MoMA offers a free audio tour to “help” visitors understand what the artist is trying to express.
While helpful with some, you end up looking like a jackass to those brave souls who ventured forth sans audio guidance as you stare at an untitled canvas painted blue by Yves Klein for five minutes listening to a montage of monologues composed by various “experts”.
“Monochrome abstraction—the use of one color over an entire canvas—has been a strategy adopted by many painters wishing to challenge our expectations of what an image can and should represent. Klein likened monochrome painting to an “open window to freedom.” He worked with a chemist to develop his own particular brand of blue. Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium, he called it “International Klein Blue.” Klein adopted this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness that reflected his own peculiar utopian vision of the world.”
Yves Klein, Untitled blue monochrome, 1959.
I enjoy following kids and listening to their reactions to each piece they encounter. It’s in the same spirit of speed dating, they either “love it” or “hate it”. You will either hear, “Oooh…that’s cool!” or “Eeew…that’s crap!” What’s hilarious is that they are usually dead-on while being extremely economical with their word choice.
One room was entirely empty and the halogen lights overhead flickered on and off every ten seconds. Everyone stopped and soaked in the creativity. One couple had found a crumbled scrap of paper and were trying to decipher it’s meaning in the context of the barren room with faulty lighting. As I approached them, they realized it was just a piece of trash some inconsiderate visitor had dropped. They quickly vacated the room to avoid eye contact with me, knowing I knew they had just applied their art history knowledge to garbage.
I was tempted to stick my gum on the wall and attach the wrapper to it and wait for someone to unravel the meaning behind it.
RANDOM DOUCHEBAG ANALYZING MY GUM WRAPPER
The reason the artist chose a piece of paper emblazoned with the words “Trident” on it symbolizes
Poseidon or “Earth-Shaker”, the Greek god of earthquakes. The lights signify the chaos created by striking his trident to the ground…blah…blah…blah
I wouldn’t be shocked if I walked into an installation displaying a diorama of a middle-aged couple’s bedroom with two live models in coital activity with a group of tourist surrounding them holding their trusty audio guide to their ear.
DRONING MoMAudio RECORDING
This piece is entitled, Love is Blind. Here we see an aging couple engaged in sexual intercourse. The Danish artist, Sven Bjord, has taken a four dimensional snap shot of an average American couple in the privacy of their own bedroom. Notice the details in the background, Bjord encapsulates the gaudiness of Midwest décor with bric-a-brac from Wal-Mart and furniture from Salvation Army. The ventral position of the post-menopausal female represents: the woman’s movement, the growing number of children produced by the Second World War, and Americans abandonment of body image. The male’s glasses symbolizes that although he has trouble “seeing”, he prefers to soak in his wife’s “beauty” with corrective lenses in full light to show her that his love is truly blind.
Originally posted 2006-09-05 21:57:36. Republished by Old Post Promoter.
beacon enlightens me how unproductive we humans have become.
