspective within an interior in a true surrealistic/dada manner of finding subversiveness in making the apparent more apparent.

René Magritte
Decalcomania, 1966
Oil on Canvas
81 x 100 cm
Collection Dr. Noémi Perelman Mattis and Dr. Daniel C. Mattis
(c) C. Herscovici, London, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Scholar Sandy Nairne finds a growth within a trend where we have become a "'culture of exhibitions' centered on the display of a new art."3 Ordinarily these works would have been exhibited within stark white walls. Although an exhibition like Magritte might bring more people into museums, it comes at a cost, "From the later 1960's public art museums and galleries themselves started to change, becoming more animated spaces, offering a wider range of exhibitions & which would eventually influence the form of the exhibition themselves. The developments have allowed for greater interaction between art and audience, encouraging visitors to develop their own responses rather than simply being passive spectators. For some observers, however, they involve the danger of emphasizing spectacle over engagement."4 The amount of money to put on such a spectacle is reflected in the ticket prices for the exhibition. There is no doubt that Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images is an enjoyable exhibition. It reflects a larger trend of making art more appealing and palatable to a wider audience.