Quoting Olympia. The Punk Ethos at the Dawn of Modern Art
Sample Culture from Fine Art to Post Modernism
“The theory of thought is like painting: it needs that revolution which took art from representation to abstraction. This is the aim of a theory of thought without image.”
― Gilles Deleuze, “Difference and Repetition”
Sampling in Fine Art
Édouard Manet’s quoting of Titian in “Olympia” can be likened to ethos of 1970s DIY punk rock, as the work shares a common thread of sampling and reinterpretation where reference is used as a point of infiltration.
When we consider Manet’s intent to shock with references in his 1865 debut of Olympia there is a connection to the resurfacing of iconography with contemporary references in The Sex Pistols, “God Save the Queen” (1977) using Queen Elizabeth’s traditional icon. Punk rock’s visual lexicon relies on the symbolism of tearing apart the neat and perfect in the representation in the currency images of the sovereign and layering it with a ransom note.
This montage of sanctioned propaganda mixed with raw DIY photocopied jugular edges plays like a hemorrhaging black eye, glaring at the colonial and classist narrative embedded in the symbol, the embodiment of what is known and accepted disrupted by an abject hostility forming a canabalistic transubstantiation of the notion of the ideal in representation.
The Female Gaze
Manet’s “Olympia” presented its central figure’s unabashed nudity and her direct, confrontational gaze at the viewer were in stark contrast to the idealized and passive depictions of the female form prevalent in academic portraiture. The multi-tiered display of subjugated bodies from the courtesan to the black servant/ slave and the gaze or glare insinuate the forced compliance and potential of defiance in the social order. Manet is not looking away from the tension but reveling in it while forcing the viewer to confront their own desire or distain in their complicity.
Painted in 1863, a time when academic institutions wielded significant influence in Parisian culture, propaganda advocating for the positive portrayal of social status and the valorization of the burgeoning bourgeoisie, emerging as a powerful class, was as prevalent as the American narrative depicting Ronald Reagan’s upwardly mobile America.
The Departure into Modernism
While “Olympia” pays homage to its classical predecessors, it also diverges, forging the road into modernism. Manet’s choice of a contemporary setting and his deliberate rejection of idealized beauty challenged the established norms.
‘When our artists give us Venus, they correct nature, they lie.
Manet asked himself why lie, why not tell the truth; he introduced us to Olympia,
this woman of our time, whom you meet on the sidewalks.
–Emile Zola
The subject’s unabashed gaze and the direct confrontation with the viewer break with the demure expressions found in classical or renaissance portraiture, introducing a new level of intimacy with confrontation.
The Sample Effect in Media
“Olympia” serves as a catalyst for foundations of modern art and how sample-based reference can be an instrument of seismic fractures on stale expressions. It laid the groundwork for a culture reference in a range of visual movements from Surrealism to Postmodernism.
In cinematic media design and creative direction the reference based foundations of visual quotation imbues motion design with totems of meaning, implications and familiarity that builds off of pre-existing memetic connections. To reimagine and extend upon reference is to navigate the contours of existence, delving into the complexities of our collective experiences.
Memetic Sampling in Fine Art
In the collective tapestry of art history, the painting “Olympia” emerges as an iconic bridge between the classical and the modern, laying the groundwork for Postmodern riffs on everything from advertising and PR to streaming media branding.
Through memetic echoes, Manet’s departure not only opened possibilities for reinterpretation on subjects but it also sparked a revolutionary shift in the trajectory of the meaning of viewer as participant, forever altering the way auteurs would engage and serve to “entertain” their audiences or valorize the values of their patrons. This departure not only expanded the horizons of expression but also catalyzed a shift in the dynamics between creators and spectators, echoing the meaning of voyeurism, theorized by Laura Mulvey in her seminal discourse on the gaze in film.
“Olympia” challenged the notion of passive observation, inviting viewers to actively interrogate their own role in the act of perception. Much like the cinematic gaze, Manet’s canvases became arenas of a visual marketplace of symbolic exchange, where the viewer’s gaze was implicated, disrupting traditional interpretations of power dynamics and prompting a renegotiation of the viewer’s relationship with the work. Who we are in relation to the subjects as avatar or audience comes into speculation.
Much like the Parisian art scene in the 19th century, the American narrative of the 1980s was marked by a deliberate emphasis on anxieties and tensions of power dynamics as they related to shifting impacts on class, race, and gender roles.
