"Good Business is the Best Art" - Some Thoughts on Pop Life

On 11 June 2010, Ottawa’s National Gallery opened their new special exhibit called Pop Life. The exhibit originally comes from the Tate Modern and before it opened at the National Gallery, a lot of people said that parts of the exhibit were quite controversial. I had heard before going that certain galleries would be for guests “18 and over” because of some sexual themes, but really just assumed that the so-called controversial aspects of the exhibit were exaggerated, as many things these days tend to be. In the weeks leading up to the opening of Pop Life, the Ottawa Citizen published a series of articles on the exhibit, including one about whether the exhibit was appropriate for children. Well, this just made me even more curious about the exhibit, as I’m certain it did many other potential museum-goers. So this past Thursday I decided I’d check out the exhibit and see what it was really all about.

On the whole, I really enjoyed the entire exhibit. It began with Andy Warhol’s later work, a lot of which was perceived by the art community as him selling out. I also realized how creepy some of his works are, especially his self-portraits with his wild hair sticking up and relentless stare. Another notable area of the exhibit was the stunning recreation of Keith Haring’s Pop Shop. The actual Pop Shop was opened in 1986 in New York City, and the walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in black and white graffiti, with catchy music blasting through the room. In the Pop Shop, Haring sold t-shirts, buttons, and other pieces with his art on it, and what was really cool about Pop Life was that inside the recreated Pop Shop was a counter where the public could buy recreations of Haring’s original t-shirts and other things he sold in it. I think my favorite exhibit was by Damien Hirst, called Beautiful Inside My Head Forever which featured a lot of flashy pieces, like crystals strung together in a golden display case. There were also a lot of polka dots in his exhibit, and I do enjoy polka dots.

That was all fine and good, and then I got to the juicier parts of the exhibit. Most of it was thoroughly enjoyable, especially Takashi Murakami’s gallery. His was Japanese pop art and included a small “18 and over” area that had some gigantic statues in it (they looked like oversized children’s figurines) that were really fun. The one that made me laugh out loud is called My Lonesome Cowboy; racy, and hilariously so. On the whole, galleries like this (of which there are a couple), I could really appreciate and enjoy, but there was one gallery that seemed sorely out of place to me.

Before I begin my main criticism, I have to start off by saying I’m obviously untrained in art appreciation, and I only make my own assumptions when I see it. However, it was the Jeff Koons Made in Heaven gallery that really made me think about what art is and what should be in a museum. It was cordoned off by a “18 and over” sign and guarded by a security guard, so I knew it would be explicit, to say the least. I walked into the gallery and was confronted by full-on pornography. Graphic pornography that I’m still confused as to how it even falls into the pop art category. Although there were a couple of non-pornographic pieces in the room (like a really beautiful glass flowers creation) that I could see the value of, the graphic pictures on the walls were very extreme. The story is this: the artist, Koons, saw porn star Ilone Staller (a.k.a. La Cicciolina) in a porn magazine, she became his muse, they ended up getting married, and he shot all sorts of pictures of them engaging in certain activities. Which is fine and dandy, but it seemed to have no relation to pop art other than association with the artist, and these works are certainly not your typical pop art.

Here is where my real problem with this area of the exhibit is: to me, this so-called art looks like something anyone could pick up and find in a dirty magazine. I saw no artistic merit to it and there was really nothing special about it. So if this type of porn finds itself in the National Gallery, what makes it so different from other porn? Why not just put all porn on display in the museum? I’m not trying to say that porn is not art, because maybe it is, to some people. But if this porn is art, then all porn is art, and all porn should also be in this museum’s exhibit. This section of the exhibit did not belong and seemed very out of place. Maybe if the exhibit was all about pornography or the history of pornography it would be better suited, but this was just awkward and seemed very random. Also, I think with the other “18 and over” galleries, I wouldn’t have a problem allowing children in (with over-18 supervision, of course!), but this gallery was just a little much in terms of intensity.

Final thoughts on Pop Life: awesome exhibit and loved nearly all of it. Not trying to rain on anyone’s parade by complaining about this porn debacle, but really, pay attention to the exhibit’s goals and determine if it really fits within that definition.

A Foray into Board Games of the Past

A large part of my summer internship project involves me researching artefacts from the museum’s collection and putting them online, making them accessible to museum-goers. I’m trying to choose items that are relevant to every generation and meaningful to the average Canadian, a task that’s proved to be very interesting. Today was my first solo foray into the museum’s collections storage, a gigantic room located in the basement of the building. I headed down and was sure to bring my building pass so I could swipe into the collection room, and to also avoid being trapped in a stairwell, as the card is needed to open all doors to exit the stairwell (I keep my pass clipped to my pocket to prevent such debacles from occurring).

The collection is pretty big, so I flipped on most of the light switches (to prevent a high level of creepiness from occurring) and started to browse through the aisles. I had decided early on that one of the artefacts I’d look at would be a board game, which is always fun, plus the museum has many, many shelves of them. I dragged over the massive step ladder, climbed to the top, and started looking on the top shelf for any games that stuck out. Here’s what I found: a game from the 1880s called World Educator, a type of trivia game house in a wooden box that reminded me of the game Jumangi. The front of the box advertised that there was “over $50 worth of information!” Hmm, interesting claim for a board game to make. Upon opening the box, I discovered that the game consisted of several large cards with each divided into a grid with some sort of cryptic statement inside each grid square. As there were no instructions, I really couldn’t even comprehend how to play the game, but thought it seemed cool nonetheless.

The two other games that really got me excited were Sorry! and Monopoly. I learned today that Sorry! is based on the game Parchisi, and I also discovered that the edition I was holding in my cotton-gloved hands was from 1938! I had no idea that Sorry! had been around for so long (since 1934), as it was one of my favorites growing up, and let’s be honest, I still love it. The board looked almost identical to the one I have at home which belonged to my mum when she was a child in the 1970s. The only significant difference I saw was that the older version used cards to draw numbers instead of rolling dice. I noticed the same thing with Monopoly; all the cards and little houses looked nearly the same as my version. Notable differences: there was no board (unless it had been lost at some point); the game was in a small square box, each side about 6 or 7 inches long (how many times had I struggled to fit my awkwardly-long game of Monopoly into the blanket box devoted to storing games?); and the game tokens were colored, wooden, and the same size (preventing arguments about who gets to be the shoe).

I think that seeing these two classic games made me realize how much I love them, and how much other generations of people also loved them, which definitely provides a unique historical connection. Knowing how little these games have changed since their respective creations in the 1930s really says something to the lasting quality and popularity of the two games. I think it goes to show that once you find something that works, don’t change it!