“Huh?”

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. It’s possibly the single least likely phrase I expected to stumble upon in a book about an artist. But there it was. Out of context, I suppose it really doesn’t make any sense. But if I said that the book I was reading was about M.C. Escher (called The Magic of M.C. Escher), it would probably be an “Aha!” moment.

Escher's famous "Drawing Hands" explores the idea of paradoxes and "strange loops"

The well-known, innovative 20th century artist M.C. Escher was the creator of, in a phrase, “art for science and math lovers.” Infinity, polyhedra, geometric distortions, tessellations, impossible constructions – they’re all there somewhere in his work. Crazy, no? He didn’t even have any formal mathematical training. That’s even crazier.

I cannot pretend to comprehend much of what I read about him. There isn’t exactly a lot of discussion about technique and aesthetic. Instead, it’s more about Penrose triangles and orthogonal forces of gravity. Not quite the type of thing that I like to involve myself with. I have nothing against it. I just admittedly don’t understand much of it.  That’s what I think makes Escher so remarkable. I’ve spoken to quite a few Mathletes about art, and many of them told me that they just don’t “get” it. It’s markedly outside their comfort zone. Well, here comes Escher to the rescue. Scientists and mathematicians arguably enjoy his work more than anybody else.

It’s a remarkable feat, but Escher effectively managed to tether the worlds of art and technical logistics in a way that I do not believe anyone ever has. I mean, it’s art that penetrates a world that is inhabited by its theoretical opposite. In that way, it’s art that almost transcends the barriers that usually serve to confine it. We’ve talked a lot about the ever-expanding artistic intersection in our class – which includes politics, industry, and commerce, among others – and I think that Escher, with his mind-boggling work, adds mathematics to the list. So to those with a penchant for science I say you’ve found a remarkable associate in Escher. To those who are not quite so scientifically inclined (myself included) I say Escher is yet another brilliant artist to marvel at.

Zach mentioned in our last class that second graders are more familiar with Da Vinci and Picasso than with any of the modern artists on the scene today. I think that it’s a good observation, but like most good observations, I’m not about to leave it at that. Zach suggested that the reason behind this “deficiency” (for lack of a better word) is that so many people are considered artists today that it’s almost impossible to determine who is worth telling kids about. I do agree with that explanation, but I’d like to offer an alternative one. Perhaps – and this could be entirely off the mark – it has something to do with censorship.

Renoir's "Mademoiselle Legrand, 1875" is an innocuous painting, both graphically and conceptually, that is most definitely suitable for a younger viewership

I make sweeping statements a lot in these posts of mine, and I guess this one will be no exception. Take this with a grain of salt, okay? So this is my gross generalization: Classic/older art = more subdued, less questionable content. Modern/post-modern art = brow-raising, sometimes downright shocking content. I know it’s not entirely true regarding every individual work (and it might not even be true as a generality), but I think that part of the reason kids don’t know about say, Tracey Emin, but do know about Da Vinci is because of a certain hesitance on behalf of parents and educators to expose children to certain, um, mature elements of art. Maybe not. You can just scratch this whole theory if you want. Now that I’ve worked it out in writing, I’m not sure I agree with it so much either.

But onto my next point – censorship need not imply filtering out potentially corrupting material. As in, determining age-appropriate content in general involves considering conceptually age-appropriate content as much as it does visually age-appropriate content. Ready for my next generalization? Classic/older art = more point-blank and concrete. Modern/post-modern art = more malleable and abstract. On a pedagogical level, it would be ridiculous to expose children to abstract art and expect them to appreciate it without first determining whether or not they are cognitively capable of comprehending it (my post about The Willing Suspension of Disbelief touches on this). That’s why, like most kinds of effective instruction, art education comes in progressional drips. First – Rembrandt/Da Vinci. Next – Monet/Renoir/Degas. Then – Dali/Picasso. A while after that – bring on the big guns. What I mean to say is that there has to build-up to the cerebral crescendo that is conceptual art. It takes time, and it is probably most effectively conveyed to those who have passed adolescence and tweenhood. That’s why third graders don’t go around displaying their knowledge about De Kooning and Duchamp (not that many adults go around doing that either). I think this aspect of “censorship” might play a big part in Zach’s observation. It’s not censorship in the negative sense of the word. It’s merely in the pragmatic sense of the word. It opens up a whole new discussion about the nuances of art education – when to begin, how to begin, what to include, what to leave out, etc. Thankfully, that is not what my post is about, as those are all questions that I don’t think a day’s,week’s, month’s, or year’s worth of deliberation can effectively answer.

