Begitulah yang saya temukan pada video musik grup band asal Prancis, Hold Your Horses. Pada akhir Januari 2010, band indie ini merilis sebuah video yang banyak dibicarakan dalam situs-situs musik video dan seni rupa. Kenapa? Karena video ini menghadirkan 30 karya maestro seni rupa Barat yang diperankan oleh para personilnya.
Video musik 70 Million menjadi menarik karena tidak pernah terbayangkan adegan-adegan “klasik” yang tergambar pada karya agung itu dihadirkan lagi dalam interpretasi budaya pop. Video musik ini membawa penonton pada penjelajahan visual tentang sejarah seni rupa dunia. Walaupun pada tiap adegan video yang produksi L’Ogre Productions ini tidak menjelaskan karya-karya siapa saja yang dirangkum dalam video 70 Million. Inilah tantangannya.
Saya mencoba membongkar karya-karya maestro siapa saja yang diambil sebagai “permainan” dalam video ini. Video dibuka dengan karya agung The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci (1495–1498); kemudian The Birth of Venus (1485-1487), Sandro Botticelli; dua karya penting periode Renaissance. Gambar selanjutnya adalah adegan dari lukisan klasik Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632). Lalu hadir secara bersamaan lukisan Hans Holbe Hans Holbein der Jüngere, Porträt des Heinrich VIII (1534-1536) dan Johannes Vermeer, Girl with A Pearl Earring (1665) yang menjadi tonggak bagaimana interior dan potret sebagai gambaran realitas masyarakat Eropa.
Video tersebut kemudian menghadirkan lukisan Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819) yang merupakan salah satu koleksi utama museum Louvre, Paris dari periode Romantik Eropa. Kemudian lukisan Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat (1793) dari periode yang sama. The Creation of Adam (1511), Michelangelo; sebuah fresco klasik yang masih dapat dijumpai di Kapel Sistine, Italia.
Setelah itu, karya penting periode surealisme, The Son of Man (1964), René Magritte dan karya klasik lukisan abstrak konstruktivisme Piet Mondrian, Compotition-pun dihadirkan. Lukisan ekspresif Frida Kahlo, Autoretrato dan Pablo Picasso, Retrato de Dora Maar Sentada (1937). Lalu hadir karya Edvard Munch, Scream (1893) yang merupakan lukisan yang paling banyak diingat imajinya dalam sejarah seni rupa dunia—Munch mengatakan lukisan ini adalah studi tentang jiwa-jiwa dan merupakan studi tentang dirinya sendiri.
Video 70 Million kemudian menghadirkan Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Van Gogh (1889) dan Marilyn karya Andy Warhol (1962)—yang menjadi salah satu tonggak gerakan Pop Art di Amerika. Kemudian hadir lukisan kontroversial yang dibuat oleh pelukis yang tidak diketahui identitasnya pada periode Renaissance tentang Gabrielle d’Estrées (1594) yang merupakan istri raja Henry IV dari Prancis. Juga hadir lukisan periode Bizantium, Giovanni Cimabue, Maestà di Santa Trinitá (1285-1286) yang sering disebut sebagai periode kegelapan Eropa dan lukisan Caravaggio, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608) dari periode Renaissance.
Tidak ketinggalan lukisan terkenal Edouard Manet, Olympia (1830); Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830); Otto Dix, Potrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926); dan Gustav Klimt, The Kiss (1907-1908). Lalu hadir Marc Chagall, La Mariée (1950) dan salah satu karya yang paling mengundang misteri tentang sejarah Spanyol, La Meninas/ The Maids of Honour (1656) karya Diego Velázquez. Lukisan ini dibuat oleh Velázquez empat tahun sebelum dia meninggal yang menggambarkan ambiguitas subyek. Tidak pernah jelas siapa yang dilukis Velázquez pada lukisan ini. Dari karya ini, timbul teori tentang kaidah lukisan dan konsep pencitraan, lapisan, subyek dan obyek atau membongkar kaidah “melukis” yang sering disebut seniman zaman sekarang Theology of Painting.
Karena memang video ini ingin menghadirkan imaji-imaji dalam sejarah seni rupa Barat, tentu tidak lengkap tanpa Sunflower (1880) dari Vincent Van Gogh sebagai penutup.
