With a few hours together and the rain settled in, I suggested we do something we had never done before, visit a local gallery. I think the last museum we went to was the Hermitage in St Petersburg Russia several years ago and this one was nothing like that - which was a gorgeous place. Even my wife who at the time wasn't keen to visit an art museum, enjoyed it immensely.
The Sara Hilden museum in Tampere is small, but has quite a nice minimalist feel to it, with a lot of exposed concrete and large windows that overlook the lake. This gives the feel that nature is part of the display and with the seasons changing so dramatically here, the time of year of visit will probably affect the experience.
This piece my wife is standing beside was probably my favorite of the collection due to its grandness and detail - though probably isn't to everyone's taste. The exhibition was on Still Life, which depending on the language used for the translation, could also be called "Dead Nature". This artist took the dead quite literally, with the abstract effect is created by the decomposing corpse of an animal spread on brass, with the breakdown and the inclusion of various insects all making their mark on the metal. While a disgusting process, the ideas of the process and finishing of the surface were well executed and the result beautiful. As I have probably mentioned before, I like the beautiful of the ugly and disused brought to life.
My wife has never really been into art before other than something to put on the wall to enhance a space, but since that walk through the Hermitage, she now pays a lot more attention to what she sees scattered around the place. One of the best moments in St Petersburg was when my wife stood in front of a large piece of work for about ten minutes just taking in the details of it. She didn't really like the work so much itself, but something clicked in that moment and she started to appreciate it for the story it was telling, not as something that she has to accept. We were about half way through the museum at the time and the second half took much longer, as she began looking with new eyes.
Often, I hear people say, "I don't get it" when it comes to art and at times I have likely done the same, but I don't think there is actually anything to get. We tend to try and understand the art from the perspective we feel it was intended, but the value is in our interpretation of it. In this way, we become the artist as we build a narrative around what we imagine it to be and irrespective of the the piece itself - the work we create mentally is unique to us, with every viewer holding a different impression on a scale that can be quite extreme. This doesn't really matter if we "know" what it is about through talking to the artist or reading other interpretations earlier - we still add to our own story of the piece.
In many ways, I see this much like the way we evaluate each other as individuals also, where your impression of someone based on your experience with them can be highly divorced from my own impression and experience. A person you admire and love could be a person I dislike strongly or vice versa, but who is "right" doesn't matter - as no one is right.
We can never completely know everything about anyone in the same way that we cannot know everything about anything - there is always going to be pockets of information and experience that are hidden from us, either through a lack of experience and awareness or, through resolution, where the tools of observation are unable to zoom in to capture all detail. But, this doesn't stop us from building our unique painting of the story and subscribing to a train of thought that we act upon, that we spread outward from us to share with the world - we exhibit.
Every time we give an opinion on something, every action we make is a gallery of our thoughts and behaviors that get interpreted by those around us like a work of art on display. Some will love the display and connect with it, some won't get it, some will be disgusted or horrified and there will be a thousand other responses between - what people have to consider is that their interpretation based on their experience isn't the same as other's experiences and interpretations for a thousand reasons, including the "viewers" own interaction with the person being evaluate.
Unlike a piece of art on a wall, the interaction between two people is going to change what is being displayed, evaluated and interpreted by participants. Act in one way toward a person will get a different response than if one had acted in another way. For example, an aggressive approach is going to likely be reflected differently than if the approach had been open and friendly. We can bring out the best or worst in each other and we can make our opinion on what is exhibited, but we have to think about our role in the result and how our own behavior influenced the outcomes - and we have to consider that the reason other people have a different relationship with the same person is that they the viewer, approached the work with a different mind and behavior set ourselves.
The, "I don't get it" opinion isn't about what is exhibited, it is about the mind of the viewer and the viewers ability to create meaning from what is displayed. It is about the relationship between two points interacting back and forth and while some people are better at building relationships than others, everyone has their preferences.
Taraz
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