Page 35 - Studio International - September October 1975

TROMPE L'OEIL COUNTERFEIT

Charles Jencks

Midway through the sixties a few element : you 'fooled the eye' to get reflects the boats rather perfectly and it is
designers, architects and painters started across a message whether it was only the black lines between each
to go slightly mad in a similar way. political, psychedelic or economic. mirrored panel which give the game
They started painting false perspectives Furthermore, you used paint and away. This effect should be compared
on walls, they began building synthetic materials because they were to the trompe l'oeil of the Fine Arts
impossible rooms, they blew up graphic cheap, ephemeral and democratically Squad, a group in Los Angeles which
'motifs to the size of a building (Fig i) — open to all. Anyone with time on his paints the flat sides of buildings with
the entire building became a piece of hands and a slide projector could be a various super-realistic scenes (Figs 4, 5).
ersatz sculpture, or bloated letterhead, street artist. It is not this large In both cases a highly specific fragment
or page of Vogue, or giant billboard, or movement I wish to explore however, of the environment is reproduced as an
Tinker Toy fifty times too big, an but a much smaller group within it, one image which is enjoyed as a counterfeit,
inflated, exploded advertisement committed to a conscious manipulation not the truth. You can compare the real
wrapped around all sides of the building, of ersatz images enjoying them for being object with its replication, side by side,
even the roof. Supergraphics. That was phoney (or at least deceiving). enjoying the differences and what is lost
1968 and then there was Supermannerism A typical Italian example is the in translation.
(USA interiors), Supersensualism Olivetti showroom designed by Gae Trompe l'oeil is a special kind of
(Italian, synthetic environments), Aulenti in 1968 (Fig 2). An explosion of symbolism which pretends that it is not
Superrealism (a world-wide painting sleek Olivetti products, a cornucopia of symbolic even while it tells you it is.
phenomenon) and now, to coin a post- industrial goodies, an endless creation of Thus like advertisement it is a pseudo-
Watergate slogan, Superdeception. The plastic objects pours out from a black truth, a statement made to sound true,
multiplication of so many 'Super' hole and expands in three dimensions to but in which no-one is supposed really
categories could itself be condemned as infinity, showering the world with its to believe. It's a natural symbolism
Superfluous. technological profusion. The illusion which depends on a similarity between
Nevertheless something was actually is created by two of the oldest devices : several aspects of the sign and the object
happening. Architects had been telling mirrors on the walls and ceiling, and a it stands for. While this similarity may be
the truth about structure and materials stage perspective of diminishing lines nearly perfect and complete, you are still
for fifty years; now they started zooming towards a vanishing point on aware of perceiving a sign and not
enjoying the phoney, the ersatz the horizon (in this case the mirrored reality.
substitute. They covered up wood with ceiling). The explosive effect is heightened Farmer John is a gigantic pig
thin layers of vinyl coating — wood grain by shimmering bulbs skewered on slaughterhouse located in the drab
which was actually printed paper. They perspex semi-circles and the covering of factory belt south of Los Angeles. The
used high-pressure decorative shiny plastic everywhere. The walls of this packaging plant, more than
laminates, because plastic wood was Supersensualists delight in using a mile of them, are covered with lifesize,
better than real lumber. At least it was advanced techniques and ersatz to create realistic portraits of Pig Elysium (Fig 6).
more heat resistant, harder, tougher, sensual illusions.' Here is the plastic Pigs wrestle with Farmer John, roll
cleaner and looked 'woodier' (under laminate hiding the real wood base, about in the mud and sniff at acorns,
certain conditions). Covered with a thin giving an homogeneous image which cavort over roofs and peer into windows,
overlay sheet of superfacade (melanine suggests that plastic Olivetti gimmickry saunter in the open landscape free and
formaldehyde resin) the whole phoney will also be endlessly extruded out of the easy as a lonesome cowboy — you almost
sandwich panel of glued pulp could be black hole — for you to pick up. Plastic, want to be a pig. But the noise. Above the
tooled and formed much more precisely perspective and mirrors all telling you noise of rolling lorries and an in-house
than true teak. Synthetic nature had things that aren't quite true. loudspeaker can just be heard the final
beaten natural nature at being natural. Actually mirrors have often been a squeals, the last words, of these
So architects and designers followed the symbol of truth even when they quite embryonic pieces of bacon. The smell of
lead where it would take them and it plainly lied. 'Hold the mirror up to blood. Soon, four butchers emerge for
took them away from the modernist's nature', the phrase from Shakespeare, a coffee break and a bacon, lettuce and
commitment to truth right back to the has become a norm for objective tomato sandwich (or is it ham ?).
old tradition of trompe l'oeil.' research because supposedly the mirror Their white smocks are reddened. What
Zeuxis, the Greek painter of the 4th does not distort or change what is placed is Farmer John up to ? That white
Century B.C., painted grapes so in front of it. This objectivity, however, hoggess (Fig 7) decked out in her best
realistically that birds tried to peck at makes its possible trickery all the more pink ribbon, perched on a swing — does
them (according to Pliny the Elder). powerful. Not only can it double reality she know what's in store for her ?
But Zeuxis lost the competition of and make space appear infinite, but it can Everything is painted to boggle the
deception to Parhasius who painted a make real objects appear ambiguous and mind. The real slaughterhouse windows
canvas covered with drapery. When confusing. The ordinary mirror reverses become the ersatz barn windows (Fig 8).
Zeuxis tried to pull back the curtains to an image from left to right (but doesn't Real telephone poles and real gutters
see his rival's painting, and couldn't pull turn it upside-down) while Pepper's appear to cast fake shadows, while real
back anything, he had living proof that ghost, a mirror used for theatrical planted trees disappear into the phoney
his own dupery was less deceitful. Vice deception, partially reflects and partially utopia. This trompe l'oeil lies about the
was rewarded. The booty went to those transmits light so that two images can reality behind the walls so explicitly that
who could pull off the greatest visual appear in ghost-like superimposition.' it becomes an ironic comment both on
robbery. Norman Foster has clothed a whole slaughtering pigs and advertisement.
Something like this began to happen in building in mirror plate so that it Furthermore it livens up dull blank walls
the sixties and not only in the art world, disappears to infinity, reflects the and the monochrome, industrial
but out on the streets where everyone landscape to one side (and thereby landscape. Painting such scenes on the
could admire the trickery. Large disappears) and hides, denies and blank sides of buildings has become a
commercial signs, graffiti, street art2 or dissimulates about such mundane cheap and effective way of giving wit to
people's art or protest art all used, to functional objects as doors, roofs and grim, left-over parts of the
some extent, the techniques of windows. Everything is just mirror, environment. The art is practised in the
trompe l'oeil. The justifications varied but some of which happens to open and more depressing parts of New York,
they often included a propagandist close. His Olsen Shipping Line (Fig 3) Cincinnati, Glasgow and Hamburg. In

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