The St. Louis Art Museum has spent a ton of money, $160M, on a brand new wing, which I visited Sunday. It’s spacious and bright. It’s an inviting space for viewing art. There were a few dozen works of art in the new wing, and here are but a few:
Mississippi Circle. These are limestone rocks.
This piece is called Octagon, and it is a dyed canvas.
This work of art is called Fluorescent Lights. It is made of a long fluorescent light.
You can probably already guess my reaction: The Emperor Has No Clothes. I hate to feel and sound so negative, but very few of the works of “art” in the new wing caused any reaction in me other than sadness that they had spend so much to display such unimpressive things. I imagined all the groupthink that went in to the planning. I am sad to think that there are so many talented artists out there, in so many new and alternative media, yet the above efforts are the things that get the primo space in the St. Louis art museum. This is most certainly art that does not offend. Perhaps that is the point–after all, the museum agenda is controlled by well-to-do people. We certainly don’t want art that spawns social justice. Maybe we are filling this space with stuff, so that we don’t need to make difficult decisions about what kind of challenging art would take its place.
this display makes me want to administer a secret ballot survey to those visitors who view these works. That survey would include questions like these (along with my predicted answers:
1. Do you consider the above 3 items works of art? (22% yes).
2. Do you consider the above 3 items impressive works of art? (3% yes).
3. Should these works be replaced by something else? (95% would say yes with regard to 75% of these works)
Again, I am saddened to write this. I want to be proud of my city’s new art museum.
The purpose of the artwork IS to inspire feelings of disappointment and overall sadness. Don’t you get it?
Ahah! Clever, Ben.
The purpose of the faux art is to inspire frustration/sadness, and therefore the display is a huge success.
Before there was a new wing, there was no joy because there was no art. The new wing, as is, is more disappointing than NO wing, it turns out.
I missed the re-opening by a day when i was in town. I guess that was a good thing. I have recently been thinking a lot about appreciating all sorts of art in a less judgmental way, taking it on its own terms and getting out of it whatever it might have to offer without wishing it were something else. When it’s your home town art museum with the resources to display very impressive work, it would be hard to withhold judgement and not wish for something more. I do have to wonder what the going rate for a museum quality yellow octagon is.
Although this is not at all the type of art that floats my boat, I do think that there is something to be said about putting simple things in a fancy frame (an art museum wing)to encourage the pondering of the simple things that we would normally disregard in daily life. Think of zen rock gardens and haikus. Lets say some “artist” placed a pile of dog poo (dried hopefully, so it doesn’t stink) on a pedestal in that museum. Where normally dog poo on the sidewalk will elicit disgust and anger about the irresponsible dog owner that left it there. Dog poo in a museum will probably elicit a different and unpredictable thought process. There is a really cool video by YouTuber ViHart that talks about context and frames that is WELL worth checking out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4niz8TfY794&feature=c4-overview&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg
I’ts about music that most don’t like because its not traditional and although I still don’t “like” it, the video is AMAZING
Jason
Speaking of modern art that I don’t get, this article from a Miami modern art show hits the nail on the head: https://www.vocativ.com/12-2013/report-miami-succeed-modern-art-without-really-trying/