2. Curatorial Statement
The purpose of this exhibition is to tell the story of Chuck Palahniuk’s
novel, Fight Club, with the use of art throughout history. I have chosen
artists such as Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, James Ensor, and Vincent
Van Gogh to convey the story with this unique perspective. The
selected artists studied similar impressionist and expressionist styles in
their works with loose brushstrokes and vivid colors. Loose
brushstrokes in art can describe certain emotions such as frustration
and anxiety while the colors can also explain a wide variety of moods
that can be seen throughout Fight Club. As spectators observe the
pieces of work in this order, I am hoping to enhance their knowledge of
the story and perhaps create for them a different outlook of the novel.
In doing so, they can make their own judgments on the nature of
humanity.
3. EDVARD MUNCH
“THE SCREAM”
1893
“It’s easy to cry
when you realize
that everyone you
love will reject you
or die. On a long
enough time line,
the survival rate
for everyone will
drop to zero.”
4. As the Narrator of Fight Club starts out
suffering from insomnia, he continues to
accumulate feelings of anxiety. He tries to solve
this problem by attending self-help groups, where
he realizes the key to him sleeping is the ability to
cry. This painting illustrates the anguished mind of
the character as he walks this road alone,
detached from the rest of the world. With the
swirling of colors, Edvard Munch instills fear in the
viewer as they are thrown around the image and
therefore trapped in all of the horrors of life, both
known and unknown.
5. PABLO PICASSO
“FAUN WITH STARS”
1955
“From the first
night I met her,
Tyler or some
part of me had
needed a way to
be with Marla.”
6. Marla Singer shows up to self-help sessions and
ruins everything for the Narrator. He feels like he
needs to get rid of her, so they come up with a
schedule where one won’t bother the other in their
attempt to improve their life. Despite his apparent
hatred for her on the surface, the Narrator has a
subconscious liking for Marla from the beginning.
Picasso portrays this lust in his painting with the
starry-eyed faun and nymph, which represent the
romantic thoughts for another being.
7. EDVARD MUNCH
“JEALOUSY II”
1907
“We have sort
of a triangle
thing going
here. I want
Tyler. Tyler
wants Marla.
Marla wants
me.”
8. After moving in with Tyler Durden, the Narrator
finds himself in the middle of a strange relationship.
He becomes jealous as Marla takes his only
companion away from him and, again, he has an
underlying want for love with the girl that Tyler is
having sexual relations. Like the painting depicts, the
character turns green with envy and then further
develops such feelings of abandonment, loneliness,
and despair.
9. JAMES ENSOR
“MASKS CONFRONTING DEATH”
1888
“As long as you’re
at fight club,
you’re not how
much money you’ve
got in the bank.
You’re not your job.
You’re not your
family, and you’re
not who you tell
yourself.”
10. In response to all of the frustration, the
Narrator creates Fight Club with the help of Tyler
Durden. Who people are in Fight Club, however, are
not who they seem to be in the real world; they put
on a disguise and fight everything that they could
possibly despise about life. The masks in James
Ensor’s image, with their intensity, represent the
violent potentialities of humankind. These figures
gather around Death, which symbolizes what the men
will become in the end. They cannot escape the
reality of what is yet to come.
12. Time passed and much damage had
been done when the Narrator starts to finally
understand what is going on. Reality hits
when he comes to the realization that Tyler
Durden is not an actual person, but instead is a
second side to himself. Picasso illustrates this
duality of life as the figure looking into the
mirror is shown in two very different lights.
One seems to be painted in brighter coolers
while the other in the mirror is rendered with
darker shadows. These extremities highlight
the good and evil embodied in a single
character at a given point in time.
13. VINCENT VAN GOGH
“THE STARRY NIGHT”
1889
“Only in death
will we have our
own names
since only in
death are we no
longer part of
the effort.”
14. As he continues to become more aware
of reality, the Narrator sees how the members of
Fight Club and Project Mayhem are losing their
sense of individualism, as they no longer have
identities. Only in death are they able to regain
their sense of uniqueness. Vincent Van Gogh
explained that just like we take a train to a
certain destination, “we take death to reach a
star.” Both death and eternal life are signified in
his painting, by the cypress tree connecting the
terrestrial and celestial realms. The aspect of
love is displayed with the inclusion of Venus.
For Van Gogh and the Narrator, this can
symbolize the hope of achieving in death, the
love that escaped them in existence.
16. In the end, the Narrator ends up hurting himself
in order to actually save himself. He is on a road to
recovery as he tries to treat the existence of Tyler
Durden. While in the mental hospital, he mentions
that we are not special and we are not trash, but we
just are what we are and what happens, happens. It
goes to show that sometimes we cannot decide our
fate, but it is just given to us. This can be seen as we
look down the long hall of the asylum in the painting.
It seems lonely, yet with light at the end of the tunnel;
it is something to anticipate in the recovery of an
illness. The Narrator still has some healing before he
can go out into the real world. There is no turning
back, because “we just are, and what happens just
happens.” All we can do now is move forward.
