Milwaukee Art Museum

2-D Piece: Anselm Kiefer, German, b. 1945, Midgard, 1982-85, oil and mixed media on canvas.

                I am both fascinated and enraged by pieces accepted as art that look as if the artist had taken a machete and hacked up some poor soul’s internal organs and let them spew on a canvas. It probably says something about me, like I can’t tolerate that which has no order or sense, however I feel that notion is neither here nor there. This feeling is nothing new to new to me, having taken art classes where I had to learn about big famous names like Picasso to Pollok it has usually been the latter who’s art and those similar that I have a slight disdain towards. But I always try to keep and open mind because if there is anything that dries me to wretch more than something I don’t understand such as types of art, it is people who believe things they don’t understand should not be seen or heard of. To me this piece is not completely out of my good graces because there are things about I do like. It focuses darker colors like it greys and blacks to the bottom and lighter up to the top, it gives it a feeling of depth and space. There is a concentration of roundness that further emphasize the idea of depth, like I am looking into a great pit; the spat of white at the near center almost like a bright light in the pit or even just to signify the bottom. The large grey streak that almost circles itself but then veers off into a corner makes me think of a large snake looking down over the pit. The fact that this piece is called Midgard the name for Earth in Norse Mythology makes me think of the myths of the great world serpent.

3-D Piece: Alberto Giacometti, Swiss, 1901-1966, Large Seated Woman (Grande femme assise), 1958-59, Bronze, ed. 2/6.

                Where I previously aired my grievances over art that is formless and void of any sense, I feel with this piece I am looking at something that strives to strike a balance between that which has no sense or order and that which does. Here we see a woman, but her body is not sculpted to be smooth like most sculptures. The sculpture has these strange protrusions and depressions in it body, when we look at the sculpture as a woman it is like these weird or abstract features of her body are a reflection of all the things she tries to burry. Her faults, her insecurities, her rage, and her sadness. I felt that I couldn’t take just one photo so I took three; one of the front, a profile and one of the back. It was the sculpture of the woman’s back that has my favorite little thing about the whole piece; a sizable hole like a dark secret that she wants to leave behind. The fact this piece is called Large Seated Woman makes me think of a motherly/matriarchal figure who maintains her composure as she tries to hide the faults of her character lest she lets them destroy her authority.