Spending time with two pieces of art
I spent a large part of the day wandering through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My strongest memory of the last time I visited the Met was being completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume and variety of the art displayed. Complete sensory and intellectual stimulation overload. So this time I had a different strategy. I didn’t worry about seeing everything in the museum. My plan was to just wander around lost until I came to something that caught my attention and then spend some time with that piece and see what happened.
I found that many times after an initial interest my mind would start wondering about the historical context of the piece or what the artist was like, what their personalities were like, what their inspirations were etc. etc. Then I would find that I was having an internal conversation with myself and no longer really seeing or experiencing the piece. But there were two pieces I found while wandering the halls of the Met that were so striking I felt like I could spend an eternity before them completely absorbed in the experience. The first was a painting that was displayed right outside the modern art wing. It was a bold abstract painting done on a black canvas that was very evocative. The way the artist had approached abstraction was not a way I had ever seen before and I was immediately fascinated with it. It had such a strong personality and I liked it right away so my first thought was “Is this the work of a modern master that I’m not familiar with?” It turns out it was painted by a young aboriginal artist named Daniel Walbidi. I hadn’t noticed but there was a small bit of label copy on the opposite wall that explained that the eight or so painting displayed between the modern gallery and the art of Africa and Oceania galleries were all contemporary aboriginal artists. I liked the other pieces as well but it was really Daniel Walbidi’s painting that resonated with me.
The second piece was a dazzling golden fabric beautifully contorted on a wall. At first I was just struck by its beauty and then upon closer inspection you could see that the fabric was woven out of some kind of golden metal. Then upon even closer inspection you could see that the metal was actually flattened bottle caps. The label copy went on to explain that they were discarded liquor bottle caps that the Ghanian artist El Anatsui had gathered from the roadside. I was struck by the layers of meaning and the amazing optimism from the piece. I sat down in front of the piece and it felt like the powers that be were telling me “Don’t worry Shoji, there is still deep hope for humanity”.
After I got back to the apartment I did a quite google search and found these two videos of Daniel Walbidi and El Anatsui. The video of El Anatsui actually features the piece from the Met. Gotta love the internet!
Tags: Daniel Walbidi, El Anatsui, Metropolitian Museum of Art
Rather than marching along determined to “see” everything, letting yourself wander until you find something particularly interesting (or eloquent) sounds like a wonderful way to experience a great museum. Thanks for the idea, and for sharing the result with us. Cheers!