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Meredith Butler

April 16, 2013

Mint Art Responses

For my first piece from the Mint gallery, I chose Danny Lanes piece Threshold.

While all the pieces in the Mint were extremely visually compelling and stunning, this one took

my breath away. I literally had to sit down and stare at it for a good ten minutes. The piece itself

was a large glass structure multiple feet in length and in height. The initial piece was a ribbed

standing wall of glass that had slight waves in it to add movement. When looking behind the

piece, there were other figures and shapes of colored glass behind it as well as LED lights to add

even more color colors of blue, pinks, yellows and greens. The ribbon-like glass wall created a

movement to the piece which was further enhanced by the ribbing in the wall itself. While none

of the pieces were designed to move, when moving past the piece, viewers saw the piece shift

and give a new view every time you moved. What with the colors and the movement, the piece

give off a very mysterious and ethereal tone; one cannot help but stop and stare to try to figure

this structure out and see all there is to see. Like those who describe the beauty and wonder of

the aurora borealis, the same beauty is hinted through Danny Lanes work ofart. While Im sure

nothing can compare to the actual phenomenon, to someone like me, this is as close as I can

currently get and it was spectacular. On a personal level, the fact that there was so much to this

piece but it all fit together was what sold me. The room was dim and the piece was so large that

I couldnt really take all of it in at once, but that didnt matter to me. I didnt mind taking the

time to see everything there was to see, and discovering all the components and complexity

added to the amazement. As a cultural significance, I think the multiple parts are meaningful as

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well. As a bad habit of society today, people tend to only see the surface of whatever is around

them and never bother to look deeper. In this instance, while the surface of glass was interesting

and is what gave the piece the impression that it was moving, the glass objects behind it and the

LED lights were what made the piece as astounding as it was. Without recognizing those parts,

the parts you literally had to ok behind the surface for, you wouldve missed out on the beauty

that made the piece.

The second piece I chose was just as beautiful, but has a much different medium as to

how to show that beauty. Vik Muniz piece Amore and Psyche, after Francois Gerard recreated

the beauty of Psyche et lAmour by Francois Gerard through the use of trash. Gerards

original piece is a colorful depiction of Cupid placing a chaste first kiss on a self-conscious, and

half nude, Psyche. This being a depiction of a very famous tale in Greek mythology and a very

famous painting, many will know the piece. What Vik Muniz does is find a new way to show

this famous painting. The picture is still the same; its still Cupid kissing Psyche. However,

instead of paint and brushstrokes, the entire thing is composed of trash and pieces found from a

large dump in Brazil. From a distance, the piece simply looks like a black and white sketch or

interpretation, but the closer a person gets the more details start to pop out and one can see all the

pieces of garbage that create the piece. Now, backdrops were composed of nuts and bolts, tv

screens, spare mechanical parts are more and while some would argue the color and original

detail is now lost, Vik Muniz is able to bring todays society into a piece that dates back to

the18th century. Personally, I love the concept of reinventing old pieces and its amazing to see

such beautiful pieces made from things that are inherently unbeautiful. These pieces are

unimportant things, or broken and yet theyre being made into huge pieces of art that everyone

loves to see. From a cultural perspective theres a lot to be said as well. Today, were generally

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a very big mass consumption society; we like having the newest gadgets and toys and we cant

seem to stop ourselves from buying things just to buy them. However, while a lot of people

focus on the consumption part a big consequence of that consumption is a lot of waste. While it

can be said that we have a big problem today with buying unnecessary things, we also have a

large problem, if not larger, with waste. Weve lost the idea of necessity and using items to their

full extent and I believe that is what Vik Muniz is trying to show us. These everyday things that

we think are useless can still be used and are in such abundance that he can create gigantic art

pieces using it all. In his pieces, I see a warning towards our extreme tendency towards waste

but also a lesson to understand that just because we think it may be useless, there is always

something more you can do with trash and garbage.