THOUGHT-PROVOKING ART: THE GENIUS OF MARK TANSEY

Summary

The video discusses a recent visit to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see the renowned American painter Mark Tansey's work. Born in 1949, Tansey defies conventional labels, straddling historical, narrative, and philosophical painting. His unique technique involves monochromatic scenes that evoke old photographs. Tansey’s art is a thought-provoking exploration of complex ideas in philosophy, aesthetics, and linguistics, often featuring scenes with notable intellectuals. His works challenge viewers to think beyond mere representation, using allegorical and visually engaging narratives. The video concludes by highlighting Tansey's commitment to the traditional art of oil painting, despite the rise of digital media, emphasizing that his work creates a dialogue about meaning in art.

Highlights

• A visit to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts reveals Mark Tansey's one-of-a-kind artistry. 👨‍🎨
• Tansey's art features intellectuals engaging in thought-provoking and humorous scenarios. 🕵️‍♂️
• His technique involves removing paint to create monochromatic images reminiscent of old photos. 📸
• Paintings like 'The Innocent Eye Test' blend comedy with profound questions about art perception. 🐄
• Works such as 'White on White' play with concepts of geographical and cultural impossibilities. 🌍

Key Takeaways

• Mark Tansey's art defies traditional labels and challenges viewers to delve deep into philosophical thought. 🎨
• Tansey's unique painting technique mimics old photographs and provokes contemplation. 🖼️
• His works feature intellectuals, exploring complex themes like philosophy and linguistics. 📚
• Despite the rise of modern technology, Tansey remains committed to traditional oil painting, celebrating its tactile and historical essence. 🖌️
• Each painting is an invitation for the viewer to think and explore beyond the surface. 🤔

Overview

Mark Tansey, a maverick in the art world, challenges the very essence of art through his unique style and thought-provoking content. His works push beyond conventional techniques, creating monochromatic masterpieces that resemble vintage photographs. Each piece is more than just a visual delight; it's a philosophical punch that invites viewers to explore deeper meanings beneath the surface.

Tansey's art is a delightful dance of intellect and humor, bringing together notable philosophical figures in scenes that challenge and entertain. His works like 'The Innocent Eye Test' and 'White on White' combine surrealistic scenarios with intellectual depth, prompting us to reflect on the very nature of art and existence. Tansey skillfully uses these scenes to engage with themes like identity, perception, and the intertwining of cultures.

Despite a world rapidly leaning towards digital expression, Tansey remains a stalwart of traditional oil painting. His dedication to manual craftsmanship, using classic materials like canvas and oil, underscores his commitment to the timeless nature of tactile art. Through his allegorical narratives and complex themes, Tansey's work continues to beckon us into a conversation about meaning—inviting both intellectual rigor and imaginative wonder.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Early Life and Education of Mark Tansey Mark Tansey, born in California in 1949, is a distinguished American painter whose diverse body of work challenges categorization, blending elements of historical, narrative, and philosophical art. Despite various labels such as historical painter, narrative artist, and postmodernist, none fully encompasses his unique style and contributions to the art world. Residing and working in New York, Tansey remains a singular figure in contemporary art.
• 01:30 - 03:30: Artistic Technique and Style The chapter explores the artist's journey and influences in developing his unique artistic style. Growing up during the era of abstract, pop, and conceptual art, he was trained in the traditional school of American painting, emphasizing boldness and discovery. Feeling constrained by his education, which he compares to a catechism class, he sought different paths in art, eventually becoming a figurative painter known for his large-format oil paintings.
• 03:30 - 05:30: Thematic Depth of Tansey's Paintings The chapter explores the thematic depth of Tansey's paintings, which at first glance appear to return to realism. Tansey's style is described as having influences from hyperrealism and magical realism, but with unique outcomes. His highly refined technique involves covering a canvas with a single color, then removing paint to create images using only white and black values. The result is monochromatic scenes resembling old photographic reproductions.
• 05:30 - 08:30: Paintings and Their Philosophical Interpretations This chapter explores the philosophical interpretations of paintings, with a focus on how certain artists use photography from magazines of the 1940s as a foundational element in their work. It highlights the choice of colors, like pink, blue, and sepia, which were prevalent during that era. Despite the widespread dominance of abstract art in the 20th century, figuration—painting with recognizable content—has seen a resurgence. The originality of the discussed artist's work stems not from the representational art itself, but from other unique aspects that set it apart within the broader context of contemporary art returning to figuration. The chapter sheds light on this ongoing dialogue between abstraction and figuration in modern painting.
• 08:30 - 12:30: Allegories and Historical Influences The chapter titled 'Allegories and Historical Influences' discusses the work of new figurative artists who have been recognized for their distinctive contributions. Among them, Tan stands out for his unique approach. His work is ambitious and complex, aiming not merely to depict real scenes, but to use pseudo-realistic representations as a means to delve into profound questions concerning philosophy, aesthetics, anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory. These explorations are rooted in the scholarly works and books that inspire them.
• 12:30 - 15:30: Reflection on Representation and Materialism Tan's paintings respond to academic texts with intelligence and humor, creating a visual work that encourages reflection. A notable example is 'The Innocent Eye Test' from 1981.
• 15:30 - 19:00: Tansey's Unique Artistic Process The chapter titled 'Tansey's Unique Artistic Process' explores a scene from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. It features a group of men, who appear academic and scholarly, intently studying a pastoral painting created by the 17th-century Dutch artist Paulus Potter. This artwork depicts a rural, idyllic scene with oxen. Adjacent to this, another painting by Manet showcases a similar pastoral theme. The professors, absorbed in their analysis, seem to be part of the scene they are presenting—the artwork—which includes a real cow shown at the same scale as the painted animals. This blending of reality and art is highlighted as part of Tansey's unique artistic interpretation.

