Primary work: The Stage
Also mentioned: Space Time
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Transcript
- Art/Official
I've got it — let's catalogue The Stage. It sits in that early figure-testing cluster from '93–'95, alongside Space Time and Corner — works where a solitary figure is worked out in direct relationship to architecture, before that became a throughline running all the way to the present. I don't have much on this specific piece beyond that placement — no session record for it yet. Correct me if that's off, otherwise let's start. Before we look at it together — is this a recent work, or something you've been sitting with for a while?
- Artist
This is an older work, one from the begining of the oil painting period
- Art/Official
Makes sense given the cluster it's sitting in. Is this part of something ongoing — connected to the other early figure works — or does it feel more like a standalone moment?
- Artist
Is a bit of a stand alone moment, this one does relate to 5ge space-time a bit in style
- Art/Official
Good to know — noted as a stylistic link to Space Time rather than a full continuation. Where were you when you made this one?
- Artist
Sf backyard
- Art/Official
San Francisco backyard — same territory as the early work generally, good. Before you upload — I'd like you to describe this work to me first, before either of us sees it. I'll ask you again later, once we've talked it through, and we'll look at both together at the end. There's no right way to do this — however it comes is exactly right.
- Artist
This painting shows two figure, with one standing over the other with a knife out the back ground has some red color coming from the top and a greenish background
- Art/Official
Got it — that's on record as your first impression, before we've either of us seen it again. Go ahead and upload the image whenever you're ready.
- Artist
[image uploaded: the-stage]
- Art/Official
That vortex sky is right there with Space Time — same hand-painted radiating bands, red bleeding into green. One thing your first description didn't mention: that gold halo-glow around the fallen figure's head. Everything else — the standing figure, the knife, the color logic — matches what you said. Small facts first: what year did you make this, and what are the medium and dimensions?
- Artist
That info should be in the link I gave tou
- Art/Official
[fetched existing record: 1994, oil on canvas, 61x61cm, BB-OGP-1994-009] Found it — already stubbed with the basics. Interesting — there's already a throughline on record linking Space Time and The Stage through flat color blocks representing 'space' balanced against a linear, grid-like structure representing 'time' — and a note that this was tested only in those two works, not carried forward. Also a bio entry placing this in the figure-testing cluster with Corner and the Self Portraits. That maps onto what you just told me about the Space Time connection being stylistic rather than a direct continuation. So — knife, standing figure, fallen figure with that gold glow. What's the relationship between these two figures?
- Artist
I'm not sure, I think it was an idea about something happening on the stage, somehow I remember reading Nietzsche's first book about the Apollo and dionious in art and was influenced by that a lot. At the time alot of people would call it the OJ painting as it was painted not long after that incident became big news
- Art/Official
That's rich material — Birth of Tragedy, the Apollonian/Dionysian split, arriving right around the same time as the title The Stage. And the 'OJ painting' nickname is its own piece of provenance — how the culture around you read the work versus what you intended. Did the Nietzsche influence come first and shape the image, or did you paint it and only recognize the Apollo/Dionysus thing afterward?
- Artist
I think it was part of it, I made a later painting called nietzsches dream later on
Expand full conversation
- Art/Official
Good — so there's a direct line forward to Nietzsche's Dream too, not just this one glancing reference. That's worth flagging as a confirmed influence thread across two works rather than a one-off. On the 'OJ painting' nickname — did that name bother you, amuse you, or did it feel like it missed the point of what you were actually after with the Apollo/Dionysus idea?
- Artist
I think it amused me, at the time I didn't think it was about that, but now it's an interesting backdrop and modern day relation to the nietzsche idea
- Art/Official
That's a good one — the Simpson case as an accidental contemporary echo of the Apollonian order/Dionysian violence split, recognized only in hindsight rather than intended at the time. Worth keeping distinct from the Nietzsche influence itself — one's an intentional reference, the other's a retroactive resonance you're naming now, in this session. Gold halo around the fallen figure — what is that doing for you? Is that figure a victim, a sacrifice, something else?
- Artist
Interesting, it been a little while since I read that book, what kind of relation is there to the OJ case. Also I think the halos were more a paint thing to make the figures stand out on the back ground and not with meaning
- Art/Official
The loose connection: Apollonian in Nietzsche is order, form, civilized restraint — the individual holding it together. Dionysian is the eruption underneath — primal, ecstatic, violent, dissolving that restraint. The OJ case had that shape culturally: a clean, public, orderly figure with a sudden, savage, personal violence underneath — playing out as spectacle, on a stage, in the media and the courtroom. That's the resonance people probably felt without naming it that precisely. It's a loose fit, not a direct correspondence — Nietzsche's talking about tragic drama and art, not criminal violence — but the order/chaos split is the same shape. Good catch on the halo — noted as formal, not symbolic: a device to separate the figure from the background rather than carrying meaning. That's an important correction to log, since it's easy to over-read a glow as sacred or victim-coded when it's really just compositional. Given that — does the title The Stage refer to the Apollo/Dionysus idea of art-as-stage, or something more literal, like a stage for the violence itself?