Surrealist Elements in Contemporary Art - Essay Example

Surrealist Elements in Contemporary Art Jonas Burghett was born in Berlin in 1969 and was subsequently educated as an artist at the MA Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin between 1991 and 1996. He continued his education under the master class tutelage of Professor Dieter Hacker in 1997. From 1998 to 2000 he won a scholarship allowing him to travel to Egypt in order to further his work under the Scholarship (NaFog) UDK, Berlin. He began exhibiting in Berlin within group exhibitions until 2006 where he began putting his work in group exhibitions outside of Berlin, beginning with an exhibition in London at Saatchi Gallery. He has exhibited throughout Europe and in the United States within group exhibitions. He had his first solo show in Berlin 2006, and has a solo exhibit every year in Berlin since that time except in 2007.1 Much of his work is inspired by the 16th century Flemish artists who were attracted to the fantastical and the grotesque. The nature of the art expressing the fears and darker natures in order to reflect the abstracted nature of humanity, raw and fertile for exploration concerning the atrocities that can be observed. Burgert is also inspired by the surrealists, his work reflecting the dream state in the use of color and composition, with touches of inspirational visual elements that are reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s textual dream states within the Alice In Wonderland works. Looking at the work combines several different elements of influence that allows that explore the human condition. Burgert’s piece from 2008, Second Day Nothing (Fig. 1), is reminiscent of the work of Hieronymus Bosch, similar to his piece The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1480-1505 (Fig. 2), full of fantastical imagery that speaks about a multitude of sub themes that all fit into a single theme.2 While similar to the work of Bosch, it also is similar to the aesthetics of the surrealists, with whom Bosch can also be compared. Because of theme and the interesting use of color, it can be compared to some of the work of Paul Nash in A Howitzer Firing (Fig. 3), which uses the dream like quality of surrealism with the inventive use of color to express a moment of chaos. Burgert’s piece reveals the aftermath of an urban incident, the multiple incidents within the painting creating a narrative that tells a multitude of stories, similar to the Bosch piece, but creates the colorful story that is similar to Nash. The nature of the event is not realistic, which places the narrative and the depicted events. The piece by Nash was created at the beginning of the Surrealism movement, his work depicting fairly realistic events in an unrealistic manner. The term Surrealism was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917, placing the work of Nash occurring within that next year.3 However, much of Burgert’ pieces can be seen to be related to other works of the Surrealist period. The work of Burgert “seems to be the drama of the new world order”.4 The work is created with a sense of theater, the pieces staged to have a narrative that is dramatic and with a poignancy that is both explicit and realistic, but set in a world of color and arrangements of size, shape, and elements that come straight from the dream plane. The work consists of elements that depict the human form as it is stressed, and grotesque. The use of it stretched to the limits of the macabre in order to express the nature of a world gone mad within its own mechanizations. The elements are bold, “figures act as allegories for the human existence in it variously shaped appearances, they represent types of characters from the circus or the commedia dell’arte, or from an unknown myth“.5 Burgert’s piece Vorkampfer, 2004 presents the image of a monkey with smaller skeletons that appear to cling as children to the image. The creature has a flag in his hand, his representation appearing to give the nature of the nationalist, proud of something he is believing in as it is formed within the concept of a state. The use of the skull in Surrealist painting was part of the exploration of death and the dream state that was undertaken by the Surrealists. As seen in the work by Salvador Dali, Ballerina in Death’s Head, (1939) (Fig. 4), the skull and the skeletal form was used by the Surrealists in ways that provided context for the macabre dialogue that was created. In the piece by Burgert, there are implications that suggest family, nation, and the ridiculous that can be observed through the use of a primate to on which to center to focus. The primate is often used to denote ridicule, and that would seem to be the case in this painting. Through the use of skulls, the