|
|
=
> I posted this link awhile back, too. It's a larger image.
Yes and I opened the link at the time, but I saw what I *expected* to
see, a red painting on a white wall. This expectation was based on my
association of Malevich's name with the painting I remembered which is a
white square against white ground. Now I am even doubting that memory.
>
> If you notice, the square is not [square].
This is seen as introducing a *tension* to the composition within the
reduced pictorial elements. So, in a way, it's supposed to bother you.
> Ok. So what seemed like a worthless picture (to me) initially is suddenly
> taking on some meaning. Even so, I'm not sure I'll ever truly understand
> it.
Doubt I will either.
However, some of those Yves Klein paintings were quite intriguing.
Well Klein is a real showman and its hard not to enjoy his various
antics and means of poking tradition in the eye. He mocks the 'system'
then promptly makes money off of it.
> That said, I still prefer realism and/or surrealism (leaning more toward
> "real" than "surreal").
>
Nothing wrong with it, just remember, many cultures over human history
have shown a decided preference for the abstract. And no doubt you do
enjoy the formal abstract qualities of some architecture, music, and car
design, even some paintings.
One more anecdote. I should start by admitting my bias that I dislike
the artwork of a German artist named Joseph Beuys. I know I am probably
offending some Germans in the audience but I mean no disrespect to
Germany or Germans, I just don't like Beuys' art. It seems overly
precious, serious, and didactic to me, and most of the time quite
derivative. Never-the-less he enjoyed a tremendous popularity,
internationally, a few years back. At this time I did not realize how
much I disliked the work. Beuys was so embraced by the modern art world
that I figured I had better learn to like/understand his work or remain
a philistine. So it was that I returned several times to a large
retrospective of his at the Guggenheim. On one visit, I was standing
near a work that was a small piece of dull steel, a few cm's in each
dimension and flat, just sitting on the floor. An older, middle aged
man, with a weatherbeaten face, very sincere, looked like he earned his
living with his hands, came over to me and asked me if I could explain
to him what it meant. With my newly minted MFA degree I was quite taken
aback as I realized I didn't have the first idea of what it meant nor
could I even speculate about it in any kind of terms that this man was
likely to understand. I felt quite embarrassed on behalf of this
artwork, myself, and modern art by extension. It seemed to me, suddenly,
that it had become so inbred that it pretended that looking at a small
piece of steel on the floor was an enlightening thing to do. The man,
when he got no satisfactory answer from me, went over to a nearby museum
guard and asked him the same question. The guard, young and seemingly
fresh from the Marines, tried to be helpful and suggested that they look
at the title. I'll never forget the sight of the two of them bending
over the museum tag, next to this piece of steel, and the guard reading
in a dispirited voice, "steel plate". I felt that the whole edifice of
modern art had nothing to say to these two men who in their own way,
probably knew more about steel than did Joseph Beuys. I suppose in the
same situation today I might point out that our shared knowledge of
steel is what Beuys was about. Still don't think it would have
impressed the guy much.
-Jim
Post a reply to this message
|
|