The World as an Orange
Susan Cross - 2007
Walking into Ana Linnemann’s “ The World as an Orange,” is like encountering a painting made three-dimensional; navigating the fractured shapes and spaces of a Cubist still life. Or given the suggestion of a violent slicing of the picture plane, perhaps it is more akin to experiencing the dynamism of a Futurist interior. A stream of art historical references flood my mind - the designs of the Bauhaus, the bold, primary palette of Piet Mondrian (red, yellow, blue, black - though Linnemann introduces green.); the pulsing patterns of Op Art.
The artist is addressing a formalist tradition in its issues of color, shape, strucrture and texture. Yet she is also playing a conceptual game – and the checkerboard floor is indeed evocative of a giant gaming board – one that combines both precision and chance.
“The World as an Orange” finds both its subject and organizing principle (the rules of the game) from the everyday sphere, yet Linnemann transforms what is familiar into something foreign, even fantastic. The recognizable elements of the artist’s domestic tableaux are each sliced as she would cut an orange, or peeled how she might unwrap it in one exquisite, skilled motion. The awe such a feat inspires is present here as well. The small rugs seem thrown into place, just as little girls toss orange peels over their shoulders hoping that the letters they resemble on landing will tell them the initials of their future loves. There is indeed magic in the mundane.
In this sense, the current installation is related to the artist’s past work, which also incorporated a traditionally domestic task -- sewing -- into artistic practice. There is always the element of the unexpected in the artist’s work. She has dressed cement bricks, stitched rocks together with thread, zippered the spine of delicate leaves. In their unlikely combinations of both material and function, Linnemann’s works are reminiscent of Meret Oppenheim’s fur-lined teacup or Man Ray’s flatiron studded with nails. Like these similarly wonderful, ridiculous objects, Linnemann’s constructions (or destructions) are informed both by a sense of humor and a dose of the uncanny. Losing their function, the simple, yet iconic items animating the gallery space become something more, not less.
Unraveled, the most commonplace, unexceptional umbrella is transformed into a thing of beauty – fragile, graceful, almost alive. The plastic raincoat hanging on its hook, scored nearly to shreds, is likewise a delicate, but masterful sculptural tour de force as well as a gleeful rejection of banal social customs. Similarly, in Man Ray’s work, the iron, now unfit for its task, becomes the Gift of its title, as it is no longer an instrument of drudgery, but an object of curiosity.
Ultimately these things can hold greater meaning in their role as reminders of our past, our memories – like Proust’s madeleine – than in their original utility.
The clocks on the wall are symbols of responsibilities and expectations, but doubled and deconstructed, they lose some of their hold on us. Cut into continuous spiraling ribbons, the altered clocks reflect the true nature of time itself. Yet, relentlessly ticking away, they maintain the standard, yet arbitrary structure which carves up time – years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds – and which orders our existence and the rituals that measure and dictate our lives. Seen together, the clocks and the globe also remind us of the capricious divisions of the world at large – into time zones, continents, countries, states, political territories, which like Linnemann’s “World as an Orange,” is a place both familiar and disquieting. And, likewise, in its absurdity we cannot help but laugh.
Click here to download the DOC archive with the full text
Susan Cross - 2007
Walking into Ana Linnemann’s “ The World as an Orange,” is like encountering a painting made three-dimensional; navigating the fractured shapes and spaces of a Cubist still life. Or given the suggestion of a violent slicing of the picture plane, perhaps it is more akin to experiencing the dynamism of a Futurist interior. A stream of art historical references flood my mind - the designs of the Bauhaus, the bold, primary palette of Piet Mondrian (red, yellow, blue, black - though Linnemann introduces green.); the pulsing patterns of Op Art.
The artist is addressing a formalist tradition in its issues of color, shape, strucrture and texture. Yet she is also playing a conceptual game – and the checkerboard floor is indeed evocative of a giant gaming board – one that combines both precision and chance.
“The World as an Orange” finds both its subject and organizing principle (the rules of the game) from the everyday sphere, yet Linnemann transforms what is familiar into something foreign, even fantastic. The recognizable elements of the artist’s domestic tableaux are each sliced as she would cut an orange, or peeled how she might unwrap it in one exquisite, skilled motion. The awe such a feat inspires is present here as well. The small rugs seem thrown into place, just as little girls toss orange peels over their shoulders hoping that the letters they resemble on landing will tell them the initials of their future loves. There is indeed magic in the mundane.
In this sense, the current installation is related to the artist’s past work, which also incorporated a traditionally domestic task -- sewing -- into artistic practice. There is always the element of the unexpected in the artist’s work. She has dressed cement bricks, stitched rocks together with thread, zippered the spine of delicate leaves. In their unlikely combinations of both material and function, Linnemann’s works are reminiscent of Meret Oppenheim’s fur-lined teacup or Man Ray’s flatiron studded with nails. Like these similarly wonderful, ridiculous objects, Linnemann’s constructions (or destructions) are informed both by a sense of humor and a dose of the uncanny. Losing their function, the simple, yet iconic items animating the gallery space become something more, not less.
Unraveled, the most commonplace, unexceptional umbrella is transformed into a thing of beauty – fragile, graceful, almost alive. The plastic raincoat hanging on its hook, scored nearly to shreds, is likewise a delicate, but masterful sculptural tour de force as well as a gleeful rejection of banal social customs. Similarly, in Man Ray’s work, the iron, now unfit for its task, becomes the Gift of its title, as it is no longer an instrument of drudgery, but an object of curiosity.
Ultimately these things can hold greater meaning in their role as reminders of our past, our memories – like Proust’s madeleine – than in their original utility.
The clocks on the wall are symbols of responsibilities and expectations, but doubled and deconstructed, they lose some of their hold on us. Cut into continuous spiraling ribbons, the altered clocks reflect the true nature of time itself. Yet, relentlessly ticking away, they maintain the standard, yet arbitrary structure which carves up time – years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds – and which orders our existence and the rituals that measure and dictate our lives. Seen together, the clocks and the globe also remind us of the capricious divisions of the world at large – into time zones, continents, countries, states, political territories, which like Linnemann’s “World as an Orange,” is a place both familiar and disquieting. And, likewise, in its absurdity we cannot help but laugh.
Click here to download the DOC archive with the full text
