“I could do that in five minutes.”
It’s a common refrain, frequently and flippantly said, usually while looking at a Pollock-esque paint splatter worth an amount north of your mortgage, but, really, it’s said of any kind of modern art.
Which is unfair, because “modern art” can mean so many things at once that it often ends up meaning hardly anything at all.
When you say “modern art,” are you referring to Pop art with its plays on recognizable commercial and cultural symbols, or to the migraine-inducing optical illusions of Op art? To the color explosion of Abstract Expressionism, the gentle seeping of Color Field, or the strict boundaries of Hard Edge? Are you referring to Dada or to neo-Dada? Minimalism or post-Minimalism? Comic or cosmic? Or are you referring to body art, conceptual art, installation art, video art, sound art, kinetic art, land art, new media art, activist art?
You get the idea.
Perhaps the initially dismissive approach to modern art we often take is a form of fight or flight. Modern art is so much to take in that it may feel easier to dismiss it entirely. But what a shame to miss out on such an interesting, expansive universe of art.
Maybe you’re not ready to dive in, but how about a dip? If you’re ready to be introduced to the packed, productive, paradoxical world of modern art, then the Brigham Young University Museum of Art has just the thing for you.
It’s a double exhibition hosted by BYU (Counterpoint: Selections from the MOA Collection from the 1960s and Beyond) and Colorado State University (Off Kilter, On Point: Art of the 1960s from Colorado State University). It’s a sampling of works from well-known artists (Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichtenstein) and lesser-known artists (Albert Kotin, Agathe Sorel, Lee Lozano). It’s a cross-section of Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Op art, and more. It’s the modern art equivalent of Billy Joel stuffing 119 historical references into five minutes of music.
If that sounds like more of the deep end than I promised, fear not: there is a road map. Actually, it’s a flow chart, right at the entryway, there to help you begin making simple distinctions among the dozen artistic movements you’ll encounter. Make sure to read the disclaimer: “Many artists do not fit in a neat category, and some even resist being placed in one.”
If it makes you feel better, it’s a tool. Use it.
But remember, modern art isn’t about the category it fits in. So take it as it comes.
And you will come across treasures.
You’ll find a classic example of pop art in a wool rug by Dorothy Grebenak. Grebenak’s hooked rug is a painstaking recreation of the Bugatti logo, perfect down to the exact number of red dots circling the emblem’s perimeter. In contrast to the chrome, metal and glass associated with the luxury car brand, Grebenak’s rug is cozy, the kind of thing you’d want to warm a cold, tile floor or brighten a sterile room.
You’ll find a humming electromagnetic sphere by Greek artist Takis (born Panayotis Vassilakis). Like a baby’s mobile, it hangs from the ceiling and moves in small circles, pulled by its magnetic base. The more you listen, the more you’ll hear the music being made from invisible electromagnetic waves.
You’ll find a disposable paper dress, inspired by Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup Can prints. The dress is one of many that the soup company made and distributed as part of a promotional campaign. Wrinkles and creases disrupt the regular pattern of soup can labels and remind you that this dress is meant to be lived in.
You’ll find a selection of contributions to the affordable art subscription service, the S.M.S. (So Much Shit) portfolio, from more than a dozen artists. Their contributions include a print of Leonardo da Vinci smoking a cigar, a burned bow tie, and a small booklet with the wry thesis, “All men are hardly created equal.”
You’ll find shaped canvases, optical illusions, a tribute to the moon landing, and a ginormous charm bracelet.
Finally, you’ll find that the art scattered throughout this exhibition representing a vast array of art movements are united in exemplifying what may be the core tenets of modern art.
Art can be anything. It can be a pattern of repetitive lines and shapes creating a hypnotic visual effect in the Op art of Bridget Riley and Edna Andrade. It can be the pure, vibrant spectrum of colors on display in Herbert Bayer’s “Spectral Gate and Two Chromatic Corners.” It can be a hand, dabbing a foot with a cotton swab in Roy Lichtenstein’s “Foot Medication.”
Art can be anywhere. It can be in a signature scrawled across a liquor store receipt, as in Andy Warhol’s “Paris Review Poster.” It can be in the letter N, painted bright red and marched in straight rows and columns across a board by Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali. It can even be in Robert Motherwell’s rough sketch of a three-sided rectangle on blue paper.
And most of all, art is for everyone. It’s for Marilyn Monroe and Queen Margrethe II, and it’s for Wilhelmina Ross, a transgender model and drag queen photographed by Andy Warhol in Manhattan, around the same time he appropriated images of Marilyn and the former Danish queen. It’s for the patrons who commissioned the sculptures designed and sketched by Anthony Magar, and the Central American weavers who fixed Anthony Calder’s swirling patterns into fibrous mats. It’s for the person who drives a Bugatti, and the person who wears a paper dress.
It’s for the artists who dedicate their lives to creating something meaningful, and it’s for each of us who makes a rough sketch of a three-sided rectangle. Even if it only takes five minutes.
Off Kilter, On Point: Art of the 1960s from Colorado State University and Counterpoint: Selections from the MOA Collection from the 1960s and Beyond, BYU Museum of Art, Provo, through Dec. 7.
Candace Brown received her BA in Art History and Curatorial Studies from BYU. Raised in Utah, she is proud of the state’s extraordinary artistic community.
Categories: Exhibition Reviews | Visual Arts