THOUGHT-PROVOKING ART: THE GENIUS OF MARK TANSEY Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I recently visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see a major exhibition by the American painter Mark tanzy born in California in 1949 he currently lives and works in New York tanzi has been classified as a historical painter narrative artist philosophical painter and more broadly is postmodern however none of these labels fully Define him he resembles many things but in the end he is truly one of kind tany was born under
• 00:30 - 01:00 the strong influence of abstract art and grew up during the era of pop and conceptual art the Great American painting of the mid 20th century was the Traditional School where he trained an academy where discoveries and boldness had already become the norm my artistic education felt like a catechism class he says and so he set out to find other paths he became a figurative painter creating large format oil paintings that
• 01:00 - 01:30 at first glance seem like a return to realism with one eye on hyperrealism and the other on magical realism but with different implications tansy's highly refined technique involves covering the entire canvas with a single color and then gradually removing the paint creating images using only values obtained with white and black the result is large monochromatic scenes that resemble reproductions of old photographs s from the
• 01:30 - 02:00 1940s in fact he uses photos from magazines of that era as his starting point and his preferred colors are the typographic Hues of the time pink blue and sepia the choice of representational art of painting with content is not what makes his work original despite the dominance of abstraction 20th century painting never completely abandoned figuration in the last decade so many painters have returned to it that they
• 02:00 - 02:30 have been collectively labeled new figurative artists deserving of numerous group exhibitions and studies Tan's originality lies in the ambition and complexity of his project which is not merely to represent document or narrate real scenes but through pseudo realistic representations to explore questions of philosophy Aesthetics anthropology Linguistics and literary Theory originally found in the books of
• 02:30 - 03:00 University libraries each of Tan's paintings is a response to these texts and at the same time a challenge to the viewer the issues are developed with sensitive intelligence and subtle humor which are usually absent from academic theoretical texts the final result is not merely discursive but a visual work that provokes reflection one of Tan's paintings titled the innocent eye test painted in 1981 and part of the
• 03:00 - 03:30 Metropolitan Museum of Arts collection depicts a group of old-fashioned professorial looking men solemnly examining a bucolic painting two under a tree a work by the 17th century Dutch painter paulus Potter on the wall beside it hangs another painting of an equally pastoral Theme hxs by Mane the professor's gazes are fixed on the viewer to whom they are presenting the painting a real cow on the same scale as the painted oxen
• 03:30 - 04:00 stares intently at its painted counterparts one of whom gazes back at the cow in the right corner of the scene one of the scientists wearing a lab coat carefully records the results of the experiment the comedic effect is immediate what is the cow thinking about the painting does it identify with the subject and we the real viewers watching the cow look at its painted Brothers become as bow Vine as it is our smile
• 04:00 - 04:30 loses its superiority Tan's painting can be seen as a metaphor for the perception of art the scientists are the art critics and vast philosophical scientific and aesthetic problems come to mind or are we by thinking about them merely trying to reclaim our superiority as rational beings are we grabbing our mental notepad like the scientist in the painting and losing our ability to have
• 04:30 - 05:00 an innocent gaze Frank Stella has a famous phrase that certainly resonates with Tan's reflection what you see is what you see another of Tan's paintings titled white on white from 1986 depicts a vast desolate plane swept by the wind where two human groups face each other moving toward one another at first glance there is a sense of deja vu an academic painting of the Exotic landscape genre or a geographic magazine
• 05:00 - 05:30 photo showing Expeditions in distant inhospitable places a closer look however reveals the in congruity of the scene one group consists of Arabs with their camels the other of Eskimos with their dogs and sleds sand and snow blend seamlessly making the scene visually tranquil while our knowledge of the clothing and attributes of the characters alerts us to the geographic impossibility of this counter we smile
