The "New" Us...

Danforth Museum of Art - Some Logo Sketches

Come stop by at our museum this weekend to check our latest exhibits, to learn about our bold plans to move to a new location & to attend thought-provoking talk about our ongoing visual extravaganza titled "Wheat, Washington 2009 - 2012" by artist Neal Rantoul. Oh and if the logos above get your pulse racing, do check this out...See you this Sunday :)

[Images Courtesy - Danforth Museum Of Art]

"Creativity takes courage"~Henri Matisse

Empty and Full

Cross Posted at Gnome Mag

 

The ocean can look very different, depending on whether you are standing at the shore, swimming beneath ocean waves, soaring above in a glider or cruising the waters in a ship. Members of the ever burgeoning Art community may call this phenomenon as perspective. The magnificent images in ongoing exhibit ‘Empty and Full’ at Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in Boston elucidates a thought provoking perspective on Duality. The exhibit illustrates awe-inspiring work titled Twelve Miles to the Horizon by Catherine Opie, a revered American photojournalist of contemporary times.

                                                       

A plethora of things attribute to making Twelve Miles to the Horizon an instantly engaging work. In her work, Catherine Opie narrates her voyage from Busan (South Korea) to Long Beach (California, USA) using images as the medium. These unedited images, shot over a period of ten days on her trans-Pacific journey, and mounted in huge frames [50 by 371/2 inches] look spectacular amidst the white-washed walls at ICA. At first, the viewer is intrigued by so many juxtaposed images of sunrise & sunset on display. The intrigue then translates into sincere admiration upon learning that all the panoramic images were shot by Catherine from the deck of a container ship at sunrise and sunset everyday during her excursion through the Pacific ocean. These twenty images have been meticulously captured with utmost exactness and thus they share the same horizon line precisely at centre of the image.  Amidst water continuously rolling off the ship, turbulence in ever changing weather and unpredictable ocean waves, keeping the heavy camera equipment still on ship’s desk would have been a herculean task.

                                                        

These cyclical images shot at dawn & dusk appear to portray duality. There’s abundance of water on one hand but total absence of land on the other.  Her images also reinforce the static versus dynamic nature of our environment. The omnipresent sun, ethereal moon & usually calm sky being static elements whereas turbulent waters, twirling container ship & ever changing perspective being dynamic elements. All images taken together makes the viewer ascertain and evaluate the nature of relationship between organic (photographer, ship crew) and inorganic (ship, camera) elements.

Enterprising spirit of photographer contrasts sharply with serenity of the ocean especially at dawn. Warm colors at dawn seems to make viewer feel rejuvenated, ready to start another day enthusiastically. The cool colors at dusk however imply a sense of loneliness and similar connotations of everything dark. The first (departure from South Korea) and the last image (arrival at California, USA) also seem to accentuate the contrast between rational (ethereal natural beauty, nature imposed order etc) versus irrational (civilised societies governed by strict rules, government imposed order etc).

The strong visual energy portrayed in these life size landscape photographs makes viewer wonder-Why artist decided on venturing out all alone on such a never-seen-or-heard before voyage in first place? Perhaps artist wished to break free from burgeoning cities and complex lifestyle to a far flung place where she could capture vibrant colors of nature, seek plenty of inspiration and narrate a visual story. Perhaps the excitement of capturing the unknown, remarkable possibilities of meeting new people & adventure of sea voyage engaged her inquisitive mind.

One of the most crucial aspects of life in modern times is the notion of freedom and the notion of bondage. The final goal is to experience freedom in its entirety but to understand what freedom is we first have to understand what bondage is. Catherine’s landscape photographs illustrate both very well. One one hand she is out in the open sea doing what she loves to the core (freedom) but on the other hand, in-spite of possessing best photographic equipment,  she can only capture her subjects and not her feelings in photographs (boundaries). Most of us live in a hallucinated state where we are restricted by our own projections and thus we seldom achieve breakthroughs.

