My favorite museum out of all of them was the Natural History Museum. As soon as you stepped in you were greeted by the colossal skeletons of two dinosaurs, 5 times your size. The fossils representing predator chasing prey during the Mesozoic era and you could almost imagine how it would go down. You can almost picture it like in all those films with poorly CGI dinosaurs. It was frightening but also fascinating. Looking at the displays of taxidermy creatures in their natural habitat. Like stepping into the Jungle, going into the Desert plains, the Savannah, the Arctic. All featured in the same room. The animals looking so life-like you think for a second that they might move. Might change from their frozen torpor and look you straight in the eye as they step down from their exhibit and walk out the doors. The California Science center was another favorite. Everything, down to it's architecture was incredible. Especially in the eyes of a ten year old girl. It looked futuristic. Even the gift shop was a place you spent a couple minutes in. Featuring things like weird slimes, fool's gold, crystals, anatomy skeletons. It was also very interactive. You could sit in a circular room and learn about anatomy as a huge human robot lit up and talked about the different areas of humans from the circulatory system to your brain.
As I got older though, I started becoming more interested in the arts. Therefore, I started going to art museums. Looking at painting as a young child was tedious and boring at best. But as I got older, I learned to appreciate it. Learned to see what everyone else saw. The way they whispered about the reason certain brushstrokes evoked moods and why color palettes were very important if you wanted your painting to create harmony within itself.
I didn't fully start perceiving and critiquing paintings until I took a painting class in college.
Although I didn't stay in that class very long, the professor being one of those elitists that probably thought anything before the baroque period of art was degenerate. But I did learn a few tricks from hunching over a canvas as I tried to paint rotting fruit. I gathered a new fondness for all those artists that achieved such amazing feats that will live forever as long as people admire them. How revered and honored they are like a sacred chalice. I would start by looking at the nameplate, the year it was made and the small backstory to it. Sometimes I recognized the artist, other times I didn't but I immediately wrote their name down for further research when I got home. I would try to think of how they changed, revolutionized or perhaps was one of many that evoked the period of art it was made in. Oftentimes, I tried to look to decipher what they meant. What were they thinking as they painted this portrait, what did they see when the finished piece was finally hung on the wall, did they have a hidden message, was there a joke hidden between the shapes of certain subjects.
Sometimes, I didn't look at the works of art. At times I would veer my sight towards another spectator and try to think of what they were thinking or feeling when they saw it. Some would stand for long minutes at a time at a certain work of art. Their brows would furrow, they would lean in with their arms behind their back as to reassure themselves that they wouldn't compulsively reach out and touch the wall to feel the texture. Others would swiftly glance and then keep walking. The types that want to see everything but don't want to examine too closely because as aesthetically pleasing as it seems their patience is not something that can be spent standing at a picture for too long. But another entertaining thing were the conversations and how they shifted depending on how old they were and who they were saying it to. Some of them were extremely flamboyant and almost gave the picture in my mind of a nose pointed upwards sniffing the air ostentatiously. Others were very fact-based talking about the ingredients used in the paint mixture, the deep integral science behind the geometry of why the subject wasn't precisely in the middle but slightly inching left. All of them incredibly insightful, if not to the experience of the paintings then to the way people relate, react and interact with those bodies of work.
I didn't fully start perceiving and critiquing paintings until I took a painting class in college.
Although I didn't stay in that class very long, the professor being one of those elitists that probably thought anything before the baroque period of art was degenerate. But I did learn a few tricks from hunching over a canvas as I tried to paint rotting fruit. I gathered a new fondness for all those artists that achieved such amazing feats that will live forever as long as people admire them. How revered and honored they are like a sacred chalice. I would start by looking at the nameplate, the year it was made and the small backstory to it. Sometimes I recognized the artist, other times I didn't but I immediately wrote their name down for further research when I got home. I would try to think of how they changed, revolutionized or perhaps was one of many that evoked the period of art it was made in. Oftentimes, I tried to look to decipher what they meant. What were they thinking as they painted this portrait, what did they see when the finished piece was finally hung on the wall, did they have a hidden message, was there a joke hidden between the shapes of certain subjects.
Sometimes, I didn't look at the works of art. At times I would veer my sight towards another spectator and try to think of what they were thinking or feeling when they saw it. Some would stand for long minutes at a time at a certain work of art. Their brows would furrow, they would lean in with their arms behind their back as to reassure themselves that they wouldn't compulsively reach out and touch the wall to feel the texture. Others would swiftly glance and then keep walking. The types that want to see everything but don't want to examine too closely because as aesthetically pleasing as it seems their patience is not something that can be spent standing at a picture for too long. But another entertaining thing were the conversations and how they shifted depending on how old they were and who they were saying it to. Some of them were extremely flamboyant and almost gave the picture in my mind of a nose pointed upwards sniffing the air ostentatiously. Others were very fact-based talking about the ingredients used in the paint mixture, the deep integral science behind the geometry of why the subject wasn't precisely in the middle but slightly inching left. All of them incredibly insightful, if not to the experience of the paintings then to the way people relate, react and interact with those bodies of work.
