Seeing, Being Seen

I wrote about this topic a little bit in an earlier post, but I wanted to re-examine it here. I think it’s interesting, this feeling of pressure we feel to have ourselves figured out. We feel pressure to be this or that thing (teacher, para, construction worker, doctor, etc), and if we don’t make it there, we feel pressure to stick to it even if we don’t want to do it anymore. Social pressure is normal to some extent. It reminds me of a work of art they talked about in a modern art class I took a long time ago, and it is relation to a concept called “seeing and being seen.” In society, we both see others and are seen by them. It is part of living in society with-others, and we can avoid it to an extent, but in some sense, it is also ineluctable. We cannot completely avoid the watchful, sometimes-judgmental eyes of others without leaving society altogether, which is a pretty hard decision to make. Although we can, if we choose, surround ourselves with those whose judgments we respect and value and aren’t too harmful to us. At least when it comes to identity, though, I think it’s important to focus on the becoming of the self, which sounds kind of technical. But, by this, I mean, how the self, how our identity is a work-in-progress. Things are not always clear at the outset. We try things, some of which work and some of which don’t. We think we might like to be a doctor, but then we realize we instead want to be a teacher. This is part of being-in-the-world, to reference Heidegger, part of learning about our existence and who we are as it relates to the society we grew up in. We aren’t always intentionally exploring our identities, but it is in the background, and at certain crucial moments in our lives, we take time to reflect and think about who and where we are as it relates to where we want to be. And we adjust what we are doing to hopefully get closer to where we want to be. But there’s plenty of time.

Below is the work of art under discussion during the art class, one by an impressionist painter (1877).

Blue on Blue

On the one hand, some modern art seems kind of dumb, but on the other, I enjoy the fully-immersive sensation of being absorbed into the raw feeling of a painting. The respite from thinking and the invitation just to feel a color or an image.

This one by Mark Rothko is entitled Blue Divided by Blue. Rothko has a few paintings like this one, which focus more on the color of the paint and how it appears on a canvas rather than the creation of a particular form (for example, a person). Apparently, this one was made during a period of depression.

At the SFMOMA another appears that is much larger and which gives you some sense of how big some of his paintings are.

Images on a phone don’t do Rothko justice, as the color is mediated by pixels, but the feeling of coolness of the blue above and warmth of the orangish-red below: it’s easy to get lost in it, and there’s a marked difference in how they make us feel.

Why do we feel this way I wonder?

The Confusion of Modern Art

A funny art story…

“An avant-garde art exhibition at museum ended up being thrown in the bin after museum’s cleaners decided that it must be rubbish. Central to exhibition was (and will soon be) an installation entitled Where shall we go dancing tonight?, and it was created by Milan-based artists Sara Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari. The show will reopen on Thursday, October 29.”

…

“The Where shall we go dancing tonight? installation was consisted of empty bottles of champagne, cigarette butts, colorful confetti and pieces of clothing scattered around. It was supposed to represent hedonism, consumerism and financial speculation in the 1980s Italian political scene (Italy’s 1980s political scene is known for many scandals and corruption affairs). Unfortunately, the cleaner mistook the items for mess left behind by partygoers at an event. What probably led to confusion was the fact that the museum actually hosted a party a night before the ‘incident’ where a book was presented.”

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/art-exhibition-mistaken-for-garbage