Having just been to Madrid, and the Prado, for the first time, this is particularly interesting.
Postmodern Velázquez, New York Times, Dec 11 2014
In Michel Foucault’s essay on Velázquez’s baroque masterpiece “Las Meninas,” he comments on Velázquez’s decision to insert his self-portrait into the painting’s narrative, planting a seed that would bloom into postmodernism.
That blossom continues to flower. “Las Meninas Renacen de Noche (Las Meninas Reborn in the Night),” a new exhibition of photographs by Yasumasa Morimura at the Luhring Augustine Gallery, sees the artist restaging, even remixing, Velázquez’s picture, using the actual canvas, as it hangs in the Prado in Madrid, as the focal point for a series of self-portraits in which Mr. Morimura inhabits different characters from the painting. Foucault clearly didn’t know the half of it.
You can get a first glimpse by attending the opening reception Friday night [19 Dec 2014] from 6 to 8; the show runs from Saturday through Jan. 24.
(Gallery hours:…
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Have you seen Picasso’s many canvasses on this painting.They are in his museum in Barcelona.I don’t know if Leo Steinberg wrote on it,but I attended his 3 hour seminar on Valazquez but sorry to say I don not remember those details.I was more interested in Steinberg’s emphasis on the fact that Velazquez was nursed at his mother’s breast rather than went out to a wet nurse, something very unusual for his time. He tied that in with the lovely line and sensuousness of his brush work/play.
No, I’ve never actually been to Barcelona. On the list of places I’d like to visit… Thanks for the comment.