A great painting can turn your world upside down, especially if the painting is also upside down.
Today we pay tribute to the Gallery of Art Hung Upside Down.
That’s a page on the website Weird Universe that tracks all those times when art galleries – well, you can probably figure out what they did from the name.
A lot of paintings you can tell how they’re probably supposed to be displayed.
A portrait, for example, is usually shown with the subject’s head at the top.
But over the last century or so, a few more abstract works have ended up on their sides, or completely upside down.
And we’re not talking about obscure works, either: Georgia O’Keeffe, Vincent Van Gogh, and Henri Matisse all had at least pieces mis-shown.
One painting by George Bellows won acclaim for its abstract pools of color, but when it was set right-side up again, critics realized they were supposed to see looking at pools of water all along.
In some cases the signature is the giveaway. If it’s on its side or upside down, so is the painting.
The exception to that rule is a painting called “High Frequency Ping,” which has an upside down signature.
When students pointed this out, the exhibitors checked with the artist, Anna P. Baker.
She said, “I signed it the second day. Then I painted on it for nearly a year and decided it looked better the other way around.”
Here’s more art news for you: it’s about 9 year old Joe Whale.
He loves nothing more than doodling, even when he’s maybe not supposed to be doodling, like during class.
But he’s free to doodle away when he’s at work. Yes, the 9 year old is now a professional artist.
The Number 4 restaurant in Shrewsbury, England, has asked Joe to doodle all over the walls of its dining room.
Which he has been covering with hundreds, maybe thousands, of doodles.
The Gallery of Art Hung Upside-Down (Weird Universe)
9-Year-Old Kid Who Kept Getting In Trouble For Doodling In Class Gets A Job Decorating A Restaurant With His Drawings (Bored Panda)
Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is great. But is it art?