The Cocktail Party Effect

   The Ten Largest (1907) Hilma af Klint Even though the exhibit “Paintings for the Future” featuring Swedish artist Hilma af Klint’s work at the Guggenheim Museum ended this past winter, “The Ten Largest” series (featured above) has stuck with me. The ten pieces are labeled and thus ordered as a human life cycle beginning with childhood, going to youth, adulthood, and eventually old age. I believe examining the passing stages of one’s life is a universal concept, one to which people of all walks of life can relate. By engaging with this grandiose topic, af Klint’s “The Ten Largest” already has a heightened sense of importance in this exhibit. However, in addition to taking on such an ambitious topic, I think there is another layer to af Klint’s work as it transcends mediums as well. The design can be connected with the short story “Masque of the Red Death” by American writer Edgar Allen Poe . To my mind, a universal concept repeated with the same kind of imagery in bo

Emergence (2013) Sayaka Ganz At the Stamford Museum and Nature Center , the building was small but the grounds were vast. The Nature Center had a petting zoo area, but I have never been one for animals, so I mostly stayed inside. Alas, the inside was filled with animals as well. The main exhibit featured animal sculptures by artist Sayaka Ganz which were made up of common household appliances like ladles and forks. The exhibit was named “Reclaimed Creations” to demonstrate how prosaic items can be aesthetically repurposed.   Some of the featured pieces were sculptures of horses. These 3D horses had a tremendous amount of movement to them despite being made of a multitude of static objects. Artists like 18th century British painter George Stubbs worked to revolutionize the portrayal of horses by drawing attention to muscle and tone of the animal itself -- demonstrated in "Whistlejacket" (seen below). While Ganz was not painting horses as Stubbs once did, she capture

Katonah Museum of Art Building Katonah, NY had always been just a place I drove through on the way to a hike or trip upstate. However, when I found out there was an art museum there, I decided to make a place that had always been simply part of the journey, a destination. I ventured to this exhibit hoping to find some solace in the colors and textures of paintings that always bring me joy. I needed a distraction since I was having a crisis thinking about the state of the environment. Everything I read or watch on the news makes it seem like the planet is going to be up in flames tomorrow; internal anxiety for the environment comes easily for me.   The exhibit being shown at the Katonah Museum of Art called “The Edge Effect” aimed to use art as a catalyst for conversations about the environment. It was kismet; art and sustainability all at once was too well timed for my circumstances. Many of the works simply portrayed scenes found in nature. Some were straightforward, li