What is “Art?”
What is art? Is it a series of lines drawn strategically to create an image, or is it a series of lines randomly scrawled across a blank canvas? Is it a blatant image, or is it abstract? Is it a story of a person, or is it a story of emotion? The Museum of Modern Art gave me a glimpse of the wide variety of art that artists have to offer the world.
Upon entering, I saw a glass container holding soil and a few green plants. As simple as this structure was, I thought it resembled the essence of art in nature. I thought it was a clever piece of art right at the entrance of the MoMa, a small glimpse of the art that was to be presented once I passed the ticket holders and walked toward the galleries waiting for my viewing.
When I walked upstairs, I encountered a colorful array of empty food containers and household products stacked and splayed across a wall of white; this was George Maciunas’ “One Year.” It amazed me to see every item Maciunas ate or drank behind this glass display. Maciunas was the leader of the fluxus movement, where artists and music composers all over the world focused on anti-art and anti-music to subvert previous art traditions. The fluxus movement focused on each artist’s individuality and gave each artist the freedom to express his or her art in ways that were untraditional in the past. Maciunas took me by surprise by using organized food containers to use as art materials rather than the typical paint and blank canvas. It was a collage all on its own: Maciunas stacked his food item packages according to the product itself and made the heights vary in such a way that the peaks appeared to resemble the skyscrapers of New York City.
As I walked through the MoMa, I entered the Abstract Expressionism display subtitled “The Big Picture.” These artists aimed to create art that would “reassert the highest ideals of humankind” (MoMa). I noticed many of these abstract works resembled pain and destruction to refer to the war and Holocaust that occurred in the years prior to the movement. Jackson Pollock’s “The Flame” immediately caught my eye as I entered the gallery; the dark colors of black and red emanated fire and the black claw-like strokes resembled victims’ hands outstretched for help during the Holocaust. The oil paint on the fiberboard canvas seemed the painting texture the way flames have texture.
As I continued into the next room, I saw huge canvases with scarce strokes of lines. Barnett Newman was an artist who made paintings that “downplayed traceable signs of the artist’s hand” (MoMa). One particular work called “The Voice” featured a white canvas with an off-white line going down the right side of the painting. As I approached the painting to look at the strokes, it appeared as if the painting was a photograph, for it was completely smooth and I could not tell that it had been painted onto the canvas. All of Newman’s paintings varied in the colors used and the locations of these vertical lines. I noticed that in some of these paintings, the vertical lines were painted first before the “ground,” or the space behind the vertical lines, and others had the vertical lines painted after the ground was painted.
The next room was abundant in paintings with what appeared to consist of random splashes of paint on canvases. Jackson Pollock proved to be one of the most profound abstract expressionists in his time. He used paint pouring and drip techniques to cover his canvases in a completely abstract way. Although Pollock’s “Full Fathom Five” was one of his first pieces using drip technique, it appeared to be the most complex; I had to speculate the painting to see the nails and keys and cigarettes embedded underneath the oil paints. Incorporating these items into his work gave the painting more texture and dimension overall. His other works consisted of the characteristic drip technique he was known for and also varied in colors. Most of his works had the colors black and white in it to show extreme contrasts in the paintings. After seeing his characteristic drip technique paintings, I came across “Echo: Number 25, 1951.” It was completely different from his other paintings and seemed to have an abstract pattern to it. Using only black and beige colors, he created feather-like strokes on his canvas and elegant swirls. It gave the painting a whimsical, feminine touch, which was a vast difference compared to his other works.
As I walked into a room full of sculptures, I came across David Smith’s “Cubi X.” I really enjoyed looking at this structure because I could see the silhouette of a person walking mid-stride. There is a bit of irony with Smith’s use of stainless steel, a metal that does not easily bend; this structure depicts a person in motion, perhaps even dancing, and motion requires fluidity and movement, something that metal is not meant to do. I admire all of these artists, especially the abstract artists due to their vast creativity and vision in creating works of art that require viewers to look beyond what is displayed in front of them; I thoroughly enjoyed delving into my imagination to see what images I could fathom from these pieces of art.
