Voice of Desire

An appropriate start to this blog of my work. This is Voice of Desire, a play on my favourite painting, Barnett Newman's Voice of Fire (fig. 1). Recognize the iconic Gucci stripe, so copied, so coveted. For those of you who aren't familiar with Voice of Fire, it's an 18' high colour field painting in the National Gallery of Canada. It was purchased for 1.8M, 1989, which was most of the gallery's purchasing budget. All sorts of controversy arose: the classic "my kid could do that," "why are we buying American art," etc. I'm glad that it stayed.

fig. 1. Voice of Desire (not my picture)

I first got the idea for this piece a year and a bit ago. It just popped into my head as a play on words — something that fascinates me. Then I realized there was more to it. Newman's painting is gigantic, bold, and incredibly elitist. When I think of Gucci, I don't think of my loafers, or of a classic Italian design house. What I think of is wannabe gangstas pointing to there monogramed shoes, or striped belts. I love rap, just to be clear, but I find it funny how important branding is to its characters. So, when I think of Gucci, I think of something bold (borderline ridiculous) and elitist, but also of a luxury that has been cheapened by the tastelessness of its execution.

A canvas Gucci belt, for example, with the iconic stripes, will set you back around three hundred dollars. It is going to have the highest quality craftsmanship, but it is also so easy to be tacky. I'm not saying that Newman's work is tacky, just the opposite. I am saying that taste cannot be bought, and the same kind of people who aren't going to understand Voice of Fire, aren't going to understand the value of a label. They will be fooled by the label, into thinking that it is the label that gives class. Ultimately, I am playing on the preconceived auras around the high and low arts. 

This is a currently just a digital rendering, in the smaller scale of 21.3"x9.4", but I am marketing it as a painting. Ideally, I would like to go no smaller that 6' high. It was created January 16, 2013.

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