Hi y’all,
I know in my last post I said it would be my last, but I couldn’t help to write a part two of the STEAM festival to highlight my project/audio guide. I felt like this post was necessary since I was not able to talk about our project as much at the STEAM festival last weekend. So, here is a break down of my group project’s piece:
Artist Name: Norman Gorbaty; Title: The Red Bentley
Description:
The painting is put in the hallway near classrooms on the fifth floor of the NVC. There is not much foot traffic here, and for the people who did pass by the painting, didn’t bother to look at it. They were mostly on their phones and seemed like they did not have time to stop and look at the piece of art. The painting is put on a white wall as any normal painting–there is nothing special about its environment. In fact, I would argue the painting is placed in a bad environment because students are either rushing to class or don’t necessarily want to look at a work of art in a classroom hallway.
What I felt:
The painting makes me feel dark and lonely inside. The “Red Bentley” in the lower right hand corner seems to be driving off in the distance. The road the Bentley travels on also glistens, thus reminding me of diamonds and wealth. Bentley cars are also really expensive so I see a division of wealth from the lower portion of the picture and the upper portion. The barrier seems to be what I interpret a train station because if you look closely, you see train tracks. The city outside the train station looks far and distant compared to the zooming red Bentley. I think the author was motivated to make this work of art to compare the top 1% and the rest of the world–to show its extreme division. Perhaps Norman Gorbaty suggests that through his Red Bentley quickly moving away from the image, wealthy men and women avoid the realities of the outside world (realities such as poverty, institutional classism, etc.); he suggests they’re irresponsible, thus explains why they are trying to drive away from the main picture (main problem).
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For a more in depth response, here is the link to our audio guide:
I hope you enjoyed our analysis of the work of art as much as we did!
Hi, Kristy! I really enjoyed listening to your audioguide! I felt like your analysis of some of the symbolism the artist chose to incorporate into the painting made it a lot more meaningful and endearing. I personally would not have seen some of the choices the artist consciously made if it hadn’t been for this in-depth description of it, so I’m really glad I was able to read your thoughts on it. I think it’s very interesting that this painting could suggest how the wealthy can turn a blind eye to very real issues the rest of the world may be suffering from. You helped me see things from a different perspective.