Modern Art.

This entry is inspired by a recent blog by The Printing Press.

A few years back I visited the MOMA in San Francisco. There was some, in my totally amateur opinion, total crap. A 4-foot long shelf with nothing but toast on it. Not just one, but two separate pieces comprised of an empty transparent acrylic cube. One was entitled "Air". I forget what the other was titled, since I was too busy trying to suppress the laughter.

I always regarded my father as a great artist as he as always painted or sculpted in his spare time away from his dental practice. He has some ceramic pieces that are beautiful to me, and some that are not so much. On a number of occasions I had asked that he make something for my wife and me, as did many other friends and relatives. But he never did so by request. He would only do so when he was inspired to create something. In my estimation it was when he needed to express himself in ways that he did not want to verbalize. Any time I would ask him what his thoughts were behind one of his abstract pieces, he would answer by asking what I saw in it, because that is what it was meant to be. When expressing yourself with that kind of attitude, you can never be wrong.

He has had a much longer journey through life, and has his own unique set of baggage. It's his art that is his release, his escape, it is himself. And he has never needed an art school to tell him how to express himself.

He did give me one of his pieces. It had won him a blue ribbon at the county fair. People who think that their opinion of art has any importance might scoff. To them I would tell them that they don't get it.

In a similar manner, I should not scoff at what I saw in The San Francisco MOMA. I just didn't get it. What I saw said nothing to me. I tried to keep an open mind, but it was difficult. I didn't understand what the creators were trying to express, other than they had some extra bread left one day after breakfast, and were just trying to see what shit the folks at the MOMA would ooh and ahh over. I could imagine the following conversation occurring in at least two studios -

"Hey, have you seen my empty acrylic display box anywhere?"
"Oh, I thought it was a completed work and submitted it to the gallery for you."

I balk at calling them artists. My father is an artist.