creativity?

While I'm in the process of thinking through today's events, I thought I would write about them. How else will they leave my mind so that I might sleep?

Monday, 21 March 2011, was a day to remember.

- Left the apartment late.
- Bus driver was late.
- Teacher was late.
- Left LA late.
- Late to class in the valley.
- Exhausted.
- Late to sleep tonight.

Last part truly could not be helped!

All the above aside, when the docent began speaking ... my first thought was to begin laughing. Focusing on Picasso to start off our tour, my group's docent ended with the most recently added pieces of modern art, in the shape of a picture collage featuring guns and a blue rose, a balloon dog made of steel, and a fluorescent light / vacuum display. (Yeah, not kidding.)

ART. Should not art be aesthetically-pleasing? Perhaps this no longer is the case. According to a modern-day description, art "is a product or process of deliberately arranging items (sometimes with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, or intellect."

In this case, although I would typically never quote from Wikipedia, I did indeed quote from the accursed site. There is a reason: the description is detailed enough for me to use in this (very) short critique of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and their focus on modern art during today's field trip.

Photo cred: Dominique K.

Let's take "balloon dog" for a little ride ...

- Is it deliberately arranged? Of course it is; someone obviously put care and energy into this creation.
- Is it symbolically significant? To an extent: it symbolizes what clowns make at fairs (eek, stay far away).
- Does it influence or affect ... 1) the senses? Somewhat; the trick of the steel makes the viewer believe the piece is actually made of rubber; 2) the emotions? I guess if you're afraid of clowns, this would be a good one to stay away from; 3) the intellect? Oh definitely: I think I just lost quite a few braincells over-analyzing a piece of steel.

Don't get me started on the multi-dimensional Picasso paintings of horribly distorted women, the movement in the "sculpture" of sautered together smashed car parts, or the critique-on-consumerism driven still life of vacuums and fluorescent lights, on display in neat rows inside glass boxes.

Oops.

I'm sorry -- you thought that was being creative? I call that being "lazy."