CRITICAL REFLECTION
the Goldfinch variations 1011 Paseo
de
Peters ProJects Peralta, santa fe
I WA S H E A D I N G O U T T O TA K E I N T H E G O L D F I N C H V A R I AT I O N S , at age thirty-two.
I said, replying to a friend’s inquiry. She paused, then asked
museum’s costume collection and the Bata Shoe Museum,
me to hum the first few bars. I whistled an adenoidal opening
also featured contemporary heels from a covey of high-end
No artist in the Peters Projects show attempted to equal
to James Cohn’s Goldfinch Variations for wind trio, Op. 61, and
designers and design houses and was sponsored by upscale
the trompe l’oeil clarity and simplicity of the original’s subject
then informed her that I actually meant the group show at
fashion retailer Nordstrom and by trendy W magazine. But
and rich handling. But many sought inventive ways to ply the
Peters Projects curated by painter Patrick McFarlin. McFarlin
happily, with Killer Heels the Brooklyn Museum has made
offshoots of the theme. Several played with the painting’s
was inspired by the seventeenth-century painting entitled
a solid case for art and material culture. And so, in its own,
composition or its components (finch, feedbox, chain, wall)
The Goldfinch, by Carel Fabritius, and by the Dutch painting’s
playful way, does The Goldfinch Variations at Peters Projects.
from straightforward renditions like Priscilla Hoback’s Yellow
role in the eponymous novel by Donna Tartt—“painting as
If painting had a state bird it would be the finch, or
Bird Take Two to John Holmen’s Morning Coffee with Finches.
protagonist” as he put it. Anchored
Some artists stylized their rendition
by McFarlin’s own engaging visual
after an art movement, e.g., John
“essays” on de distelvink (thistle
Tinker’s droll Goldfinch Moderne, a
finch), the exhibition comprises some
spot-on homage to both bird and
seventy small panels in diverse media
Brancusi; the trompe l’oeil look of
and styles by over fifty artists invited
Ruth Tatter’s Unfolding Story, and
to submit pieces expressing their
Roger Williams’s realist What are you
personal ruminations (“variations”)
looking at, dude?; surrealist devices
on the Delft painter’s masterpiece.
in David Kimball Anderson’s Moon,
The only condition involved their use
Jupiter, John Massee’s Verdad, James
of panels supplied in the same size (13
Holmes’s Goldfinch Birdhouse, Colette
¼” x 9”) as the original work. Beyond
Hosmer’s Snake with Goldfinch, and
that, as McFarlin wrote in his original
the Max-Ernst-meets-Magritte motif
artist invitation, “In terms of imagery,
of Patrick Kikut’s Las Vegas Blues With
anything goes. Does not have to be
Full Moon; Tom Applequist’s gestural
an interpretation of The Goldfinch or
Action Painting, Karen Bondarchuk’s
have a bird in it, etc. Or be narrative
à la Rauschenberg BOOM!; Neo-
in any way. Could be a nude goldfinch,
expressionist nods in Steve Davis’s
a gold leaf panel, a bird’s-eye view, a
Goldfinch I, a bit of Baselitz in Eugene
cuckoo-clock sculpture, anything.”
Newmann’s A Bird in Hand, and Carl
Save for the nude goldfinch, which no
Johansen’s cheeky The Perfidious Finch;
one attempted (à la Manet’s Olympia?),
where the Beuys is: Michael Motley’s
the sky was the limit (sorry).
Variant. are
There is a sense of poignancy
problematic. By setting a topic in
in some works that may or may
advance, one that each participating
not reflect a touching conceit in the
artist must address, a show risks
original, revolutionary panel by this
ending up with work that is less
sensitive, ahead-of-his-time student
authentic, resembling an ad campaign
of Rembrandt. Finches are famously
where any originality is not matched
tractable, yet highly restive in a cage.
by the same level of authenticity—
Fabritius’s goldfinch chained to its
and integrity, at times—given the
feedbox conveys anything but the
symbiosis of art world and art market.
liberated flight of, say, composer
Yet theme-driven projects can also
Vaughan
be enormously creative—in one
Ascending. In a semiotic sense, the
famous instance, the competition for
most poignant element of his image
the artist commission to figurate the
of the captive finch is precisely what
east (now the north) bronze doors
he left out: the birdcage.
Themed
group
shows
Williams’s
The
Lark
of Florence’s Baptistery jump-started
Whatever the intent of the
the Italian Renaissance. But in these
seventeenth-century original in The
times we have to contend with factors like the pervasive
linnet, so named in English for the bird’s fondness for the
Hague’s Mauritshuis, in the variations on display at Peters
complicity of the art world with the fashion scene. There was
seeds of flax (linum in Latin), from which linen canvas is
Projects (through June 7), the light touch and playful tack
the recent exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum entitled Killer
made—hence le chardonneret or “thistle finch” in French
of the panels provide a visual treat for the eyes, a quirky
Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe, which, according to
and, less melodiously, de distelfink in Dutch. Perhaps Fabritius
kleine Nachtmusik for the mind.
its publicity, “looks at the high-heeled shoe’s rich and varied
intended his curious oil-on-panel Goldfinch of 1654 (also
—riCharD ToBin
history and its enduring place in our popular imagination.”
known as The Linnet)—as a study for a final version on linen
The one hundred sixty shoes, including pairs on loan from the
canvas, a plan cut short by his tragic death in the same year,
June
2015
John Tinker, Goldfinch Moderne, mixed media, 13¼” x 9” x 43/ 8 ”, 2015
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