Power And The Image

‘The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences’ by Michel Foucault asserts art as a means of thinking, and of finding ones place in the world. Velasquez’s ‘Las Meninas’ breaks the rules of the logic of depicted space to represent a group of people looking and thinking.

Although hidden, a pivotal element of ‘Las Meninas’ is the artist’s inclusion of himself. How and why did Velasquez do this? Foucault writes of a ‘double invisibility’, that shows his triangle of activity; to step back from the canvas, to look and to make a mark. The canvas simultaneously highlights the artist’s invisibility. It seems that precisely because the invisibility was there that we, the viewers, failed to see it.

The canvas is used as a visual tool to represent himself as both thinker and maker. This is something that is supported by the mirror in the background. This should show the backs of the figures and objects in the foreground. Instead it shows Prince Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Austria, whom the painting is for. Their presence also seems to re-emphasise how all depicted are subjects to the order of things in the world. There is a sense of reciprocity in that the viewer is observing themselves being observed by the painter, ‘…and made visible by the same light that enables us to see him.’ (‘The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences’ Foucault, Michel)

Foucault iterates that the viewer must attempt to make sense of the painting in the same way one would a piece of text. However, how do we respond to more subjective phenomena? Carol Duncan and Allan Wallach present this question in the article ‘MoMA: Ordeal and Triumph on 53^rd Street’. In comparison to the traditional survey museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York proposes itself as an autonomous space for which to independently explore. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a huge and grand staircase up to its entrance, and once inside specific routes are implicitly mapped out for the visitor to receive a linear exhibition of artefacts. The MoMA on the other hand has only a pane of glass between the gallery and the street. I also found the museum itself, quite difficult to find, as it does not hold the same sort of monumental or ceremonial presence as such places as the Metropolitan Museum. Wallach and Duncan expose a fascinating curatorial tactic of placing Medusa-themed paintings at certain points of the museum, which subtly direct the viewer through the maze of the MoMA. They propose the garden as a refuge from both the frightening experience of the labyrinth and from materialist society.

‘the museum exalts precisely the mundane values and experiences it ostensibly rejects by elevating them to the universal and timeless realm of spirit.’ (p.56)

However, the time of writing must be taken into account here as there is now a café, restaurant and gift shop to be found. Perhaps these are secondary medusas.