Space, Time, and Spiritual Planes (Phantoms)

The artworks selected for this proposal all contain an ounce of darkness. The central theme encompasses movement through space, time, and spiritual planes (like phantoms). The color palette is limited, focusing on blacks, desaturated golden yellows, eerie blue-greens, and deep blues. My intention for this is to keep the mood somewhat spooky and unsettling. These images are arranged in a specific order to tell a story and each image leads into the next.

The journey begins with Max Ernst’s Birth of a Galaxy. This hazy, mysterious orb is potentially the birth of new life. Rauschenberg’s Night Blooming  seems to depict the creation of something drawing from the energy of the moon. Willem de Kooning’s Large Torso looks like a deformed man rising from the earth, as new life. Many of the pieces exhibit energy, especially in motion, like Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. The motion leaves behind translucent trails in Tullio Crali’s Before the Parachute Opens and in Giacomo Balla’s The Hand of the Violinist (The Rhythms of the Bow). These ghostly “trails” tie the themes of the phantom and movement together.  Horst’s photograph of Dali’s costumes and Kienholz’s It Takes Two to Integrate (Cha Cha Cha) imply that the figures are dark dancers. Eugène Delacroix’s Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger still features motion, but is meant to represent the onset of death in this exhibition. Rauschenberg’s Lawn Combed calls to mind toe tags at a morgue.  Raschenberg’s Booster can be very powerful viewed next, as it features a life-sized x-ray. Manzoni’s Achrome and Manabu’s Staircase of Waves depict more spiritual elements, or the rise of a spirit into the form of a phantom. Forain’s faded Sketch of a Woman and Whistler’s Nocturne: Blue and Gold, full of a mysterious otherworldly haze, allow the exhibit to come full circle back to Birth of a Galaxy.