Backlog of posts: No. 1
Aug. 30th, 2006 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sister_luckThere is a whole bunch of backlogged posts that I've been meaning to write that never got past being a niggling shape in the back of my head.
Here is one of them:
Last week was museum week for me - two modern/contemporary art museums in the space of four days. Both are fairly impressive architecturally and I'd been to both before though I had no clear memory of one and had only spent fifteen minutes in the other.
Number one was one of the first big newly-built museums for modern art and the architect created a work of art himself with a building that can be read as a brain, a city, or even a mine. Today it seems fairly unremarkable, but in the late 70s/early 80s it was groundbreaking - as was the art that was presented there. Like most buildings from this period, the museum needs major renovation work - it's crumbling and leaking and rotting away - and it will be closed for a longer period in a month or so.
The last show before the major refurbishment takes place deals with how familiar objects get a new meaning in different contexts, juxtaposing different artworks and commenting on them. For example, four rather stark grey canvasses which are arranged on the walls of a square room are now joined by a baroque armchair decorated with mosaic-like multi-coloured paint. You walk into the room through a corner and the contrast of the colourful chair on a platform in the middle of the room with the paintings presents a nicely ironic comment and completely changes the mood of the room.
Then there were the light-blue concrete raindrops hanging on nylon threads right in front of the huge windows looking out across the city. Very poetic and fitting for the region.
There was a lot of stuff that I really loved - mostly for its effect, the new perspectives offered - like the part of the wall that had been painted grey and then had a huge rectangular shape cut out which was then laid flat in the adjoining room. It looks like a stage; it offers new views on the other paintings; it is bloody cheeky.
I don't know why I like this kind of modern art, but a lot of it was stunning and thought-provoking. I can't really describe - it's an experience.
Then there is the brilliant poster:
Here is one of them:
Last week was museum week for me - two modern/contemporary art museums in the space of four days. Both are fairly impressive architecturally and I'd been to both before though I had no clear memory of one and had only spent fifteen minutes in the other.
Number one was one of the first big newly-built museums for modern art and the architect created a work of art himself with a building that can be read as a brain, a city, or even a mine. Today it seems fairly unremarkable, but in the late 70s/early 80s it was groundbreaking - as was the art that was presented there. Like most buildings from this period, the museum needs major renovation work - it's crumbling and leaking and rotting away - and it will be closed for a longer period in a month or so.
The last show before the major refurbishment takes place deals with how familiar objects get a new meaning in different contexts, juxtaposing different artworks and commenting on them. For example, four rather stark grey canvasses which are arranged on the walls of a square room are now joined by a baroque armchair decorated with mosaic-like multi-coloured paint. You walk into the room through a corner and the contrast of the colourful chair on a platform in the middle of the room with the paintings presents a nicely ironic comment and completely changes the mood of the room.
Then there were the light-blue concrete raindrops hanging on nylon threads right in front of the huge windows looking out across the city. Very poetic and fitting for the region.
There was a lot of stuff that I really loved - mostly for its effect, the new perspectives offered - like the part of the wall that had been painted grey and then had a huge rectangular shape cut out which was then laid flat in the adjoining room. It looks like a stage; it offers new views on the other paintings; it is bloody cheeky.
I don't know why I like this kind of modern art, but a lot of it was stunning and thought-provoking. I can't really describe - it's an experience.
Then there is the brilliant poster:
