About a month ago a Chinese friend came over and we
watched BBC biographies about Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Salvador Dali.
A few things:
First—I couldn’t believe how much I miss these kinds
of conversations and opportunities for learning and challenging my brain to
think and discern, probe, and question. I miss it so much I could
cry.
(Truly.)
My soul LONGS to go to the library and just walk
around the shelves, drinking in the smell of the musty carpet, and the molding
books.
(I often have my kindergarten students smell books so
they can get the FULL experience of reading – even if they think the smell is
yucky.)
Second—It is astounding the extent to which these
artists have changed and shaped the Western worldview! It was so interesting
for me to watch the biographies with an Eastern friend who had never really
learned about them before. She doesn’t relate so much to the art or the changes
it has made.
(Though, her culture is changing.)
To begin:
Hasn’t he changed our culture?!!
(He was a social outcast.)
Think of the promotion of having your own personal
camera (video and photo) to capture all your “special times”.
(That’s right.
You do have one. And you do snap and share.)
Think of the creation of YouTube and Facebook – and
blogs. We think we
are important because we “are”. We think we have the right to have our 15 seconds of fame.
He coined this phrase.
(I didn’t know. I was shocked.)
I am glad to have the silk-screen technique.
Does the “captivation” of everyday items in a
piece of art take away from what we should actually value and honor, or was he
right?
These are the things we use and know, so why not
recognize them properly?
(But, really?!? Soup cans? Our faces? Marilyn Monroe
dyed different colors??)
Doesn’t that distract us from giving honor to those
things that are actually honorable?
(Doesn’t it dumb-down our senses?)
But, ::cough, cough:: who’s to say what is honorable?
Who has the authority to bring the standard?
(yeah…)
Surrealism. Wow! Subtly took away our sensibilities as
a culture. His art was the great advertisement for the philosophy. How it has
influenced TV, what is possible to say, psychiatry, and the self-control of our
culture.
Enraging and it ASTOUNDS me!
Everybody has the right to express everything they
feel because feeling “it” (though there is no need for a particular “it”,)
makes “the” valid.
All is valuable (and that’s not even the right word)
---.
All is whatever it may be, therefore; all is all.
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| (megkaminski.wordpress.com) |
I have never enjoyed the “melting” clocks or chopped
off chicken heads. And how can people be so audacious as to say, “This is
magnificent because it is my subconscious. You don’t understand it? Neither do
I. That’s the beauty.”
(Though, I must admit, it does sound nice. The above picture is even intriguing, though it isn't my favorite. It's not so much the meaning in IT, but behind and in IT. I do enjoy the pleasant mystery of some of this movement's art pieces. It sounds
open and free – like leaving the crowded city to enjoy the open freshness of
the mountain scenery. Just enjoy the experience of whatever may come.)
BUT! It’s a snare and trap because of what we are and
what actually is.
It removes us from reality because it takes us away
from what is reality.
It is a deception.
(Yes, there is a reality.)
Its "purpose" (irony?) is to promote the questioning of what
is.
What does have a higher value? Anything? Why not the
subconscious? Why “repress” it?
Let it speak; for that is us.
(I stick out my tongue.)
Hmmm…
Maybe I could make a tongue-shaped pen.
Actually, no, that would hold too much reason – tongues
speak words and pens write words.
Maybe I could make it a hair bow or a car’s shape – my
lips and tongue pointing out.
No, no!
(Too much meaning.)
Aha!
I should make a bear-shaped computer.
Yes.
(It would be available in multiples of personalized
colors and patterns, of course.)
[If needed, it could represent my rage against the machine - as represented by the bear (rage) and computer as our culture's main form of communication - also showing the degree to which our culture has changed. Ooh! Look at my subconscious speaking!! Except not because it was reasoned.]
What annoys me most is how much this man and his
artistic expressions influenced me through my culture – without me even knowing
it!
I submitted to his false philosophies unaware of what I
was doing.
How?
I know I find surrealism funny. (Oscar Meyer hot dog car.)
But that’s also the point that BUGS me –
Opening the door for the manufacturing of hot
dog cars made him rich and famous?!
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| (http://www.finemainelobster.com/lobster-telephone/ -- language here) |
WHY?!!!
Would no one ever have done it?
What is so amazing about a phone being in the shape of a lobster, or a chair
being in the shape of lips?!!
And that is the point. That is how numb I am to the
influence of surrealism – I don’t even know the world without it. I don't even comprehend the strangeness.
**Sidenote**
Of course, the point is not so much what was made, but the opening of them to be made. It's the breaking down of the society as we have known it to be. --And the idea of what can be "represented" as we are moved by our subconscious.
I like his face. (Maybe it's because he kind of reminds me of children's authors, Eric Carle and Tomie dePaola. haha)
Anyways, Picasso intrigues me.
It’s more the process of his life as expressed in his
art and its transformation over time.
I also find it intriguing why and how he came to be so
famous and so well known.
The shirt he wore?
(I never knew it was his shirt!)
Guernica intrigues me. The expression of emotions are powerful. I think Picasso's work is full of powerfully expressed emotion. (Yeah, weird and disturbing at times as well.) But, his organization of color and shape. Wow.
(http://www.sinoorigin.com/famous-artists/pablo-picasso.html)
Third—Once again, I am mesmerized by the affect of art
on life, life on philosophy, historical changes, the movement of a people,
change and development of music, ideals, the course of history, the affect of
the individual on the group, the affect of the group (culture) on the choices
of the individual, science, and the future of the world – all wrapped up,
connected, and defined by the plan of the Sovereign God.
The depth and detail of their influence upon one
another is far beyond my comprehension.
It blows my mind.
That’s why I love it.
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