Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 articles
    • Obituary notices
  • Authors & Reviewers
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
    • Patient engagement
  • Physicians & Subscribers
    • Benefits for Canadian physicians
    • CPD Credits for CMA Members
    • Subscribe to CMAJ Print
    • Subscription prices
    • Obituary notices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2023
    • Avis de décès
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
CMAJ
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN
CMAJ

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 articles
    • Obituary notices
  • Authors & Reviewers
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
    • Patient engagement
  • Physicians & Subscribers
    • Benefits for Canadian physicians
    • CPD Credits for CMA Members
    • Subscribe to CMAJ Print
    • Subscription prices
    • Obituary notices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2023
    • Avis de décès
  • Visit CMAJ on Facebook
  • Follow CMAJ on Twitter
  • Follow CMAJ on Pinterest
  • Follow CMAJ on Youtube
  • Follow CMAJ on Instagram
The Left Atrium

Tony Calzetta: Who wants to play war?

Meg Walker
CMAJ September 02, 2003 169 (5) 451-452;
Meg Walker
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Tables
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Faced with the chance to see Tony Calzetta's exhibition War Stories for Children and Art Stories for Adults on its stop at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, I wondered how closely the stories in question would relate to the conflicts weighing on the public mind in many countries today. This Toronto-based artist is known for working up whimsical, semi-surreal paintings from the psychological territory of absurdity and play.

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

Figure. Tony Calzetta, 1998. Bob's Life was Quite Exciting With the New Art and All Photo by: Courtesy Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Ont.

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

Figure. Tony Calzetta, 1998. Overcome With Art Bob Adjusts His Beret and Prepares for the Onslaught of the Propeller-powered Philistines Photo by: Courtesy Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Ont.

The influence of Surrealism was evident in this small exhibition of ten paintings and three sculptures. Calzetta invokes two of that movement's most charismatic leaders, André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, in a painting and a sculpture, respectively. His shapes also bring to mind works by 20th-century American modernists such as Cy Twombly and Philip Guston. The three sculptures are six-foot-high cardboard, steel and shellac whimsies that emphasize art as a play space: a space that is treacherously spiky at times but ultimately humorous. They seemed somewhat extraneous in this exhibition, however, perhaps because the paintings are so closely related that they do not need the company of works in another medium.

Each large-format painting, created in 1998–1999, follows a thematic composition in which an image appears inside a large rectangle of textured colour, which in turn floats inside a contrasting rim of colour. Each shape, including the rectangles, is outlined with rapid, freehand, charcoal lines whose buoyant confidence reveals Calzetta's love of drawing. The images function as surreal “cartoons” — both in the classical sense of outlines set out for holding layers of colour, and in the modern sense of stand-alone visuals that reveal and satirize character.

Calzetta's sense of the absurd is strongest in the links between his images and their titles. How could anyone read with a straight face long, lilting titles like Under the Hot Light of Interrogation, André [Breton] Finally Breaks Down When Asked About the Mysterious Appearance of the Ruggedly Handsome Birdy? The exhibition catalogue notes that Calzetta originally wanted his titles to have nothing to do with the images: they “were deliberately whimsical and obscure because Calzetta didn't want to force interpretations of the work.” Interestingly, this practice has changed over time: “‘Now, composing a title,’ he says, ‘has become a side art form.’”1

In this context, then, are Calzetta's references to war stories and art stories a reflection on actual historical events? Perhaps he invokes the general absurdity of a state of war, not any particular current or past conflict. The exhibition title certainly sets one to thinking about how war events might settle into the psyche over time. Do children see war stories where adults do not? Have adults turned war into such an aesthetic experience that it isn't differentiated from other subjects in art? Is war, like art, becoming increasingly more abstract?

