By Elin Spring
How do you picture fairy tales? Perhaps you recall fantastical illustrations in Gulliver’s Travels, Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen? Or maybe something more recent, like the animated Disney version of Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”? Now you can return to a world of magical legends and folk tales in companion exhibits at the MFA, Boston: “Make Believe,” featuring five artists who employ photography to engage us in their imaginary worlds and “Kay Nielsen’s Enchanted Vision,” featuring exquisite drawings by the Danish theatrical set designer and illustrator. The interrelated exhibits will be on view through January 20th, 2020.
“They saw that the cottage was made of bread and cakes.” Illustration from Hansel and Gretel and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm (published 1925), 1924, Kay Nielsen. Transparent and opaque watercolor, pen and ink over graphite. Promised gift of Kendra and Allan Daniel, Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Contrary to the childlike whimsy implied by “fairy tales,” such stories are typically dark. From the ancient sultana Scheherazade, who invents enthralling stories in 1001 Nights to amuse her jealous, murderous husband and save her own life to our modern Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who triumphs over the wicked witch on her desperate mission to return to the safety and comfort of home, fairy tales are rife with terrorizing circumstances and titanic struggles. Historically, their popularity tends to spike during times of political or economic unrest, simultaneously feeding a desire to escape and to reclaim a moral compass in tales with a clear ethical code. “Make Believe” and “Enchanted Vision” can be interpreted on multiple levels.
Untitled (woman in window), from the series Miss Butterfly, 2011, Shadi Ghadirian (Iranian, born in 1974) Photograph, digital print. © Shadi Ghadirian, courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston. Collection of Azita Bina and Elmar W. Seibel. Reproduced with permission. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
“Make Believe” exhibit curator Karen Haas (Lane Senior Curator of Photographs) has created a spirited conversation between the drawings of Kay Nielsen (1886-1957) and the five contemporary photographers she selected for her exhibit. Two somber, mystical, and immersive black and white photographs by Shadi Ghadirian (Iranian, born 1974) are interpretations of the ancient Arabian tale of “Miss Butterfly.” Created during the threatening uprisings of the Arab Spring, Ghadirian pictures a modern-day Iranian woman wearing traditional hijab, spinning a delicate spider’s web across a window or door, inferring the contrasts of being both imprisoned and protected within the home. Ghadirian’s images are reminiscent not only of Kay Nielsen’s earliest drawings in black and white, but his intense fascination with “The Arabian Nights,” a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled during the Islamic Golden Age and translated from Arabic to English in 1704. Parallels are especially compelling in Ghadirian’s “Untitled (Woman in Window), 2011” and Nielsen’s illustration to “The Widow’s Son, 1914.”
“And this time she whisked off the wig; and there lay the lad, so lovely, and white and red, just as the Princess had seen him in the morning sun.” Illustration to “The Widow’s Son,” 1914, Kay Nielsen. Pen and brush and ink, transparent watercolor, metallic paint over graphite. Promised gift of Kendra and Allan Daniel, Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Installation view by Elin Spring.
Untitled (woman in cellar), from the series Miss Butterfly, 2011 Shadi Ghadirian (Iranian, born in 1974) Photograph, digital print. © Shadi Ghadirian, courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston. Collection of Azita Bina and Elmar W. Seibel. Reproduced with permission. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
“We’ll mount so high that they can’t catch us, and quite at the top there’s a hole that leads out into the wide world.” Illustration to “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, about 1917, Kay Nieslen. Pen and brush and ink, opaque watercolor and metallic paint over graphite. Promised gift of Kendra and Allan Daniel, Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Installation view by Elin Spring.
The Magician, from the series Short Stories, 2013 Paolo Ventura (Italian, born in 1968) Photographs, digital prints. © Paolo Ventura, courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York. Reproduced with permission. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Installation view by Elin Spring.
