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Lot Essay
Executed in 2006, Phineas (after Brancusi) continues Matthew Day Jackson's exploration of the shared yet ambiguous territories that lie between the realms of culture, technology and mythology. Many of Day Jackson's works explore the nature of legend in our more scientific age. Phineas (after Brancusi) comprises a replica of the iconic 1910 sculpture Sleeping Muse by Constantin Brancusi, an example of which is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This is one of the first works in which he used this 'cannonball' of Modernism, and is one of his first treatments of the subject of 'Phineas'. Here Brancusi's pristine egg-like form has been impaled upon a shard-like metal spike. This appears to be a modern reprisal of the martyrdoms that featured in the religious art of many of the Old Masters. Here, it is the modern icon that has been sacrificed, the eyes of the Muse, originally closed in Brancusi's sculpture but here opened by Day Jackson, looking out blankly from their torment. This is the opposite of the blinding of the Phineas of ancient myth.
Phineas (after Brancusi) invokes the legacies of mythology and Modernism, while also referencing the story of Phineas Gage. A nineteenth-century railway worker, Gage was the victim of an industrial accident when an explosion plunged a three-foot long, six kilo metal 'tamping iron' through his skull. To everyone's surprise, Gage survived this ordeal, living on for another eleven years. However, his character was irrevocably changed. He therefore became an important case-study for the Victorian era, confirming many people's ideas regarding the idea that different parts of the brain controlled different aspects of character and behaviour. In short, his accident advanced various theories regarding personality, and even such an intangible concept as the soul. Gage's case inspired scientists, amateurs and poets alike. In a sense, he entered a new pantheon for the scientific age, his injury essentially making him a martyr to science. He thus became a perfect addition to Day Jackson's cast of problematic heroes of our hi-tech age, alongside astronauts and Buckminster Fuller. Intriguingly, like a religious relic, Gage's own skull has been preserved in Harvard's Warren Anatomical Museum, where Day Jackson himself has seen it.
In Phineas (after Brancusi), Day Jackson has substituted Brancusi's Muse for Gage's own head and in this way has added another layer of investigation: as well as asking where the seat of intelligence is, Day Jackson is questioning the nature of inspiration itself. Do the injuries, the traumas that we sustain serve as our own personal muses? Is there any magic or mystery to the way that our minds work, or can it all be attributed to simple science? By mounting Brancusi's famous, beautiful Muse on this spike, Day Jackson examines the shared territory that science and psychology occupy with culture and mythology in our contemporary, more secular world.
Phineas (after Brancusi) invokes the legacies of mythology and Modernism, while also referencing the story of Phineas Gage. A nineteenth-century railway worker, Gage was the victim of an industrial accident when an explosion plunged a three-foot long, six kilo metal 'tamping iron' through his skull. To everyone's surprise, Gage survived this ordeal, living on for another eleven years. However, his character was irrevocably changed. He therefore became an important case-study for the Victorian era, confirming many people's ideas regarding the idea that different parts of the brain controlled different aspects of character and behaviour. In short, his accident advanced various theories regarding personality, and even such an intangible concept as the soul. Gage's case inspired scientists, amateurs and poets alike. In a sense, he entered a new pantheon for the scientific age, his injury essentially making him a martyr to science. He thus became a perfect addition to Day Jackson's cast of problematic heroes of our hi-tech age, alongside astronauts and Buckminster Fuller. Intriguingly, like a religious relic, Gage's own skull has been preserved in Harvard's Warren Anatomical Museum, where Day Jackson himself has seen it.
In Phineas (after Brancusi), Day Jackson has substituted Brancusi's Muse for Gage's own head and in this way has added another layer of investigation: as well as asking where the seat of intelligence is, Day Jackson is questioning the nature of inspiration itself. Do the injuries, the traumas that we sustain serve as our own personal muses? Is there any magic or mystery to the way that our minds work, or can it all be attributed to simple science? By mounting Brancusi's famous, beautiful Muse on this spike, Day Jackson examines the shared territory that science and psychology occupy with culture and mythology in our contemporary, more secular world.