Contemporary Confusion

various light fixtures at an art gallery

This past week my class has been going on various excursions throughout Paris visiting local artisans at their shops and numerous contemporary art galleries. The walking has been good and (hopefully) counteracting my current overdose on Nutella, but at the end of the day, I feel my legs limply hanging from the rest of my body and screaming for rest...I'm just so tired! :(

Anyways, this picture is just one of many pieces that I have come across today. Modern art boggles my mind sometimes. Actually, scratch that. It boggles my mind most of the time. If that's the way it's supposed to be, then good-it has succeeded in stretching my intellectual capacity. However, sometimes I cannot help but think wow, my baby cousin could have done that. Perhaps I was just too tired and cranky by the time we shuffled into our third exhibit that I couldn't fully appreciate what was before me. Perhaps I had such admiration for the artists behind the masterpieces at Musee d'Orsay last weekend that I could not give these modern artists due credit...

But honestly, this picture I took of a collection of lights on the floor was one of the more interesting ones. There was one gallery where we were literally staring at an old nail stuck on the wall. Voila, there you go. A guide then explained to us its relation to the theme of "simplicity," but I just felt like his words were just driving a nail into my own head.

Ever since that lecture on the nail, it became hard for me to determine what was the "art" and what was not. For instance, is that crumbled-up newspaper supposed to be there in that corner or did someone just drop it on the way out? I became more critical and confused. And the fact that none of the pieces had little explanation cards next to them did not help matters either.

When it comes to modern art, I quite often feel like the little boy in The Emperor's New Clothes who yells out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" Sometimes I just want to say, "but it's just a nail...any other nail that you find in any other house..." Sometimes I feel like everyone's just bluffing and mislabeling simplicity with creativity, all in the name of artistic self-expression.

And yet, I do not have the artistic expertise to make such a bold statement nor do I have the guts to do so. Hopefully as I continue to explore more of this area, I will begin to truly appreciate it. One thing this experience has taught me though, is how much my heart desires a definitive answer--to be really sure of something instead of being content with 100 interpretations (haha this is coming out of the English major). Take for instance this view of Paris from Belleville...

view from Belleville...look at that sky

My heart is certain of many things when I see such beauty like this in the world. This was like a breath of fresh air after leaving behind a room full of man-made artifacts. Nothing compares. No nail stuck on a wall or lights strewn across the floor...just God-given light illuminating a broken and often lost little world. What's more, I love the fact that this lighted self-expression from the heavens clothes everything around it with beauty.