The charming theatrical sets built and photographed by Paolo Ventura (Italian, born 1968), depict “The Magician,” a multi-frame sequence from his series Short Stories. Ventura casts himself and his young son in an enchanted disappearing act that questions illusion and reality, while hinting at fears of loss. Ventura’s trickery with scale is also apparent in the adjacent miniature tableaux containing seventy-seven self-portraits that capture the paradoxical loneliness of crowds. Ventura’s affinity for creating stage sets recalls Kay Nielsen’s work as a theatrical set designer.
Looking Into the Darkness, 2017 Paolo Ventura (Italian, born in 1968). Photographs, seventy-seven trimmed and mounted digital prints. © Paolo Ventura, courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York. Reproduced with permission. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Installation view by Elin Spring.
Untitled #466, 2014 Hellen van Meene (Dutch, born in 1972). Photograph, chromogenic print. ©Hellen van Meene, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Installation view by Elin Spring.
The six environmental portraits by Hellen van Meene (Dutch, born 1972) focus on coming of age and possess the most literal and metaphorical depictions of celebrated fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty (feature image) and The Princess and the Pea (above). All feature adolescent girls, who are not only well-known for their struggles with emerging identities but also happen to populate most of our beloved fairy tales. Van Meene typically casts her subjects in white or red, traditional symbols of purity and peril, and contrasts their nubile youth with the authentic, sometimes even dilapidated, surroundings of a stark world. While making extensive use of symbolism, both van Meene and Nielsen display remarkably individual styles.
Illustration from Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen (published 1924) Kay Nielsen. Transparent watercolor over graphite. Promised gift of Kendra and Allan Daniel. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Top to bottom: Currency Birds, 2006-2009 (hanging from ceiling), Multimedia installation, archival pigment prints; Currency Balloon, 2008, Photograph, archival pigment print; Currency Birds, 2008, Photograph, archival pigment print. Nicholas Kahn (American, born in 1964), Richard Selesnick (British, born in 1964). ©Kahn and Selesnick, courtesy of the artists, Carroll and Sons, Boston, Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York. Installation view by Elin Spring.
The photographic team of Nicholas Kahn (American, born in 1964) and Richard Selesnick (British, born in 1964) create an elaborate, fantastical myth invoking renegade icebergs and fake currency in their section of the exhibit. With an astounding level of both photographic and handcrafted detail – including origami birds aloft and fake pictures printed on real photo postcards in a glass case – the story they weave is a chillingly cautionary tale about greed and the environment. In addition to sharing the icy Nordic feel of Nielsen’s work, Kahn and Selesnick stir the same sense of foreboding that Nielsen so keenly captures in his illustrations.
Iceyachts, 2009 Photograph, archival pigment print. Nicholas Kahn (American, born in 1964), Richard Selesnick (British, born in 1964). ©Kahn and Selesnick, courtesy of the artists, Carroll and Sons, Boston, Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York. Installation view by Elin Spring.
Kay Nielsen illustrated folk tales containing bizarre, shape-shifting characters in his elaborate and fantastical drawings. Even today, children’s fairy tales are populated with imaginative drawings. Why then would contemporary artists turn to photography – known for its capabilities in realism – to express such fantasies? All of the photographers in “Make Believe” have staged their stories with deliberation, costuming subjects in a stylized, familiar, and timeless manner. Like Nielsen, they are expressing their own brand of creativity, but beyond that, it may be that photographing an actual human form allows us to relate more deeply to their pictures. We become part of the story.
The Magician, from the series Short Stories, 2013 Paolo Ventura (Italian, born in 1968) Photograph, digital print © Paolo Ventura, courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York. Reproduced with permission. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
“Kay Nielsen’s Enchanted Vision” was beautifully curated by Meghan Melvin, Sharf Curator for Design. For more information about both “Make Believe” and “Kay Nielsen’s Enchanted Vision,” go to: https://www.mfa.org/exhibitions
Feature Image: Untitled #465, 2014 Hellen van Meene (Dutch, born in 1972) Photograph, chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson. © Hellen van Meene. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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