Bak has presented us with 3 paintings, which viewing left to right progress from colorful immediate events to monochromatic stone icons of past actions and religious iconography. Whatever is happening has happened before as the animate has become inanimate. All the figures have wings (angels or messengers). They each appear to be playing a trumpet, but closer inspection reveals these “instruments” to be large nails lethally piercing the figures’ skulls. Perhaps the figures were meant to warn the world, however, they are being destroyed in the act by some dominant force, i.e. the hammer. Trees severed and/or pierced by large nails represent even broader loss of life by this destructive force.
The hammer head is depicted as ambiguously suspended from the unknown above and precariously attached to an arboriform structure. Whose family tree supports this implement of destruction?
The middle painting displays a target in front of three of the impaled figures - why? These figures have wings of angels but uniforms of soldiers, a mixed metaphor for fighters and messengers, yet both can be targets. Think of those individuals who speak out (blow the whistle) against immoral, unethical or corrupt power structures. The very act of sounding a warning can literally become the cause of their demise (Jamal Khashoggi), as the trumpet becomes the nail. The metaphoric implications of this suppressive dominance spread to non-lethal yet critical issues for our world. The danger to a democratic society imposed by silencing voices of dissent seems most poignant today.
This triptych features familiar Bak themes: fractured landscapes, remnants of a damaged plane, angels, the bullseye, nails.
Primitive trumpets were used around the globe dating back to the late Stone Age.
In Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Israel trumpets were used as an instrument of war or to sound an alarm.
In Triptych of the Perpetual Warning primitive trumpets appear as nails piercing the mouths of those who attempt to warn.
Out at sea, the wing of a plane, appearing like a shark hovering above, descends on an angel whose wings are also punctured by a nail.
In the foreground, another part of a plane, this time in the form of a hammer, appears ready to swing down on the bullseye standing in front of the three trumpeters wearing angel wings.
Who holds the strings to such violence?
The trumpeters have clearly paid a price for their attempts at a warning.
Did anyone hear it?
Like the journalists and frontline workers in Tigray or Ukraine, who heeds their calls?
History reveals that alarm bells are rarely too late; we simply choose to ignore them.
Dr. Mark Celinscak, Department of History, University of Nebraska at Omaha,
BAK a Day, May 27, 2022
Contribute
You are in possession of valuable information about this artwork and want it published on the website in the catalogue raisonné?
Please write to us:
.jpg)
Contribute
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest