Yet another accolade for Liverpool this month!  The Tate’s Klimt exhibit is a hit.  Last Monday, as an artist walking through, I became tearful in some places, identifying in different ways with practice, process, product, and response.  It was only on entering the gift store that I was disappointed.  A poster of the spectacular painting, "The Three Ages of Life," in my mind, had desecrated the original work.  It was up there for sale with only two stages of life—mother and child.  The old lady (old age) had been removed. 

As I start to make reproductions of my own artwork, I am extremely sensitive to what the artist might have thought about this crop.  A third of his vision had been removed without his consent or knowledge, and the greater meaning behind the piece damaged completely. Speaking to the manager of the gift store, I got an explanation.  It was all about commerce—financial returns.  She stressed how everyone cuts up Klimt, showing me images in a book of how fashion designers had made prints from excerpts of his work. This "nothing unusual" piece of merchandise (the two-thirds print) would sell better (allegedly have more mass market appeal) and bring income to the Tate.  It sounded like the message she was trying to give was that because the money would be coming back to the Tate (was not for "commercial benefit") that it was acceptable. As our conversation continued, the manager went on to tell me that postcards displaying the whole piece had already sold out, and there would be more later, once other images sold to make space again.

The postcard image that had sold out has been inserted at the start of this blog entry.  The two thirds image from the poster was also available at the store on a mini greeting card, and is inserted below.

 
The day after my visit to the Klimt exhibit (last Monday), the friends I’d been with there called to let me know that others were upset by the Klimt crop. The Guardian had just published a letter by a Maureen Everhsed which they’d headed "Age old problem."