TIME EUROPE
June 26, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 25
Déjà View
Some leading contemporary artists offer a fresh take on the old masters
By SUSAN HORSBURGH London
The five characters are clustered together on screen in a silent tableau. It could be a photographic still. But watch for a few moments—in ultraslow motion, one of them blinks and the fingers of two characters entwine. There's no script, no context, just a set of faces ranging from anger to ecstasy. The Quintet of the Astonished is mesmerizing, a study of emotional extremes by American video artist Bill Viola. It is utterly modern, yet its inspiration is Bosch's Christ Mocked—a picture painted 500 years ago. "I don't believe in originality in art," Viola explains. "We're always borrowing."
So Viola was delighted when London's National Gallery asked him to do just that. For its latest exhibition, "Encounters: New Art from Old" (until Sept. 17), the gallery invited 24 of the world's leading artists—including Jasper Johns, David Hockney and Antoni Tàpies—to choose a painting from the collection and respond with a work of their own. The result is a mixed-media bag, from photography to sculpture to abstract art, derived from paintings that span six centuries. Guest curator Richard Morphet wanted 24 distinctive new works "which stand up in their own right but which have a very intimate connection with the source work which inspired them."
That connection seems tenuous at times. For Euan Uglow the curve of his nude's arm supposedly reflects that of Monet's bridge in The Water-Lily Pond (1899), while Johns asks viewers to make a conceptual leap from Manet's fragmented Execution of Maximilian (1867-68) to his own solid grey painting with a piece of string suspended across it. Motivated by Turner's Sun rising through Vapor, sculptor Louise Bourgeois has created Cell XV (For Turner), a kind of caged conical fountain surrounded by mirrors and jam jars containing blue liquid—what she calls a metaphor for "the unbroken thread of time." Maybe that's the nature of artistic inspiration—it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.
But other works are more obvious. The painting by realist Lucian Freud, completed over many months at night in the National Gallery, is almost a direct copy of Chardin's Young Schoolmistress (circa 1735-36). And even Jeff Wall's oddly moving transparency of a dejected Blackpool donkey seems a reasonable reply to Stubbs' majestic stallion, Whistlejacket (1627-30).
Hockney chose Ingres' 1811 portrait of Jacques Marquet, but he sought to emulate the master's technique rather than content. Using an optical device to position the facial features, he drew 12 National Gallery guards, each in a single sitting, after meeting them briefly a day or so before—just as he believed Ingres had done. The portraits Hockney has produced are arresting, precisely because of their ordinariness.
"All great art comes out of great art," says National Gallery director Neil MacGregor. Or as Viola puts it: "Creativity is infectious." "Encounters" has its limitations—namely, only three women artists and no one under the age of 48—but it still offers a fascinating insight into the artistic mind. It also demonstrates that continuous exchange: great contemporary artists may draw from an awesome inheritance, but they also add to it—leaving inspirational legacies of their own.
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June 26, 2000
COVER
The Redesigning of America
High style isn't highbrow. In fact, it's everywhere, for everyone, in everything from can openers to CD racks to cars
EUROPE
The Big Chill
The arrest of one of Russia's most outspoken media moguls casts doubt on Putin's promised "rule of law"
Identity Crisis
Greek church and state clash as new ID cards drop religious affiliation
AFRICA
"Whatever I Do, It Will Never Be Good Enough"
An interview with King Mohammed VI of Morocco
The Warm Embrace
Europe is showing signs that it's keen to better its often uneasy relations with the Maghreb nations
MIDDLE EAST
Chance for the Son To Shine
Syria's Bashar Assad can better his father's miserable legacy
BUSINESS
The Missing Link
A $4 billion engineering feat fulfils a century-old dream of joining Sweden and Denmark — and business is set to boom
TRENDS
Wheelie Good Fun
Shiny, compact and cool, scooters have become Europe's ubiquitous accessory
THE ARTS
The Talented Mr. Ridley
Gladiator director Ridley Scott, enjoying a long-awaited thumbs-up from the crowds, talks about life, death — and why filmmaking is a blood sport
Déjà View
Some leading contemporary artists offer a fresh take on the old masters
Too Many Variations
A fine performance by Donald Sutherland can't save a flawed work
Irreconcilable Differences
Twins recount their lives on opposite sides of war
DEPARTMENTS
World Watch
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