• 05:30 - 06:00 at the joke but does it end there the scene neutralizes numerous oppositions heat and cold North and South sky and Earth conflict and Reconciliation we think about the gradual disappearance of traditional clothing and cultural differences that eraser of the rainbow of cultures mentioned by Ley Strauss whom tany reads we observe that neither of the two human groups in white on white is of the white
• 06:00 - 06:30 race we recall that the pictorial problem of white on white is one of the landmarks of 20th century painting with malevich we think that in structural Linguistics another common reading of tany opposition is what creates meaning and when it is abolished meaning is lost did tany think of all this certainly he thought of many of these things and others that have not yet occurred to us but his goal is not merely for us to recover what he thought but for us to
• 06:30 - 07:00 continue Thinking Beyond him the inspiring questions of Tan's work became increasingly complex after 1990 a Avid Reader of the literary theorists of the Yale School themselves readers of the French structuralists and post structuralists tany transformed these intellectuals into characters staging scenes that allegorize the theories developed in their books in 1987 he painted the Mount San Victa where in front of the famous landscape so often
• 07:00 - 07:30 painted by cesan a group of tourists appears among whom we recognize derida Baris and Fuko specialists in showing that every text hides another text and that things are not what they seem in the water all images transform the mountain becomes a cave the sky turns into rock and the bathers become women in 1990 he painted close reading where a climber scales a rock
• 07:30 - 08:00 looking closely the rock is covered with almost legible text fragments remnants of texts by Paul deand the master of Yale deconstruction taken from his work blindness and insight where he says literary texts are themselves critical But Blind and critical reading tries to deconstruct the blindness the climber with her face against The Rock seems to see nothing only focused on the physical effort of climbing another painting from the same year more grandiose is titled
• 08:00 - 08:30 constructing the Grand Canyon in the Majestic landscape dozens of young people dig hammer drill with jackhammers and sift gravel at the center of the scene a group of little men directs the work among them Paul Dean and jacqu Dera seated further ahead a pensive Harold Bloom Michelle Fuko in the right corner observes as in the previous painting the
• 08:30 - 09:00 walls of the Grand Canyon are covered with texts that are gradually reduced to fragments and dust the group of philosophers alludes to Raphael's School of Athens in an ambiguous homage to the deconstructionists as is known deconstruction consists of dismantling Excavating texts endlessly revealing What Lies Beneath aasia that is what everyone is doing there but is this task as in ancient philosophy an elevated search for truth building the Grand Canyon is in itself
• 09:00 - 09:30 an absurd idea and in fact they are destroying it is tanzi himself a deconstructionist his painting deconstructs the very philosophers and their theories in addition to his painting being technically and materially the result of infinite erasures even more ambiguous is the beautiful Dera interrogating demand also from 1990 in a mountain landscape Dera and
• 09:30 - 10:00 Dean hand in hand fight or dance it is impossible to tell in the edge of an abyss the scene is inspired by an illustration from Conan Doyle's the final problem the struggle between Sherlock Holmes and Professor morati it is an illusion to the controversy that arose after Dean's death when it was discovered that he had allied with Nazi groups in his youth on that occasion dered D defended de man in a move some considered blind tansy's themes are not
• 10:00 - 10:30 limited to current events other paintings of his allegorized Plato's Cave the wheel of David and the history of painting particularly amusing is the Triumph of the New York school from 1986 where Picasso duning matis and others dressed as soldiers from the War of 1812 face Newman Rothco and others wearing the much more relaxed uniforms of World War II the painting is a parody of Vel
• 10:30 - 11:00 sque's the surrender of breeda in fact tany revisits the entire history of painting in his works the Renaissance holds a special place which he explores through the use of allegory the theme of The Wheel the frame the practice of perspective and Trump l in his own words tanzi says that his paintings aspire to the category of sketches and Caprices like those of tiapo Goya and Max Ernst
• 11:00 - 11:30 from surrealism he recovers The Taste for old images and surprising collages this mix should not be hastily labeled as postmodern because tany does not merely quote and combine in a playful and Casual way Tan's art thinks and makes us think but it is not pure illustration of Concepts because it is the images that produce thought without ceasing to be images the art historian George KU once said that every work is
