A Neophytes Survey of Southern California Art Museums
Southern California has had a long history of being a major art Mecca. Countless talented artists have hailed from this region and we as residents are wonderfully blessed to be able to enjoy countless world class art museums within such close proximity. This accessibility will pave the way for countless future generations to explore art and potentially cultivate and nurture a new passion. With my attendance at OCMA and LACMA I myself have been able to see and enjoy works of art that have ignited my curiosity and given me an appreciation for the artistic talent that surrounds me today.
The first museum I chose to attend was The Orange County Museum of Art located in Costa Mesa. Having had the opportunity to visit the museum numerous times as a child as I arrived I was greeted with a wave of nostalgia and a sense of familiarity that was very welcoming. I took my time and meandered about the whole museum taking stock of all of the works, while enjoying and ultimately selecting four or so works that really stood out to me and prompted me to write about them. The first work that I selected is titled Electric Chair by Andy Warhol. When I first saw this piece I instantly knew it was a Warhol. Not because I knew it, but because the style was unmistakable.
The work completed in 1970 is a silkscreened image taken from a newspaper photograph of an electric chair within New York’s Sing Sing State Penitentiary. The work was a part of his “Death and Disaster” series which intended on using to show societies growing numbness and detachment from violence and loss because of its constant exposure to it. With the war in Vietnam going into its 8th year, people were quickly becoming severely disillusioned with war and lost interest despite thousands of Americans dying yearly. On top of the conflict in Vietnam, President Kennedy and Martin Luther KingJr., had been assassinated, and serial killers such as Ted Bundy engaged in gruesome acts. With all of these factors being considered Warhol constructed an image that conveys his opinion so masterfully. By using an electric chair he opens the viewer up to the life of a prison inmate, a forgotten individual who is subjected to daily abuse with the potential to have his life taken on a date determined by a court by an electric chair. A device that is extremely ineffective, yet so iconic. This work makes excellent use of bright pink and yellow colors that showcase the power of the chair and give the image a sense of brightness that makes the viewer feel as if they themselves are being electrocuted. This work in my opinion exposes the viewer to Americas numbness to the suffering of Vietnam veterans who much like prisoners have been forgotten and at one point were forced into a situation that could have taken your life. By doing so he can subliminal criticize the treatment of veterans without supporting the war.
The following work that I chose to write about is titled Pine Setting by Ed Ruscha. When I saw this painting I was drawn in because of the dark colors and soft contrast of what seemed like a magnificent photo, but upon closer inspection I found that it was in fact a well executed acrylic painting.
The painting which was created in 1988 is from the group of black and white “shadow” paintings that Ruscha begun in 1986. It provides the viewer with a near frightening and dark depiction of the suburban home accentuated by its soft focus, a black silhouette of a tree, the house, and what could be a fence or the lawn which is further accentuated by the radical angle of the image. To finish the work off the sky is shown as a dark charcoal color with a rigid white bar appearing in the upper right hand corner. The painting through the use of the dark colors and soft focus seems to perfectly capture the “feel” of a black cloud that hung over America the 80’s. The country was divided in its approval in Ronald Regan, the economy was in dire straits, and the Black Monday stock market crash had only recently taken place a year earlier. The cold war was still raging and the Berlin Wall had not yet fallen. The us versus them mindset was not only present in our battle with Russia. The music was splintering in every which direction with new genres sprouting up and creating new sub cultures, youth and adults alike found themselves becoming more hostile and placed emphasis on supporting their “side” fervently. This left many individuals wondering “where would we go from here”. Interestingly enough the addition of the white strip could be seen as a reference to the absence of God or a covered up or ripped up section of a headline. In referencing the absence of God the position of the strip reflects Gods domain in the heavens, on the “right" side of correctness. The headline could be reference to another world or domestic event that was detrimental to the country or a portion of a classified document with a color inversion. All things considered Ruscha did a phenomenal job giving the image photo like qualities while also giving the image a necessary amount of ambiguity to allow the viewer to gain certain conclusions regarding what the artist is trying to convey through this specific work.