Here’s a painting by conceptual artist Dan Colen. And this is what the Saatchi Gallery in London who owns the piece says about it:
“In Untitled (going, going, go…) Dan Colen presents a traditional still-life. His composition apprises worldly indulgence and inevitable mortality, including all the accouterments of 17th century memento mori: wine cask, pen and ink, extinguished candle. Drawing comparison to Ed Ruscha’s semiotic pop paintings, Colen’s canvas is rendered with the cool precision of graphic illustration, rendering the romantic scene in contemporary language. The word ‘going’ is subliminally repeated in the lingering trails of smoke, underscoring the painting’s message with pop logotype.”
Or, you could say it’s a modified reproduction of a background from Walt Disney’s Pinocchio, because that’s what it is:
[Image scanned from Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life]
So it’s not entirely “his composition” as the gallery states. I have to wonder then, does Dan know the provenance of the image he so faithfully reproduced? I’m guessing yes, because when asked in this interview where he got the idea to “do art”, he answers, “I just, I always drew cartoons.” So then I wonder, did he tell the gallery where the image came from? And did they choose to ignore that information? Because either the image source is relevant to the content of his piece (and should be included in the description) or Dan appears to be passing off another artist’s composition as his own.
And as for “rendering the romantic scene in contemporary language,” well, this “traditional still-life” was originally painted in the late 1930’s, most likely by Claude Coats, a Disney background artist. And a comparison of any element of Dan’s painting to Ed Ruscha’s work, other than the floating words, is silly. If anything, it was the work of the Disney artists that influenced Ed, considering he was a toddler when this image of the candle from Pinocchio first appeared onscreen in 1940.
The gallery’s description didn’t mention the most interesting detail though: the scene is painted as if the candle were lit – notice the shadow and glow – and in the finished film the candle was (animated later as layers of celluloid). Without the flame, the invisible light source creates a hauntingly surreal image. It’s probably what attracted Dan to using the image in the first place. And yes, adding the words “going, going…” does strengthen the association to memento mori and the idea of inevitable death. But then how would the gallery explain Dan’s other versions where he painted smoke reading, “blow me,” and simply, “fuck” – phrases associated more with juvenile rebellion than contemplation of mortality. (And don’t even try to tell me that’s the whole point.)
If Dan wanted to draw attention to any perceived or projected content the Pinocchio background posses, he could have as an art critic, a writer, or curator and gathered a show of like material to say, “look at this stuff. If we remove these animation backgrounds from the context of their films, and see them for themselves, they have their own message, similar to what fellow conceptual artist Mungo Thomson did in his recent video piece “The American Desert (for Chuck Jones)” which is 30 minutes of Road Runner backgrounds with the characters removed. (Notice Mungo acknowledged the source material by mentioning Chuck Jones in the title.)
Now none of this is to say I don’t like Dan or his work. But why then have I gone on far too long about a gallery’s inaccurate description of a painting of a candle?
A: It’s a slow workweek.
B: I’ve worked with and known many artists from Disney including Marc Davis and John Hench who wanted deeply to be recognized as artists for their personal work. (How ironic that it’s their commercial work for Disney that penetrated the art world in the form of being appropriated by artists for decades.)
C: I got my BFA at the Disney founded California Institute of the Arts where a deep cultural divide separated the art program (which seemed to be in perpetual rebellion against Walt’s creation of their very school) and the character animation students (many hoping to be hired by Disney) whose work was seen as crassly commercial, populist, and devoid of meaning (an assessment I don’t totally disagree with.)
I spent half of my four years in each dept. When I told my mentor I wanted to transfer out of the art program, he said, “I understand. But whatever you do, don’t go to character animation.” I did. And then I began working for Disney. So now when I see someone getting press and the title “art star” for art made using imagery created by those artists who worked anonymously at the supposedly conceptually-vacuous Disney, I get, perhaps, too ruffled.
On a related note, here’s an article about James Harvey, an abstract expressionist painter you’ve never heard of but whose work you know. Harvey designed the iconic Brillo boxes of 1961. A design that a few years later helped launch Andy Warhol to fame after he signed his own name to reproductions of Harvey’s design then displayed them in a gallery.
UPDATE December 5 2007:
Here’s recent video from Vice of Dan Colen talking about the Disney candle paintings. Clearly he knows where the image came from, so why then does the gallery seem to not know?
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UPDATE January 15 2008:
Omg I just got back from the gym and reread this post. Had I taken a bitch pill that day or what?
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