Meta-Art and Architecture | Ronald B. Richardson

Repainting the Tenderloin: Mona Caron’s Meta-Mural “Windows into the Tenderloin”

Where did the name “The Tenderloin,” come from? Stories abound, but the one I first heard was that the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco was so full of homeless people, drug addicts and prostitutes that the police get “hazard pay” to work there, which makes it possible for them to afford the better cuts of meat. Another story is that the police can afford fancier meat because they accept bribes from the entrepreneurs in the hood. Perhaps the name is a reference to the soft, vicious underbelly of San Francisco. Or to the tender loins of the prostitutes who work there. Or did we borrow the name from New York City’s Tenderloin, which has a similar reputation? Whatever the origin, the Tenderloin is not considered the choicest cut of San Francisco’s neighborhoods.

(Photo from Mona Caron’s website.)

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The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City: Diego Rivera’s Meta-Mural

In 1931, Diego Rivera (actually Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez — whew, what a name!) painted The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City at the San Francisco Art Institute. The mural is a meta-mural because it is a mural about murals and because it represents its creators in the act of creating the fresco itself.

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A Meta-Mural on Clarion Alley: Lo Llevas por Dentro by Jet Martinez

Clarion Alley in the Mission District of San Francisco used to be a shady street where junkies would shoot up. In October 1992, a volunteer collective of residents organized the Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) to bring art and color to the alley. The murals of Balmy Alley, which are focused on Central American struggle, inspired the project, but the murals of Clarion Alley are generally more playful and cartoon-like, although they deal with serious social issues as well (“What I Know is What I Owe,” said one mural and another challenged the “Demonocracy” of the United States–both of these are now painted over). Many murals explore the rich culture of the Mission, especially, of course, the predominate Latino culture.

(Photo from Clarion Alley Mural Project)

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Halfway: A Meta-Painting by Tofu St. John

Halfway by Tofu St. John is a meta-painting because it is a painting about painting. The picture is a self-portrait of the painter doing what a painter does. However, the figure is not holding an artist’s brush, as you might expect, but a decorator’s roller. Painting a wall with a solid color — in this case sky blue — is not usually considered artistic, so this piece creates a tension between painting as art and painting as decoration.

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Abstract Paintings are Metapaintings

Abstract paintings are metapaintings. A metapainting is a painting about painting. A metapainting may represent itself, the process of its creation, its materiality, the conventions of art, the gallery where it is hung, the artwork around it, and the place of art and artist in society. Diego Velasquez’s Las Meninas does all these things and more, but Velasquez’s painting is a metapainting because of its subject matter, rather than its form or style. Most other paintings by Velasquez are not meta, but are naturalistic representations. Abstract paintings, in contrast, are inherently meta. (You can see Velasquez’s painting below.)

Abstract paintings are meta because they are about themselves. The titles of many abstract paintings show that they are their own subject matter, for example Constructivist Painting No. 8 by Joaquin Torres-Garcia from 1938. The metapainting also emphasizes the process of its creation, namely its construction in the word “Constructivist.” Similarly, Jackson Pollock’s Square Painting refers to paint being poured into a square (the process being what matters most for Pollock). All abstract paintings are metapaintings.

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The Danger of Meta: Centre George Pompidou and David Foster Wallace’s “Octet”

Centre Georges Pompidou demonstrates the danger of meta:

(Image from fun-en-bulle-castbd.blogspot.com)

The Parisian art museum built in 1977 is meta-architecture because it exposes elements of a building that are usually hidden, placing them on the exterior. It teaches us to see a building as a material object made up of structure, support, pipes, wires. In the picture below some pipes are painted different colors, suggesting different systems, thus “exposing the device,” showing us how the building works. Very interesting, no doubt. So what’s the problem?
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The Lack of Blank Spaces: Cage’s 4’33” and Rauschenberg’s “White Paintings”

Well, that didn’t work. I intended to leave this post blank — thirty empty lines followed by the “more” function (“Read the rest of the entry”), then two hundred and sixty three blank lines, another “more,” and one hundred sixty lines, each line representing a second of silence in John Cage’s famous song “4’33,” three movements of no music totaling four minutes and thirty three seconds, composed for any instrument or combination of instruments. However, WordPress will not allow any blank lines. Although cyberspace is relatively cheap and there is an apparently limitless supply of it, the program edits out the empty spaces. On WordPress, I can write anything I want, except nothing. So, I will have to break the silence Cage created.

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David Hockney’s Metaphotocollage

The metaphotocollage (how about that word!) by David Hockney, “Luncheon at British Embassy, Tokyo, Feb. 16, 1983,” is meta because it upsets several assumptions about photographs, refers to the photographer, and captures the act of taking photographs.

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If Not a Pipe, Then What?: Magritte’s Meta-Painting The Treachery of Images

When first I came across René Magritte’s famous painting La trahison des images (The Treachery of Images), which says underneath a pipe in French “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”: “This is not a pipe,” I was quite confused. Of course it is a pipe. Just look at the painting!

I propose a simple test to check whether or not it actually is a pipe: put something in the pipe and smoke it. You can’t? Why not? If not a pipe, then what is it?

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Las Meninas: A Metapainting

Las Meninas is a truly great metapainting, a painting about paintings. A meta–painting is a painting about paintings, a painting about painters, a painting about the process of painting, a painting that reminds viewers that they are looking at a painting rather than real objects, a painting that breaks the conventions of painting, a painting that obscures its borders or plays with levels of reality. Las Meninas does all these things.

At this point I count at least 23 meta aspects. Take a look at the painting yourself and see how many you can identify:

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