Monday, March 27, 2006

the MoMA

I saw a lot of art in NYC. It was wonderful. After so many museums, though, I feel more and more sensitive to the dishonesty of museums.

Two radical thoughts:
1) The museum space is sterile and elitist; it is artificially separated from the real, living world.
2) The movements following art of the 1950's point increasingly towards the death of elitism -- Enter urban graffiti, comic books, collage, and pop art.

Anyways, some new favorites:



Klimt's landscapes - very underrated. must be seen in person.







Kandinsky's early work - a richness totally inspired by Russian fairytales. part of the Symbolist movement.















More Magritte - just call me "Gramaphone Assassin"















Early Cubism - the quality of works by Picasso and Braque is unparalleled. they worked side-by-side, playing off of each other. sometimes they purposely mixed up their paintings to throw people off.









Graffiti artist turned abstract painter - Basquiat.











David Wojnarowicz - absolutely badass. painter / film director. died of AIDS in 1992.


Left: a dream image. novelist Yukio Mishima's face appears at bottom.






... more Wojnarowicz



... and yes, that is a tail-devourer.

6 comments:

David said...

All the art is great -- I've got images from all those guys saved on my computer.

But why are those two thoughts radical? People have been making that argument for decades...

Fifth said...

That Wojnarowicz guy is badass.

Jeremy Abernathy said...

Well, I know that those two ideas are not so radical at all, but recently I found myself personally convinced by them. There may have been 20 million anarchist or intellectual-types to have come before me to realize the same thing, but to feel the that realization in your own life is very different than reading about it in books.

Jeremy Abernathy said...

Well, I know that those two ideas are not so radical at all, but recently I found myself personally convinced by them. There may have been 20 million anarchist or intellectual-types to have come before me to realize the same thing, but to feel the that realization in your own life is very different than reading about it in books. oks.

Fifth said...

About point 2: I'm not sure this is necessarily true. Instead, I think modern communications change the normal pattern of art evolution between elite and common. Replace elitism with the word "underground", which I kind of see as the new elitism.

I'll try posting about it.

Jeremy Abernathy said...

That's an interesting perspective. What elitism means to me is the type of art that gets shown in museums. The underground certainly can be elitist, but it does not restrict itself to the rules of 'high art' that institutions prefer.