MOMA Visit. Half Final Post.

MoMa’s Visit

  After a semester learning how to look at a piece of art and its style really made me realized that visiting museum can be a very enjoyable thing. Practically, it just feels good to know myself understand art better than the ones who stand next to me and have their arms crossed on their chest. At least, most of them.

  Dada and abstract expressionism are fun to write about and important to contemporary art. First from Dada, Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel is an iconic artwork of Dadaism. Only the name itself describe half of this art piece. It is simply a bicycle wheel and a kitchen stool. The metal wheel is about 63.8cm diam., on top on a60.2cm high painted wood stool, both are common objects acquired from ordinary life of us which really help us to get a grasp of the actual size. The time span of this piece was long. Because the lost of original at 1913, Marcel Duchamp made its third version at 1951, almost 40 years later. And Dada was an art movement of the European avant-grade in the early 20^th century. Although Duchamp was not the first one bringing day to day living objects into art making, he definitely sent out the idea of Readymade. Dadaist believe many objects around people are readymade art. With a negative feeling and reaction to the horrors of world ward 1 at that time, Dadaist subverted the concept and value of art making process. On top of this idea, artwork like Bicycle Wheel can be massive produced. The selections of materials at making art became less essential very much. This piece, and similar ones are a negative, disappointment expression of the world which people were lived in at that time. Several objects were combined together, but have no use of anything. Despite the fact Dada was an informal international movement, it is the groundwork to abstract art and surrealism, even influence on pop art.

Abstract expressionism on the other hand, was an American post World War 2 art movement. Its influence made an impact internationally and located New York City as the middle of the western art world. 1944, Clyfford Still painted 1944-N NO.2. It is oil on unprimed canvas, enormous, about 8’8.25x7’3.25. with black impasto as back ground, added red and yellow only. The red color cuts almost from top to the bottom vertically as the shape of a thunder. Another 2 yellow marks lay on the red line, and leaves an empty expanse space on this painting. Because the size of this piece of work is large, the emptiness and color creates no depth feeling in space, but still as if it is making us wondering: what else is there? Clyfford Still tried to avoid any recognizable imagery appears in his work, and that was most abstract expressionists did at that time. The most they would apply were simple signs and symbols.  Color filed painting is the other name of the style of Still’s work. They were simple in shapes and colors irregularly, in favor of large scale of canvas. This painting, for example, jagged red and yellow‘s juxtaposition does not create different layers and depth, but the colors are about to torn this painting apart. This feelings are elevated without any imagery of emotion or signs and symbols.

  The abstract impressionism weights in indefinite. Vague and unknown, even unfinished. It can also be very personal, because impression is personal, within ourselves.