To be honest, there were other exhibitions or film screenings that I wanted to go to, but they were unfortunately scheduled during one of my other classes, which also have mandatory attendance. So, upon Joe DeLappe’s suggestion, for my mandatory art exhibition critique, I visited the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to critique so I’ll critique my trip there.
It was really strange how this trip to the Art Museum worked out. This past Saturday, my wife and I went to an extra credit group meeting for our AM 145 class. It just so happened that everyone in the group wanted to go to the Art Museum because today was “free day”. So we followed them to the Art Museum (wasn’t sure where it was at) and brought a pen a paper with me.
We all decided to start on the third floor to see “the birds.” It was a gallery of mostly oil paintings of different kinds of birds. I thought this room to be completely boring, except for the museum’s idea of allowing guests to dial a number on our cell phones to hear the birds we’re looking at. Still, it was overall pretty boring.
Down the hallway, I found a few pieces of slightly more exciting work. Much of the works I found in the Scenic painting rooms were better than the birds because I like nature scenery. Unfortunately, they also were mostly oil paintings. Farther down the hall was a little section about Israel. I liked this section because I like Israel and the Jews. Most of these pieces were video and photographic works. I was most intrigued, although I’m not really sure why, by the video piece called “Black Moon, Dead Sea” by Sharon Glazberg. It caught my attention and I enjoyed the part where the young lady rolled watermelons down the street toward the Black Sea.
By this time my wife and I parted from our AM 145 class and ventured up to the 4th floor. I liked that this floor was mostly outdoors on the rooftop; however, I had hoped to see a little more than what was there. Other than the building’s architecture, I would say my favorite piece on the top floor was a large black thing made out of metal and vinyl mesh that I could walk into. What was amusing is that I really didn’t know what I was looking at until realizing that the inner piece reminded me of a cervix. Then I realized that I was standing inside a vagina. I’m not sure if this was the artist’s intention but it was still funny to me. (My wife was kind of hoping I wouldn’t include this part in this critique). Moving on…
Down on the second floor is where I found most of the pieces I liked. One room I found interesting featured art made by math. I believe the artist’s name is Hoffman. Not far from that room, in the hallway, was a painting of the superhero, Flash. The piece was called “Flash in Naples” by Jean-Michael Basquiat. Honestly, the only reason I liked this piece is because the Flash was my favorite comic book hero as a kid.
A little farther down the hall on the second floor was probably my most favorite piece in the entire Museum of Art, other than the building’s architecture if I can count that. It is the piece called “Two Girls” by Jon Ahearn. It actually caught me off guard. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and when I turned around, these two black girls appeared to be jumping at me from out of the wall. This artwork was made by acrylic on plaster and it looked very life-like. I almost wanted to say "excuse me for almost bumping into you."
Well, eventually my wife and I grew tired and hungry and we decided to check out the first floor on the way out. Turns out the first floor is nothing more than an overpriced restaurant (or so we assumed), restrooms, and the exit door to the parking lot. On the front door we noticed that the normal price for us to be there was $10 per person; actually $8 because we’re students. To be painfully honest, we wouldn’t if we could, spend half that to get in. However, for the sake of our kids, we might wait for next month’s “free day”.
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