Join Antonia Boström, Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, as she takes us behind the scenes into the installation of “Messerschmidt and Modernity,” currently on view at the Getty Center through October 14, 2012.
Included in the exhibition are two paintings by Tony Bevan, both inspired by the Character Heads of 18th century sculptor, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. Here’s how Antonia Boström described the works in their new temporary home:
The first objects are installed—Bruce Nauman’s Holograms and the smaller of the two Tony Bevan Self-Portraits after Messerschmidt—and suddenly the exhibition seems to be a reality! Bevan’s painting hangs like a square of deepest black velvet night sky, with a Character Head resting on its lower edge like a striped moon.
Scale also becomes a reality when all you’ve worked with for months are small images with exactly identical dimensions, making all objects conform to one size and format. Thus Tony Bevan’s monumental Self-Portrait after Messerschmidt seems even more monumental in relation to the other objects in the gallery than it had appeared in the design plans, even though it was to scale. The graphic, looming head based on Messerschmidt’s sinister Beak Head, has an even more disturbing effect on the viewer.
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Keep posted for more news on the Getty exhibition, as well as our upcoming solo exhibition of Tony Bevan’s work in the fall.
Images Top to Bottom: Self-Portrait after Messerschmidt, 2010, Tony Bevan. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 38 3/16 x 39 in. Courtesy L.A. Louver, Venice, CA and Ben Brown Fine Arts, London. Artwork © Tony Bevan; Mental Landscape, 2007, Tony Cragg. Jesmonite, 47 ¼ x 67 ¼ x 47 ¼ in. Collection of Tony Cragg. Artwork © Tony Cragg. On gallery wall left: Self-Portrait after Messerschmidt, 2009, Tony Bevan. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 104 x 90 ¼ in. Courtesy L.A. Louver, Venice, CA and Ben Brown Fine Arts, London. Artwork © Tony Bevan. On gallery wall at right, two photographs by Pierre Picot. Left: “With Grief locked up inside the mouth turns into a steel trap, shut against all pain…no wonder that the cheek freezes into a smooth plane creased by hope of release,” 1998. Right: Untitled (The Difficult Secret and A Powerful Man), 1998. Both works collection of Pierre Picot, artwork © Pierre Picot; Self-Portrait after Messerschmidt, 2009, Tony Bevan. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 104 x 90 ¼ in. Courtesy L.A. Louver, Venice, CA and Ben Brown Fine Arts, London. Artwork © Tony Bevan