Aahhtt!

Looks like I am going it alone this time around. Your submissions (poetry, short stories, essays, etc.) are appreciated. Send 'em to riart1@aol.com for unedited appearance on this blog. But let's take a look at Aaahhtt!

Aaahhtt!

I have been visiting museums and art galleries for many years and I don't hesitate to say I appreciate works I can come close to understanding. My favorites include Edward Hopper, many of whose works hang in the Whitney Museum in New York, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet. You look at their work and generally can understand what they are all about. I recommend them. I might also include Pablo Picasso among my favorites. Although some of his work is difficult to understand, most ultimately get through to me. Many artists, however, leave me wondering what their paintings are all about. These include abstract expressionists and other avant guard (although abstract expressionism is almost 75 years old!)schools. When Jackson Pollock walked over a canvas spread on his garage floor, repeatedly dripping paint from cans, his work represented, in my words, its specific lack of intending to represent anything more than dripping paint on canvas, a concept which might be stimulating to some. These canvases are worth millions today, but don't ask me why.

When I see an incomprehensible canvas before me, I like to look for something by the same artist which demonstrates that he is not just blindly slinging paint, but is capable of painting something skillfully representative. If you look at paintings from Picasso's "blue period," you know he was more than a pigment slinger and worth the intellectual effort required to start to understand his cubist paintings such as "Woman in a Mirror" or "Guernica." I reiterate then that it is the viewer's responsibility to see something indicating a painter can produce a reasonable and recognizable picture of a cow before throwing a splash of white paint on a canvas and calling it "Milk."

The Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan is now undergoing a resurgence. Vacant warehouses and garages are being turned into art galleries. (When in New York, check out the streets from 21st to 24th between 10th and 11th Avenue.) The interior of all of these establishments are painted stark white and usually have no more than a dozen paintings hanging within them. Most are totally incomprehensible and carry exorbitant price tags. If a gallery sells one at the asking price, its rent, salaries and overhead are probably covered for a couple of years.

In the middle of this on 21st Street is the Chelsea Museum of Art. When I visited it, they were featuring their permanent show of the work of an abstract impressionist named Miotte. His work was too abstract to impress me. They also were featuring a show by a Japanese artist who products consisted of images of ostriches and some decorative floral arrangements which resembled wallpaper samples. In my opinion, these pieces were far below the quality which warrants being in a museum, but probably a shade better than the incomprehensible and expensive "aahhtt" on exhibit in the neighborhood's galleries.

It's back to the Whitney to look at some Hopper for me.

If you would like to look at some of Edward Hopper's work, check out http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=54. (I can't reproduce them here due to copywrite laws.) There are 184 of his paintings there; just click on the small image to enlarge it. Don't miss "Nighthawks" which you probably have seen before with slightly altered faces.