As I stood in awe of the diverse artwork at the Armory Show I overheard a couple discussing the art pieces; the husband pointed to a Cubist painting and dismissed it saying, “A five-year old could draw this!” then he turned his wife’s attention to a European traditional piece and exclaimed, “Now that’s a painting!”.  This dismissal of modern art brings to mind the kind of reactions that plagued the Armory Show when it first opened in 1913.  At that time New York had not yet experienced the European experimental types of art like Cubism for example.  This show had both traditional and experimental pieces and that became a heavily debated issue.  Some critics like Kenyon Cox, an American painter and writer among other things, said that the art was “heartrending and sickening”.  Others like Stuart Davis, an early American modernist painter, thought that The Armory Show was “an experience of freedom”.

Many paintings caught my eye while I gazed at the numerous paintings and sculptures displayed.  One that was especially interesting was Vincent Van Gogh’s Mountains at Saint-Remy.

Mountains at Saint-Remy

This painting was done by Van Gogh during the late 1800’s as Paris began to industrialize heavily.  Van Gogh, like his good friend Paul Gauguin, sought to move away from the unhealthy, polluted theme of industrialized cities and urban environments, and embraced rural landscapes.  The paint strokes flow through the painting and make it alive.  Not only did the painting move away from the norms of Impressionist painters of the time, but it also represented the experimental painting style that would shock New Yorkers at the Armory Show a few decades later.  Maybe not one of the most “Modern” pieces of artwork at the armory show, yet it still was far from the realistic and traditional artwork associated with European Art.  A better example of the type of art that received much criticism is The Young Girl by Jacques Villon.  Fun Fact: Marcel Duchamp’s brother, Gaston Duchamp, changed his name to Jacques Villon in honor of the medieval French poet Francois Villon.

The Young Girl

This piece also captured my attention because of how different it looked from European paintings that focus on detail.  Jacques Villon explored Cubism since he discovered it in 1910.  His attention to the space and shapes in this particular painting enraptured me when I saw it.  Unlike other Cubist art, that sometimes leave something to be desired in terms of color, The Young Girl is an explosion of color.  Not only do its variety of colors give life to the painting, but it helps the the viewer distinguish between the “girl” and the background behind her.  All in all, it was artworks like this that drove New York critics like Arthur B. Davies, an avant-garde American artist and advocate of modern art in the United States, to proclaim that “New York will never be the same again.”  Art would now change in America, as a result of the experimental European art being showcased at the Armory Show.  As American painters began to see the new art styles they helped make Modern Art a popular thing and ushered the world into a new age of art.

Out of all the galleries we visited in Chelsea the Yossi Milo Gallery with photos by Pieter Hugo was my favorite.  Two pictures caught my attention and this was the first one.  Situated near the entrance of the gallery this photo depicts a man having a cigarette.  I could not help but  compare it to the famous “The Kramer” painting from the hit television series Seinfeld.  The resemblance is very interesting, but with that aside I really liked this photo because of the realistic simplicity of it.  It’s just a man having a cigarette and there is something about that simplicity that makes the photo very easy to understand.  The man has wrinkles all over his face, possibly suggesting his struggles in life, yet he has a double sided smile when enjoying the cigarette. One could say it is a neutral expression or even slight smirk of content.

The next photo that caught my attention was one of a tree and a man, which was in the back of the gallery.  At the end of the gallery viewing it was explained that a possible influence for these photos was the Apartheid in South Africa (where these photos were taken).  Unlike the first photo, this one below spoke to me as being influenced by the Apartheid.  The South African man is joined to the tree at the base, possibly holding on to it because it is bound to him in some way.  As I observed him laying there prostrate I thought of how the White man subjugated the South Africans into segregated communities during the Apartheid.  The picture really brought this to life for me because the tree being blown in one direction is representative of the inequality present during Apartheid.  Since the tree is on the opposite side of the African man it is in favor of White dominance. Yet the man holds on, hoping that the tree will soon cover both sides and he will not be treated unfairly anymore.