photo above: Emiliano Vittoriosi, unsplash

Art as Provocation

Interpretive Commentary 

Cover-Up (2021) is one episodic piece, or frame, within a broader and continuing expressionist undertaking by Alex Smith (aka Albert Myth), called Fortifications, which utilizes the modalities of paint and collage to straddle narrative and sensorial territories of recollection, reconstruction and reinterpretation. The piece acknowledges and uses a shifting maze of miniaturized viewpoints through which our personal histories manifest, evolve and endure. Focal points are turned into aspirational springboards. Data into armour. Past into future. The vagaries of distant tracings share equal footing with the trials of assemblage and the conjecture of active viewing. We are readily drawn into the artist’s curatorial democratization of objects and fragments, at once peculiar and reasonable.

– Ruth Grossman

BA (Hons), AOCA, MISt (Hons)

Provocations

We hope that you and you and your students might take the time to view, interpret, and discuss this art piece using the Creative and Critical Analysis processes. Here are some possible ways to begin an exploration of Cover-Up:

Provocation 1: Connect 

Dear Viewer,

Alex Smith’s piece “Cover Up” challenges the idea of what is meant to be seen and what is emergent through the collection of objects in its frame. For example, I am intrigued with the grecian urns in the piece. The more I explore the more urns I find and this provokes a recollection of the famous lines of the poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn“ by Keats:

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Smith’s cellophane film border captures beauty, and your interpretation becomes its truth. So Viewer, what do you see in the cellophane border of the image?

What is being covered up? 

What is being revealed? History, lessons, humanity itself? 

What does the artists creative lens capture in this frame? 

What will be your lens? A canvas, a poem, a dance, or maybe a tableau of this tableau? 

Only truth will tell.

• an offering from Anastasia 

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Provocation 2: Embody 

In triads: 

List 5 words that come to mind when you study this art image. Create a tableau for each word, and find a way to connect them seamlessly. Try it with narration of your words and without. Which is most effective?  Why?

• an offering from Matthew Sheahan

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Provocation 3: Interpret and Represent

How does the title, Cover Up, impact your interpretation and understanding of the piece?

What does the piece make you think of? What does it remind you of? 

What is the text?– clear and present messaging of the piece

What is the subtext? – beneath the text- inklings, feelings, possible meanings

Imagine this was the title and the poster image for a play. What might this play be about? 

In what ways is a collage like devised theatre? 

How might we use collage/assemblage to represent the key themes and ideas of our play?

• an offering from Christine Jackson