sometimes the devil wears splatter paintings
this past weekend i went to see “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976″ at the st. louis art museum. for those of you unfamiliar with this period, it’s basically splatter paintings by modern artists. the exhibit was excellent, regardless of whether you’re a fan of modern art or not; the focus was on the critics and their relationship with the artists- some loved splatter paintings and some did not. (e.g. there was a video clip of a talk show that featured a chimp painting on a canvas.)
afterward, was a discussion hosted by midrash (commentary on culture sponsored by the journey). there was some debate as to whether current events at the time had any influence on the genre and/or the styles and/or the artists themselves. while there was no significant evidence of a response to the war it had to have effected them somehow.
as people were speculating as to the meanings/ interpretations of various pieces, the movie “the devil wears prada” came to mind. it was a movie about a world-renowned magazine editor (miranda), whose opinions about fashion dictated current trends in the industry. her new assistant (andy) was eager to enter the journalism field but had no interest in style.
Miranda Priestly: [Miranda and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy sniggers because she thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?
Andy Sachs: No, no, nothing. Y’know, it’s just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y’know, I’m still learning about all this stuff.
Miranda Priestly: This… ’stuff’? Oh… ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.
does art imitate life or does life imitate art? yes. we cannot separate ourselves from the world around us. think about this: you can feel tension when you walk into a room. (remember the expression, “you could have cut the tension with a knife”?) there’s a certain atmosphere inherent in every venue of every subculture; a prevailing mood that effects every aspect of life. whether we’re aware of it or not we are all influenced and in turn influence.
ps- ever seen/sat on/purchased a sofa or curtains with a retro modular pattern? it likely trickled down from a modern art sculpture or painting. crazy, huh?
Leave a Reply