(pizzicato strings playing)
Hi.
I'm Tom Campbell, director
of the Metropolitan Museum,
and I'm in our galleries
of drawings and prints,
where we've just opened
an exhibition,
"Infinite Jest: Caricature and
Satire from Leonardo to Levine,"
which is on until March in 2012.
I'm with the curators
of the exhibition,
Nadine Orenstein
and Constance McPhee.
Looking around, I see
you've divided the show
into different themes.
Could you tell me
a little bit about...
MCPHEE: Yes, well, we start out
by establishing really
the language of humor,
how artists conveyed humorous
ideas in different ways--
through exaggerating bodies,
gathering faces,
and showing profiles,
comparing people
to animals or objects.
We then have a section that
has to do with social satire,
where we see human weakness
on display--
people eating too much,
people gambling,
extreme fashion.
CAMPBELL: I'm amazed,
for example,
looking at some
of the caricatures of fashion.
I mean, we look at contemporary
fashion and the extreme shapes.
You know, we've just had
our McQueen exhibition
with some very
exaggerated costumes.
But looking at some of these
with the padding or the bustles,
it makes you realize
there is a long antecedence
to the kind of exaggeration
of McQueen costumes.
ORENSTEIN: I should say that
a lot of these caricatures
were sold in shops, print shops.
People would stand
outside the shops,
these caricatures would be
lined up in the windows,
and people from
all different classes
would stand out there
talking about them,
and it really was
a common point of discussion
about political subjects,
I mean, much the way...
CAMPBELL: I mean, some of them
are vicious.
ORENSTEIN: Yes, and it's much
the way "The Daily Show"
or "Saturday Night Live"
works today.
It's a common experience
that everybody
would be talking about.
CAMPBELL: And then you go
through to political satire.
MCPHEE: Very few people come off
as perfectly pure and wonderful.
(laugh)
We have a little section
that focuses on Napoleon,
because he is so well-known.
And in fact, caricaturists
and satirists like Gillray
helped to establish our
contemporary view of Napoleon.
ORENSTEIN: So there's
that wonderful print
of Napoleon and George III,
and George III's sort of
looking at him
as this tiny little figure.
I mean, that really
sets in our mind this image
of this tiny general.
MCPHEE: Whereas actually,
he was of average height.
But today, most people
would think of him as short.
CAMPBELL: Yes.
(laugh)
The show comes all the way
through to the modern day.
MCPHEE: Yes.
CAMPBELL: Do you see
commonalities, common threads
that run all the way
through here?
ORENSTEIN: Yeah, well,
people like David Levine
really come out of the tradition
of 19th-century
caricature artists
who made these images
of well-known celebrities
with big heads
and very small bodies.
We have, you know, a caricature
of Delacroix
or a caricature of Victor Hugo
by Daumier
that's very much the tradition
that David Levine was following.
So you really see
the continuity of approaches
over time,
but each one building
on what came before it.
CAMPBELL: I love the Levine
of Claes Oldenburg
as one of,
as one of his own works of art.
MCPHEE: Yes.
Shown as the soft toilet.
And if you look at him
closely,
you think he's
simply wearing a cap,
but then you realize
that's the toilet lid.
CAMPBELL: I see museums
come in
for quite a good ribbing,
as well.
MCPHEE: Yes, they do.
Crowds at exhibitions
are nothing new.
There are many prints,
especially
from the 19th century,
when public exhibitions
really were established
as something people
enjoyed going to
for entertainment,
and from the very beginning,
they were crowded and popular.
And some of our funniest prints
show people trying
to get up to the top floor
of the Royal Academy Exhibition
in London,
tumbling down the stairs,
people...
CAMPBELL: Oh, that would never
happen today,
with modern
health and safety regulations.
MCPHEE: Absolutely not.
(laughing)
CAMPBELL: Now, we tend to think
of museums
as being serious places.
How do you feel a show
like this
fits into the Metropolitan
Museum?
MCPHEE: There's a lot
of serious things going on.
Humor is a very important way
of dealing
with some of those things,
not only to give you
immediate pleasure,
but also to help you
consider them.
And sometimes it's a way
of getting past being too
serious and too analytical
and actually get
to the heart of the matter
without even realizing it.
CAMPBELL: Well, congratulations
to you both.
It's a wonderful exhibition.
It's on exhibition
at the Metropolitan
until March 2012.
I strongly advise you to visit.
It's a cornucopia of humor,
satire,
and there's a beautiful book
that accompanies the exhibition.
So come and see it-- thank you.
(music resumes)
(music ends)
