Have You Hugged Your Art Today?
Mural is the second most daring kind of art. The first is, of course, performance. Hopping around in a banana costume on the subway is the quickest way to get yourself shanked or, worse, mocked by a group of teenage girls.
And like performance art, murals leave you exposed, there’s no place to hide. You’ve commandeered the side of a building or the space along an underpass to create a humungous image for everyone to see. This takes a high-level of commitment for two reasons. The first is personal safety. Do you ever catch sight of a mural painted along some precariously jagged outcropping that looks like it was transposed from a Road Runner cartoon? It’s also usually hanging over train tracks or a definitely haunted quarry reservoir. And you look at all the colorful, vibrant scrawl of something resembling a flock of gryphons attacking the Eiffel Tower and think, how the hell did they get down there to paint that?
The second reason mural art requires, no demands, complete dedication is, of course, what is known in the video game industry as “time to cock.” I will elucidate. The late game developer for Sony Online and Spacetime Studies, Jeff Freeman, coined this phrase to refer to “The amount of time it takes a player to use player-created-content tools to create a penis. Measured in microseconds.” You might be skeptical. Really? Microseconds? C’mon. To this I would say “microseconds” is generous. Nanoseconds seems more accurate to me. Poll your gamer friends or do a quick self-inventory. Think back to every classroom desk or library table you ever sat at: there be penises! It is a widely known phenomenon that human beings of all ages, races, from all over the globe, simply cannot resist drawing genitalia on stuff. The reasons behind this are many, varied, some vague, some specific, a lot of them Freudian, but all can be reduced to: it’s just an accepted thing in the same way that every religion has a creation myth and Inuits have more than 50 words for snow. So I worry all the time when I see a mural that someone will come along and spray paint a schlong over it. This is why I also think that muralists have to be enormously resilient. One’s freshly painted baloney pony could be another’s political statement? I’m trying here. But seriously, please leave your junk off of murals. This is just bad manners.
Contemporary art receives such harsh shade in general. I’ve been in galleries with friends who seem personally attacked by a ball of red twine sitting on top of a pedestal.
You think you’re soooo smart ball of twine! You have it alllllll figured out! MOM LIKED ME BEST, NOT YOU!
It’s funny to me how easily we’re affronted by art versus other things that really deserve our outrage:
PERSON 1: The planet is, literally, burning. We are most likely going extinct as a species.
PERSON 2: *Shrug*
PERSON 1: Looks like Kathryn Bigelow is going to direct a new Lord of the Rings trilogy told from the point of view of the “lady Hobbits.”
PERSON 2: WITCH! I WILL BURN THAT GODDAMN STUDIO TO THE GROUND!!
As long as you’re not actively stoking hate or bigotry or treason, I’m fine with your twenty-first century art. Honestly, I feel sort of protective of these pieces, thrust out into the public waiting to be derided and judged and sneered at. I know how lonely it is to feel devalued and estranged, like “Keep up the good work bag of nails on a chair suspended from the ceiling! I have no idea what you’re actually about, but I appreciate you!”
My 6-year-old could make that is a popular comment muttered by people wandering through contemporary art wings. Could she, though? Yes, she’s a violin prodigy and learned to code when she was three, but that doesn’t mean she can take a ketchup-smeared napkin, put it in one of those Break Glass In Case of Emergency boxes, and become the next sensation at the Tate. There’s so much more to making art than what lands on the page or against the wall or dipped in wax and affixed to a life-sized Ronald McDonald figure. Yes, art needs skill and technique and maybe talent and luck and persistence and simple, raw labor. It also wants love; and it benefits from attention, compassion, indulgence, forgiveness, too. Art is a toddler! Treat accordingly or it will put your favorite pair of shoes in the garbage disposal and flush many expensive grooming products down the toilet.
But ask any muralist and they’ll tell you that what art needs most--its oxygen, its lifeblood—is really only one thing: bravery.
Lens Zen!
I’m a sucker for a theme and this one is, clearly, AHHHHTTTTTT! Last week I was in Chicago and visited my old friend Marc Chagall at the Art Institute, quite possibly (most definitely) one of the greatest ahhhht museums in the known (and unknown) universe(s). There was also a REQUIRED viewing of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, also known as “The painting in that scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Moving right along. Chagall created America Windows in celebration of the country’s Bicentennial, presented to the Art Institute in 1977. Each panel in the piece celebrates cultural elements such as art, music, philosophy, literature, architecture, theatre, and dance. These are integrated with American historical symbols such as the Statue of Liberty set against the backdrop of the Chicago skyline. Geeze, Marc! Come up for air, would you? It was said that Chagall began working in glass decades before this particular installation as a way to “explore intense color on a monumental scale.” Check and CHECK!
Honestly—the colors, the light, the detail and craftsmanship are all nothing short of spectacular. Images do it a teeny, micrometer of justice. It is a piece that can only truly be experienced in person. I recommend a field trip—immediately! Who wants to bring snacks?
“Art is a toddler who requires bravery” has got to be my mangled quote of the week 😀
now..go hug an artist too!😉