Thing the second: Museums.
Sep. 13th, 2006 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterLast night I trekked allllllll the way over to the ASU Art Museum (it's a block from my house) to check out their newest exhibit, New American City: Artists look forward. It's supposed to be about one of my favorite topics, the Greater Phoenix Suburbo-politan area, and as such, I figured I should see it. The conclusion that I have reached about it is that sometimes it can be just as interesting when a museum exhibit completely fails as when it succeeds. I should elaborate on what I mean by failure in this case. A couple of my friends went to see the exhibit on the day it opened, and their underlying complaint was that it wasn't political enough. On the opening night, the Museum basically ended up giving away entire pizzas to people that came. That in and of itself is quite telling with respect to the state of art in this area.
Having heard that the whole thing wasn't political enough, I nonetheless tried to visit the exhibit with an open mind. It featured such things as large aerial photographs of farmland that is being developed into subdivisions, video projections of what it is like to drive around Phoenix, a More or Less campaign (viewers were asked to choose something that they wanted to see more or less of, and then write down their choice on a piece of paper and put it into either the "More" or the "Less" box), and various other installations or computer simulations or photographs or collages. The whole artist catalogue, along with the exhibition statement can be seen here.
But really, not much grabbed me. Actually, only one piece REALLY grabbed me: a video projection onto a prosthetic limb, by Kade Twist, that dealt with what it means to be native American and living in the city. It was an incredibly emotional piece, describing how moving into a city detaches native Americans from a sense of place and home and in many respects turning them into zombies. I think I was grabbed because that particular piece said something; the most remarkable part of the rest of the exhibit was the fact that it failed to say anything at all.
There was, for example, a series of interviews of people by Maria and Matthew Salinger. They took photographs of each person's home and then asked each person something along the lines of, "How does your place relate to the city?" Every single answer that I read (I read about 8 of the 10 or so answers before wandering on) emphasized how much each person appreciated their home as a retreat, something outside of the city. The city itself was barely mentioned. One person did say something about how her home consisted of things brought in from outside. But really the whole thing showed the lack of coherence and cohesiveness in this place. People don't relate to this city--there is no city to relate to. There's no love or hate; only ambivalence. There is nowhere to go that really speaks as a city here. I've never lived somewhere that had so many people that were so severely isolated from each other.
Having heard that the whole thing wasn't political enough, I nonetheless tried to visit the exhibit with an open mind. It featured such things as large aerial photographs of farmland that is being developed into subdivisions, video projections of what it is like to drive around Phoenix, a More or Less campaign (viewers were asked to choose something that they wanted to see more or less of, and then write down their choice on a piece of paper and put it into either the "More" or the "Less" box), and various other installations or computer simulations or photographs or collages. The whole artist catalogue, along with the exhibition statement can be seen here.
But really, not much grabbed me. Actually, only one piece REALLY grabbed me: a video projection onto a prosthetic limb, by Kade Twist, that dealt with what it means to be native American and living in the city. It was an incredibly emotional piece, describing how moving into a city detaches native Americans from a sense of place and home and in many respects turning them into zombies. I think I was grabbed because that particular piece said something; the most remarkable part of the rest of the exhibit was the fact that it failed to say anything at all.
There was, for example, a series of interviews of people by Maria and Matthew Salinger. They took photographs of each person's home and then asked each person something along the lines of, "How does your place relate to the city?" Every single answer that I read (I read about 8 of the 10 or so answers before wandering on) emphasized how much each person appreciated their home as a retreat, something outside of the city. The city itself was barely mentioned. One person did say something about how her home consisted of things brought in from outside. But really the whole thing showed the lack of coherence and cohesiveness in this place. People don't relate to this city--there is no city to relate to. There's no love or hate; only ambivalence. There is nowhere to go that really speaks as a city here. I've never lived somewhere that had so many people that were so severely isolated from each other.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 04:32 pm (UTC)Also, I think I'm pretty lucky in the neighborhood that I live in. I do talk to my neighbors a lot and interact with them. But it's an older neighborhood, where the houses are much closer together and there are a lot of big trees. That makes it a pleasant area to walk around.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 09:25 pm (UTC)I would probably say that when the trees lose their leaves, I will have a view of the center of the city.