I Feel Like I'm Growing...

Yesterday I had an art date with myself, for the first time in a long time (too long).  I drove out to the Berkshires (about a 3-hour drive), to Mass MoCA, in North Adams, where I had never been before.  It’s housed in a series of old mill buildings, all interconnected so you just wander from building to building, with your vital map in your back pocket.  My intention for going there, specifically, was to see an artist named Tim Okamura, whom I had discovered in my feed and whose work I had fallen in love with.  Strong, dignified Black women.  Need I say more? 

Tim’s paintings were part of a group show called “Still I Rise” (title taken from Maya Angelou’s poem).  He had three large scale works, two original oils on canvas and one reproduction from oil on canvas.  My favorite was “Rosie No. 1”, a re-imagining of Rosie the Riveter’s famous pose, with a Woman Of Color instead.  The other two paintings showed WOC with swords in hand, ready for combat.  Two of the women were also pregnant, which was striking.  We always think of pregnancy as a delicate time for women.  But they are also mama bears, willing to defend their unborn from any threat. 

After getting my fill of Tim’s work, I wandered without plan and came across Annie Lennox’s installation, “Now I Let You Go…”.  It was the same Annie Lennox we all know and love, of The Eurythmics fame.  Let me see if I can describe it…You walk in and the room is darkened.  You hear haunting vocals of Annie’s, “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” slowed and down and manipulated (backwards?), and occasional piano notes played.  You see a video of hers, “No More I Love You’s”, projected on a screen at the far end of the space, silent and in slow motion.  Then you see a giant mound of dirt, taller than you.  At the top, you see a piano, and nearby, angel wings.  Cascading down the mound are various things, and part of the pleasure is slowly looking at each and every object.  Some were obviously items from Annie’s musical career, like microphones and sound equipment, records, handwritten bits of lyrics from songs, costume pieces and props from videos (the masks from “Sweet Dreams are Made of This”, the angel wings possibly from “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)”).  As you move down, you see other things, bits from a person’s life, Annie’s life, but they could have been from anyone’s: family photos, hats, a kimono, teapots, figurines, jewelry, candlesticks, religious iconography, etc.  Things you might use in everyday life over a number of years.  And then as you moved down further, you saw pairs of shoes, moving back and getting smaller.  And you followed their path, and you saw toys, a dollhouse, a riding horse, dolls, tea sets, Russian dolls, teddy bears…and that’s where I lost it and I cried.  This was a person’s life as measured through the objects they have used and loved throughout their life.  All of humanity have these things.  The secret life of objects.  And we imbue them with such meaning, or sometimes we take them for granted and don’t feel much of anything about them.  But they become part and parcel of our days here.  Eventually we have to deal with them, keep them if we still use them, or give them away if we don’t.  Although, eventually, we will have to let everything go, because, as they say, you can’t take it with you.  

I also saw Jenny Holzer’s work.  Jenny Holzer uses words as her medium.  She chooses phrases or paragraphs and puts them on signs, isolating them and challenging us to figure out what they mean to us.  Things like, “Protect me from what I want” and “Romantic love was invented to manipulate women” and “Abuse of power comes as no surprise”.  There were signs of content that she had written, and signs that were other people’s words.  As a word person, I really gravitate to her work.  I try to tie words and images together, but she just concentrates on the words themselves to say what she’s observing about them.  They are definitely provocative.  Kind of like eating a bag of M&M’s: you keep wanting to pop more and more in your mouth because they’re so good you can’t stop. 

Then I saw a snippet of performance artist Laurie Anderson’s concert film, “Language is a Virus From Outer Space”, which is based on a quote from William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch).  She makes a connection between language that we use (online, things go ‘viral’) and viruses, how they mutate and spread quickly.  Language has always mutated since we first learned to make our thoughts known to others (we needn’t take changes in grammar as a personal affront).  They both mimic being alive, but independent of human beings have no life of their own.  I have always loved Laurie Anderson’s work, and her androgyny, but I walked out loving her even more so. 

I discovered an artist I had never heard of before: Titus Kaphar.  He basically takes established cultural norms and rips them apart to show the under-represented people behind them.  Or he’ll pull them to front, and push the dominant figure to the back.  He did a piece where he made Thomas Jefferson’s profile a 3-dimensional inverted background to (suggested) Sally Hemmings’ painted image in the foreground.  He also paints oils on canvas and cuts figures out to reveal others (of color) painted underneath. 

I also saw some paintings that were oils that were very textural, and I got an “aha!” flash of the pleasure there must be in just simply manipulating the paint and seeing what it does.  No meaning, no idea behind it, no representative art, no having to look like anyone or anything real in the world…just manipulating color and texture.  I have never had this thought in my life.  There was always a purpose behind making art.  There had to be a plan.  A grand gesture.  A meaning.  All brain and not enough heart, or eyes, or hands.  I think I understand abstract art a bit more clearly now.  At least, I understand its appeal where I never did before. 

That is art, my friends.  Art moves you, sometimes to tears.  That is its job, to provoke feelings and thoughts in you, any kind of feelings and thoughts at all.   And that is an artist’s job, to make things that do this. 

It was a very growth-oriented day at the museum.  That happens to be my vision right now: growth.  I’m happy to have had a day in line with my values. 

Now to go experiment with the rest of my day…