I am glad that Andrew and I went to the Hirshhorn Museum, it’s usually the one I skip in favor of the National Gallery. I know the National Gallery by heart, enter the main entrance, take a left then another left and you are in heaven, the most fabulous Rembrandts.
I am attracted to some modern art in a way that never used to appeal. Some is just silly. Some of it is eye catching and makes me smile. I would put some of it up in my house. I would be proud to say my grandchildren made this:
I like this in a very attainable way, not in a, my gosh, it’s a Vermeer way, but more like, hey kids let’s do a little project today at the kitchen table sort of way.
These are painted dowels evenly spaced. Besides a museum where would you want to see this thing? It takes a lot of space for this sort of art. I know a boy who would be plucking and honing those dowels into arrows for his great hunt in the sage brush. One very large room had polyester yarn hanging in about ten places from the ceiling and then secured tautly to the floor. (You MUST take a look at that gem!) The sign upon entering said, “Do Not Touch the Art,” and there stood three women in the room, one gently running her finger down the yarn while one of the other women was scolding her, “It says. ‘Don’t Touch.’” And really it was just silly, I mean suppose she broke a string, was it irreplaceable? Would it take the artist to reattach the yarn to make it genuine? Did American’s tax dollars go to pay for the thing!?
There is though an aspect to modern art that is very appealing to me; the obvious delight many abstract artists have in the everyday object of the everyday world. Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can piece of work, for example. Who doesn’t love to see all their canned food happily, neatly and brightly arranged on the pantry shelf? The duplication and repetition in his work is a great way to wordlessly demonstrate the age of machines and mass production. Warhol didn’t really even participate in producing the piece; the labels were silkscreened by various helpers in the studio. And doesn’t that too attest to the mass production of canned food?
Yet, given the choice between owning a Rembrandt and owning a Warhol, I know which one I’d choose.
My *favorite* art display ever was at the UI Gallery at the SUB. It was titled: “Hairball with Feather”, and that pretty much sums it up.
I know! So that’s where it even goes to levels beneath, “My nursing grandchildren could do better,” to “My cat could cough that one up!”
AND UI paid money for the thing no doubt.