Monday, November 19, 2007

 
Stupid things people said at the Frida Kahlo exhibit

1. Is that really a PET monkey?
2. Wasn’t her husband a painter
3. Wow, she looked much prettier then
4. How did she get her face to stay so still
5. I bet the monkey shit on her shoulder
6. I really don’t know what the big deal is...
7. I am supposed to write a paper on this and I hate it—
8. How I am suppose to write a paper on something I hate!!!!
9. Who’s Dorothy Parker?
10. Dear God, Frida was a communist
11. Do you think she had a cage for that monkey
12. My poster is MUCH bigger than the painting
13. Really, what is the big deal?


I am planning to break into the museum and go back when no one is there. Truly.
It is the largest collection of her paintings ever and I think it might be worth a felony just to see them without everyone yacking.

Yes, I’m an art bitch. I want quiet and color and maybe a good glass of wine.

The first thing I thought when I walked in was---I’d rather be happy. There’s such a sadness to her work, it’s as if pain is suddenly crawling under your skin when you enter the room. Maybe that’s why it is hard to be quiet.

I use to believe great art was worth anything.

And honestly I would feel sad for those people who didn’t seem to get it. That it came first, this need to create and if you didn’t feed it—it became only a shimmer, never great art. Great art came with sacrifice.

I still might believe it but I’d rather be happy. I have watched great artists come and go and I made pure shit and I’ve come close to beauty and if at the end of my life my children know I have loved them well. If I have loved E well then I’ve accomplished greatness—a life, a love which was art.
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3 comments:

Lyle Daggett said...

I haven't made it to the Kahlo show yet, but it's on my hell-or-high-water list.

I'm not sure if I would rate it "stupid," but one of the silliest things I ever heard anybody say at an art exhibit was at an exhibit of French impressionists at the Minneapolis Art Institute years ago, one of the traveling exhibits that had a separate admission line.

Walking through the exhibit, passing slowly from one painting to the next, I went past a very bright one of a grassy seacoast with a couple of sailboats far out on the water, some breezy clouds, etc. (can't remember any longer the who the painter was), and the two women behind me looked at it, and one of them pointed at it and said "I really like this one, it reminds me of New Jersey."

And probably the coolest thing I've heard at an art exhibit was in the Chicago Art Institute, also years ago, in their 20th century European surrealist room. There was a Magritte painting of a small train engine floating in the air in a fireplace.

A young man and woman were walking around looking at the paintings, stopping for a minute in front of each one, looking slightly perplexed, and moving on. They had a young daughter, maybe five or six years old, who was following a little behind them, also looking at all the paintings. The two parents stopped at the Magritte painting, same as all the others, mulled it over for a minute, then went on to whatever was next.

The little girl stopped in front of the Magritte, looked at it for a few seconds, pointed at it and said "That shadow looks wrong."

"a life, a love which was art." That's so cool I must now become silent for a while in reverence. :)

early hours of sky said...

Go, go---it is a beautiful show.

M.r Lemony Fresh said...

You missed a comment.

"OMG LOOK AT TEH MONOBROW!"

i heard that like every 5 seconds when we were studying it for school.
personally, i see past the monobrow and appreciate the unique quirky nature of her paintings. She was spilling out her life, just telling it how is is.