Reflections 16 - Modern and Contemporary Art

 July 29, 2023

Galleries 904 through 907 are still closed, as are galleries 922-925, so this seems as good a time as any to think about the works I've been looking at for the past several months. If the reopening of these galleries leads me to reflect further on what I've seen, I can always return to this entry.

The first thing to say is that these are unquestionably the most difficult and challenging galleries I've visited, and this would be true, I think, even if I hadn't given myself the task of writing about works that struck me as the most difficult and challenging. With representational art, you basically recognize what you're looking at, even when the work is highly stylized (think African sculptures or totem poles). The familiarity is comforting. You can pay attention to subject or composition or color or line or iconography or cultural influences without wondering "What is this?"

The abstract works I've seen make very different demands Some that are "purely" abstract are pleasant to look at - I think of the Ellsworth Kelly painting I like so much. But the works that presumably are grounded in real objects or scenes challenge us to respond not just viscerally but also intellectually, to try to understand what the artist was thinking, to enter the artist's imagination. 

Perhaps all ground-breaking art, whatever form it takes, is difficult because it goes beyond the norms to which we're accustomed. I think of Stravinsky - a pleasure for me now, but radical in its time - and Alban Berg and John Cage, of Joyce and Faulkner. These works call on us to stretch ourselves - and we often don't want to be stretched. Sometimes we'd much rather take the easy way out.

[What's all this first-person plural stuff, Janet? Are you taking comfort in hiding out rather than acknowledging your own personal difficulties with interpretation and enjoyment?]

One thing I feel very clear about: Abstraction in art was an inevitable and necessary development. Representational art had gone as far as it could go, and artists wanted to break its boundaries and try other modes of expression.  I like some of what they did, dislike some of it. But I admire them, and sometimes am in awe of them for striving to create something new.