Painter and ES member Elizabeth Grammaticas visited the ‘Marilyn Monroe in the Arts’ exhibition in Crete last week, and has shared her thoughts (and photos) with us.
I have posted a small selection, but you can see many more over at the ES forum.
‘I attended the “Marilyn Monroe in the Arts” Exhibition at DEKK Exhibition Center in Crete a few days ago, and was pleasantly surprised with the exhibition. The exhibition is up until 10/30 if anyone happens to be in Crete in the time (*does ‘happening’ to be in Crete actually happen? I lucked out and was on vacation with my dad there and saw the signs).
It was a larger exhibition than I expected, as well as intelligently done. Here’s some more pics of my favorites.’
‘1)This first piece is my favorite. It’s “Changing the Story of MM”. It contains four panels of Marilyn’s image being digitally altered. First is one of the famous Kelley nudes, with Marilyn Pregnant. Then a Bert Stern with a woman covering her up. Marilyn surrounded by a large asian family..and finally…another nude female with Marilyn in the “Something’s Got to Give” pool scene. I think this piece hit the nail on the head with so much of what we see with Marilyn’s story being constantly retold and reimagined based on the story teller.’
‘2) I liked these silhouette type images of Marilyn as well. I love how the icon is so clearly recognizable without the need for an image of the person to actually be there. (my camera didn’t get the photo well enough to see the artist.)’
‘3)I love that they had these Rizzo photos!
Each section of the exhibition had large signs elaborating on her life, image, and impact. I have the exhibition book which contains most of the exhibition, and then some.’
‘The videos in the exhibition were a good variety. Before you go into the exhibition, there is a projection of Marilyn’s performance at the JFK Gala. In the “White dress” section, they had a Sam Shaw interview playing. Another part of the exhibition had chairs to sit down and watch various Marilyn movie trailers.’
‘They also had two video pieces, one titled “No,No,No!”. It was mostly “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” footage, but without Marilyn in it. You hear the audio track looped of Marilyn singing the pre-diamonds intro of”No.no.no..no!”, and see various men and people surrounding her, except Marilyn is cut out. So you just see the crowds of people demanding her attention, and her going ‘no no no nono’. It was a bit eerie walking in the exhibtion with all these images and manipulations of Marilyn’s image and hearing her voice going “No no nono!”.
They had another video looped of the paddle scene in “The Misfits” with one video on top with the paddle, the other with the zoom shot of her rear bouncing back and forth.
In addition to these videos, they also had slide shows of Marilyn magazine covers, celebrities impersonating Marilyn, and Marilyn photos not in the exhibition.
Most of the art is from Europe, and most of it is from a few collections in Vienna and Germany.’
