Museum of Industrialization and Poverty: Brian Tolle's "Irish Hunger Memorial" (2002)

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Brian Tolle's "Irish Hunger Memorial" (2002)

   Brian Tolle set out to raise public awareness of the Irish Potato Famine that occurred between the years of 1845-1852 and claimed over one and a half million lives. The memorial was founded on July 16, 2002 in New York and is composed of stones, soil, and plants that are all imported from Ireland; the memorial stones each are from different counties of Ireland, and the monument also has an authentic Irish cottage from the 19th century. The cottage itself was donated by a family of descendants of the Irish immigrants of the mid-19th century (Smith).

   During the Irish Famine, approximately 1 million people died of starvation and an additional million more emigrated from Ireland, which caused Ireland’s total population to decrease by a massive 20%-25%. Many farmers harvested mostly potatoes during this time, and faced a widespread potato disease that destroyed their crops. Ireland itself was in a state of political turmoil in which its population was rapidly growing, nearly three quarters of the population was unemployed, and living conditions were extremely low (Mokyr). An additional repercussion of the first phase of the Industrial Revolution was that Britain still had great influence over Ireland, and prohibited the education of Irish Catholics and limited the amount of land one may possess, which stifled any chance of repairing Ireland’s social issues (Mokyr).

   The platform itself is lifted by a limestone base with bands of kilkenny limestone that have historic texts inscribed on them to commemorate the dead (Smith). The platform is slanted towards the entrance so as to invite people to walk up the pathway, observing the ruined cottage and stone walls until they reach a pilgrim’s standing stone, where one can overlook the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Poverty is realized in this work in the destroyed cottage, where its condition reflects the physical tribulations that Irish immigrants faced. Industrialism is also loosely represented, where the area of the memorial is a quarter acre. This relates to a land-restrictive law passed in 1847, which dictated that no man who owned more than a quarter acre of land could gain relief (Mokyr). The manner of how the lives of Irish immigrants are represented serves as a testament to the horrors of famine, and appropriately honors the fallen.

Mokyr, Joel. "Irish Potato Famine." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/294137/Irish-Potato-Famine>.

Smith, Roberta. "Critic's Notebook; A Memorial Remembers The Hungry." The New York Times. 16 July 2002. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/16/arts/critic-s-notebook-a-memorial-remembers-the-hungry.html>.

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Introduction to the Museum

Greetings, fellow bloggers. This museum showcases the themes of despair and destitution that manifested in post-romantic art during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. People during this time either encountered or experienced widespread poverty, which was a major repercussion from Europe’s rapid industrial advances. Most of these misfortunes were cast mainly upon lower-class society, where most modernist artists would emerge. These new artists would adopt new and unique styles of art to communicate and chronicle their own toils and financial issues. This allowed the cultivation of different societal values people held, which greatly influenced modern art. Finally, I will discuss the cause and significance of the transition in styles of meticulously detailed works by Gustave Courbet and Blandford Fletcher to modernistic and abstract ones by Pablo Picasso and Brian Tolle. I hope you will enjoy my museum!

Other Related Exhibitions

"Technology: A Perpetrator of War"

by Marcos Lopez

http://technologyandwar.blogspot.com/

This extensively researched blog by Mr. Lopez contains an amalgam of pre-Industrial and modernist works of art, ranging from paintings of scenes from the American Revolution to modern weaponry, which rapidly evolved during and after the Industrial Revolution. This exhibition presents technology as something that "ravaged the earth with advancements in weaponry, time and time again making wars bloodier and more destructive". Indeed, the rapid transition, from the use of the first rifles as depicted in John Trumbull's "The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill (1786)" to the fortuitous destructive power of atomic bombs represented in Seb Janiak's "Downtown L.A. Atomic (2005)", is ever more present in this meticulously researched blog. The severe psychological trauma experienced during World War I is lengthily explained in Otto Dix's "Wounded Soldier (1924)", and tells viewers gruesome tales of how the discovery of new technology also entailed the development of fearsome and terrible weapons that have the power to annihilate hundreds of thousands of humans. By elaborately explaining the terrifying efficiency of weapons both in the past and the present, Mr. Lopez suggests an esoteric alternative to war: "...with these weapons will come the power to destroy mankind as we know. We must stop this vicious cycle...whatever the cost may be".

"The Effects of Industrialization"

by James Hoffstetter

http://hoffinator9.blogspot.com/

The Industrial Revolution permanently altered the development of weapons, and the workforce. This blog, by James Hoffstetter, contains analyses of various paintings made during the Industrial Era that depicted the widespread epidemic of poverty within Europe. By choosing three distinguishable paintings of the Industrial Revolution's various repercussions, the viewer can gain valuable insight on the tough conditions people faced during that time. By analyzing Gustave Courbet's "The Stonebreakers", the viewer gains a perspective of peasant life during the mid-19th century, and learns of the abuse of children and elderly workers. Also, by using Otto Dix's "Wounded Soldier (1924)", the viewer learns the aftereffects of the rapid evolution of weaponry, and its dangerous implementations on the battlefield. James delves into the significance in the shifts in styles of art between the 19th and 20th centuries: "...to reveal the hardships of the normal life in the country and to open the eyes of the public".