Attending the event on How to Understand Modern Art, specifically looking at the artworks found at the Johnson Museum was very interesting. Having gone to the Johnson Museum for presentations and reviews in architecture, I never took the time to actually browse through the artwork on display. While attending this event and actually being able to develop an understanding about some of the artwork that has been at the Johnson, it made me realize how much about art we do not understand. Usually when we view artwork we do so from a surface level with minimal context on what the painting, sculpture or other media form represents. For instance, “The Crossing Man” sculpture depicts one element that is not necessarily highlighted but is shown to us through a different lens. I appreciate hidden contexts within artwork a lot because it allows you to rediscover a specific piece each time you view it.

I really love art museums and art history. It was very interesting to analyze these works of art that were also very unique and unusual; I hadn’t seen any of them before. Historicizing art not only makes me appreciate the art and the artist more, it’s also just really fun. It’s like a mystery where all of the clues are right in front of us. It’s really interesting to think that meaning encoded in a piece of art by its artist might be forgotten or lost forever, or never fully understood. This is why I like movies like the Da Vinci Code!

In my freshman year, I took a really interesting art history course that gave me the opportunity to visit the Johnson’s Museum frequently and observe some of the amazing art pieces there. This workshop with Daniel Schwarz really took me back to the type of analytical skills we used in this class to digest the true meaning behind art. For instance, with the first sculpture, “The Crossing Man” he pointed out details that you wouldn’t generally notice if you just took a quick glance at the sculpture. For instance, the walking gait was actually not representative of someone who could walk and the sculpture lacked genitalia despite representing a man. He also went into the historical context and discussed how the emaciated body was representative of the global struggles caused by WWII, specially the death of millions of Jews, the hunger faced by those in concentration camps, and the aftermath of the nuclear bombs on the Japanese people. As an artist myself, analyzing other art really helps to inspire me to create more intricate art. I love creating pieces that tell a story and have small details that add up once you start looking closer. Seeing how artist do the same, especially with different motifs, colors, and historical contexts, I hope to try to make my own art more detailed and story-telling.

The Cornell Johnson Museum event showed us a lot of treasures. One that stood out to me was the photo of the walking man sculpture. It shows a person with a very slim body unable to walk properly. It reflects the holocaust and the atomic bombs that damaged people a lot physically. It also showed me the power museums have in maintaining history and amplifying civil discourse. In fact just this past year I went to a museum to learn about the culture in Middle East and I was amazed by how they had carefully maintained old artifacts as that gave me a much better and stronger education than just reading about it in a textbook. This is another reason why I believe that for anyone studying history museums contain a wealth of knowledge.

This event was a little early on a Saturday (for me at least) but I did enjoy listening about some of the works at the Johnson Museum. I was only familiar with one of the works shown (the Walking Man sculpture), but I found the selection to be varied and interesting. Some of the history portions I felt like I didn’t have enough knowledge of to fully understand but I’m kind of proud of myself for still remembering bits and pieces of the art history that was mentioned. It made me want to revisit the museum again when it opens.