I think it’s worth revisiting the Guggenheim/Art Gallery of Ontario “Great Upheaval” show, to more closely consider the trajectory of its presentation of a world becoming unglued. There is, in a painting like the one shown here, by Kazimir Malevich, who would soon confine his work to geometric forms adrift upon an abyss, an embrace of the amazing realism effectively hidden for millennia under a scramble of mundane chores. A composition like this seeks to ignite in the viewer layers of mystery surprisingly accessible to a reflective pause such as that induced by a well-prepared exhibition.
The recent film, Her, is, I believe, a noble and witty engagement of the dilemmas implicit in the long-ago, World War I-era, cris de coeur, perhaps–though understandably–overly triumphant in the first flush of myriad rare discovery. Pictured is the protagonist, Theodore Twombly (Cy [sci-fi?] Twombly being a painter-participant in those researches, a generation after the “Upheaval”) and his best friend, a system of intellection and wider consciousness, self-named, “Samantha,” contained in the computer tablet seen in the pocket of his jacket. He, (somewhat) like the worthies a hundred years ago, is thrilled to have found a soul-mate amidst an arid populace. His joy is short-lived; and, yet, he finds a way to make improvements, notwithstanding. Improvements here do not mean anything remotely like Easy Street.
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