Saatchi Gallery showed so many disturbing and controversial pieces that affect us TODAY, and makes us truly question our current events, while Tate Modern has many historic modern pieces that are beautiful to look at but may not shock as like the Saatchi. I loved going to both!
The 3 pieces I enjoyed the most were from Saatchi:
The Ghosts exhibit took an everyday object that we use everyday, and made aluminum foil into something so haunting. When I first walked into this room, I felt that the aluminum ghosts were all clones or avid followers of some kind of cult, kind of like a platinum KKK of sorts. Each has a hollow face because there is no originality in people anymore. We are all androids following a certain way of belief, because nobody wants to stand out from the pack. Let’s all bow our heads, face the same direction, dress the same, because everyone else is doing it.
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s Old Persons Home exhibit on the bottom floor was staggeringly disturbing. I thought that they were real men, who all happened to viewing the Gallery at the same time. There must have been hours and hours poured into each Old Person’s details. They are each holding an item that has, in his past life, brought them to this weary, life-less state. Some carry alcohol bottles, perhaps denoting alcoholism in their lifetime, and some carry scissors, perhaps weary from a lifetime of workaholism as a barber. Some are dressed as old Navy veterans, while others in ethnic attire, but all share a common characteristic: they have been weathered by the experiences in their past. They are riding around in their little wheelchairs, just waiting for the day that it is their time to go to heaven. Perhaps the artists are trying to show that we are all slaves to society’s pressures or indulgences, and ask us to question whether or not our choices will be worth it when we are much, much older
Halim Al-Karim’s room filled with Lambda prints was the most emotional for me. By using a silk overlay on some of his prints, it showed a shadow cast of emotions that are not outwardly expressed by the models, but is often felt in the private quarters of their minds. The two I felt most passionate are the ones I have photographed to the right. The titles of their paintings are labeled Hidden War 2 and Hidden Victims. The top shows a beautiful girl who feels so ugly inside, perhaps because of trauma due to rape or some other kind of abuse. Can’t we all relate? The world thinks nothing is wrong with us, and yet on the inside we feel hideous. The bottom shows an Asian girl who has an internal battle: wishing to look a different way from who she is. It is not very apparent which photograph is the real girl, but either way, there are always days where we feel ugly, and some days we feel beautiful, and some days we just feel plain hollow.
No comments:
Post a Comment