Ceci n'est pas un poisson.

-- B.L. (email)

Our Kindly Contributor refers to Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images, upon which is painted "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This not a pipe"), making the point, which we knew before we started, that the painting shows an image of a pipe, not an actual puffable pipe. For more and The Treachery of Images, see Wikipedia on Magritte.

Magritte's smile, the sculpture, makes an overt reference to another painting of Magritte. Also the smile has the ambiguous status, perhaps, of a good many of Magritte's images, their conjunction of presence and denial of presence. Magritte's Smile, since it at least resides in three dimensions, is closer to a real fish and a real smile than flatland representations of the same.

-- Edward Tufte

Here's a short video showing Magritte's Smile at our studio. Penny Humphrey, my colleague, did much of the creative and production work in making the piece, which was completed a few weeks ago at Polich Tallix. Near the end of the video, Penny and I celebrate the work.

Magritte's Smile will be installed at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum probably on June 3, where it will reside until January 17, 2010 during my show at the Museum.

We're having another one made now at the foundry and might put the second one outdoors in the sculpture garden at the Museum. The first Magritte's Smile will be hung inside the Museum about 10 feet in the air.

-- Edward Tufte

Magritte's Smile at night in the courtyard of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

-- Edward Tufte

Eiko and Koma with Magritte's Smile

Performance at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, June 20, 2009:

Photographs by the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

-- Edward Tufte