• 11:30 - 12:00 the solution to a problem Mark tany comments the important thing is that each solution points to the existence of some problem for which there have already been other Solutions and that other solutions to the same problem will probably be invented next as Solutions accumulate the problem changes the chain of solutions however never unveils the problem therefore Tan's paintings do not claim truth or the uniqueness of a
• 12:00 - 12:30 concept prior to or following the production of the work there is only a chain of solutions a string of metap forious expression in which the artist and the viewers are inscribed his allegories have no final reading they are meant to be read and reread as the critic Judy Freeman who wrote an excellent text for the exhibition catalog says the basic concepts of Tan's work are those of the search loss of truth and the construction deconstruction of meaning the search for truth is allegorized by
• 12:30 - 13:00 the large number of characters in his work who are digging cleaning searching for things in crevices or undressing construction is the apparent activity of many characters equipped with engineering tools and machines but the task they dedicate themselves to is usually absurd such as measuring a coastline with a tape measure the empiricism of his scientists and the amateurism of his technicians contrasted with the grand of Nature Point to a
• 13:00 - 13:30 skeptical and ironic attitude toward knowledge and Technology Tan's art leads to reflection on representation and the Very practice of representational painting representation was negatively connoted by abstract paint later textual theorists in painting words like subject or meaning were banished irreverently tanzi represents the abstract painters themselves in the painting myth of depth from 1984 he places Rothco and mandrian
• 13:30 - 14:00 in a small boat watching Pollock who like Christ walks on water in the philosophical texts of the 1970s and 1980s the era of representation was declared over identified with old platonic idealism it was to be replaced after the epistemological break by the era of the materialist production of a meaning always deferred responding to the objection that pictorial representation is univocal critical
• 14:00 - 14:30 conservative totalitarian and historicist while textuality is polysemic critical open Etc tanzi seeks to demonstrate that pictorial representation is a text and that it is possible to question the act of reference within it to open gaps between representation and its subject to destabilize the relationship between the signifier the signified the viewer and the theme the method for the viewer to
• 14:30 - 15:00 contemplate a tany painting should be the same he uses to conceive it he starts with simple journalistic questions who what when where why the questions gradually become more complex until they reach a high level of conceptual complexity in 1989 tanzi established verbal schemes tables composed of lists of oppositions problems motifs and meta themes that can be combined to produce numerous cases to be explored BL he then conceived a
• 15:00 - 15:30 wooden wheel made of rings covered with words by rotating the Rings 5,872 possibilities are generated like the immense kadav squeeze a game invented by the surrealists use a computer a photo of tany's studio is very revealing a large distant desk with paper folders an archive of images he has collected since childhood a long semicircular desk covered with with paper boxes a corner
• 15:30 - 16:00 table and a traditional easel a cat a tray with a teapot and milk jug no electronic equipment in sight he is an anachronist his world of references is made up of books and magazines printed images it is worth noting that he is the son of a professor and a librarian CDs and virtual reality in principle so convenient for a creation like his seem not to interest him tany is a manual
• 16:00 - 16:30 Craftsman a sensualist an admirer of old materials like canvas oil paper and wood the Xerox machine allows the hand to print directly on the reproductive surface and produce the same tonal granules obtained by mechanical pressure as another surprise this nostalgic artist has the face of a sporty young man quite in congruous if it depends on him the old world of books of texts that make us think and of illustrations that
• 16:30 - 17:00 make us dream which can be touched with our hands and the even older world of oil on canvas will not die anytime soon with tanzi we are back carrying in our baggage everything that time has accumulated the arrangements however date from today as does the uncertainty about their meaning and purpose