Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Art

I'm standing a foot away from a watercolor version of Cezanne's bathers. I turn to my friend and say, "If one my kids painted that, I'd probably throw it away."

I appreciate art of all kinds. Well, let me be more specific, I appreciate the the mind of an artist. Someone who takes a word, a vision, a note, a piece of cloth and makes it come alive. It all takes talent that I can only meagerly relate to. And while it's subjective there's got to be a line somewhere that we all agree - is crap. And in American that line looks like the heart monitor readings of a schizophrenic crackhead. We're all over the place.

Yes, it shows how diverse we are but don't you think a lot of times we pretend to "get it" just because everyone else is? The emperor and all that? I think the gum that kid stuck on the $1.5 million painting looks better than the actual work of art. Mostly what I find to be mathematically impossible are the odds that millions of people will see the artist's vision in any piece of art.

Now I'm not saying Cezanne crap, but among the Cezanne in Provence works currently on display in DC the only painting I liked was the huge bathers oil on canvas one. (Those bathers impressed me because I couldn't believe those women had boobs so perfect back in the day, without Dr. 90210. Clearly they knew something we don't.) Let me repeat: it's good. I can barely draw a straight line so I'm not one to judge really, but my lack of emotion to the work reminded me of a trip I took to the Met in DC NYC where I wandered through the modern art section with a WTF look frozen on my face. The Father of Modern Art sure did spawn some simple and freaky minds.

Although, all the bad writing out there does give me hope...so maybe there is a purpose in crap art after all, to inspire attention whores pimping themselves out on a blog. Like me!

7 comments:

nicole said...

Yeah I kinda felt the need to hop on the bandwagon when we visited the Louvre in Paris...here we were at the world's most famous art museum and I thought everything looked weird...heh. It got much better across the road at the Musee de Orsay...I guess I'm more into Impressionism than Abstract. Go figure.

Brandon Cackowski-Schnell said...

I always liked the Hirshorn's sculpture garden. I didn't understand a lot of it, but it was always a nice place to hang out in the morning while I waited for the other museums to open.

Anonymous said...

I went to our local glass museum, which is in the hometown of Chihuly, and found that most of the sculptures looked like cheap paper weights made in China (ouch). The other stuff was so out there that it didn't make much sense. MQ, next time you are in town, I will take you there to prove it. It took over two years (i think) to actually get a piece by Chihuly on exhibit. Now he's an artist I get.

Note: this post was not meant to offend glass artists or paperweight artists...

Stacy Kaye said...

I've always wondered who decides that art is, indeed, "art." The abstract paintings are the ones that I really don't get. I think, "I could have done that! Would someone pay me hundreds of dollars?" My friend, Laura, is indeed an amazing artist. None of her works are in museums, but they are works that I would actually put in my HOUSE. (I'm a friend of Nicole's, by the way, which is how I happen to be on your blog. ;) )

Household6 said...

I'm with Nicole on this one! At the Louvre we stood in line for about 20 minutes to look at the Mona Lisa. Our response That's it?" All this hoopla over a picture that size of a graduation portrait? Hell the painting of Napoleon crowning himself was much more interesting!"

The best gallery I went to was up in Berlin of Van Gough's work. He had some serious issues in his later years - something that mad him very angry towards women but it was at least interesting.

HH6

Heather Hansen said...

Wasn't there this "artist" a while back who basically had a laundry pile and called it art? I thought, WOW I really am a creative person - my children too - cuz I have a lot of "art" going on at my house!

Jess Riley said...

Every day I want to take a picture of the wad of hair I wipe on the shower wall after I put conditioner in. If I had a whole series of hair pictures, I could probably sell them for thousands of dollars to an art gallery.

(I hope that wasn't TMI! LOL)