With a mother who, for most of her life, had a place in the art world, most of my early life was spent, if not in her gallery, among art in general. I was fully immersed in this world that not many get to be a part of so it's really no surprise that I feel most at home when roaming the halls of a museum and/or gallery.
The first few museums we visited here in Berlin contained mostly artifactual art— things built and used hundreds of years ago. I was tragically craving some sculptures you could sit in front of for hours or honestly I would be so content with just some simple paintings. Putting this craving of mine aside, I must admit that I am grateful for this strict exposure to only these kind of exhibits because it made me question a lot about why we have museums in the first place. What items are delineated as worthy enough for a glass box? The contents of museums, like these, seemed constructed and as I took more of it in, the more false it seemed to me. Almost made up entirely. Even just remembering that so many of these pieces were stolen from their original creators or owners left me mainly questioning two things: Who said it should be on display in the first place? Why in that capacity? And finally, what should/do the curators of these exhibits want us to get from seeing items behind glass panes? Of course you can appreciate the age and detail of a vase, for example, but beyond that I couldn't really think of an answer when I asked myself: what I am I getting out of this?
Now this is me setting up a scenario in an alternative universe but… couldn't we get so much more out of going to these artifactual museums by getting to interact with the materials it holds directly or at least not be separated by four walls of glass? How amazing would it be to get to try on some of the jewelry royalty used thousands of years ago — yes I know most pieces are too fragile for this — but create replicas or accept that not everyone can and will get the same experience anyway so if it breaks it breaks. Don't get me wrong, I know there are MANY flaws to the practical and logistical side of my proposal (because we as humans would, first, have to function very differently in order for this to be sustainable) but the point is... because I was getting nothing or rather just questioning why I was looking at mere items in glass, I started brainstorming how I could get something out of it and that in itself was exciting.
I have spoken of this "questioning" with a few of my fellow Berliners and it has seriously changed my capacity the way I take in those kinds of displays and museums. With all this said, you can only imagine my happiness when I finally got to go to the Altes National or go gallery hopping with Nick, or the Kulturforum (the list goes on.) My soul was getting re-filled as I got deeper and deeper into these rooms that had more art than space. I captured the paintings and sculptures that stole my heart and bought a few postcards for my collection but it was my second series of pictures that I am now sharing in this post.
Maybe the inspiration for them was inspired by my previously mentioned "questioning," but I found myself so captivated by the detail of many of the pieces I saw. This is not to say I hadn't paid attention to detail in the past but I found myself snapping pictures of only parts of certain paintings and it was extremely captivating. The secrets lie in the detail. They have so much to say and I love how they also don't let you guess dimension. Some of these pictures were from paintings the size of my hand and others that covered full walls but I love that you will never know unless you know the original piece. I also purposely left out the faces or at least the eyes of these people because I think the detail of their clothing says more about them. Without their full face you get to decide who they are.
Maybe those who read this will recognize where I stole my close ups from but that makes it all the more exciting. As I look back at my small collection its like I have created an exhibit of my own. So on that note, I hope you like what I have curated.
No comments:
Post a Comment