by donald dusinberre imartsyfartsy@gmail.com
The new batch of exhibits has finally arrived at MOCA. If you’ve been having trouble getting into modern art or can’t really wrap your head around some of the weird ones lately, then one of the new exhibits might get you in the groove. It’s called Contemporary Visions: A Focus on Jacksonville Collections, and it’s a great thing to see for a few reasons.
The first reason to go see it is that it features an astounding number of well-known artists. Not just well known, but well respected and influential for all time. That’s why this exhibition is so valuable – we can finally see, firsthand, a sizeable portion of art from the modern greats. And no traveling to New York.
If you remember from some of my past articles, I mentioned that art is an almost entirely subjective endeavour, and it’s only through consensus that we can call an artist or artwork “great”. Over time, a bunch of people have cited a certain artist’s work as exemplary, and so by sheer numbers alone he/she earns their status. You don’t have to like a certain artist’s work, but you have to concede that countless others do, and that’s the only way we can assess the success of any artist.
Anyway, all those examples of art from the greats allow us to take a survey of modern art over the last eighty years or so. Many people don’t understand why a bunch of splotches on a giant canvas is art, but it’s not because their thickheaded (usually). It’s because they haven’t been exposed to the range of ideas that have metamorphosized over time. With no other frame of reference, a splotchy canvas can hardly appear as anything else, but Contemporary Visions offers a chance to make the connection between artistic styles. You can learn what happened when art went from looking sort of realistic to really out of sorts. Really.
And once you learn a bit about the history of modern art by seeing this exhibit, you can better appreciate the other exhibitions on display. Don’t forget that it’s possible that the established artists MOCA brings in now may well become a great influence on future artists. A wall that looks like a giant pack of ramen noodles now, may look like an historic work later.
To further enhance the variety and connectivity of Contemporary Visions, MOCA curator George Kinghorn tweaked the museum’s permanent collection. He changed out some of the content, so some of the same pieces are still up from before, but some of them are different. If you look through both exhibits, you’ll find a few artists who have pieces in both, but you’ll also find contemporaries, rivals, friends and mentors.
Another reason Contemporary Visions is so amazing is that these works are owned by Jacksonvillians. I guess we aren’t all hillbillies after all. More importantly, the owners of the various collections have been gracious enough to share the wealth of culture they’ve accumulated. Through their generosity, the entire region has the opportunity to enrich itself by viewing some of the greatest art produced in the last century. We would be smart to soak up the images as thoroughly as possible, because eventually, these works will return to the foyers, libraries, and sitting rooms of homes we’ll never enter.
If you’re skeptical, here’s a list of the prominent artists whose work is on display now (in both the Contemporary Visions exhibit and the permanent collection): Pablo Picasso (Cubism), Mark Rothko (Abstract Expressionism), Richard Estes (Photorealist paintings), Jasper Johns (Neo-Dadaism), Andy Warhol (Pop), Keith Haring (Pop), Robert Mapplethorpe (Photography), Edward Steichen (Photography), Edward Weston (Photography), and Philip Pearlstein (Realism paintings). Believe me now? If you recognized the names of most of these artists, then you need to get down to MOCA. If you didn’t recognize any but Picasso and Warhol, then you still need to get down to MOCA.
Even if you go just to say you saw a Picasso, well, that’s a start. I think you’ll end up learning more about art whether you realize it or not.
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