Last month’s adventure was a trip to Arles and Nîmes. I found out about an exhibit I wanted to see at the VanGogh Museum in Arles, and it was going to close within a week, so I immediately made plans, bought my train ticket there, and booked my accommodations.
“Suspects: VanGogh, Tricksters & Co”
The exhibition’s premise was inspired by things Vincent van Gogh wrote in letters to his younger brother, Theo, where he expressed his desire to break with convention, paint like a ruffian, and that he deeply despised the existing rules of conventional artwork and institutions.
The curators used those sentiments to connect Van Gogh with the figure of the “trickster”, as the rule-breaker, or provocateur, or outsider who disrupts the established order and challenges what society considers normal or acceptable, and linked him with other artists who pursued work on the fringes of society, and compiled their work in this exhibit of challenging artistic expression including paintings, photography, sculpture, video, and mixed media. Although much of the exhibition was definitely unconventional, I personally found some of the video alarming, and one item of interest particularly grotesque was a display of bottles of urine set up like a stained glass window.
The exhibit was definitely fascinating and I’m happy I got to see it and was a perfect excuse to visit Arles.
