Art upside down

In the arts, it’s not unusual for artists to play with what’s up and what’s down. Ambigrams, for example, are words that can be read upside down. Another example is the drawings by Escher. But that can become quite confusing. Sometimes paintings happen to be hung upside down. Van Goghs, for example, are often tricky. Both in the National Art Gallery in London and in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, some of his works have been hung the other way around.

Sam Himmelfarb was faced with a dilemma when his painting ‘Mosaic’ received an award in 1957 during an exhibition by Chicago’s Art Institute. The image, a semi-abstract work that depicted people on stone stairs, was hanging on its side. “I even painted faces on the people’s heads,” the artist said, “but now it seems like they are falling from a rock.” He doubted whether to say something: “Then they might not like my painting as much anymore.”

The stories above are examples of real mistakes. A different case is this one. In 2017, Daan Donderwinkel saw a drawing by César Domela in the CODA Museum in Apeldoorn. It’s exactly the same as the one hanging in his grandfather’s house, except that it was upside down. How could he be so certain? Well, the one owned by his grandfather had a signature, and one might expect the artist to sign his work the correct way. The people at CODA took their copy out of its frame for a closer look, and guess what: Domela had put his name on the backside of their copy as well, in the direction according to the way they had hung it on the wall. Apparently, Domela didn’t have a fixed top or bottom in mind, or perhaps he changed his mind about the correct position at some point, which brings us back to our washboard.For more information and examples of this play on upside/down in the arts see: https://www.weirduniverse.net/gallery/of/art_hung_upside_down