MAD Review

Tae Min Kim
Art Review #4

The Museum of Arts and Designs is a ginormous (Yes, I made up a word, because it was big!) place located in the heart of Manhattan. Hearing rumors about how interesting and how great the museum is, my friends, my crew, and I decided to give it a visit. How was the museum, you ask? Hmm… let me ask you something first. One often chooses a museum to enjoy his stay there and look at different kinds of art works that may be appealing to them. Did you ever experience a time where you went to a museum having high expectations for it to be amazing, but then you enter to find that the museum lacks intricacy and is very boring? And then you find yourself so angry that you want to throw a rock (or something) at the museum and just want to break the art pieces because it shows a lack of effort and because you feel that even you yourself could have created such pieces? Well, this wasn’t one of those times. This museum was AMAAZING!!

Starting from the 7th floor down, we encountered fascinating pieces of artwork. There was a sculpture made of glass entitled, “Beasty Dreams,” by Robert Willson. The glass was shaped as a beast, and inside the beast were men and women. However, they were colored differently: some men were white, and some were red, some women were white, and some were red. Because the mouth of the Beast was red, it can be assumed that the beast, (which represented the dream) ate people. As we see some people experiencing something different in their own dreams, we also see some people drowning, some people dying, and some people having a regular dream. Although it cannot be clearly seen through our eyes, we can imagine when trying to relate the colors and positions of the people to a dream. And down the elevator we go; to the 6th floor.

Hair combs? Hair? C-d Records? Clothing tags? What a brilliant idea! Each artist uses a different piece of prop to create his or her own artwork. Korean sculptor Jean Shin creates a sound wave with LP’s and Records. He bends the records and LP and glues them together to make a tidal wave shape. This is called the “sound wave.” Likewise, Clothing tags are used to create a picture of a young woman doing cheap labor. She could not afford supplies, so instead, she used the tags from the clothing factory for which she was working and created a picture of her working conditions (possibly a self-portrait). Deciding to get some exercise, we walk down the stairs instead of the elevator to find ourselves looking at similar styled works.

Books were ripped to shape out three men. Puzzles were put together to create two men, and white and black hair to show a self-portrait of two sides of emotions. Having spent hours on just two floors, we decide to speed up our pace and decide to stop only if a work is appealing to all of us. We go down to the 4th floor to see 9,273 spoons banded together by 3,091 rubber bands; one rubber band to connect three spoons. This was created to last for a limited amount of time. Rubber bands, over time, snap. Knowing this, the artist Jill Townsley created a pyramid foreseeing its death. To the artist, this masterpiece is not completed until it collapses: Art in death.

Tired and restless, we ride the elevator to the first floor, where we had begun our journey. A museum worth visiting, a place where your eyes will grow, and a place where the light will stop shining, the Museum of Arts and Design is the place to go. Because the visit was so great, two acquaintances of mine decided to adventure on this journey again: twice in one week. Don’t forget to go, and I guarantee, you will not be the one who will want to break the art pieces and throw rocks at the museum.