Why? My Impressions of Modern Art

Why?

Ellsworth Kelly 'Curved Red on Blue'

When reflecting upon visiting the Museum of Modern Art on Friday there is one simple question that most easily comes to mind; why?  While I understand that there is a purpose and appreciation among a certain audience for modern art, I would find it extremely difficult to claim that I have the slightest clue or understanding for it.  There were few occasions where I walked up to the piece of artwork and was able to make a quick guess as to what it was about or what the artist was trying to get at.  Most of the artwork involved an initial glance, a review of the description on the wall, and several minutes of attempting to comprehend the meaning behind it.  For the vast majority of the pieces, I was still left in confusion as to the meaning behind it and the artist’s reasons for making the piece. 

Amidst the confusion and lack of understanding of modern art as a whole, I did enjoy some of the pieces and could appreciate the artistic process.  In one of the first rooms, the museum housed a couple of Anselm Kiefer’s pieces, including Aschenblume.  I will admit that I didn’t get the symbolism and meaning until I read the card next to it, but I thought that it was a tremendous piece of artwork that obviously took a lot of time and work to create.  As I moved from left to right while viewing the painting I noticed that it moved with you and seemed to be giving different vantage points.  I also enjoyed Alain Jaquet’s ‘Camouflage Boticelli (Birth of Venus)’, which played off of a reaction to Boticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ and a mix of modern influences with shell gas.  This painting caught my interest because it wasn’t completely straightforward and required a little background, but I didn’t find myself asking ‘why?’.  It isn’t that I am against art that challenges you to think, but I did have difficulties with finding some of the modern art being ambiguous to the point of frustration.  For instance, when viewing the museum’s entire set of Sean Scully’s ‘Catherine’ collection, I simply could not wrap my head around why someone would create 8 paintings that were simply stripes in different patterns and colors, all with the same title. 

After thinking about all of the artwork that I encountered I have concluded that I only have some general ideas of what modern art is about.  In class, we discussed how the modernism movement was a reaction to movements such as romanticism, realism, and naturalism.  The movement was rejecting what came before it and the expectations of society.  Thinking about the main goals of the movement, it seems like the modernist artists took these ideas to the extreme and tried to defy anything done before.  The artwork doesn’t answer or fulfill any expectations and challenges the audience however it can.  Just like the stories that we have been reading in class, void of satisfying conclusions, the pieces doesn’t have immediate messages or an overall apparent meaning.  Although I don’t have much understanding when it comes to the artwork, I will admit the artists succeed in forcing others to think and challenge society. 

Overall, I thought the trip to the museum and the experience with modern art was both interesting and confusing.  Even though I can appreciate the movement and those behind it I am still left with my initial impulses to ask why.  Why paint an entire collection of stripes? Why were so many works left untitled?  Why present a piece of scrap metal as a sculpture? Why so much ambiguity? Why?

Meeting Suelli

After several dozen emails, comparing schedules, and much confusion, I was finally able to meet my conversation partner.  I was honestly kind of nervous about the experience because I wasn’t sure how much English my partner would speak and how difficult it would be for us to understand each other.  I was beginning to think that there would be some issues because of all of the email difficulties. It took us several tries to set up a meeting time and place that would work with both of us.  Finally, we were able to decide on meeting at the Barnes and Noble bookstore on the corner of University at 2:15 on Tuesday.  Due to the scheduling issues and how long it took to make plans in the first place, it’s safe to say I was more than a little concerned about how all of this would go. 

At 2:15 on Tuesday, I found a table at the bookstore and began to wait for my partner to arrive.  When thinking about the emails that we had sent back and forth to arrange everything about our first meeting, I suddenly realized that I had overlooked one major detail; we hadn’t discussed how we would know who the other was when we saw each other.  In fact, all I knew beyond the meeting place and time was a name, Suelli de los Santos Mateus. I began to worry that this would cause further delay in the whole process and perhaps I would not get to meet my partner after all.  However, all it took was one quick phone call and some more patient waiting and my partner finally arrived. 

Suelli is an 18-year-old, Portugese speaking, girl, from Angola, a country in the southern portion of Africa.  I will admit that I had to look up its exact location on a map even though it sounded familiar.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that communicating in person was going quite smoothly compared to all of our electronic attempts.  She informed me that she was in the high-intermediate level of the IEP classes with only one more level to go before completion of the program.  Because of this, she seems to be more advanced in her English than I had assumed. 

She told me a little about the IEP program and how it works to start out with.  One word that stood out in her description of the classes was “boring”.  After she described her typical weekly schedule of intensive English classes, with very little variation from day to day, I could see why she felt that way.  Suelli thought that it was indeed helping her learn English and that it was effective, but I can only imagine how boring it would be taking the same classes, about largely the same subject, every week, especially if your interests lied elsewhere.  For instance, she wants to move on to study at a university next fall to study microbiology, which doesn’t have too much in common with English studies.  When I asked her how easy or difficult she found learning English, she replied that the study of the grammar and mechanics was pretty easy and it was the actual speech that was most difficult.  As far as I could tell she was doing well with speaking English and there were only a couple of times where I had to break down what I was trying to say or ask into simpler parts. 

I also discovered that she chose to come to TCU and go through this program because she has had family and friends attend here and also has family members that live close by.  Having family in Texas was one of the same reasons I ended up attending TCU also.  I found it interesting that even though we were from two completely different parts of the world, we selected the same school for similar reasons.  I did have to explain where exactly Nebraska was by talking about its location in relation to bigger states she has heard of.  Honestly, I wasn’t surprised, as I have to do this with many people actually from the United States as well. 

Overall, it was a great experience and I am looking forward to our next meeting.  I learned a lot about her on our first meeting and cannot wait to learn more.