Collage of another kind

This spring I had the pleasure of visiting the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Its entire East Building was closed for renovations, but the West Building had much to offer.

George Bellows, New York, 1911
oil on canvas, 42" x 60"

Near the exit of the National Gallery's display of American Art is this large and striking painting by George Bellows. You can zoom in on the image by clicking here. Bellows (1882-1925) was a student of Robert Henri and, as a member of the Ashcan School, was best known for his bold paintings of New York City.

"In this painting, which was criticized at the time for being too literal and for its lack of any unifying artistic order, Bellows revealed the frenzied spectacle of the entirely new New York that was emerging in the early twentieth century. Trolleys, elevated trains, motorcars, horsedrawn carriages, and a sea of humanity are snarled in an impossible traffic jam beneath a jumble of imposing skyscrapers and a roiling sky. We are confronted with an urban environment unlike any other, where industry, commerce, and mass culture knew no bounds, and where the natural world, as the forlorn trees in the background suggest, was being crowded out."

Beside Bellows' painting hangs a "chromogenic print" of a collage created as an homage to New York, by Brazilian-American Vik Muniz, born in 1961. It is roughly the same size as the original.

Vik Muniz, New York City, after Bellows
(Pictures of Magazines 2), 2011

Some detail photos follow:

Vik Muniz, New York City, after Bellows
(Pictures of Magazines 2), 2011 (detail)

Vik Muniz, New York City, after Bellows
(Pictures of Magazines 2), 2011 (detail)

"For more than twenty years, Muniz has recreated works of art using sugar, chocolate, found objects and other items. He copied George Bellows' 1911 painting New York ... by tearing up magazines to make a collage. He then photographed the collage and printed it as a giant enlargement, which gives the edges of the strips of paper a feathery texture. Composing his picture out of pictures of a vast array of things — from bodies, faces and lips to letters, fruit, gears, and even a zipper — Muniz alludes to the image-saturated twenty-first century and also suggests that nothing in this new age is real. It is all artificial — a replica of a replica made out of replicas."