UPDATED: The Pending End of the "Up Is Down" Era

UPDATED with the answers and a very embarrassing admission

Helping a friend bubble wrap a large abstract painting the other day, I recalled how many times I've been in a studio of a painter who works in abstraction and had one of two experiences. Either it had been years since I had seen a particular abstract piece but upon noticing it again realized, often to the artist's surprise, that it was upside down (my one and only memory parlor trick) ... or ... I watched as the artist his/herself tried to recall which was the correct orientation of a piece. Together those experiences might suggest I find it odd that artists sometimes forget the orientation of an abstract piece, but my parlor trick is inconsistent enough that I actually totally empathize.

Toward that end, and as my parting gift to 2008 (what a wild and in so many ways awful year it's been), I offer the following highly irreverent quiz (with sincere apologies to the artists). Among these well known works, can you tell which is upside right and which is upside down? I've ordered them according to what I consider easiest to hardest and I should note that in a few instances the image has been cropped ever so slightly to remove a tell-tale signature or other indication:

A. Kasimir Malevich: (correct)

B: Georges Braque (Upside down)


C: Barnett Newman (upside down)

D: Jasper Johns (correct)



E: Jackson Pollock (correct)



F: Joan Miró (correction: Image that had been here was actually a parody of a Miró, NOT an actual Miro...my bad. What I get for taking short cuts). It was upside down, but I've deleted it to not further my offense to the parodying artist.


G: Wassily Kandinsky (correct)

H: Kasimir Malevich (upside down)


I'll post the answers next year.

Have a healthy, happy and prosperous 2009 everyone!