The first of my favorite works of art was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Jane Avril (1899), a lithograph. The piece is part of an ongoing exhibition at the MOMA which focuses on Paris during the time period of Toulouse-Lautrec. Whereas the lithograph of Jane Avril is remarkably simple in its composition, consisting only of a woman dressed in the fashion of the time against an empty beige background, the piece nevertheless had the effect of transporting the viewer back in time. Namely, the work is clearly the product of a specific time period and thereby creates a change in perspective whereby the viewer shifts from a contemporary setting to a historical setting. One of the questions that the work prompted in me was the following: from one perspective, the piece could be considered as entirely dated, clearly identifiable with a particular historical period, as though I were to photograph a strip mall with a McDonald’s at the beginning of the 21st century. However, at the same time, even though a piece of art is clearly the product of a historical period, it nevertheless still can speak across the gap of time. In other words, the piece interested precisely because it engenders questions about how a work of art reflects its time period and may also transcend its time period.
Another of my favorite pieces was Lygia Clark’s Máscara abismo com tapa-olhos (Abyssal mask with eye-patch, 1968), a work made of fabric, elastic bands, a nylon bag, and a stone). (MOMA, 2014 http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1462) The piece in question is a photograph of this piece, which is, as the title indicates, a type of mask with the aformentioned ornamentation. The piece interested me because it was not a standard piece of art, as I am used to experiencing, but rather something else. a mask, and a photograph of a mask, clearly have a concept behind them, which makes the piece be perceived as a work of art. This is not to say that more traditional artworks, such as paintings or sculptures, do not have a concept, but rather here the concept itself is what is significant, rather than remarking, for example, that a painting is beautiful or faitfhully captures its subject matter. This is not to say that the mask in question does not also have an aesthetic value, but rather that it promotes questions about how we classify what art is.
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"My Experience With the Museum of Modern Art".
My favorite artist in the exhibition was the aformentioned Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, precisely because its seems that his work captures a specific historical period. It represents, in other words, what the layman considers art to be. The deeper questions, however, that arise from this artist is what makes him interesting for me: why would I more closely associate a definition of art with this artist’s work than other artists’ work, when considering that it is also a reflection of a specific time and place? Perhaps this is an intuitive understanding of what art is: we are taught to think that good art is what is considered to be art by various institutions, experts, professionals, etc., But I think Toulouse-Lautrec’s work challenges some of our preconceptions about what art is, in other words, forcing us to think about what may be considered art in our time period.
My second favorite artist was Robert Heinecken’s work, for example, his “Are You Rea #1.” Heinceken almost seems to represent a Toulouse-Lautrec figure, but in an American context. He, in other words, portrays images from a certain time period, i.e., American pop culture, which are specifically bound to a historical and social context. Heinekcen’s work shows us how art can appear in any type of context and is not so bound to institutional definitions of what art is. His work is experimental, but also contemporary, presenting objects that we immediately identify with, because of the social structure of our lives, however, at the same time, his work is art and this allows us to re-think questions about what makes a given object art.
What I most found unexpected about the webpage was not the works of art themselves, but rather the way in which the website is structured. The MoMA website tries to re-create the experience of visiting a collection or a museum through the virtual form. This was unexpected for me, in so far as I did not know that museums were taking such a dynamic and modern approach to art. In other words, the website in a certain sense wants to supplement or even replace the experience of visiting a museum through the detail of its website. Certainly, from one perspective, this could be considered a negative, in as much as it may discourage visitors from attending the museum since everything is online. However, from another perspective, such an approach familiarizes the individual with the museum experience and encourages him or her to visit a museum in this way.
The art displayed in the MoMA site are so diverse that it is difficult to identify particular styles which dominate. Arguably, however, this is the very point of MoMA: to show the diverse ways in which an object, a painting, a photograph, etc., may approach ideals of what art means. The new perspective I have gained on art from visiting the online MoMA is therefore an understanding of the very diverse ways in which art can present itself: art is not limited to, for example, a certain painting technique, a certain technique for sculpture, and not even to painting or sculpture, but rather encompasses the entire range of aesthetic experiences. In this sense, the greatest interest of the MoMA site is the way in which it challenges preconceptions about aesthetics.
The site above all underscored to me the fact that art is not something historical, but exists in the present day. To the extent that our lives are defined by, for example, economic obligations, it is also important that individuals are introduced to the fact that art still exists in the contemporary era. For this reason, MoMA relates to the history of art in a manner that shows that art is not historical, but is ongoing, present in every instance. Understanding the history of art, from this perspective, is important to grasp how historical art forms influence and perhaps shape modern approaches to art.
- Clark, Lygia. wearing Máscara abismo com tapa-olhos (Abyssal mask with eye-patch, 1968. New York: MoMA.
- De Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri. (French, 1864–1901). New York: MoMA.
- Heinecken, Robert. Are You Rea #1. 1964–68. Lithograph, New York. MoMA.
