In December, we took our annual art department trip to Washington, D.C. We saw three galleries: the National Gallery, the Hirshhorn, and (a first for me!) the American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery. At the National Gallery, I saw a great deal of work, the vast majority of which was abstract, and while I sadly did not have the chance to see the Vermeer exhibit, I did pay a visit to the giant blue rooster on the roof of the gallery. (This rooster may very well be my favorite thing at the National Gallery.) At the Hirshhorn (my favorite of the two previously experienced galleries this year), I got to see the Ai Weiwei exhibit, as well as a few others (I can't recall the artists' names that made them right now). The final stop of the day was the American Art Museum, and since I had never seen it before, it was an even greater experience than it might have been otherwise. I was blown away by the fantastic art; everything there felt new and exciting while also maintaining a sense of proud American tradition.
I managed to find a piece for our assignment from each gallery. Though the Hirshhorn was my favorite (before heading over to the American Art Museum), I was still fascinated by a room in the National Gallery featuring an artist (Saul Steinberg) whose markmaking style seemed very similar to my own. His pieces felt very familiar to me as a result, almost as if I could have made them myself. However, his content was very different, featuring war instead of women, and to that end I ask: why did he choose to make these pieces in this simplistic style? My piece chosen from the Hirshhorn was an enchanting display of photographs of young children's faces, placed among lightbulbs and boxes and left smiling out at audiences worlds younger than them. I was deeply interested in the children - although photography is not the direction I want to pursue, I appreciate how it tells each child's individual story and yet raises more questions: what were the children doing at the time? What was the historical context of each picture? Why were some children smiling in their pictures and others not? At the American Art Museum, I chose a piece done about (and including snippets of) the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in clever painting form. At first glance, the painting was abstract and nonobjective. However, as I approached it, I noticed words peeking out from behind the pink and yellow splatters of paint. I still cannot remember the exact words in the painting, or the words of the Eighth Amendment for that matter, but I was reminded of my own, new tendency to place (and often hide) words in my art. It inspired me to keep doing just that, and my newest project (process post coming soon) will incorporate this idea.
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AuthorMolly Goodman Archives
May 2019
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