Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil, collage on plywood. 2006.
Signature: “MADONNAT OTSIDES” ÕLIMAAL, KOLLAAŽ 2006 MALL NUKKE

Postmodernism in the key of pop is one of Mall Nukke’s (b. 1964) methods of ironically interpreting history. By choosing the world-famous Mona Lisa portrait as the central compositional object of a collage painting about the Madonna, towards which men in monk’s robes turn with surprise and reverence but also with fear, Nukke stages a theatrical scene.

More precisely, the viewer is made to see the truth in a picture-in-a-picture and a copy-in-a-copy. But since the monks, as if stepping out of a Daumier caricature or a Goya etching, have first torn the curtain that hid the Mona Lisa, their surprise may express their first encounter with something forbidden – a wonderful, beautiful woman’s face. The entire scene is witnessed from the corner of the painting by the model of Mona Lisa, placed in a typical 17th-century aristocratic sitting pose who smiles at the psychological ordeal unfolding in the picture.

Mall Nukke herself has commented on her painting as follows: “The idea is simple: there is an original and there is a copy. This means that there is a well-known painting called “Mona Lisa” that everyone knows and admires. But the one who has given inspiration and impetus to create it has remained in the background. The image of the Madonna has been found and exhibited by pious men. The lady who was the model modestly hides behind a curtain, with her gentle smile and calm posture. As an obedient and modest woman. This also has a bit to do with my “Portrait of a Star” theme. Stars are made of the people who surround us every day.”

Text: Harry Liivrand, Mall Nukke