Tag: museum

What will get lost if activists continue to vandalize paintings

Untitled

The above is a painting by Francis Bacon that I saw in 2022 in London at the Royal Academy. I am a huge fan of Bacon, and this show not only allowed me to see many of the works of this great artist, but it also allowed me to get up close and examine the paintings, like this:

Untitled

If you click on this link you can do so yourself.

I love being able to do that. You can see the brush strokes, the markings on the surface. You can better understand how the painting was made. You gain a different appreciation of the work up close.

That’s why it continues to bother me when people vandalize these paintings. I fear exhibits of paintings could end up looking like this:

Mona Lisa behind glass

Sure it’s fine if you want to send a selfie to your friends, but as far as looking at the painting, you might as well resort to a book.

The next time you go and look at art, look at it from all angles and all distances. You will gain an appreciation of it you won’t get any other way. And do it soon: someday you might not be able to.

(Top two flickr images by me. The bottom one from Valerie.)

On Basquiat’s notebooks

At the Brooklyn Museum they had an exhibit of Basquiat’s notebooks. They wrote:

A self-taught artist with encyclopedic and cross-cultural interests, Basquiat was influenced by comics, advertising, children’s sketches, Pop art, hip-hop, politics, and everyday life. Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks emphasizes the distinct interplay of text and images in Basquiat’s art, providing unprecedented insight into the importance of writing in the artist’s process. The notebook pages on display contain early renderings of iconic imagery—tepees, crowns, skeleton-like figures, and grimacing faces—that also appear throughout his large-scale works, as well as an early drawing related to his series of works titled Famous Negro Athletes.

If you are a fan of the artist, I recommend you check this out: Brooklyn Museum: Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks.

If you have someone who is interested in making their own art, encourage them to check it out too. Seeing Basquiat’s notebooks can remind them that even with humble materials, the potential to create something great exists.