Art Gibberish

Some of you may know, I was once an artist. Now I'm just a washed up programmer and struggling college student. Truth to tell, I know nothing about art, but I am very good at how to jibber jabber about it. When I was organizing my stuff to make room for more video games, I came across this art review I wrote half a year ago as an assignment when I was in UW. Since my prof was really impressed, I shamelessly considered my gibberish a real piece of art and wanna share with you here. Enjoy.
Warning: Before you continue, once again, I want you to know, I have no idea what I was writing. So if you think I just wasted five minutes of your life after finishing it, this is on you, I'm totally in the clear. And Mr. Alejandro Guzman, I'm so sorry I dragged you into this.

What you see is what you feel

    The Seattle Art Museum was showing the Fatalist , which explores the work of artist Alejandro Guzman utilizing the drawn line in new methods. While contemporary art practice is overwhelmed by moving images and newer and newer media, this exhibition made a U-turn and emphasizes the importance of drawing and presents it as the medium for complex and dynamic artworks.
    Instead of bringing a dizzying profusion of lines and polygons like Monika Grzymala and other artists, Gutzman explores the pas de deux between the perception of human and symbols by presenting a collection of artworks that look more like what you would find in every artist’s sketchbook, in which many of them look just like mindless and spontaneous doodlings assembled by a bunch of shapes and polygons.
    Some people always say all art is abstract. In fact, A lot of times it is very easy to believe the fallacy. But not this time. When you look at every one of them, a word appears in your mind. It came out of nowhere, it just popped into your mind like instinct. Some of the sketches are like the picture below, which I categorized as WYSIWYG.
I call it the “Burning Candle”

    In contrast, there are some sketches which connect with you through physical feeling.
They all look just like a bunch of rectangles being thrown together right?
What about now? Somehow I felt the texture of wood without even touching it.

    Another thing Gutzman explores is how a shape connects with a human mind.


Looks just like the shape of a snowy mountain.

    But above all, what makes Gutman’s art genius is the medium of some of the sketches. Instead of filling the polygons he drawn with colors to make his work more content and more complete, he chose to use words and the very origin of every language, symbols, as his color paints.

    From Gutzman’s I can see quite a lot of inspration. For instance, the structure of this piece looks really like optical illusionist M.C. Escher’s Glass Ball.

Gutzman’s work 
Glass Ball by M.C. Escher, 1935
    And this looks like the exact opposite of Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory.

Gutzman’s work
Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, 1931

    And this sketch of skull might draw its inspiration from Mike Shinoda’s Glorious Excess (Dies)

Gutzman’s work
Glorious Excess (Dies) by Mike Shinoda, 2009

    Some of his work there can also be viewed in the Neoplasticism paradigm too, as you can find some traits of De Stijl within.

Gutzman’s work
Yellow, Blue and Red by Piet Mondrian, 1937

    Though Gutzman’s work is genuine with the creative idea of communication with perception of human. I found his work way too two-dimensional. In traditional paradigm, we have Cubism that makes artworks four-dimensional. And then we had M.C. Escher who presented illusions using sketches, he made the black-white space on paper a three-dimensional impossible space. Sometimes he also managed to add philosophical idea, notably paradox, to provoke thoughts. I saw none of them from Gutzman’s work. But Picasso used colorful paintings as his medium, so I would let it go.
    The gallery had cleared a whole room for Gutzman’s work. However, Seattle Art Museum’s main feature at the time was Disguise: Masks & Global African Art, so not many people would pay attention to the room at the corner with no introduction whatsoever (not even a standing sign). For almost 20 minutes I had the room all for myself, which I counted as a bonus. Also, on the way to the exhibition was a bunch of minimalism artworks which has been the mainstream of Contemporary Art Movements focus of many artists since 40 years ago. People seemed to be quite enthusiastic about them (I still have a hard time understanding all these artworks which to me look like something produced by a three-year-old using Paint).


White Curve V by Ellsworth Kelly, 1973
Afterall, Gutzman’s work is not the main attention in the Museum, probably because the Museum considered the secondary status of line drawing and sketches in the majority point of view.

All in all, enjoying Gutzman’s work in the Seattle Art Museum has been a delightful experience. The number of those sketches were overwhelming, which made them a strong message to the audience. Yet, the style and idea are simplistic. Simply speaking, it’s the proof that you don’t need to make everything fancy to deliver a message. Seattle Art Museum has done a great job gathering his work and put them in a nice, organised way. However, it would be great if there are more information available for the artist and his associated work instead of just a tag on the wall.


Kev
Art Gibberish Art Gibberish Reviewed by Kevin Lai on 7:39:00 AM Rating: 5

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