This is the natural habitat of the San Francisco liberal arts student. The blue-haired, orange leggings, faux leather jacket-wearing, dark eyeliner-painting, frilly choker-donning type. Also, the latte-drinking, Lululemon bag-slinging, Apple watch-wearing, crop topping type.
“My roommate did a thesis on chairs, but then she switched to cups,” one young lady said to another.
New York has more Roy Liechtenstein and Pittsburg has more Andy Warhol. I’m not a contemporary art kinda person, but I do get Cold War-era German art that reflect on its National Socialist history and the realities of the east-west split. Still, it takes someone who understands the socio-historical context of Germany during the cold war and an understanding of Nazi architecture to appreciate its abstract nature. Can someone because the master of the histories of the many places the art in this museum come from? No. But there is something universal about the appeal of Dutch Golden Age oil on canvas.
Folks lining up to take a picture in a multicoloured mirror tunnel, staring at a fan blow a piece of cloth, and talking about the inspiration of shapes in primary colours doesn’t inspire intelligence. The abstract type of modern art where a blank canvas with a streak of yellow is lauded as an abstract expression, where several splatters of paint yield wild auction prices, and an arrangement of rocks is interpreted as climate-friendly and organic forms of sculpture.
This is like calling golf a sport—the only sport that doesn’t discriminate based on physical fitness. Is it still a sport? Is art that could be created by a child still worthy of being put in a gallery? Mozart wrote a more widely-acclaimed symphony than that when he was 9.
Worst $25 I had spent in the whole trip.
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