Repetition is the sincerest form of flattery. In this art world, this is especially true. Because repetition is the sincerest form of flattery in the visual art world. Live any lover, in the throes of passion, the artist cries, "Do it, again! Do it again!" And so, the artist does. Again and again. The history of visual art is replete with obsessive examples. Monet had his mountain, Slab had his cheese danishes, Jacques Halbert had (and has) his cherries. But these pale in comparison with photographer James Mackay.
In the early 1970, Spam became Mackay's obsessive subject. (It is to this day, but we refer to his peak period.) The photographic artist-photographer captured more than 10,000 images of this now-iconic symbol of consumerism and processed pork shoulder meat.
None is more iconic than "A Study in Spam." (circa 1973). It is, to use a pedestrian term, a wonderful image. So wonderful, we can only wonder what we're wondering about. Let us do so now.
What do we see when we see what we see? A monochromatic image, a photograph created in a darkroom, no ones and zeroes involved. We have entered a world without color, a world defined in shades of grey. Within this world, a tin of SPAM rests on an indeterminate planar surface. Asphalt, perhaps? A badly-maintained badminton court? The tin itself is in harsh focus. Harshly lit from the side, casting a long linear shadow to the viewer's left. Behind it, we see the blurry images of palm trees, the lumpy suggestion of human dwellings, and a contrail in the sky. Or perhaps a darkroom mistake.
At first glance, the image is simple. At second glance, it remains simple. At third glance, not so much.
The figure-ground discordancy of this image creates a fugue state which leads the viewer to question the validity of their own perceptions. The biomorphic indeterminacy of the background creates a subliminal frisson of cognitive dissonance when juxtaposed with the foreground image — the seemingly benign, mechanical/inorganic mass-produced, consumer-oriented geometry of a tin of SPAM (emblazoned with its own lifeless "art" proclaiming the indeterminate "meat" within). Is there, in fact, a Caravaggesque sense of drama and lurking threat within this image? No, there is not. But the question was well worth asking.
I should be called to task if I neglect to mention the artist's use of chiaroscuro. He indeed uses it. A lot. But this pales in comparison to Mackay's use of Spam. His fixation on this subject matter is no less than monomaniacal.
But why?
According to the artist, "affordability."
Special thanks to the meatpackers of Austin, MN - whose ingenious inclusion of "meat byproducts" — helped to make the purchase price of the subject affordable to the protean artist.
According to the Artist's Statement: "If 'classic' attributes of an image can be correlated to its 'timelessness,' then the Sodium Nitrite and Sodium Nitrate preservatives ensure that this image — and the very contents of the can of SPAM — are relevant to today's artists (and viewers.)
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