International Art (2013)
25 PAINTED SCULPTURES
International Art presents the museum visitor with an even less attractive picture of the art world. Maieu depicts this museum room as an institution for the mentally ill. In the back, Sigmund Freud is just coming out the door to unleash his psychoanalytic method on this mess and ascertain the mental health of his patients. All the figures relate to the crucified man at the center of the composition: Vincent van Gogh - with his ear cut off - is thus revered as the father of modern art. He must tolerate only Picasso and Dali around him. After emptying an excessive amount of liquor, Jackson Pollock vomits color on a wall in the front right. Maieu also questions the status of conceptual art. Marcel Duchamp - descending the stairs naked - had already elevated a urinal to art in 1917. In 1961, Italian Zero artist Piero Manzoni - just closing the toilet door behind him - added to that by elevating his Merda d'Artista to art. Is Maieu radically criticizing the derailment of modern art or does his room count as the ultimate ode to being an artist? From left to right on stairs and upper floor: Marcel Duchamp, Kazimir Malevich, Piero Manzoni, Man Ray, Piet Mondrian (who was a good dancer and titled his last work Victory Boogie Woogie ), Christo, Frida Kahlo on the lap of Diego Rivera and Francis Bacon. From left to right ground floor: Hugo Ball, Pablo Picasso, Egon Schiele, James Ensor, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, Salvador Dali, Alberto Giacometti, the trio of Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky and Asger Jorn with cobra, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edvard Munch, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock.