From this you may assume that:
1) An art history degree is useless. In a way it is. Art & Antiques are a luxury commodity.
2) The pickings are slim. They have been telling me this for months.
Any of you fellow artsy-peeps may want to read the first article here
, if you are interested in the links between David Linley, The John Soane Museum, Philip Johnson, and Michael Graves...
Coincidentally, Johnson designed the academic buildings and the chapel at my university (St Thomas). The contents of his Manhattan pied-a-terre will be transferred to the Menil Collection in Houston - ironically, designed by Renzo Piano - right next to the university.
John and Dominique de Menil have been great patrons of the arts down there since the 50s, their collection spanning the globe and the centuries from pre-classical antiquity to primitive tribal artefacts (which are nicely linked) to the Surrealists (including a substantial number of Rene Magrittes). Satellite museum buildings by Piano include a great space for works by Cy Twombly, the Rothko chapel; the Byzantine chapel which was destroyed by Turks, is now pieced back together and seems to float in an endless space, which from the outside looks like a concrete powerplant. (I wrote an essay on it for my French advanced writing class.)
After walking out of the Twombly Gallery a few years ago, I coined a new phrase when in my disgust I said, "What a load of Twombly." Since then, although I have completed an art history education, I still don't like his works. I do however, have a new appreciation for (and sort of like) the work of a few 20th century modernists such as Kandinsky.
In fact, I can now appreciate a work while not liking it at all. Is this cool or what?
One evening we had a practice wine-tasting session.
Someone at a Dutch bank missed out on getting someone else drunk. What fun!
11 comments:
Ah, yes, the menil!!! I should go by there sometime when they are open. I wrote a paper, too, on the Byzantine Chapel.
Wow, Olivia, it has been a long time since you last touched that bottle of Muscat. They don't go bad?
I never told you, I got an encyclopedia on wine (for free--amazing what a guy does when he thinks a girl is cute). Quite interesting. It talks about all the different wines around the world, how the wine is made and how to taste it....
Sweet dream!
vanessa
Hey Olivia,
I feel exactly the same about appreciating hideous works of art. I remember once telling Andrea in detail about that Meissen family group we got in our cataloguing exam. She said it sounds absolutely yuckily kitschy and for a moment I was taken aback. But then when I thought about it I had to agree cause ewww. But when you actually know something of its history and its making etc you suddenly seem to see it through different eyes. In that case it certainly didn't change my distaste for it but still I could appreciate it. :o)
As for the other matter, lets hope we all soon get something so that none of us need to be in competition over jobs. But you're right, the pickings indeed seem slim. Sigh.
PS btw your pics in the text don't seem to work.
Nope, not for me. Rothko - studied him pretty deeply. Know his point, get his drift, am in on the lowdown. Still: ridiculous. Not only don't like it, indeed it bothers me, he's having a laugh at all of us. Him and all his comrades of the easy representation. Twombly amongst them.
Chin up girls, here we go, head to head. Slim pickings is the understatement of the season. That's how it is. But that's also why I've branched out in a couple other directions as well so I may not be in your way for too many of these posts.
Vanessa - LOL, no silly, it's alcohol, it won't go baaad.
Ooh! Which guy gave you the encyclopedia? Was it one you've told me about?
Posh & Beccs - SORRYYYYY I couldn't resist!
I don't like Meissen either. In fact I would rather work with glass than with porcelain. Unless it's Japanese or Chinese. Anyway, the fact that we can appreciate and dislike simultaneously means that our education was effective.
Umm I didn't add any pictures to the text...
I'm branching out too, so the pressure is off, girls!
Whoa, I never realised that. Posh and Beccs I mean. That was awesome. So simple and yet so so clever!
And I am the footballer who wear mascara (my grandfather is turning over in his grave) while Rox is the underweight pointy one with a mediocre singing talent. Cool
Golly and they so are my favourite couple... NOT! But at least Rebecca gets to be the one who actually has SOME talent.
About the pics not working, I just assumed they were pics cause they are little white things with a red cross in them after "first article here" and "Menil Collection". Never mind.
Posh & Beccs - I find it funny that in real life you two are actually the other way 'round (re: being pointy).
red wine goes sour when it is exposed to air for too long.
The guy works at a bookstore, he is from iraq.....never seen him since.
Vanessa
No no, it's more than that: I do have a mediocre singing talent. And Roxy does sometimes wear mascara on the football field. Those rare times she's on the football field.
Vanessa - yes, when exposed to the air. This isn't red wine, and I have my fancy wine stoppers, remember.
Rebecca - well...you said it...not me...
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