Until 26 Aug 13
This man is Morton Bartlett.
He was a private man, that is, he was a man with a private life, more than or equally intense as the rest of us. His private life now hangs in exhibitions worldwide.
According to all clues, Morton never hurt a fly. He would only, quietly, return from his daily routine to his apartment, to build an array of dolls of almost life size children, complete with hair, eyelashes, sexual parts and all. Painstakingly working for one year on each. Then he would make them clothes and backgrounds and whole worlds. Then he would photograph them, in moments of the everyday or in sexually suggestive poses. Crying or punished or in random situations. The dolls were only the vehicle, the photos were the end purpose. Talismans. or better, fetishes.
They have apparently been the inspiration for the Chapman Brothers.
But why are they here?
Morton kept his bizarre surrogate family a secret from the world. Allegedly, he used to carry some of the photos with him, and showed a few but that was all. Then art dealers, after his death, parade them all over and I suspect, though I hope I am wrong, making money on the way.
Morton was an orphan. He eventually did well for himself, had a stable foster home, business, apartment. He instructed in his will that all his estate goes to a Home. But since there was no special clause on his dolls and photos, those were considered exempt and the art dealers came into the picture. So, this is how this man’s private world is now viewable around the world.
All three times I saw the photos or the dolls exhibited I couldn’t resist feeling a sense of the absurd that they were there, thinking of how many people that are even suspected of fancying kids are witch hunted all over the world. Yet he is a curiosity, fancifully accepted during private views.
But mostly, I felt a sense of the unfair. Not fuelled by the fact that yes, maybe this is the last of the taboos. My concerns lie in the fact that while he was alive and there was a short lived exposure of his work, he withdrew this exposure. Maybe his doll-children, his doll-lovers, his doll-family were never to be exposed to the filth of the world. What right then does anyone have to bring them back out, to get infected? To expose them? To make us see this man that was hard working, hurt, with a shitty childhood reduced to this sick genius, half man half monster, but perfect over champagne talk? Who can give a blank permit like this in the name of (outsider) art?
Then should no outside artist be exposed if not explicitly consenting? No, not even for a second would I ever think that, Dagger’s children drawings should remain in obscurity. But their function seemed to be one of storytelling and delusion. In the end, Dagger might had accepted his world to be made public was he ever asked or revealed. And ‘outsider’ art is to me the most honest and fascinating art currently.
But Morton Bartlett, the scared internal child or the scary sick man or just the man absorbed by his fantasies or all the above, had a choice; and he said no. The filthy hands of the world started invading his perfectly fabricated memories and like any loving brother or lover he protected them.
I had these thoughts pounding in my mind since I first saw many of these photos in the Horse Hospital exhibition in March. I was intrigued, confused, unsettled and mildly obsessed with the whole affair and I was so happy as it is not often that an exhibition offers you this and for this I was very pleased with the curators.
This is why I was surprised with the Hayward Gallery’s view on Morton Bartlett. A room is dedicated to him as part of the otherwise fantastic ‘Alternative Guide to the Universe’ exhibition. I was surprised to feel that there was a definite censorship of Morton’s controversial side. Where were the naked, suggestive children? I think there was one photo and that was only nude, not suggestive. Is this positive censorship?
Morton Bartlett is, and has to be, all of his photos. Fabricating a different Morton Bartlett is sad and unacceptable. Creating him in our own image. Where Morton Bartlett is safe, he is no more the foundling, the abortion, the shame, the rejected, the one that found solace in his horrifying dolls. Where he is just the charming recluse that our philanthropy and intellectualism can care for. Worse sin than his inner world being paraded in full, despite his will, is his world being paraded selectively. Because when all his sides are exposed, whether we agree or not with the exposure, an unnerving thought process begins, and that is what life is all about.
But exhibiting him partially is exhibiting him clothed. Safe. A shame hidden like we do in life. ‘The inspiration for the Chapman Brothers’, that is all Morton is good for. We castrate him again, abandon him again and there aborted, he fits best.
Morton Bartlett, I think you creep me out. You were probably troubled and abysmally alone. Yet, you were Adam. You are pure. And that is why instead of propagating your obscurity I write this. Because it saddens me to think you are maybe slowly being moulded into
our own doll, the way you moulded yours.
Designed, built and dressed to only fulfill our self-gratification.
more info:
http://www.thehorsehospital.com/now/morton-bartlett/
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/alternative-guide-to-the-universe-exhibition-73950
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/guys_and_dolls/
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment