06-05-22 // UNFINISHEDNESS

“Unfinished” Tower of Babel, biblical myth, Old Testament
Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563

Bernd Upmeyer created a new topic for MONU‘s coming issue on “Unfinished Urbanism”:

“”Unfinishedness” is probably most strikingly represented in works of art. Just think of the Non finito-sculptures of Michelangelo made in the Renaissance-period that paid tribute to the theory of Plato that no work of art might ever completely resemble its heavenly counterpart. Michelangelo’s sculptures inspired the Non finitos of Rodin and his vague figures that appear to be struggling to emerge from masses of marble such as his La Pensée sculpture from the late 19th Century. Or picture the projects that were intentionally left unfinished such as the follies of the late 16th to 18th Centuries – such as the temple of philosophy at Ermenonville, symbolising that knowledge would never be complete – or imagine art movements such as Fluxus that during the 1960s engaged in experimental art performances which emphasised the artistic process over the finished product. Other artists that considered the process of creating more important than the finished work were creatives such as the American composer and music theorist John Cage who emphasised that one should embark on an artwork without any conception of its end. When thinking about contemporary expressions of unfinished creative work one might consider the designer Martin Margiela and his deliberately unfinished trousers and tops from his game-changing fashion show of 1989…”

… continue reading in Writings.