Indeed The Man does make the Hat and the Hat makes the Man. A minimum of a Quartet of Hats are herein found. Each Hat differently deployed. One worn by a trench coat clad man, another hanging on a tree trunk, one pierced by a pole and one suggested at the top of this assemblage of fragments.
Clearly in the past a Hat was an indication of status and class. Today almost not at all. For example, today my bowler hat is definitely an anomaly and attracts exclamations, “Man that is a cool hat! Like Magritte!” Indeed this hat was purchased from a museum gift shop during their Magritte exhibition. For Magritte, the bowler was a symbol of status and bourgeois rectitude. All of Bak’s hats are Stetson. What do they represent?
A world gone by?
Memories of life past?
Certainly not a prediction of times to come.
Rather a reminder of a world passed.
Bernard H. Pucker, BAK a Day, December 8, 2023
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In the fourth iteration of "The Man Makes the Hat" series, Bak combines the traditions of both portraiture and landscape in an unorthodox manner. The deconstructed “portrait” is composed of painted wood held up by branches emerging from the ground. These pieces do not create a clear image of a face, rather they create subtle silhouettes of a nose and mouth, the outline of an eye revealed by a circular cut out, and the possibility of an ear doubling as a red question mark.
The portrait and surrounding landscape interact harmoniously, as the branches serve as an anchoring force to an otherwise precarious structure. The blue-sky peeks through the negative spaces in the form, emphasizing key details within the face such as the outline of the slightly ajar mouth and the circle of an eye.
As the red question marks indicate, the composition elicits curiosity. The face is jumbled—it feels both purposeful and unintended, as if the viewer has stumbled upon a dismembered tribute. A figure sits on the left-hand side of the composition, holding up a sheet of paper, while looking up at the fragmented portrait. Like the viewer, the figure seeks to make sense of what he is looking at.
Hats punctuate the composition, the most prominent being a green hat placed in the center, punctured by two branches, making it no longer wearable. Two smaller hats hang upon a branch and a piece of wood serving as forgotten emblems of those who once wore them.
The title of the piece turns Max Ernst’s, "The Hat Makes the Man" on its head. While Ernst’s piece speaks to the hat as a representation of man’s desire, Bak turns the relationship between object and man upside down with the title, "The Man Makes the Hat." While items of clothing often speak to the identity of those wearing them—the question is: what is a hat without anyone to wear it?
Lilly Harvey (Guest writer)
BAK a Day, January 14, 2023
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![The Man Makes the Hat [Octet 4/8]](/images/wwwArtworkMax/8383_SJ1330_BK2634-(8bf53e6c-4b95-11ec-b489-7f04373debc1).jpg)
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