Coleridge meant it about writing. I mean it about art.

I don’t want to nitpick art into bits, but I think this is an important issue. There are many who take a literal approach to art, and while that may not be fundamentally wrong, it is fundamentally juvenile and unfortunate. As a kid, I remember when my dad would sit me down for some impromptu art lessons. One time, he showed me a picture of a deformed multi-colored face (I think it was “Dora Maar”) and said “This is a Picasso.” I said “Eww” and asked “Why is Picasso’s face all mushed up?” He laughed and said “No, no. Picasso painted this face. It’s not a picture of him.” “Oh,” I said. “Then Picasso was probably a stupid artist.” I had really meant that. Didn’t he know that human faces don’t have two noses? It took a while for my dad to explain, but when I got the concept, I finally understood something fundamental about art – while my first grade classmates extolled me for drawing a good and accurate picture of a house, that was not where the artistic process ended. If anything, it only began at that point. Later, when I grasped the notion that art need not be literal, it was practically a paradigm shift.

Picasso's "Dora Maar"

Many people can draw a lifelike person. In fact, there is hardly anything “creative” about that. The creativity lies precisely in what you do with the fact that you are capable of drawing a lifelike person (now that I think about it, this actually relates a lot to my previous post). When you are unafraid to manipulate what your eye sees and what your pen produces, that’s when you really immerse yourself in the creative process. But this is all from an artist’s point of view. As a spectator (a role I admittedly assume a whole lot more often than artist), the same holds true cognitively. When you can appreciate that which is off-kilter and unconventional, that’s probably when you start to really recognize what creativity is. I’m not saying you have to like Picasso. I’m saying you have to understand Picasso. To do that, you need a “willing suspension of disbelief” which, at least from the way I see it, is essentially what a creative perspective is all about. (Of course, I shouldn’t make such sweeping statements, especially about something as ineffable as art, but I like the fact that certain concepts like Coleridge’s can be “multi-disciplinary,” and applied less exclusively than originally intended.)

We all know what I’m referring to. It’s the notorious line that follows the usually snide interjection – “that’s art?!” What I want to propose is that we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Sure, you can also paint a canvas red. But have you?

The first and main thing to consider is this: sometimes skill is essentially irrelevant. I recall when a classmate (sorry, I don’t remember exactly who it was) once remarked “What I want to know is whether those artists who draw scribbles are also capable of drawing a technical work because then, I’ll think they’re actually artists.” I thought that was a fair statement, but then I started to think – Are artistic talent and artistic skill one and the same? Sure, there is a technicality to art. You need perspective (as the “rudimentary” Islamic art we saw the other day suggests), and a technique, and a specific kind of brush stroke, etc. etc. But a person who has mastered all these things isn’t necessarily an artist any more than he is a skillful brush handler with a good eye. I think that to be an artist you have to almost transcend all the empirical things and grasp something a bit more abstract – what I call artistic talent. You need a vision, a certain kind of creativity, a different way of looking at the world. To me, that’s what makes an artist.

If I see a pink canvas with a single white line down the middle, I’m not about to doubt the validity of the artist who produced it on the basis of it being “too easy” and that “anyone can do it.” In fact, I actually dislike that claim. If “anyone” can do it, then why haven’t they? Why was it only this one artist? What’s more, how do you know that what you are looking at is not the product of years of hard work? The best example of this that I can think of is Yves Klein’s IKB. IKB, or International Klein Blue, is the name of a painting by Klein. At first glance, it’s only a deep blue canvas, but it’s really so much more than that. IKB is actually a color that Klein, together with some chemists, developed. That’s right – that blue on the canvas was basically invented by Klein. He was looking for a color that would best express the concepts he wanted to convey through his art. When he couldn’t find one, he just made one. We have always known that sometimes, there is more than meets the eye. One of the best places to apply that concept is in the art world.

Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie Woogie"

Mondrian’s “Broadway Boogie Woogie” is another example. It’s certainly a dazzling canvas, but if you look at it closely, it’s just a bunch of colorful squares. “I can do that too,” right? Maybe. But again, that’s not all there is to art. Mondrian’s genius lies in the title of his work, really. Knowing the title and looking at the work, the squares take on a whole new meaning. Something basic suddenly transforms into something ingenious. The grid of NYC streets, the bluesy boogie woogie  – it’s all there in those squares. So yes, you can draw squares too, but can your squares tell a story? Probably not.

There might be some of you who can argue that if you drew a bunch of random circles and called it something like “The Meaning of Life,” people would think that it’s an ingenious work of art too. But that would be accusing the art community of being opaque and capricious, which it isn’t (at least for most of the time). It is also likely insulting to those artists who do actually consider every minor etch in their work. To them, it’s mockery in its basest form. To be an artist requires that you take creative expression seriously. You cannot be flippant about what you are producing, even if what you are producing is satirical in nature. Artistry, when all’s said and done, is serious business.

(I acknowledge that I have neglected to mention the phenomenon of the ready-made, but that is because I think it’s an entirely different story altogether that I did not want to get into.)

De Kooning's "Dark Pond"

I think the De Kooning was my favorite art exhibit we saw all semester. Actually, I don’t just think – I know it was. I mean, Matisse and Hals aren’t quite my cup of tea and as much as I appreciated the works we’ve viewed hitherto, I never quite enjoyed them. They hit me on a purely objective level (more logos than pathos), and I didn’t really feel that any exhibit provided an immersive experience.  All that changed with De Kooning at the MoMa. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still not quite what you would call an abstract art aficionado, but I found his overall style and color palate a lot more appealing than say, Gauguin’s (I know I’m sort of comparing apples and oranges, but my first criteria for whether or not I like a work of art is the color range. Gauguin’s vibrancy is not so much my style, whereas De Kooning’s colors, although saturated at times, were much more muted and thus, more appealing to me). A lot of his work was extremely thought-provoking and even poignant at times, at least from my perspective.

Twombly's "Untitled, 1953"

The pieces I found most intriguing were the black and white paintings. The moment I spotted them, I turned to Ayala and said “these remind me of Cy Twombly and his chalkboards.” She responded “yeah, they do look a little like chalkboards.” Now, Cy Twombly, if you must know, is not really my favorite artist by any means (click on his name to view some of his works). I guess it’s strange of me, but there is one piece of his that I do happen to find appealing. It’s called “Cold Stream” and it’s basically a row of white spiral scribbles on a black board. Call me crazy, but I actually think this piece is incredible (both conceptually and aesthetically). In any case, I have been known to make arbitrary associations between things, and so I wondered whether De Kooning and Twombly were an exception. Was there something behind my alleged connection between these two artists?

After a quick Google search, I was brought to a website called The Art Story: Your Guide to Modern Art. I quickly scrolled down the page as I skimmed the site’s history of Twombly, and then I came across this line: “Twombly’s work at this time (1952) was largely in black and white, influenced both by Robert Rauschenberg’s paintings and the monochromatic work of Willem De Kooning, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell.” Eureka.

For those who wish to see some more Twombly  “Cy Twombly: Sculpture” is on exhibit at the MoMa until January 2.

There is art for the sake of art, and then there is art that serves a purpose.

