talking
Art is a conversation.
It is weird to say without some faux-profundity that I think the goal of art is twofold; for an artist to express their emotions, ideas, reactions to something, and to create an opportunity for dialogue. It seems to me that the most successful artists, or at least the ones we know or perceive the strongest/most/best, tend to be successful at creating opportunities to discuss art. At the end of Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World, she says, “After looking at art, you ask yourself: Is this intriguing? Deeply amusing? Do I want to spend time with it? Does it become more compelling the more I think about it?”
In mulling those words over, I don’t think I’ve felt very strongly about art before, and that is an interesting thing to verbalize because it feels so antithetical to how fascinating I believe it is. I went to the MoMA with my girlfriend recently, and I finally got to see van Gogh’s Starry Nights, as well as Monet’s Water Lilies. They were beautiful, and as an untrained non-artist myself, I can only imagine the sheer depth of technique that made their paintings amazing, both pedagogically and emotionally. And yet, while I enjoyed the aesthetics of these works, I don’t think I managed to feel strongly enough about them.
Perhaps I am not conversing with art, not asking the right questions, approaching the canvas as an investigative reporter would, and not as a traveler on the subway asking about your day. Part of me wants to examine an artist’s technique, understand the how, the color theory, the pressure, the composition, the scale. The other, seemingly smaller part of me maybe wants to ask what I’d do if I was there, or ask why I liked it. Perhaps if I was alone in the room, I could think about the water lilies again, think about the sounds there – water lapping at the lilies’ lips, a light breeze rippling across the pearly water and foiling around my ears, the soft ‘plip’ of a fish or frog breaking the surface – and the touch, and the taste of the air, and the water moving and the sun shining, reflecting, refracting, gently through the surface.
That sounds nice.
I could have been there, then. The silence of an empty room with a swathe of canvas would have given way to a new world, or rather a lens into an old one. Perhaps I will go again.
–
When I talk with slightly more modern art, I think the conversation is harder for me, and perhaps for everyone, as it presumes context, which is a fickle thing. Each piece reflects its creator, and as such we first turn to them. As I write this I think about a shirt I have with an abstract, geometric, apparently constructivist piece called Composition of Circles and Overlapping Angles by Sophie Taeuber-Arp, a Swiss Dadaist.
Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Composition of Circles and Overlapping Angles, 1930.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Riklis Collection of McCrory Corporation/The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Imaging and Visual Resources/©2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
“I enjoy the contrast between the muted blue-grey background and the rest of the colors; in particular, the juxtaposition of the white with the deep orange-red (#FF2F08) and prussian blue (#023E99).”
“I’m drawn to the sandpaper-like texture in the top left, especially how it juts out in the intersections of various other colors”
“The three dots on the left, and three dots on the bottom, have interesting notions of symmetry”
“Why did you paint this? What did it make you feel when painting, and what did you feel while painting it?”
“What sort of techniques did you use to get even geometric shapes, and the sandpaper-esque texture of the brown-gold sections?”
“What do you think is the purpose of art? Is it to enjoy for beauty’s sake, is there any value in that? Should all art be beholden to some orthogonal perspective behind a veil, especially one that acts more as a steep step for many?”
“What is Dadaism? Did you know you were one of the pioneers of the movement, and foundational in the field of concrete art and geometric abstraction?”
“What made you choose the title you chose for this piece?”
“Why?”
–
The “intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated,” she wrote, “It is one of humankind’s deep-rooted, primordial urges.”1
–
Thank you, Ms. Tauber-Arp; I’m glad to have spoken to you. I carry you with me when I walk around, pretending to be sophisticated, trying my hardest to prove my love for things I don’t understand.
Perhaps I will go again, and then I’ll get it. After all, it did look cool.