 |
| Bird in Space, Constantin Brâncuși, 1926 |
That trial was notable as a turning point in our society's view of what makes an object a work of art. The way the story of the trial was told is also notable, because it is one of many examples I've come across of stories with many erroneous details that I often find repeated in many places, even though the facts are wrong.
English art critic Alastair Sooke, who told the story of the trial that got me interested, is the moderator in the "The Way I See It" series for the BBC. He interviews individuals who he refers to as, "some of the leading creatives of our age." Each of them talks about an individual work that appeals to them from the collection of New York Museum of Modern Art. In the episode titled, "Zac Posen on Constantin Brancusi's Bird in Space," in which Sooke told his version of the trial story, fashion designer Zac Posen gave his reactions to the 1928 Brâncuși sculpture titled Bird in Space. As it turns out, the Bird in Space sculpture discussed in this episode is actually only one of a series of sculptures by Brâncuși—all of which were titled Bird in Space.
 |
| Bird in Space, Constantin Brâncusi, 1928 |
Something of a turning point in the acceptance of modern art
This is the entertaining way Sooke tells the story about how a previous version of Bird in Space from 1926 launched a legal battle:
American photographer Edward Steichen "bought a version of Bird in Space from Brâncuși’s studio in Paris, and he wanted to bring it back to America. And when he turns up at the border and shows it to the custom’s official, the official looks at him and says, What is it? Steichen said, Well, it’s a work of art. It’s called Bird in Space. It’s a sculpture. And the customs official would not entertain the idea that a piece of metal could possibly be a work of art. And so he said, I’m sorry mate, it’s not. It counts as kitchen ware or other ordinary household utensils. And consequently he slaps a big tax onto the work which would have been exempt had it been categorized by the customs official as a sculpture. And Brancusi got involved, and he decided to fight it as a law case and he actually took it as a law case took to trial. Trial starts October 1927 and apparently lasted for four years. There were many expert witnesses, critics from the art world critics who were invited to come in and explain in a court of law how this could possibly be a masterpiece of modern art. It has a happy ending this story, because the judge was quite enlightened. And in the end, the judge ruled that Yes, it may not look like a bird but this is nevertheless a representation of flight. It is a work of art. Set's hear it for Judge J. Wait whose landmark ruling on that earlier variant of Bird in Space was something of a turning point in the acceptance of modern art."
The errors in Sooke's account I describe below are repeated elsewhere at the MOMA website and in other places I ran across in a cursory Google search.
Reality from Legal History
Actually, as reported in Brancusi’s Bird in Space: Is it a bird or is it art?, the Bird in Space version that occasioned the law suit was one of a shipment of works by Brancusi that were shipped in crates from Paris, on the steamship Paris, in 1926. The shipment was accompanied by perhaps the most notoriously boundary-challenging artist of his day, Marchel Duchamp, he of the signed urinal fame, and by Edward Steichen.
Protective custom laws had been set up to tax craft works at high rates—to protect U.S. artisans, and to allow fine art to enter tax free—to allow U.S. museums to purchase European art for their collections.
It seems odd now almost a hundred years later and after myriad waves of art theories have expanded the definition of art to a hitherto unimaginable extent, but the law that defined what could be brought into the U.S., until 1926, required art to be figurative.
"The witnesses for the government argued that the court should follow the precedential standard set by Olivotti: that art must represent a natural object in its true proportions. (Brancusi, 45 Treas. Dec. at *4-5)."
So, the hangup of Bird in Space at customs was due to its abstract nature, which made it doubtful as a work of art to the customs officer's eye.
One mistake in Sooke's account is that it wasn't Brâncuși
Another mistake in Sooke's retelling is the sculpture wasn't classified by the customs officer under household utensils. "The Customs Official assessed the work as a “manufacture of metal,” not a piece of art, and imposed a tariff of 40% of the sales price. (Brancusi, 45 Treas. Dec. at *1)."
The reclassification happened later as described in the article, An Odd Bird: "Under pressure from the press and artists, U.S. customs agreed to rethink their classification of the items, releasing the sculptures on bond (under "Kitchen Utensils and Hospital Supplies") until a decision could be reached. However, customs appraiser F. J. H. Kracke eventually confirmed the initial classification of items and said that they were subject to duty."
The "An Odd Bird" article reports common opinions about the work that many of us can still relate to: "several men, high in the art world were asked to express their opinions for the Government.... One of them told us, 'If that's art, hereafter I'm a bricklayer.' Another said, 'Dots and dashes are as artistic as Brâncuși's work.'"
"The next month, Steichen filed an appeal to the U.S. Customs' decision."
Eventually, after listening to expert witnesses, as Sooke said, Judge Wait ruled that Bird in Space was a work of art after all, even though it wasn't representational.
"[T]he court recognized . . . that a new school of art that centered around abstraction was developing at that time. The court found significant that the work was an original production by a professional sculptor and declared that while Bird in Space did not immediately resemble a bird, it was “beautiful and symmetrical in outline” and “nevertheless pleasing to look at and highly ornamental.” AId. at *8). Thus, the court held that Bird in Space was entitled to free entry under Paragraph 1704 of the Tariff Act as a work of art. (Id.).
Its beauty continues to make Bird in Space in its many variations appealing, even to someone like me who believes in another definition of art that is too complex to go into there. But even a bare minimum criteria of beauty is not consistently a contemporary criteria for art.Even in 1926, competing theories of art were already floating around that rejected beauty. For example, Marcel Duchamp's had signed a urinal and submitted it to an art exhibition in 1917. And when I was an art student in the early 1980s in Minneapolis, I listened to a presentation by a visiting New York City "installation artist" who poured concrete on gallery floors and told us that he had to work very hard to make sure that the beautiful patterns naturally formed in the pouring of the concrete were obliterated, "to avoid the trap of beauty."
"The Way I See It"series is recommended listening for a course I'm taking about contemporary modern art that is offered for free by the Museum of Modern Art. Although I basically turned my back on modern art in disgust after my immersion in its theories and practices when I was working on a B.A. in Studio Arts in 1979, I'm taking notes from this course, which I think will bring me current in art theory. I'm motivated by a discussion I've been having with someone who thinks we should not reject what I and many others think of as often-offensive and seemingly-worthless modern art because, he says, we should first engage the artists and understand the motives of those who create these transgressive works. His assumptions are not my own, but I'm sincerely trying to understand why he thinks that way and why others I respect think what he is saying has merit.
From the New York Evening Post, several men, "high in the art world were asked to express their opinions for the Government.... One of them told us, 'If that's art, hereafter I'm a bricklayer.' Another said, 'Dots and dashes are as artistic as Brâncuși's work.'"—From An Odd Bird
No comments:
Post a Comment