It was the day I and my fellow students were to show our collaborative portfolio at a gallery event at the RISD Museum of Art. This was the ninth day of a ten day intensive for high school students, and in these nine days we had gone from making simple collages to putting the finishing touches on a portfolio of artwork based on the conflicting themes of balance and ambition. We were nervous and excited. Artists who had been in the business longer than we had been alive were about to critique our hard work. We still had a lot of work to do, but one of our teachers wanted us to discuss one of the works in the galleries (shown above). It was a ugly thing that resembled a dirty chalkboard.
We began by listing objective statements, like “the frame is thin and minimal” and “the paint is gray." No statement was too obvious; each observation pulled out an element that made up the work. It was an interesting exercise, but still, why were we doing it? Didn’t we have more important things to do than discuss some boring painting?
Our teacher then had us all get up and look at the painting at different angles -- ten feet away, two inches away, parallel with the painting from each side. Once we returned to our stools, she asked us then to start making subjective observations. One person mentioned the hearts, another commented on the drips of paint. She noted the numbers that are almost entirely hidden among the scribbles and asked what those could mean. Then it got interesting. Instead of coming up with complicated theories, we created stories. One said it reminded him of the last day of school: the kindergarten teacher let her students draw on the board that day, and she began to clean it, but decided against it. She was sad to say goodbye to another class and wanted to leave their childish doodles up as long as possible. Someone else saw something completely different; his story involved a nerdy math tutor. After the boy she was tutoring left, she noticed that she had doodled hearts on her notebook. She knew she had no chance with him, so she angrily crossed out the hearts as tears fell.
This painting, which I had passed a hundred times before, suddenly had rich stories. Detailed narratives that brought the work alive. I could suddenly see Cy Twombly, the artist that painted the above work, Untitled, 1968, on a ladder painting the enormous canvas. I saw a look of wonder on his face as he freely and joyfully scribbled the hearts across the gray background. I desperately wished he was there in the room so I could ask him about the numbers, and if he liked the narratives we came up with.
In a span of two hours, I went from being angry that we were wasting our precious time on what I thought was a piece of crap, to loving this beautiful painting that exudes emotion and wonder. It’s now my favorite work in the museum, and I love getting to see it every time I visit. But this wasn’t just important because my mind was changed about this one painting, it was important because I realized that every single piece in the museum belonged there. Each artwork was made by an artist, therefore, its art. Its effortlessness and simplicity did not negate that fact. Our discussion of Untitled did not turn something that was not art into art, it made us, the observers, recognize it for what it is. One of my friends in the program once said “It doesn’t matter that you could have done it, it matters that they did”. They made it, they thought it up, they were inspired by something. You might not be able to tell what it was, but they figured it out. Just as you might not understand a classic novel, your lack of understanding does not make it a bad book. It also doesn’t make you a bad reader. Maybe you need an hour of teasing the work apart to see something in it.
Maybe art shouldn’t need so much discussion. Maybe it’s better if it’s more effortless to “get it”. Like Untitled (Grey Plank) by John McCracken. This sculpture, which leans against the wall in the RISD Museum, is a representation of itscolor. A cold, sterile rectangle emulates the coldness of the color grey. But, as Cy Twombly said, "The meaning of the work is in the doing of it." What you don't know from looking at this is that it was not so effortless to create. McCracken began with a wooden plant and enveloped it first in fiberglass, then in resin. To finish it, he polished the plank and waxed it, so it would appear to be untouched by human hands. He wanted it to look as effortless as possible, despite the lengthy process.The processes of McCracken and many other arts often reveal more about a piece of work than you could possibly imagine. In Twombly’s work, you can see the process in the scribbles and the drips.
All artists were inspired by something, had a feeling about something that they wanted to make into a physical work of art. We are not authorities on whether someone’s purpose for creating is worthy enough. We are only observers of the products of the artist’s minds.
