Day 1755, art.

I like going to modern art museums. I like to go, because of it’s popularity, it’s most of the time nice and quiet to walk around. I walk around in other buildings to, looking at the details of it’s architecture and other details. But walking in a public building like that feels often awkward, that’s why I like to go to a museum. In a museum I can walk around, enjoy my surrounding, without feeling out of place.

I put meaning in my pictures, when I write a poem based on it, but I never take a picture with a particular poem in mind. I just take pictures, and surprise myself later. My girlfriend starts with a more elaborate plan when she makes her paintings, that’s another way to approach it. I never thought deep about why there are these different approaches, my first guess is, that it has to do with how our brains are wired. Another reason can be that I never learned how to take pictures, I know all the technical details, but a technically bad picture can still be good. Other photographers know more about light en moods and how to manipulate their gear to the fullest, and repeat that process. These are the kind of artist that plan their photo shoots, and they get at least a technically superior picture.

You see these different approaches in art museums to, blobs of colorful paint, detailed depictions of reality or beautifully made sculptures of nothings. I always look at them as beautiful accidents, like I take my pictures. I am always amazed when people tell all kinds of stories about the meaning of some of the details, the combination of colors, and why the artist did this or that. I personally think that if an artist has something to say with their art it should be “readable” with maybe some explanation, for everyone. If you have to tell what it means, then you should just tel people what you mean without wasting a canvas and paint.

I know that this is not fair. I read philosophy books that need some prior knowledge, and otherwise a lot of explanation. Maybe I miss that knowledge, regarding some of the modern art, to appreciate it in it’s fullest. But I don’t go to art museums to learn, I just enjoy the surrounding, the quietness and the architecture is often beautiful (and hopefully without meaning). And what’s hanging on the wall, can please the visual cortex to, and that’s a bonus.