Yes, this has nothing to do with economics. It's just cool.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Anaphylaxis
My daughter Sally is at the Grand Central Academy of Art in New York. This is one of her still lives (yes, it's a painting). See if you can figure out what it means. Then click on the figure for an explanation. Don't miss "ceci n’est pas une molécule d’histamine."
Yes, this has nothing to do with economics. It's just cool.
Yes, this has nothing to do with economics. It's just cool.
17 comments:
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I think on a deep level this is a commentary on US monetary policy. Of course, the red cloak is the U.S. economy that's being choked. Gasping for air (aggregate demand) the economy is in dire straights. The center of the portrait is an instrument, dutifully measuring, showing that we are overly focused on tools/instruments like QE. Yet, the antidote to the attach is right beside us. What is it? She shows us, it's inside us, peanuts, of course, a common euphemism for money. Yet, the red color of the cloak begs us to think about the Chinese symbolism for peanuts, health and prosperity. Thus, she is a saying money is the key to U.S. health and prosperity, but it's not tools like QE, but forward guidance and level targeting, that's the antidote. What would it do? Open our airways, the antidote is just what some economists deride as "open mouth operations."
ReplyDeleteOff to the side, there is the histamine molecule, somewhat distracting us. Why is it there? This is an asthma attack--it distracts us... Just like, we shouldn't get distracted by inflationary fears. "Why are you talking about avoiding an allergy attack, when you are having an asthma attack?" the painting asks. Of course, the cost of faltering is perilous, we will fall and be permanently scarred by the nails. Thus, bad demand policy causes structural damage.
She must be quite the Woodford disciple. I am quite moved by this portrait.
Am I right? :-)
This analysis made my day! Thank you so much for the creativity and intelligent humor! As an avid Econ Talk podcast listener (and daughter of an economist), I've been trying to brainstorm how to incorporate economic principles into an artwork, and you've certainly provided me with some inspiration.
Delete-Sally
Haha, glad to hear it Sally! Great painting!
DeleteThat's rad!
ReplyDeleteNot really into this modern art stuff with all the symbolism. How about a nice painting of a landscape?
ReplyDeletei've no idea what it means...but it's easy to see she is very talented!!
ReplyDeleteFantastic. Given her representational art skills, her "Ceci n'est pas..." admonition is, unlike Magritte's, not ironic.
ReplyDeleteI agree: it is cool. At first I thought it was a photo of a collage of objects. The detail is amazing. I particularly like the way she did the slip of paper with the histamine molecule on it. That could have stood on its own as a separate painting. I also like the way she used the cloth to depict the GI tract. I don't know if she picked red for a medical reason but histamine does cause flushing of the skin, and red generally suggests inflammation. Red is also the color associated with emergencies. I don't recall ever using calipers to measure the size of hives, and certainly not the one in the painting, but one must make allowances for artistic expression.
ReplyDeleteWhy just the albuterol cannister and not the whole inhaler? It's more recognizable.
Is this done from a photograhp of the objects or from the still life directly?
ReplyDeleteI think I may like how each object is lovingly rendered than the story that they are working together to tell.
This is a welcome change of pace.Thanks so much to you and Sally for sharing this. The link connects not just to the meaning but to the method and evolution of this painting and in fact in detail to a whole semester in the life of a highly engaged and gifted student artist. What a treat!
ReplyDeleteTechnically it appears to be awesome but I think the painting is too busy and the symbolism is forced and artificial.
ReplyDeleteThe only artist I have talked to was Kiff Holland (who does wonderful still life and landscape painting in water color). He said that to be a commercially successful artist in Vancouver British Columbia he had to paint boating scenes because that is what everyone wanted on the walls of their offices. He did technically beautiful if somewhat generic boating scenes.
DeleteI thought still life was all about fruits, veggies, dead birds, and dead fish all lying in a basket. Sally's symbolic art shows not just amazing technique but also attempts to be meaningful, thus breaking the rules. That's great, but it might have been even better without the explanation. Mystery is good! (Any economist would tell you that, of course, as we specialize in incomprehensible mumbo jumbo.)
ReplyDeleteProfessor Cochrane:
ReplyDeleteYour daughter Sally has a wonderful mind and talent, capable of both creating patterns and metaphor and educating. He blog is great short lesson. And, she seems to have great control over the brush, making her capable of any effort she can conceptualize.
My hope for her is that she gains confidence (hands and feet cannot power great art), such that she can tackle Truth, which like Art is in the eye of the beholder. It would be very exciting to see what she would see, looking, for example, at a contemporary Chinese city, just as Gustave Caillebotte looked at Paris 140 years ago.
This painting is incredible! The fine attention to detail and realism is stunning. I love how the wood grain -- so detailed and so perfect -- is carried out throughout the entire painting, as if to say yes this is hard and painstaking work, therefore I'm going to do so much of it it fills the canvas. The knot in the wood is stunning, the old holes from thumb tacks are stunning, the tape holding the paper is stunning. I don't get how other commenters here can be saying anything other than it's hard to type with their jaws dropped and resting on their hands. Amazing work.
ReplyDeletenice. Art and economics are closely linked. Some people like neoclassical econ, which always reminds me of Bach and Stravinsky or serialism. Its clean, refreshing amd logical.
ReplyDeleteOthers like the Romantics like Wagner or Mahler and his econ alter ego Keynes - overly dramatic and loud and clashing and not constrained by rules.
Your kid did that? Super cool.
ReplyDelete