Calzetta's titles also refer to one another, inviting the viewer to develop connecting metaphors between the images. The “Bob” character who appears in three titles, for example, seems to evolve from an apparently random name into a sardonic metaphor for an ordinary person who can't distinguish between the stimulation of the latest trend in art and the false exhilaration of the latest war. The two concepts seem especially enjambed in Overcome With Art Bob Adjusts His Beret and Prepares for the Onslaught of the Propeller-powered Philistines, in which a jaunty pink and yellow rocket poses precariously on an object that looks suspiciously like an inverted “Uncle Sam” top hat.

Of course, this interpretation of these three paintings is not definitive — partly because these are not literal images, and partly because each revels in bright oranges and lime greens that insist on a certain degree of intelligent humour. Calzetta's work is mature and thoughtful, deserving interpretation on many levels. For example, he repeats certain visual gestures to create rhythms that unbalance the images, as if his thoughts were precarious and fleeting. A billowy, looping shape appears in different contexts, and always mysteriously, as an abstracted fog bank, or head, or spilled puddle of something unidentifiable. Calzetta's “horizons” tend to tilt downward to the left, creating tension with objects tilting downward to the right. Standing inside a Calzetta image would involve reaching for a steadying wall, only to find that the wall is tilting, too.

All this to say that Calzetta's work is more than a commentary on our globe's immersion in armed conflicts. Yet Calzetta would not be blind to the fact that his paintings are circulating in a culture where “war stories” are, sadly, part of the conscious and subconscious thoughts we are obliged to carry. If the Surrealist movement was evidence of art exploding from psyches attempting to escape World War I, maybe one of Calzetta's roles as an artist is to show us vignettes in which war is ridiculous and absurd.

Meg Walker Writer and artist Winnipeg, Man.

Footnotes

  • War Stories for Children and Art Stories for Adults was curated by Carl Lavoy of the Thames Art Gallery, Chatham Cultural Centre, Chatham, Ont., where it was on view from July 20 to Sept. 9, 2001. The exhibition was at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon, Man., from June 13 to July 27, 2003. Its next and final venue will be at Gallery Lambton, Sarnia, Ont., Sept. 6 to Oct. 11, 2003.

Reference

  1. 1.↵
    Regan K. Tony Calzetta: line dancing. In: War Stories for Children and Art Stories for Adults [exhibition catalogue]. Kent (ON): Thames Art Gallery, 2001.
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Canadian Medical Association Journal: 169 (5)
CMAJ
Vol. 169, Issue 5
2 Sep 2003
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author

Article tools

Respond to this article
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
To sign up for email alerts or to access your current email alerts, enter your email address below:
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on CMAJ.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Tony Calzetta: Who wants to play war?
(Your Name) has sent you a message from CMAJ
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the CMAJ web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Tony Calzetta: Who wants to play war?
Meg Walker
CMAJ Sep 2003, 169 (5) 451-452;

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
‍ Request Permissions
Share
Tony Calzetta: Who wants to play war?
Meg Walker
CMAJ Sep 2003, 169 (5) 451-452;
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
    • Reference
  • Figures & Tables
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

The Left Atrium

  • On becoming
  • Chronicles of a cardiologist in Canada's North
  • Rethinking randomized controlled trials
Show more The Left Atrium

Lifeworks

  • A late modernist
  • Retrospective on nursing
  • Through the gates
Show more Lifeworks

Similar Articles

Collections

  • Topics
    • Medical humanities

 

View Latest Classified Ads

Content

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Collections
  • Sections
  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • Early releases

Information for

  • Advertisers
  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • CMA Members
  • CPD credits
  • Media
  • Reprint requests
  • Subscribers

About

  • General Information
  • Journal staff
  • Editorial Board
  • Advisory Panels
  • Governance Council
  • Journal Oversight
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright and Permissions
CMAJ Group

Copyright 2023, CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

To receive any of these resources in an accessible format, please contact us at CMAJ Group, 500-1410 Blair Towers Place, Ottawa ON, K1J 9B9; p: 1-888-855-2555; e: cmajgroup@cmaj.ca

CMA Civility, Accessibility, Privacy

 

Powered by HighWire