Surrealists are referenced directly, and the use of the composition is familiar to pop culture iconic images that are used to create a humorous note. Burgert’s piece Zeit Schleight, (2011), (Fig 6). provides rich imagery that has a high emotional impact. The piece shows a child who appears to be trapped within a system of thick sticks that are wrapped and tied together in and around his seated body. While from some perspectives it could simply be a child sitting in a complex structure of sticks, something about the vulnerability suggests that he is trapped within the build. There is a guarded sadness on his face, his features finely detailed and the curves of his body intricately enmeshed in the structure in which he is trapped. The coloration of the work seems to create a sense of the primitive, the bold tones suggesting an other worldly aesthetic, all the while providing a context in which the child represents a people that is oppressed within its own primitive constructions. Once again, returning to Salvador Dali, one can see that there is a resemblance from the way in which Dali uses the face to express a trapped expression in the same way that Burgert uses that same kind of emotional device. In Galatea of the Spheres, (1952) (Fig. 7), there is a sadness and a sense of the oppressed and trapped that can be seen within the face of the subject. While it might be interpreted for a more sensual look, just like the piece by Burgert, there is something trapped within the subjects face a look that seems to mention that there is a larger narrative that is just outside of the canvas. In creating such a piece, the viewer becomes involved in the emotional life of the individual that is being shown in the work. Burgert uses the sympathetic visage of a child while Dali uses the vulnerability of a woman in order to create this same kind of evoked sympathy without knowing why the image is carrying the burden of so much pain and oppression, the story within the imagination of the viewer as he or she examines the nuances that are created using devices outside of the recreation of reality. For Dali, he uses a graphic device to change the nature of the image. For Burgert, the piece is a symphony of color that renders the image in a dream state that flows from the use of color for shadows and light, to the use of color to tinge the piece in primitivism. There are connections between the Flemish painters of the 16th century and the Surrealists of the early 20th century. The use of the macabre, the grotesque and the realistic imagery within an unrealistic setting or plane of existence provides a similar context in which the human condition is examined. Jonas Burgett has created a body of work that uses the same kind of aesthetics to explore the human condition, from a perspective of the industrial and post-modern discourse. The use of color is an important element of his work, the narrative defined in part by the high use of almost neon colorations that express his point of view in bold sweeps. He captures an appropriate amount of realism in which he is able to manipulate his subjects to emotionally connect to the tragedy of modern life. He has found a voice within tragedy, the theater of his work being steeped in the chaos that modern life has wrought. In connecting with the early 20th century Surrealists, Burgertt has created work that stays within the dream state, his use of skeletal images and animal representations providing a similar context to that which Dali presented. The Surrealists had a pension for theater, showmanship that extended into performance. Burgertt does not seem to share this side of Surrealism. However, he does bring performance into the work, his use of staging providing context for understanding the human condition from the shadows of imagination. Burgertt shows influences from the Flemish painters of the 16th century, but more clearly seems to be aligned with the Surrealists of the early 20th century. Fig. 1 Jonas Burgert. Second Day Nothing, 2008. (MCA Denver) Fig. 2 Hieronymus Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1480-1505 (Wikipedia) Fig. 3 Paul Nash, A Howitzer Firing, 1918 (Wikipedia). Fig. 4. Jonas Burgert. Vorkampfer, 2004. (Burgert). Fig. 5 Salvador Dali. Ballerina in Death’s Head, 1939. (Wikipedia) Fig. 7. Salvador Dali. Galatea of the Spheres, (1952) (Wikipedia) Fig. 6. Jonas Burgert. Zeit Schleight, 2011. (Burgert) Bibliography Apollinaire, Guillaume, and Matthew Geden. Autumn: twenty poems. Belfast: Lapwing, 2003. Print. Burgert, Jonas. Jonas Burgert. 2011. Web. 8 May 2011. Escape Into Life. Jonas Burgert. Chris Al-Aswaad. 2011. Web. 8 May 2011. MCA Denver. Jonas Burgert. MCA Denver. 2011. Web. 8 May 2011. Wikipedia. Hieronymus Bosch. Wikipedia. 2011. Web. 8 May 2011. Read More