Dari lukisan-lukisan yang diadegankan dalam video 70 Million, dapat dibaca bagaimana budaya pop menjadikan kanon-kanon sejarah seni rupa sebagai kritik generasi baru kepada sejarah kebudayaannya. Deglorifikasi yang dilakukan generasi baru ini adalah potret dunia kontemporer. Sejarah kebudayaan adalah masa lalu yang dapat diabaikan, tentu dengan daya kritis seperti yang dilakukan oleh Hold Your Horses dengan video 70 Million.
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Lightly Reflecting the World’s History of Visual Art through 70 Million Video
There’s so much one can do upon reflecting history. In the Western world, interpretation of cultural history continues to roll until today. It’s the essence of cultural history: to be reinterpreted continuously by consecutive generations. The same pattern applies in pop culture field. Interpretations made not only in reference to the industry’s interests or commercial needs, and through its interpretation toward cultural history one can learn the strategies of pop culture.
Such is what I found in a music video of a French band, Hold Your Horses. In late January 2010, the indie band released a video much talked about in video music and visual art websites. Why? Apparently the video presents parody of 30 masterpieces of Western maestros staged by the band.
70 Million video is interesting in an unimaginable way where “classic” scenes of the masterpieces are represented in pop culture interpretation. It sends audience to a visual exploration of the world’s visual art history. Although it does not specify whose masterpieces are summarized in the video—a production of L’Ogre Productions—but it’s exactly where the challenge lies.
I tried to break down whose works picked as “parody” in this video. It begins with the famous masterpiece of Leonardo Da Vinci (1495-1498), The Last Supper, followed by The Birth of Venus (1485-1487) by Sandro Botticelli—both are two important works of the Renaissance period. The next image is taken from Rembrandt’s classic painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632). Next, a painting of Hans Holbein der Jüngere, Porträt des Heinrich VIII (1534-1536), displayed side by side with Johannes Vermeer’s painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) which signify how interior and portrait formed the reality of European society.
The video continues with a painting of Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819) which is one of the main collections of Louvre Museum Paris from European Romanticism period. Presented right afterwards is Jacques-Louis David’s painting, Death of Marat (1793) dated from the same period, followed by Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam (1511), a classic fresco which can still be found in the Sistine Chapel, Italy.
Then, an important painting from the Surrealism period, The Son of Man (1964) by René Magritte and an abstract constructivism painting of Mondrian, Composition, were also parodied. Frida Kahlo’s expressive painting, Autoretrato, and Pablo Picasso’s Retrato de Dora Maar Sentada (1937) followed. There is also Edvard Munch’s work, Scream, which is the most remembered image in the history of visual art—Munch himself said that his painting is a study of souls and, furthermore, a study of his own self.
70 Million then presented Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Van Gogh (1889) and Marilyn by Andy Warhol (1962) that marked the birth of Pop Art movement in the United States. Also presented in the video is a controversial work of an unknown artist from the Renaissance, Gabrielle d’Estrées (1954), the wife of Henry IV of France. There is also a Byzantine painting from Giovanni Cimabue, Maestá di Santa Trinitá (1285-1286)—which is often referred as period of European age of darkness—and Caravaggio’s The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist from the Renaissance.
Not forgetting also a famous painting from Edouard Manet, Olympia (1830); Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830); Otto Dix’s Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926); and Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (1907-1908). Marc Chagall’s La Mariée (1950) is also in the video as well as the most enigmatic work regarding the Hispanic history, La Meninas/The Maids of Honour (1656), painted by Diego Velázquez four years prior to his death and is considered as a painting that describes an ambiguity of subject. It is never ascertained as of the figures he depicted in this painting. From his work, emerged a theory on the rule of paintings and concepts of imagery, layer, subject and object. It is also regarded as a painting that represents the “theology of painting”, as often referred by modern artists.
Since the video intends to present images from Western history of visual art, it wouldn’t be complete without Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflower (1880), staged as the closing for the video.
From 70 Million video, one can see how pop culture turns the canons in visual art history as a critique from the new generation of artists toward their cultural history. The de-glorification depicted in the video is a portrait of our contemporary world. Cultural history is dispensable, yet of course with a criticism as shown by Hold Your Horse through their video, 70 Million.
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