Quay Brothers. Frame of Street of Crocodiles, 1986. © Konick Studios Ltd.
Quay Brothers. Frame of Street of Crocodiles, 1986. © Konick Studios Ltd.
The more we try to rationalise our world, the more we crave the weird and the wonderful. The CCCB exhibition Metamorphosis - Fantasy Visions in Starewitch, Švankmajor and the Quay Brothers lures us into the interconnected worlds of two individual and one 'twin set' of artists, all of who work or worked on the fringes of film and animation. The exhibition, that took 10 years to find its moment, was put together by Carolina López in close collaboration with artists Jan Švankmajer (1934) and Timothy and Stephen Quay (1947), as well as Irina Starewitch, the daughter of animation pioneer Ladislas Starewitch (1882-1965). As the curator explains, these unique artists play the protagonists, puppet masters and our companions in the sort of show that you go into but never really come out of.
Who are these artists and what brings them together?
Although they are really well known in the ‘creative animation’ world, this label restricts these four unclassifiable artists who make films, work with their hands and draw on a myriad of cultural and scientific references. They are all inspired by a time when art and science merge, a thread running from the early Renaissance through the 18th century spirit of discovery into 19th century Romanticism, with its fascination with feeling and the darkness of human nature, to symbolism and avant-garde surrealism. Ladislas Starewitch was Polish and he held onto his Polish passport despite moving around and eventually settling in France in the 1920s. He spoke six languages, and you find as many Russian and Polish elements as French in his films. Jan Švankmajer is from Prague, he's 100% Czech and his art is inextricably linked with the city, the so-called 'magical city' of André Breton. Timothy and Stephen Quay are American. They studied graphic design at the Philadelphia College of Art where they came across some amazing posters by Polish artists and became absolutely fascinated by them, by the designs but also by the worlds they discovered within them, the worlds of theatre and art. This was, of course, the pre-Google age. They moved to London and enrolled at the RCA (Royal College of Arts) and almost immediately upon arrival they took a trip to Poland. So while they are from very different places, they meet in the same place. Their united desire is to transform it all into something coherent, complete, aesthetic: transformation is the essence of metamorphosis.
Why did the show happen now?
Švankmajer told me that he had to struggle for years, decades, to find funding and an audience for a project. Comparatively, I became obsessed with the idea of organising a major show in an art museum in Spain nine years ago after a trip to Prague - but back then I found every door closed to me. It wasn't until Rosa Ferré was appointed the new head of exhibitions at the CCCB in 2012 that she, without being aware of my stalled project, mentioned that she'd always been interested in literature and animation. And, I think nowadays there is a greater sensitivity towards the irrational, the poetic and the magic in things. After all, in order to discover, even in science, you need imagination.
What are the major themes of the show?
The Cabinet of Curiosities: Švankmajor wrote me a wonderful letter saying that he envisaged the show like a huge cabinet of curiosities! He said, 'at museums you learn things, but with a cabinet of curiosities you experience them'. Museums tend to impose a 'rational' order on exhibits by putting the same sort of things together, we wanted to juxtapose different kinds of objects: a Goya print with a shell; a painting with an African mask, inviting imaginative narratives between them. Švankmajer created his own cabinet of curiosities for the show, bringing 150 objects over that represent some 10% of his own collection!
Forests and Fairy Tales: We start and end with a fairy tale and a forest. At the beginning, the 'simple' fairy tale narrative is introduced by Starewitch and from there the discourse gets increasingly sophisticated, moving into what you might call the ‘anti-fairy tale’, the anti-narrative until the Quay Brothers' installation, which is what they call 'a forest within a forest'. Almost all of Švankmajer's literary references are Czech: Kafka, but also Edgar Allen Poe and (Goethe's) Faust. The Quay Brothers draw on Polish writer Bruno Schultz, Robert Walser's novel Jakob von Gunten inspired their film Institut Benjamenta (1995). There is a line at the end of the film that goes, '...am I living in a fairy tale?' which brings us back again to the beginning of our show.
Science and Imagination: All the artists touch on science. Starewitch was an Entomologist yet brought dead insects alive. Švankmajer loved the 'moment' of alchemy, the 'spark' of transformation. The Quays are fascinated by anatomy and museums of medicine, and also disease - defying the push for perfection. They've made three 'documentaries' on the theme, two of which are on display. Rather than bring anatomical pieces all the way from the Mütter Museum (College of Physicians) in Philadelphia, we decided to find pieces that we thought the Quays would like from here. We worked with the Catalan Museum of the History of Medicine where we found that beautiful 'Venus' with the necklace, which they loved!
Art and the Unknown: The Quays were really into the 'Monsù Desiderio' painting (Les Enfers, 1622) they had a postcard of it and I asked them if they'd like the original and they said, 'Wow, yes!' So we got it from Besançon (Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie). When Jan saw it he started gesticulating like mad, we got the translator and he said 'Thank you! Thank you!' it turned out to be one of his favourite paintings and he'd never actually seen it in real life before! We also incorporate Spanish works previously unknown to the artists: the Goya's, yes, but also the photographs of Joaquim Pla Janini and Josep Massana.
What sort of experience is this for a visitor?
These artists are used to working on and in their own uncontaminated world, their vision is intimate, unique, a 'world on a table top', as the Quays put it. I filmed the artists in their studios to draw the visitor into their world. While the exhibition itself is highly structured, I worked hard that the curator and architecture be invisible, so that viewers feel they are discovering it themselves. Information is provided but we keep it minimal and out of the way. We also go beyond the CCCB space itself, the Quay Brothers select pieces from the Museu Frederic Marès, for example, placing them in a cabinet on the third floor of this extraordinary museum.
Metamorphosis - Fantasy Visions in Starewitch, Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers CCCB - Barcelona - until 7th September 2014 La Casa Encendida - Madrid - 2nd October until January 11th 2014
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne and based in Barcelona, Alx Phillips writes about contemporary art, theatre and dance in a way that human beings can understand. For more about Barcelona arts, check her blog: www.lookingfordrama.com