Paul Spooner: Les Demoiselles

Paul Spooner baute dieses Meisterstück anfangs als Orgel mit dem Lochstreifenprogramm für „Le Cancan“, das ihn weiter inspirierte, das Frauenthema quer durch die Kunstgeschichte  immer weiterzuspinnen, bis er 20 Frauen eingebaut hatte, jedoch nur einen Mann und das ist das Baby der heiligen Jungfrau Maria ganz an der Spitze. In einem Erläuterungstext der  Falmouth Art Gallery hieß es dazu:

„…I didn’t think that just making an organ that sounded worse than most others was completely satisfying so I elaborated it by adding human figures. The tune, The Cancan, was chosen almost at random- it was part of a special offer from the perforator- but the theme of Les Demoiselles developed from there. I added female figures until I felt there were slightly more than enough. My fellow automatists, Peter Markey and Ron Fuller had both made versions of Cancan dancers and this machine is partly in homage to them.

There are 20 females depicted around the frame of the machine and one male infant.

1) At the top, the Virgin Mary feeds the baby Jesus. Her breast is a pneumatic motor driven by a small bellows attached to the main bellows of the organ.

2 &3) Below the Virgin and Child, two flying Harpies are suspended from a paper cloud. Their arms/wings are driven by electric motors.

4,5,6, 7&8) Standing below are the five figures from Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”. One of them holds a triangle which another appears to hit. A full-sized triangle in the base sometimes sounds at the same time in response to a puff of air shared by the A# pipe.

9) Manet’s “Olympia” is in front of them. A motor in her midriff causes undulations in the rest of her body.

10) To her left is a small effigy of Mrs Thatcher. A ratchet mechanism driven by puffs of air borrowed from one of the C pipes causes her to rise up and reach for a tiny bottle of milk.

11) Opposite, Joan of Arc is tied to the stake. Leather flames lick at her feet, inflated when the largest F pipe sounds.

12) Behind Les Demoiselles, an almost life-sized version of the Venus of Willendorf, the limestone figure dating from about 28 thousand years ago, rises in response to the inflation of the wind reservoir.

13,14,15,&16) A grey figure operating a small model of one of Peter Markey’s “Cancan Dancers”. Peter once lived in Falmouth, was a much loved teacher and a great example to the automatists who now proliferate in this area. He died last year.

17,18,19&20) Another figure en grisaille is a Scary Doll demonstrating a small version of Ron Fuller’s “Kicking Ladies”. Ron was another person vital to the sport of automata making who died this year.

Paul Spooner is an outsider artist who lives in Stithians, outside Falmouth and everywhere else.“


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