Nanette from Hannah Gadsby
This week I wanted to devote the entire newsletter to Hannah Gadsby's take on art history, which first became famous through Nanette, her Netflix special released in 2018. I highly recommend you watch Nanette for both her frankness on identity and trauma in comedy but also for the art historical references. Never thought I'd put the two together but there you have it. Watch it if you haven't already and read on for a deep dive on art history in Nanette for this week's newsletter.
Hannah begins:
"I think it’s a shame that art history is such an elitist sport. It taught me a lot, you know. Useless… as far as a money-earner’s concerned, but I learned a lot about the world because of art history. I understand this world very well."
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Can Art History Make Good Comedy?
Hannah Gadsby's Nanette rocked the comedy world for her blatant honesty over her own trauma and with the announcement of Douglas, her follow up coming May 26th, I recently rewatched Nanette and was reminded how much her perspective on art history resonates with the debate going on within the art industry today.
- She focused on Van Gogh and how much of the mythology around him, that artists must suffer to create, that he was ahead of his time, were absurd (He was "a Post-Impressionist painter, painting at the peak of Post-Impressionism" people!) and detrimental to truly understanding the artist. We know about his art today because his brother Theo was able to promote his work when Vincent could not.
- One of her main points on the Italian Renaissance Masters (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Rafael AKA THE TURTLES) was that they could network! An often understated part of how an artist becomes successful is that they are able to promote themselves and their work in order to gain patronage and gallery representation. As was reiterated with Van Gough's work, often artists that are best remembered through art history
- I don't even have the space to get into her thoughts on Picasso's misogyny though I think the most positive change in art creation today is that the idea that a "muse" is a woman without clothes on has lost a lot of traction. Inspiration comes from everywhere and artists working today reflect a much broader set of backgrounds and "muses."
- Hannah learned about the history of art and found that a person like her did not fit in. If art and by proxy art history is linked to power, then there is no place for a gay woman from Tasmania in that trajectory. The larger movement for inclusion by women artists and artists of color that is currently underway in museums and art history courses is for those overlooked to become a part of that narrative and ultimately art history. I would define art history as the images we leave behind for future generations as a representation of who we were, what we valued, cared about and believed in. If that isn't close to the definition of immortality then I don't know what is!
- One of her final lines sums up just WHAT ALL THE YELLING AND SCREAMING AND FUSS ABOUT REPRESENTATION BOILS DOWN TO: "What I would have done to have heard a story like mine. Not for blame. Not for reputation, not for money, not for power. But to feel less alone. To feel connected. I want my story… heard. Because, ironically, I believe Picasso was right. I believe we could paint a better world if we learned how to see it from all perspectives, as many perspectives as we possibly could. Because diversity is strength. Difference is a teacher."
- Where this all ultimately leads to is that if the gatekeepers to high culture do not get the message, then there will be no audience and with no audience, they will cease to be relevant. It is our collective job to demand more from them--so we can better learn from each other. I saw the Kara Walker retrospective at The Whitney in 2008 and my most distinct memory is that the only people of color there were the security guards--which was a case in point to how little we had progressed as a country in regards to racism. I went to the Kehinde Wiley show at the Brooklyn Museum in 2015 and recalled how the majority of the audience was black--if this simple comparison demonstrates anything, it is that progress is possible and if people see themselves represented in the art on the walls, then they will want to be a part of the experience of art.
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Recommended Reading
Rodrigo García's letter to his father, Gabriel García Marquez, wondering what his take on life in the age of the Coronavirus pandemic would be, with some Magical Realism thrown in for good measure.
The Economist has a brief history on how art and artists have responded throughout history to pandemics from Egon Schiele's portrait of Gustav Klimt as they were both dying of the ill-named Spanish Flu to how the Black Death led to the Renaissance, we have seen artists respond to their environment and certainly the COVID-19 pandemic will be no exception.
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Gadsby did a short-lived series I found on her youtube channel that if you want more of Hannah and more on art history, I highly advise you watch the 3 episodes she uploaded--although I so wish their were more. Not only is it hilarious, it is art historically accurate. So just like Drunk History, you will learn something and you will laugh. My favorite combination.
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