Approaching Art

Happy summer! Or, to be more precise, happy Fourth of July! If you celebrate that sort of thing, of course.

Since I've been turned loose for the summer--well, aside from my job and a volunteer project I'm doing--I have the freedom to catch up on all the reading I've been meaning to do for a while now. This means that, currently, about 5000 pages worth of books, etc. are sitting on the floor of my bedroom. No, this isn't an exaggeration--one of those books is over 1000 pages on its own. Needless to say this has made maneuvering around a small room mildly difficult. It has also made the summer feel less like summer, having already decided what to do with all that free time.

But please, let me introduce myself a little. As a student of Art History it's hard to say that I have a particular focus or interest, as I've been drawn to art all my life. Any art, from ancient prehistory to comic books to ukiyo-e prints. If I must narrow it down, though, my main (or at least current) interests fall in the realm of modern to contemporary art, especially where Western art traditions cross over with those of different cultures. For example my volunteer project is at an exhibition for works by the Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi, who combined both of these traditions in his approach to the creation and definition of sculpture.

I have also been fascinated by Pre-Columbian (especially Mayan) and Native American arts since the beginning of my college career. Taking a number of formative archaeology classes probably solidified this interest. Starting out as a student I thought I would become an archaeologist or anthropologist. Except, when I thought about it, I was most fascinated by the artistic remnants left behind by cultures and what these can tell us about a people's (or person's) world views. And yet if you pick up an ancient piece of art created by someone who's been dead thousands of years, you can only understand that piece up to a certain level before speculation takes the lead. As someone who wants to understand art, this ambiguity and not-knowing frustrates me to no end. I suppose, though, I've come to the realization that with ancient arts like these, you just can't ever appreciate them the same way as the people who created them.

Which, actually, is an issue all its own, and one that I've declaimed on in the past. Maybe, here on this blog, I'll do so again sometime.

Over time, though, my interest in ancient arts has shifted to encompass the current era, too. There are still Mayan and Native American artists in the world, and their art has a lot to say about the past, present, and the world in general. This is the primary function of art, isn't it? To teach us to see things in a different way, to appreciate different perspectives and ideas and make ourselves more rounded people? Well, a thousand opinions exist concerning what art is for, so you might have different ideas than I do. Perhaps my background in archaeology/anthropology has informed this interest in seeing the world from different angles.

At the very least, to think critically about art it makes sense to be able to step into an artist's shoes and try to see things the way they do. If you can only see the world from one point of view, it seems to me there's probably a lot of art in the world that you can't appreciate.