Robert Mapplethorpe, a seminal auteur in contemporary American photography, employed memetics in his work to reflect and challenge societal perspectives and ideals prevalent in American culture during the 1980s. Mapplethorpe’s most well known series, “The X Portfolio,” featured portraits that juxtaposed religious iconography with homoerotic subject matter. In these photographs, Mapplethorpe blended iconic symbols of Catholicism, such as crucifixes and religious statues, with explicit depictions of nudity or domination in sexual acts. By intertwining these seemingly contradictory references, Mapplethorpe challenged viewers to confront their own beliefs and prejudices regarding religion, sexuality, and the intersection of the two in the midst of the AIDS crisis. Subsequently and under his creative influence pop music ingested his visual references through Madonna’s “Sex Book” in 1992.
The art coffee table book from Madonna was photographed by Stephen Miesel in similar technical style with duplicative visual themes of Christian images such as a Pietà with fetish and bondage reference. The memetics of confrontation in the later work was imbued with the discourse and provocations of Mapplethorpe’s hallmark stamp. The sampling of intentions to move from the profane to populist, pop mass consciousness can be viewed as tapping into memetics, feed from the network of creators who informed the currency of the design, videography, photography and projection art related Madonna’s ecosystem of concerts, record releases and music videos that came out in the 2 year period surrounding the release of the controversal coffee table book.
The Pieta as Sample Source
Symbolism and Social Order
In the context of art and cultural transmission, memes refer to cultural elements, ideas, or symbols spread and hosted from person to person.
Victorine Meurent, who posed for Manet’s “Olympia,” achieved legendary status through her appearances in works like “Olympia” and “Le Déjeuner sur L’herbe.” Her image became emblematic of her time, securing her a place in the societal memory as a figure comparable to modern-day celebrities or influencers, operating within a similarly driven economy of social notoriety.
The black woman who stands beside Olympia, presenting her with a bouquet of flowers also adds to the socio-economic interpretation of identity as a symbol, highlighting the contrast between layers of value of attention. From the suggested sex worker and the servant or slave to the projection of meaning of those roles to the viewer, the implications of identity and potential shifts is potent in meaning and interpretation.
In contemporary works the identity of Manet’s black artist model Laure has resurfaced and is reimagined as our present culture adding new context to the meaning of her symbolic representation from the earlier work.
“Olympia” never allows Manet’s models to recede into roles. The women stay on the flat surface, as living citizens of a Paris recast with boulevards, pleasure gardens, nightclubs … and brothels. — Darcy Grimaldo
This contemporary reimagining of character connects the present with the past and brings new relevance and symbols to Manet’s tableau while striking out as a sample of a sample. The esthetics of the remix reflects contemporary self awareness of the recycling and recontextualization of values for wider narratives and meaning beyond the primary source.
In this context, the remix serves as a cohesive force, akin to a binder, while the sample or series of samples operates like a virus, with the artist, auteur or editor drawing from them and embodying the ideas as hosts. (1)
Citations and References
1. Navas, Eduardo. “Remix theory: The aesthetics of sampling.” (2014).4–5
Burroughs, William. The Ticket That Exploded. Grover Press (1987)
Aharoni, Tali. “When high and pop culture (re) mix: An inquiry into the memetic transformations of artwork.” New Media & Society 21.10–(2019).
Bernheimer, Charles. “Manet’s Olympia: the figuration of scandal.” Poetics Today 10.2 (1989): 255–277.
Falkenhayner, Nicole. “Surveillance and Social Memory: Remembering Princess Diana with CCTV.” Humanities 5.3 (2016): 73.
Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo . Creole. Penn State University Press, 13 Dec. 2022.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.” Feminism and film theory. Routledge, (2013). 57–68.
Milner, Ryan M. The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media. MIT Press, (2018).
Peraica, Ana. Culture of the Selfie. Self-Representation in Contemporary Visual Culture. Vol. 24. Institute of Network Cultures, (2017).
Sciberras, Ruby, and Claire Tanner. “Feminist sex-positive art on Instagram: reorienting the sexualizing gaze.” Feminist Media Studies 23.6 (2023): 2696–2711.
Rosen, David. “Pornography and the Erotic Phantasmagoria.” Sexuality & Culture 27.1 (2023): 242–265.
Witkin, Robert W. “Constructing a sociology for an icon of aesthetic modernity: Olympia revisited.” Sociological Theory 15.2 (1997): 101–125.
