I am kidding, but we did have a rather cathartic and energetic time at the Museum der Moderne on top of the Monchsberg yesterday. Will and I, the only students who will be working together in the Artist In Residence class next term, found we had some ideological differences. When I asked Will what he thought about the first exhibit with works of art dealing with bodies as "a plane for the projection of social inscriptions," he said "I don't like talking about art."
I thought this was crazy. I have no greater joy in life than talking about art! What he meant was that he feels that art is about relaying the artist's emotion, about expressing things that can't be put into words and about eliciting an emotional response, and that he didn't like how in Art History classes, critics and historians often tell you what the "correct" interpretation of a work is. I explained that discussion was so important for me because it gives me access to other people's emotional responses and makes me think about the work in a way I couldn't appreciate on my own. I also am a staunch believer that for a piece of art to be successful, it either has to have an aesthetic experience (i.e. be pretty) and emotional experience (make you feel something strongly) or be understood intellectually (make you think about a concept). The problem so often with modern art is that the actual visuals of the piece don't appeal to me at all, so I have to talk about it, read about it and learn about it to engage with it on a conceptual or emotional level in order to have any respect for it at all. If I find that the art doesn't have a strong visual, emotional OR intelectual basis, then that crap is not art, and it doesn't deserve my time or attention, let alone deserve to be hung in a museum where thousands of people get to see it and the artist gets rich. Bad art makes me so mad. And yes, I think there is such a thing as bad art.
Will thinks that everything in the world is art, from paintings to urinals, which I HIGHLY disagree with, but we will be able to unpack that later as we work together. I guess my ideas about good and bad art are mostly informed by my experience as a photographer. I see the world as a collection of things, sprawled out before me, and the art is picking those things out and capturing them in a specific way that shows personal vision. Will is a sculptor, which means that objects and space for him are all parts of experience. I don't always like interactive art or instillations, since they don't seem complete or composed for me. But Will is completely opposite, and got mad at some of the photographs, wishing that he was able to experience the scenes spatially for himself, instead of being only given one point of view, through the camera.
The art in the MdM was kind of boring. There was a drawing exhibit that was exciting for me only because there were some drawings by Egon Schiele Gustav Klimt, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, none of which were remarkable, but I get starstruck in the presence of works by famous artists. Then there was a rather strange photography exhibit that alienated me before I even saw it by writing in the description "Jürgen Klauke is not a photographer, but an artist, who uses photography as an instrument for questioning himself and the world." WHAT DO YOU THINK PHOTOGRAPHY IS? Anyway, the images were kind of interesting, except that they were nearly all black with shiny glass on them so they basically turned into giant mirrors, and we were too preoccupied with checking ourselves out to look at them seriously.
The BEST art was at the annex of the museum, the MdM Rupertinum, which we got into for only €2 because we had paid admission to the other museum. These were also photography exhibits. It seems to me that photography is really a prominent and serious art form here, since there were so many photography exhibits and they were integrated into other shows unlike in America where they are separated and relegated to the basement like at the Art Institute.
There was an artist Ilse Haider, who made these AMAZING sculptures with the photographs where she printed on wood and then sliced them to create wooden slats that made the picture almost unrecognizable when you moved but clear when you stepped far away. They are hard to describe. She also had pictures printed on Q-Tips. Some images were rather disturbing and unsettling, and I saw more penises than I would care to in one day, but it was still more interesting and thought provoking than at the other museum.
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