At the outset, her Empty and Full exhibit seems to advocate to spectator to suggest shifting into an open & adventure seeking mindset. Once our minds are open, we can commence filling them with all the splendid people, places and experiences that we have always longed for. Very soon we might find our lives full of spirit and remarkable times similar to her breathtaking landscapes. These images seem to be a wake-up call from artist to the viewer, suggesting the viewer to pursue their true passions, march forward towards their long term goals and ultimately matter!

Despite being devoid human presence, Catherine all-encompassing surreal oceanscapes leave viewer feeling little perplexed, quite amazed and romantically dreamy.

[Images Courtesy - Catherine Opie]

Significance of Spirals

Ad Mom’s Coil, 2007 Etching with chine collé 

I have voiced it before that VTS touring style offers fringe benefits both to museum visitors as well as tour guides. I was quite keen to start my 2012 innings with a  visit to Danforth and thanks to Kendra (our museum's education coordinator), opportunity seemed  right around the corner. I was quite excited upon learning that I can do a Public tour on January 7th for our museum's esteemed visitors. I visited museum in advance to jot down visual clues and take a mental note of salient masterpieces in Rhoda Rosenberg's gallery.

As the tour commenced, we asked all five visitors to spend a minute or two in gallery and observe keenly. I was pleasantly surprised upon finding that all of them were drawn towards an artwork titled "Mom’s Coil, 2007". Following were some of the answers I received upon probing them with a barrage of questions:

• What do you see in this artwork? Threads, Rope, Wool, Coil, Spiral.
• How about the surface? Rough, Corrugated, Uneven, 3D like.
• How does it make you feel? Gloomy, Confused, Disappointed, Sad.
• What is artist trying to portray? Connections, Perplexed-ness, Blackhole.

Thanks for VTS style questions, within 3-4 minutes as a group we started analyzing the artwork together trying our best to ascertain what artist is depicting and why! Interestingly Dan (an elderly gentleman in our group) said the artwork was all about now omnipresent SPIRALS and we decided to exchange some ideas on what Spirals signify in real world. In brainstorming session that followed for next 20 minutes, here were some interesting observations made by group:

• Fundamentally all SPIRALS have a fixed central point from which rest of the spiral emanates farther away.
• What makes viewing spirals engaging, is that one's eyes are drawn towards the inside-out or outside-in  curliness of the spiral. But most spirals appear aesthetic to naked eye.
• Unlike other geometric shapes, spirals seem to be fluid (instead of static), in a state of dynamism.
• In Ancient Greek culture, spiral symbol signified INFINITY and a state of constant motion.
• In Ancient Celtics culture, spirals indicated birth,  growth and never ending expansion.
• Leonardo-da Vinci is known to have filled his notebook with observations about nautilus shell spirals. These observations became basis for several of his masterpieces. 
• The organic spiral seems to represent coiled-up energy waiting to be applied in appropriate endeavor.
• Spirals certainly represent connected-ness. Even our universe is depicted by a big Spiral and so are Black holes and galaxies. 
• The mother of all spirals - the Golden Spiral and its applications in nature (seeds packing inside a sunflower) are truly mesmerizing indeed.

As we wrapped up the discussion about the artwork, I briefed the group about Rhoda Rosenberg's bio and salient details of the exhibit. With that the group appreciated Rhoda's work even more and as we moved onto next gallery, we felt enriched (learning facts about spirals), engaged (stimulating discussion) and alive! Do mark your calendars and come visit Danforth this winter for exciting art events, interesting artist talks & our rewarding art classes-details here.

[Image - Rhoda Rosenberg]

"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection"~Michelangelo

Free Museum Day

If you wish to seek some inspiration, stimulate your mind or come up with some cool ideas, plan a trip to a nearby museum this weekend. 25-Sep-2010 is National Smithsonian Museum Day & more than 1300 museums across the US welcome people into their premises for FREE! Oh and before heading out to your favorite museum check out following pointers:

• Print your FREE ticket here
• Some interesting tips to make the most of your visit are here
• Probe museum docents with plenty of questions & most importantly have a blast :)

Have an educational weekend ahead :D

 Give me a museum and I'll fill it.~Pablo Picasso

[Image Courtesy - Smithsonian]