The Importance of Tapestries

by ruth barker, 29 Mar 2009

Hello,

I learnt this week that the tapestry copy of Picasso’s Guernica, which has hung outside the security council room at the United Nations in New York since 1985, has been temporarily removed for exhibition in the newly regenerated Whitechapel, London.

Somehow, the existence of this significantly located tapestry had previously passed me by. I did an image search to try and get a look at it in situ, and sure enough I found this picture from the Washington Times. Here the tapestry itself is fore-grounded by a figure who is, no doubt, at that very moment discussing the rise and fall of nations, or something of that ilk.

I was surprised at the colour change you can see in the photograph, with Picasso’s original stark greyscale here warmed by the tapestry’s sepia tones. The work is certainly no less strident for that however, and I was reminded just how stark an image of warfare Guernica is, with its brutal fragmentation pressed cheek-by-jowl against that unapologetically visceral image-making.

With that in mind it is surely a brave choice to hang outside the room in which the men in suits (and it is still mostly men I’m afraid with, a few notable exceptions) make such decisions about the inception and resolution of conflicts the world over. What does it mean that the shadow of Guernica hangs over them? Have the denizens of the UN become inured to Picasso’s severed equine nightmare, or does it sit above them like a tan memento mori, chastening their thoughts and inclinations? We may never know, unless worldwide disputes increase during the work’s temporary absence.

Musing on this last question reminds me that the last time that the tapestry was in the news was in 2003, during the build up to the war in Iraq, when Guernica was veiled during a press conference. If the blue curtain had not been tactfully raised to cover the work, John Negroponte and Colin Powell would have had to answer questions on Weapons of Mass Destruction with one of the most iconic anti-war images of the 20th Century as their backdrop. Of course the drapery was noticed, commented upon, and its significance endlessly discussed by commentators of every creed. Various explanations were suggested, ranging from the squeamishness of the Bush administration to have their comments framed by the legendary image of the Spanish Civil War; to sensitivity on the part of camera-operators, who realised that without speedy visual intervention, TV audiences would see Negroponte and Powell’s stern visages bordered by a striking depiction of a horse’s buttocks.

Naturally, the favoured interpretation depended largely on the political allegiances of the interpreter. However, the sincerity with which the act was discussed points in either case to the power that the gesture of concealing this image, still has. Guernica still presents us with a powerful image of horror, dissolution, and atrocity, which it is hard to ignore. It is challenging, difficult, and in many ways obtuse. No narrative history painting this, with easy friend or foe. The passage of the eye is offered no ease and no respite from the jarring, broken plane. And yet, difficult as it is, Guernica (and even its representation) still seems to impact very directly on a public imagination. People, I believe, feel the integrity of the work and are affected by it. In a very real way, the work represents something significant that people respond to – a something that transcends any traditional fine art commentary and enters a language at once more accessible, more public, and infinitely more difficult to describe.

There is no doubt that the tapestry’s continued presence in this politically significant location has become meaningful to a great many – both to those who see the work themselves, and to those who merely bare in mind its presence when they imagine this place that has seen the making of such momentous and difficult decisions. Public in this a complicated sense, we can see why the temporary veiling of this charged and prominent work attracted comment, outcry, justification, and empathy. Context is still important, after all.

More later,
R