Taking Art Into Your Hands

January 18, 2012
By: Aurelia Clavien

Have you ever walked through an art museum or gallery and tried to imagine how the pieces displayed could be reinterpreted by different artists today? Perhaps I’m just a complete art nerd, but I’ve often asked myself this question, especially when standing in front of some of the great paintings of the Renaissance, struck by the accuracy in detail and the reality of the scenes depicted. In my opinion, these certainly put a majority of our contemporary renditions, such as the arrangement of 120 firebricks ‘Equivalent VIII’ at the Tate Modern, to shame.

Evidently, I am not alone in sharing this point of view, having recently stumbled upon an extremely interesting website, which would surely appeal to all you art lovers out there, whether you have a fascination for design, film, music, photography or any other genre. Last year, booooooom.com (that’s with seven o’s!) launched an online competition, the “Remake/Photo Project”. Working with Adobe, the challenge called for readers of the site to submit photographs referencing classical works of art. The competition closed on the 21st of October, 2011, yet the submissions are available online and are definitely worth a look!

Although, on the surface, contemporary artists appear to favor more minimalist representations, expressing the “emptiness” or artificiality found within present society. If we dig deeper, we can also observe that the influence of the classical masters remains strong. Even popular bands, such as Coldplay, with their single ‘Viva la Vida’, and famous photographers, as seen with Cindy Sherman’s film stills, are attempting to extract an element of wisdom from these infamous works of art, in order to, perhaps, “class up” their own game and share a certain intimacy with the timeless masters. If you find the topic of “remaking art” as engaging as I do, I strongly recommend watching the short video below, produced by the French band, Hold Your Horses!. It is simply magnificent.
Hold Your Horses, \’70 Million\’

For what it’s worth, the effective re-staging of a painting demonstrates the extent to which an artist has passionately worked to get to the depths of the work itself, becoming its most sincere critic.

 

Image: artrick-playground.com