I went to an art exhibition curated by someone I know and love, and it was really incredible. She works as the Collections Manager at a local, highly respected museum -- it's small, but it actually has some serious pull, since a lot of artists vacation around here and they'll donate their paintings, and some famous people are museum members and everything. But I really did enjoy it -- there were some incredible pieces, not just from her curation, but all throughout the museum. I really lagged behind my group because I would spend so long just looking at one piece of art -- there was a really beautiful seven minute video piece called UN/SAFE that I was transfixed by, and a tiny little house decorated with shells. I didn't get photos of everything, but I just...fucking loved it. We've both always loved art and art museums, so seeing her absolutely thrive as the curator is just incredible.
The handwriting on this one kind of hard to read. If someone can accurately identify what was written where I had trouble, please tell me so I can update the ID, but this one was my favourite. The artist was in Antarctica, so these were drawn from life. I can appreciate the watercolour smudge next to one of the penguins, since I've done that so often.
I really like this one because I myself often paste things on top of my art when I fuck up. I see it as unprofessional, but this was in a museum proper! I wish I'd gotten a picture of the piece next to it, which was very clearly never meant to see the light of day and where the legs had been incompletely erased and drawn over to be longer.
The theme of this specific exhibition was 'inscriptions from the permanent collection,' so everything curated for it was dedicated to someone specifically, but a lot of them as well did have these personal touches and imperfections -- they weren't intended to be seen by the general public, but now that they are, we can see them and their beauty. I really loved her exhibition, because of how real it felt to me as an amateur artist, and how alive it felt.
Her showing was only one room, though, and there were so many other pieces, including aforementioned UN/SAFE. I again didn't get a lot of pictures, but some of them were for sale, for perfectly reasonable prices that nonetheless boggled the mind. I think the highest piece was a multimedia installation for 37,000$.
This one just reminded me of my own life -- you know, the experience of tangled cables all stuck together? I really loved it, even if there's no room for more art in my home and I would not personally pay sixteen hundred dollars for it.
I'll admit this one is a lot simpler -- I saw this painting and immediately thought of the lesbian flag, but I think this painting predates the creation of the flag I was thinking of. The egg, as well, predates the use of 'egg' as a widespread transgender term, but it still made me think about it. I like it a lot.
Anyway. I love art, I love art galleries, I love art museums. I'd go back there every day if it wasn't so prohibitively annoying to get there, but for now, sharing it with everyone here will have to do.