Ornate lamps like this one from late 19th century Eastern Europe are on display in the Jewish Museum's exhibit

When it comes down to it, it’s about the difference between art that is produced for an aesthetic purpose and a functional apparatus that happens to simultaneously serve an aesthetic purpose.  Simply put, sometimes art is only a fringe benefit. That should not be taken lightly. At least, the Jewish Museum doesn’t seem to think so. On December 2, the museum unveiled a new exhibit called “An Artist Remembers: Hanukkah Lamps Selected by Maurice Sendak.” Now, Hanukkah lamps are not typically meant for museums. While they are often seen on display, their first and foremost role in Judaism is entirely functional. Any artistic quality they might assume is only secondary to their original, intended purpose. Of course, this is only on the condition that it is Hanukkah time. I happen to find this mere observation intriguing enough as it is, but there’s a lot more about the exhibit that warrants interest.

According to the Jewish Museum’s website, most of the thirty-three lamps on display come from Eastern Europe. Thus, a large part of the lamps are surviving remnants from Jewish families who went through the Holocaust. For renowned author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, whose own parents were Holocaust survivors, selecting the pieces was a moving experience, one that profoundly stirred his deep sense of loss for family members who perished in the Holocaust. “We hope that visitors will be moved in various ways by the lamps. For Maurice Sendak, they are powerful repositories of memory, embodying stories that illuminate the past for new generations,” remarked Susan Braunstein and Claudia Nahson, the organizers of the exhibit. The public is invited to share their thoughts on the exhibit on a board that will be displayed in the museum.

It is not often that one finds such a poignant crossroads of history, art, religion, and collective memory all in a single exhibit. It sounds like quite an informative and inspiring experience. The exhibit closes on January 29, 2012.

Joseph Kosuth’s “One and Three Chairs” is possibly one of the most ingenious works of conceptual art on the planet. I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about it before. It’s my favorite piece of art ever, namely because it evokes one of the most influential philosophical theories to ever emerge i.e.  that of Plato’s Allegory of a Cave. That a single work of art can basically convey a profound and complex philosophy is something that I happen to find extraordinary. But, as usual, I’m getting way too ahead of myself here.

First, let me briefly explain Plato’s cave parable. I might fail miserably at this as I am no philosopher, but bear with me. Plato presents the following scenario: Imagine someone who has been imprisoned in a cave from the day of his birth. He is chained so that his back faces the opening of the cave. All that remains within his line of vision are the passing shadows created by the sun’s rays from behind him. He thinks that those shadows are all there is until one day, he escapes and he is able to see the world as it really is for the first time. He realizes then that what he had taken to be the world were merely shadows on a wall.  So it is, says Plato, with us and the world we sense with our five senses. The empirical, solid world is just a shadow.  So if we see many different kinds of trees, we shouldn’t fool ourselves. What’s real is not the various trees we see, but the one idea, concept, form of a tree. Whether or not you agree with the philosophy is one thing. Whether or not you think it’s a paradigm shift in thought, which it is, is another. Thus Plato.

Now we move on to Joseph Kosuth. I’m not sure whether or not he had Plato in mind when he created his “One and Three Chairs” back in 1965, but maybe that’s irrelevant. Either way, the exhibit, pictured below, was this: A chair, a photograph of the chair as it appears in the room, and a dictionary definition of the word “chair.” The way I see it, Kosuth is challenging the viewer to think on an extremely philosophical level. He titles the piece “One and Three Chairs” but how that title is interpreted is entirely up to the viewer. As in, the “one chair” he refers to could either be the physical chair or the definition of the chair or even (if you’re really ambitious) the picture of the chair. That all depends on what you think is real, on what you think you are looking at (which is where Plato comes in). There is a way, obviously, to support all three opinions, but maybe that just points to one profound observation: To accurately represent a chair, you need all three representations. If you were trying to explain a chair to someone who had never heard of one before, what would you need? An actual chair (or a picture of a chair, in case you haven’t a physical one) and a definition of what a chair is. Without these, you cannot be expected to give a proper explanation. Thus Kosuth.

Now, I am certainly willing to acknowledge that I am reading way too far into Kosuth, ergo I am attributing more ingenuity to his work than it merits. But isn’t it a crazy thing? A work of art can be powerful enough to elicit philosophical discourse. I know of no other medium that can claim to do that so effortlessly. But that’s art for you, I guess.