Stendhal's Syndrome

Giuseppe Arcimboldo circa 1550

I so much wanted to write about the Quadriennale in Rome. It is a huge show which claims to survey all the important work going on in Italy at this time, and other related movements elsewhere in the world. It is an important international exhibition. I was unable to do so, however, to the extent that I desired due to the return of a malady I've had for several years now. This illness I have is a variation of Stendhal's syndrome, that condition he described when he became delirious from looking at too much art in Florence.

I still recall the day I was exposed to this illness and the appearance of its first symptoms after a short incubation. It was ten years ago and I was assisting with the installation of a show in a gallery. A young girl came in, about ten years old; it was her habit to stop by the gallery on the way home from school. She was acquainted with every one in the gallery since she was the daughter of a well known painter. Although young, she was nevertheless very familiar with the ways of galleries and often entertained us with her art knowledgeable banter.

I was standing next to a long wooden extension ladder that was lying flat on the floor when she came up to me and asked very matter- of-factly, "Whose piece is this?" She was asking about the ladder on the floor and it immediately struck me that it was very much like a work of art in every way. It lay on the floor at just the right angle to the walls, but even more, it expressed in metaphor, my feelings about my life at that time.
She was not serious of course. She did not really think that the ladder was a piece in a show, but children of artists have a remarkable amount of disrespect for art. Sometimes they have no interest in art at all. I think it aggravates them, but they are drawn into it none the less. Who can resist such banter? She continued, "It's like something I've seen by Kounellis." I was thinking of some way to reply but she went off to talk to some one else.

This then was the beginning of my illness, a confusion of perception. It expressed itself at first as an inability to distinguish what is and what is not art: an inability to separate the art from its immediate surroundings, and everything becomes elevated to the same exact degree of importance.