Gardener Museum

This past weekend I visited the Elizabeth Stuart Gardener museum. It is so very different from any other museum I've ever visited. While her intention was only to create an art gallery by adorning all of her walls with pieces of art, she ended up also creating a history museum which was almost more intriguing to me. All of the original wallpaper is still intact and they collected many of the various letters that had been written over the years.
They not only display the pieces of art she brought in to be on display however they also display gorgeous jewelry boxes she owned as well as many ancient books and such that she had in her house.

Shepard Fairey Exhibit

This past weekend I went to the ICA to view the Shepard Fairey Exhibit. I like to keep up with the news and he has been someone in the news a lot lately. We talked in class about how people often times denounce people who call themselves artists. Shepard Fairey is a 21st century example of this. I went into the exhibit with an open mind and as I walked around I began to see both sides of the arguement. On many of the pieces of work there were numbers symbolizing what number out of how many he had created. Therefore there are X number of other pieces of this creation just like this one, right? I disagree, each one of them is hand created and although very similar, not exactly replicated. Just because he used stencils to create some of his artwork does not mean that it is not art work. It doesn't mean that he thought any less about what to put or how to convey it. Shepard Fairey is an artist in my mind.

Art is beatiful...

With so many museums and art exhibits and such at my fingertips it makes me a bit sad that I haven't taken advantage of them while living in the city for the past 3 years. After yesterdays trip to the MFA it makes me so much more appreciative of taking this class. I have never gone in such a large group or had things explained to me in any way. I have always been left to my own thoughts as to what each piece of art meant.
Since I was little I looked at John Singer Sargent's painting Daughters of Edward Darley Boit probably every day. It was my father's favorite painting and since as long as I can remember it has been posted on his bulliten board in his office and everytime we went to the MFA it was that one stop we had to make. Yet until yesterday when left to my own thoughts I was convinced that the 2 girls in the background were servents.

How phony is Shepard Fairey?

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/outofline/2009/02/how_phony_is_shepard_fairey.html

I saw an article on boston.com that caught my eye since we had just been talking about Shepard Fairey. The article was titled "How Phony is Shepard Fairey?" I found it interesting how we were also just talking about how people will always be around to critic artwork and be quick to shoot it down as to how its not really art. In this article Shepard Fairey is made out to be a phony who just copies and pastes other peoples work.

This makes me more so interested to see this exhibit. Even if he does just "graphic pickpocket" who's to say its not art. Graphic artists constantly borrow and use images common to our knowledge. I feel its more of how our generation is about reproductions rather than originals.