After an amazing day at the cemetery (that sounds so strange but my last post hopefully shows WHY it was so amazing!) I decided to visit the Centro Cultural Recoleta, an exhibition and cultural events center which also houses sculptures, paintings and concerts. I really went there because it was in my handy Lonely Planet guide to Buenos Aires and the blurb given to the Center sounded pretty interesting.
Now, for anyone who knows me, I'm clearly not your "artsy friend" with an www.etsy.com account and an easel and paintbrushes decorating a corner of my room. No, I am the friend who uses putty to post up pictures around her room of friends and family and I kid you not, bought construction paper to make cut out hearts and bubble letters thinking that was artistic and would give my room some "ambience." Oh my god, even writing that I cringe. THIS WAS LAST YEAR. Off the topic of the museum but WHAT? What was I thinking? How did my flatmates not intervene? I am just now thinking of what my most artistic and incredibly talented friend Kathryn must have thought. She was IN one of those pictures! She CAME to visit! How are we still friends?
Now that I've vented, you have the clear idea that I'm no critic and if you know the difference between mauve and burnt amber I'm already totally impressed with your abilities. This, however, seems to be my problem (back to the actual topic, sorry!) Entering the Center the first room I came to I was pumped; I saw the picture below and several others that impressed me and enjoyed reading about some of the artists and titles of their pieces, which a lot of times can reveal a lot about the artist and their work.
But then I walked a bit farther and entered into what I can only refer to as a "more modern than I can understand" art room. It doesn't take much to impress me I thought and yet here I was in a beautiful and important art museum/cultural center and all I could think was, "I could have made this! In fact, I did make this when doing a paper mache collage in kindergarten! Maybe you won't be as stunned as I was over the erm...complexity of the pieces and if that's the case, I would truly and genuinely love to discuss it with you because I really do want to understand and appreciate the mystery of art. I also would appreciate someone, anyone really, who feels the same way as I do to let me know! I promise I won't reveal your less than high-end artistic doubts and perhaps we can discuss my hypothesis that a lot of people pretend they get it, just like a lot of people pretend they can tell the exact region wine comes from when in a taste test, they really only get the "red or white" question correct!
I'll leave you with my 2 favorite, "Is this art or is this my kindergarten memory box" favorites. :)
