On my 18th birthday, I saw my first Frida Kahlo painting.
After shuffling through a line and into a secluded gallery, I locked eyes with Kahlo's "Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird." I remember how intimate it was. The drops of blood from her neck grew more evident, her posture grew stiffer. Although I have seen this self-portrait in photos before, this was a new experience.
The painting was tragic, yet so technically crafted. I was mesmerized, I was horrified, I was overwhelmed with all types of emotions that my mind went blank. I pulled out my phone in hopes to steal a quick photo of the painting, but was interrupted by one of the security guards telling me to put my phone away. I was disappointed in the moment, but soon realize that no photo could do this painting justice. Art is meant to be experienced, rather than viewed.
Art, especially contemporary art, is meant to move beyond the visual realm and into the experiential, hence its multiplicity of forms. Performance pieces especially need to be viewed in person. Watching a video of Chris Burden's "Shoot" (above) is not experienced in the same way as actually being in that gallery space and witnessing a marksman shoot Burden. Additionally, the audience permitted the shooting because they were in a gallery space. Experiencing this performance piece in person, one would be shell-shocked and in disbelief. Watching the video of the performance does not have that same effect.
With information so readily available, it is so easy to find and view pieces of art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York even digitized 375,000 images of artwork, making art accessible to a larger group of people. As an art enthusiast, I see this as both exciting and problematic. Digitizing art allows masses of people to view from any part of the world at any point in time. Despite this, internet searches are limiting. If I were to search for George Segal's "Circus Acrobats" (which, why would I even search the internet for this piece, it's in the Ohio Union), I would receive information on this specific piece, and pieces related. My art professor, in her last lecture, mentioned that the internet is as informative as our minds are open. Internet searching is only helpful if one knows what they are looking for. Once the searcher finds what they have been searching for, they stop at that.
In contrast, going to galleries, museums, or exhibitions exposes audiences to a wider array of art. If I wander into an obscure Brooklyn gallery, chances are I wouldn't know a single artist. Actually venturing into galleries and exhibitions introduces, exposes, and widens perception, apart from enhancing experience.
As an artist, I see the gallery space as an opportunity to build an artist-viewer relationship through the artwork. Like getting an autograph from an athlete or a movie star, viewing art in person is so indirectly intimate; there exists a symbiotic relationship between viewer and artist, even for a brief moment.
