My second visit to Moma
This is my second time visiting Moma. The first time, like most of the visitors there, my eyes were glued to the masterpieces by those renowned first-class artists like Van Gogh, Monet or Picasso. Nevertheless, coming here again, I found it more interesting to compare those classic arts with the ones created by people from this new age. The comparison reshapes my definition of art: Today’s art has transformed its focus from skills to ideas.
The first floor of Moma was exhibiting the “new arts” created by people in our time. It mainly displays three works. One of them is a normal TV set. On the screen, I saw nothing but the word“ Sunday.” Everyday, there’s only one word showed on the screen, and that word tells people what day it is “today.” The purpose of this work is to help people further understand the concept of time. Another work is called WAR—RAW. As you can tell from the title: if “war” is written reversely, it becomes another word “raw”, and the new word actually describes the nature of war in some way. The interesting correlation shows a delicate yet profound design of our written language. The third work actually intrigued me most: Two projectors project different words into the same screen and the two words overlap each other. (Those words are mostly adjectives describing characters.) So a person can’t tell the words on the screen unless he/she steps in, and one word will be projected to that person’s back, the other one to the screen. I find it interesting because the artist let the audience participate into his work, and the audience is actually part of the art. This work is said to reflect the complexity of human nature.
The fourth floor and fifth floor both display those classic paintings by renowned painters like Van Gogh, Monet, or Picasso. I was attracted to a work by Monet. He painted nothing but water in that work. But the amazing thing is, people would actually find out “there’s water under water.” He really mastered colors in that painting. The color changes gradually from the surface of the water to the bottom of the water. He created a three-dimensional, multi-layer water body by simply using colors. And other works by Van Gogh or Picasso also reflected the artists’ extraordinary skills. The perfect symmetry, superb using of colors and shapes, and some other techniques,…etc, all help to create a strong visual impact.
Now, it comes to the comparison between these two types of arts: Nowadays, “Art is where you find it.” They usually don’t require a high level of skills. What attract people are the originality and the message delivered by the work. Those master arts, on the contrary, require a high level of skills. Even though they are also the reflections of artists’ emotions or opinions, what attract audience are usually their strong visual impacts. I love the “new” arts better because they are more available to the public and excited people’s creativity. Those works make people appreciate and enjoy more about life by showing people a “tricky” side of our life. And it always encourages the audience to think and to participate because it’s hard to get the meanings by simply looking at those works. I enjoyed my experience in Moma because I was really trying to feel art this time instead of just looking at art.