Amy Ward
Reflection #5
Self & Soul
Asheville Art Museum
Erica Sanga
4-15-2003 (Tax Day)
(3 pages)
This was a lot of fun. I know
that several people left part way through, but they
really missed out
because some of the most fascinating stuff came toward the end of the
tour around the floor.
It started out with me coming in behind the rest of the group and
standing at what
I thought was the back of the room where pictures of blue background
with white smeared images were
placed. I liked them a lot and I read the title. They
were by Ross Bleckner
and were titled “Falling Birds”. Then Miss Erica had us turn
around and look
at them. Of course I couldn’t speak up because I’d already read the
title! She thought they
seemed sad, but I thought something more positive. It seemed to
me like a dream, a midsummer
night’s dream perhaps? It was a moment, a thought, just
caught in an act
of nothing filled with possibility.
She talked to us and I started thinking
about biographies and if they’re important
or not in understanding the artwork.
I suppose that sometimes they are. We looked at
images by David
Hilliard and had long talks about them. For “Shirts vs Skins” I saw
the
scripture verse,
“…Whatever you do, do to the glory of God…” as it was centered along
with the guys in
skins and “Home of the Warriors” painted in too. Erica asked us how
guys feel with shirts on or off
and I thought guys feel manlier with them off. I didn’t see
any overweight boys
in the photo so I never thought about his purpose of chronicling the
embarrassment boy
s feel or about the intimacy that is forced on you when your shirt is
removed. It
was weird. I really liked how he played with the camera angles in the
three
panels.
I don’t think I really fully appreciated
the hands tying knots. It seems like artists
are experimenting
with media these days and sometimes what they do seems to be more
of manipulation
of media than of content in the piece. Sure it was a neat idea, I’m
just not
sure it’s had enough
time to grow on me. Or maybe I could just say, as she encouraged,
“I don’t like this
piece” and then tell why. But I’m not really sure why.
It just didn’t sit
well with me.
It was neat, but not “oh wow!” The armored lips were another odd
conversation piece.
And what about Chuck Close with his
pointillism techniques. Miss Erica wanted
to know what if
we only saw one? Wouldn’t matter to me, I don’t like that stuff, it’s
just
like the movie –
unsettling. Something about it has the same ingredient as fingernails
on a
chalkboard.
I don’t feel comfortable looking at it, and I don’t feel comfortable not
looking
at it. It’s neat that he
can do stuff like that but… not my style.
By now I’ve started taking notes on
a piece and then going to look at the placard
by it to see what
the artist intended. Unfortunately, too often I’m hitting the nail
on the head
so it may seem as
if I’m doing a bit of note taking plagiarism. But it’s kind of neat
to be able
to say, “Yes, I
was right!” Just like for that painting by Mary Frank that you could
actually
touch and open it up. I
was thinking that when you touch it, and you get more intimacy with
the art itself,
what would happen if we were allowed to touch Michelangelo’s David?
This
piece seemed to
me to represent conception and birth, perhaps. On the outside was this
land mass with raging
waters all around, and inside it was odd and simplistic but complex
as well. It
was as if the sperm had broken into the egg and you could see the future
of
what it would be.
Her second piece was neat too, it reminded me of when God spoke
at creation.
There was lots of texture and it was fun to stand really close and look for
hidden
images. We
found two men running with his hands up that had been indented and reliefed
in
the paint.
Bill Viola’s Quintet of Remembrance
was really cool. It was probably one rare time
when an artist fiddled
with technology and art won. I guess the question you bring away from
that was “how did he do that?”
One of the guys looked like he took most of his time being
really evil.
It was scary. Another woman, the one in the background, looked evil
too, but it
was a different
kind, not such a hungry evil, more of a cold, unchanging evil. Then
the other
woman looked frozen
in sorrow most of the time. The guy in the front on the right kept
changing, he was
really cool, and the woman smack-dab in the middle was very animated.
So what was he telling each actor
to represent at any given time?
I think that perhaps one of my favorite
artists in the room was Ken Aptekar who
did the big paintings
with etched glass over top. I loved “The Artist’s Parents” because
it
captured so well
how children see and process art. They love to tell stories but so
many
times their teachers
squelch that natural tendency and then it’s lost until later when they’re
told to revive it
somehow. And as I was looking at all this art I start noticing the
walls of the
museum itself.
How they’re white with spacula dotting the space around the pictures, hiding
the holes from previous pictures.
Making scars that give the walls character and a history
unspoken of art come and gone.
I start thinking that even the walls of the art museum are
art themselves.
And that is a thought that really does make me smile.