(Picture: annameuer.de)

›It’s not yet the real thing‹, says the woman with a brooch, while guiding two other women through the Frick Collection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frick_Collection). An Art Deco brooch, the woman is wearing, sparkling in light red. And the woman is pointing to the paintings with her spectacles that she is carrying in her hands. And she does refer to Titian’s Man in a Red Cap. ›It’s not yet the real thing‹, that is: in comparisom with Titian’s Pietro Aretino.
That once belonged to Mr Frick as well, to Henry Clay Frick, after whom this museum is named, and who appears on a list of the worst American CEO’s of all times, thus Wikipedia is telling us (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clay_Frick), and Marlene Streeruwitz (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Streeruwitz) seems to be too polite to say it.
But no, as a visitor she is polite, but at the same time she made a couple of things clear, when, in 2002, she was describing an authentic or fictionalized visit to the Frick Collection (see: http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/article8DZA4-1.441330), with an account that was published, in German, by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. An account about an actual escape that fails. But from what does she or her narrator, a woman, flee? And why does this woman’s escape actually fail?
Her escape does fail because she is not inclined to stick to one illusion. And what illustion might this be?
Well, if every art museum does not only invite us to see art, but also to see ways of seeing, to see how the art works assembled by a collector as Mr. Frick are shown to us, shown for example by a woman with a brooch or by the museum itself (or by an audio guide), or how they are seen by other visitors. Like in the Greek theatre we are enabled to watch a play, but since all other spectators are watching the play with us, we are witnessing how others see. How others react to what they see (or make others react).
And Austrian writer Marlene Streeruwitz is not inclined to believe in the particular illusion provided by the Frick Collection: that a collector invites us to visit his private rooms where works of art, but also the collector’s passion for art is shown, his inheritance of beauty, displayed in this privately furnished private rooms.
What the author is inclined to believe instead is that all these works of art are spoils. That what the woman with a brooch is saying does sound like another seller’s argument (and like an superfluous argument, too). That what is displayed in this very museum is actually money. Or: The potential to acquire all these spoils. It’s the mere display of financial status, one might say, covered up or better: veiled by the illusion of a private visit to a collector’s private home, and by the illusion that this collection was merely about the love of art and that all of these objects that the collector seemingly lived with had once been objects of his desire. And certainly Marlene Streeruwitz (or her narrator) is not very polite to say this, while the actual visitor of the Frick Collection does say nothing of the like, and certainly the author is not completely fair with what she says (at least in my opinion). But why not asking the question what is displayed in a museum, if not the art, or if not the art alone?

The author gives us the background story to her visit to the Frick as well. And one might interpret this as the full reasoning or as the explanation why her judgment is harsh and why she is not completely fair. And it begins with a diner, given by an art dealer. And it goes on with a charity event at the Guggenheim. And it is about clashing European views on globalization with American views about globalization. About how to interpret for example what it does mean these days, to go on a shopping tour to Argentina, and to buy Steinways for example. Is this about spoils, or is this just another event of charity?
And here the views of Marlene Streeruwitz/her narrator and of her hosts are very different. And this is why a writer attempts to flee or to stage a writer’s seeking refuge in a museum, after having browsed, this morning, a coffee table book on New York houses (which only made, little surprising, things worse). And this is how her uneasiness, more and more, was growing, and this is how her escape did fail.
In a very illuminating and intellectually challenging way. And resulting in a short narrative and also essayistic piece of prose that we, again, do recommend here (http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/article8DZA4-1.441330).

(Picture: nuevayork.net)

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
HOME

Top of the page

Microstory of Art Main Index

Dietrich Seybold Homepage

© DS