This past Saturday, I walked throughout Willem de Kooning’s vast MoMA exhibit with two of my friends.  We pointed out which ones we would like to have hanging in our future homes and commented on various details in the pieces, such as certain textures in certain strokes, the presence of newspaper print, time periods, and mediums employed.  We did not read all of the descriptive cards next to the pieces; however, on the ones that I did read, my favorite portions were either explanatory phrases regarding how de Kooning arrived at the piece and de Kooning’s own words.  For example, in some of his pieces, it was obvious that there were newspaper articles in the background; yet, the description said that this result was accidental.  De Kooning simply used the newspaper to dry up the excess paint left on the canvas, thus never intending to have it transfer onto the canvas.  Did he cry about it?  No, instead, he let it be.

After seeing the exhibit, I’m beginning to more fully understand the discussion that we shared as a class last Thursday about de Kooning’s work and whether it was growth, experimentation, or something entirely different.   Although his “genre” of art is abstract, it amazed me how different his pieces were.  He certainly had separate periods, and the descriptive cards tended to relate these to his physical location at the time of the paintings, which, in itself, is significant.  Rather than waiting to get somewhere else or have a revelation, de Kooning let his current position inspire him, and that is what he worked with– a reminder that we can all learn from.

Though I certainly do not understand most of his pieces after viewing them once, I appreciate and admire them because they symbolize how he lived his life.  Sometimes, de Kooning specified what his painting portrayed in the title; other times, he just let it happen.  He was not afraid to try, even if it took a few years.  One of his quotations read, “Even abstract shapes must have a likeness.”  De Kooning had a plan, but when the gray areas surfaced, he kept moving.  In the words of a friend, “You can’t steer a ship that isn’t moving.”  In the words of de Kooning, “I have to change to stay the same.”