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Jordan I'll put it this way: sometimes when I look at modern or contemporary art I get really overwhelmed and this voice (my inner voice, I suppose) says "Jordan! You're supposed to be getting this! Put it together! Put the meaning all together!" but all I really can put together is splattered paint or crazy shapes or something and I'm not sure what to do with it. Now, this doesn't always happen, but it's happened enough. Even if I look at a piece of art and I think it is powerful, I can't articulate why. I like art, I do. I appreciate modern and contemporary art, I just wish I could dive into it better, I wish I had some tools with which to dig. I am excited to be able to understand more of where it is coming from, I am excited to learn how to talk about it on many different levels, I am excited to know more abut different art movements and artists, and I am excited to encounter art that really just knocks me over. Just knocks me down. Yeterday in GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow) there were these sculptures on the main floor, multi-colored bright pipe like things and while, sure, they looked cool, I hadn't the slightest idea of what to DO with them. How do I take this? What are they saying? Am I reading too much into this? and so on. I think difficulty in art is good. I think it's the sort of good that you can’t quite understand right away, but floats just on the horizon. Like when you learn your lesson when you were a kid and while it was tricky and tough, it was ultimately good. I think it's kind of like that. I think it's good when art pushes us to an original perspective, a different idea about how we live, about our habits and our culture. Sometimes I think there's the danger that it may be trivial, but for the most part I trust the artists’ intentions in their art. I think this difficulty makes you have to stop and think, evaluate...be pateint, consider loads of aspects. Difficulty in art makes you learn through a process. It's not cut and dried like a roadmap or math problem, but it's all over the place, touching on all sorts of facets and themes that you have to think and pray your way through. I think that's wonderful. Back to Off-Campus Studies >> British Isles Study Program >> |
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