In 1973, literary theorist Harold Bloom published The Anxiety of Influence, which challenged the idea that literary tradition is a favorable source of influence on modern poets and countered with the radical proposal that for poets, the achievements of their great forerunners actually inhibit their own originality. Re-reading Harold Bloom in the 21st century got MIT List Visual Arts Center curator Bill Arning — the tallest and fastest-talking curator in town — thinking about the idea of artistic predecessors in the field of visual arts. And his investigation has led to the creation of an ambitious exhibition.
" Influence, Anxiety, and Gratitude, " which will open at the List Center next Thursday, features a mix of artistic generations, from artists associated with the early years of Pop like Sturtevant, whose use of Warhol’s imagery in the 1960s caused controversy among contemporaries who were themselves busily borrowing imagery from every other area of American life, to young artists like Clifford Owens, who burst on the scene recently with a live performance piece about 1970s performance art. Another artist new to Boston viewers is Emily Roysdon, whose admiration for activist artist David Wojnarowicz led her to re-create one of his most potent art works from the late 1970s. He had himself photographed cruising New York’s Times Square wearing an Arthur Rimbaud mask, Rimbaud being an openly gay 19th-century French symbolist poet. Roysdon had herself photographed in Times Square wearing a David Wojnarowicz mask.
On May 10, AA Bronson, sole remaining member of the great art collaborative General Idea, will re-create a mid-1980s performance in which General Idea put their own spin on an event staged by French conceptual artist Yves Klein in the early 1960s. Klein used beautiful naked women as " brushes " to create abstract paintings, smearing paint on them and directing them as they rubbed against his canvases. General Idea re-created Klein’s work in 1984 using faux taxidermy poodles. We’ll see what a 2003 perspective brings to Klein’s, and to General Idea’s, ur-performance pieces.
Also on May 10, artist Stuart Netsky will be at MIT knitting a muffler " for " artist Walter De Maria’s " Mile Long Drawing in the Desert " — two parallel chalk lines, drawn 12 feet apart for a mile in the Mojave Desert by the reclusive earth artist in 1968. Netsky’s transformation of De Maria’s macho marks into something homy and cozy illustrates Arning’s intention in creating this exhibition: " It’s only by considering the relationship of the past to the present that we get the possibility of the future. "
" Influence, Anxiety, and Gratitude " will be at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames Street in Cambridge, from May 8 through July 6, with an opening reception on May 9 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. General Idea/AA Bronson will perform " Triple XXX Rose " in MIT’s Hayden Gallery on May 10 at 2:30 p.m. Stuart Netsky will give intermittent, ongoing performances of " Mile Long Drawing/Muffler (after De Maria) " on May 9 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., on May 10 and 11 from 2 to 6 p.m., on June 20 from 6 to 8 p.m., and on June 21 from 2 to 6 p.m. Call (617) 253-4400 for information about related events.