Suddenly, there was a disproportionate amount of disillusionment that almost became animosity towards modern art for me. There was a monthly exhibit at the modern museum of art here in Texas and I would try my best to attend as often as I could. Some of them were provoking and I enjoyed them especially because they gave context to our society and our world through a subjective lens that could be interpreted however we wanted to. Some of them were unorthodox and ground breaking in my opinion, giving me assurance that 100 years from now the people looking at the art made in this century would see the intensity and strangeness that emerged. It was no longer just painting, there are photographs, statues, ceramics, recyclable material being used to make something else altogether. It was inspirational especially for someone that struggles to convey both a universal message but simultaneously a personal one in my own works of art. However, the more I went the more disappointing they got. It wasn't enjoyably to walk through the hallways and look at the various works made by a certain contemporary artist. They started becoming more apathetic. There was less soul and more irony. But like someone that says something satirical but not actually understanding the true meaning in the first place, it comes off as shoddy and lazy. I understand it's difficult to create something completely unique because it seems like in the age of the internet we've already seen everything. Nothing is new, everything has already been done by someone else. But what modern artists seem to not understand is that it doesn't have to be completely different. It could have some elements to the old periods but also alluding to the modernity of ourselves today. Instead of spray painting the outlines of fruit, cigarettes and trash in the same color over and over again we could try to use the techniques used by the "greats" and try to incorporate that into what our lives are today. I've read interviews by these artists and it seems to me they fall either in giving too much meaning into their work, almost like they have to make up for the facile manner in which they make their creations or they're so vague they don't really understand why they made it in the first place.
It seems like it's not only apathy plaguing this new wave of art but also the idea that anything can be considered art. Although I do agree that it is up to the viewer to determine whether or not it is, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's any good. In fact I've seen more talent on art festivals and streets than what I've seen in modern museums. While I do recognize that this is just my opinion and someone else can have a very different way of viewing it I feel like there's some validity to my claim. We've become desensitized, so overly visually stimulated that nothing is surprising anymore. We create and create and it doesn't really mean anything unless someone buys it, unless someone deems it worthy enough to give you money for it. Giving the whole experience of going to museums a sour taste.
While I still continue to go in case something catches my eye, it's stressing to go. I see the same dull expressions on everyone else and I know that they feel the emptiness coming from those walls. The weird stiffness that although it's something created in our time period, there's no evocation of relating to it. It doesn't truly resemble how we feel or what we have to say about our existence. There's no inner dialogue from the artist to the viewer and it's unsettling and almost truthful if it didn't all feel like lying on the antiseptic floors of a hospital.
Writing this was a bit difficult, because as an artist living in the 21st century I know I contribute to this. I know that not everything can be completely mind opening and resonate with everyone. In fact, when I'm drawing or working on something I don't think of it in a grander scheme, it's something cathartic that I like to do for my own enjoyment. It can be a painting of a cat and as long as I enjoyed making it then I don't really care whether it evokes emotion in anyone else. However, I feel that if I was truly serious about trying to be discovered and trying to show something to the world, despite how microscopic in size I would want it to be something that I'm not only proud of but that it will actually make others want to pick up painting and share their experience to the world. That it's not just because I wanted to be paid for it or for my name to be recognized but because I had something important to say.
as always,
thank you for reading
sincerely
your tacky narrator
It seems like it's not only apathy plaguing this new wave of art but also the idea that anything can be considered art. Although I do agree that it is up to the viewer to determine whether or not it is, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's any good. In fact I've seen more talent on art festivals and streets than what I've seen in modern museums. While I do recognize that this is just my opinion and someone else can have a very different way of viewing it I feel like there's some validity to my claim. We've become desensitized, so overly visually stimulated that nothing is surprising anymore. We create and create and it doesn't really mean anything unless someone buys it, unless someone deems it worthy enough to give you money for it. Giving the whole experience of going to museums a sour taste.
While I still continue to go in case something catches my eye, it's stressing to go. I see the same dull expressions on everyone else and I know that they feel the emptiness coming from those walls. The weird stiffness that although it's something created in our time period, there's no evocation of relating to it. It doesn't truly resemble how we feel or what we have to say about our existence. There's no inner dialogue from the artist to the viewer and it's unsettling and almost truthful if it didn't all feel like lying on the antiseptic floors of a hospital.
Writing this was a bit difficult, because as an artist living in the 21st century I know I contribute to this. I know that not everything can be completely mind opening and resonate with everyone. In fact, when I'm drawing or working on something I don't think of it in a grander scheme, it's something cathartic that I like to do for my own enjoyment. It can be a painting of a cat and as long as I enjoyed making it then I don't really care whether it evokes emotion in anyone else. However, I feel that if I was truly serious about trying to be discovered and trying to show something to the world, despite how microscopic in size I would want it to be something that I'm not only proud of but that it will actually make others want to pick up painting and share their experience to the world. That it's not just because I wanted to be paid for it or for my name to be recognized but because I had something important to say.
as always,
thank you for reading
sincerely
your tacky narrator
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