Sorry Ray, can't help ya. I'm still trying to find something redeeming about it.

I can see why you're upset. It looks like someone performed hideous murders on your cartoons and called it after flowers.

Oh... I see... THAT's what happened...

I love to explore art too... But I have to agree there is a lot of garbage out there masquerading as "viable expressions"... I absolutely refuse to call that "art"... Just saying it is, doesn't MAKE it so... at least NOT IMO, and I am the only one that counts in my own brain wave of thought...

-- Edited by PollyAnna at 09:25, 2007-09-07

Ok, so I will admit something else. I do like to come up with mean, witty things to say about the bad art. That's fun, too.

So today's the big day for this project. Here's a couple excerpts from Gorky's life...

Are fifth graders old enough to understand this sort of thing? Or am I supposed to pretend this fellow was some anonymous nobody?

Curious what you'd do... (quotes are from biographies written about him, I grabbed from Amazon.com)...

An admired outsider among the New York school of painters in the 1940s, Gorky (1902-1948) has long been a cipher as a person, in part due to his constant self-disguises. Born Manoug Adoian in Armenia, he survived the horrific 1915 massacre of Armenians by Turks, as well as subsequent famines, only to disguise his past once he reached America in the 1920s. Presenting himself as a cousin of the writer Maxim Gorky, he convinced friends he was Russian, despite his ignorance of that language. Now arts journalist Matossian (Iannis Xenakis) clears up a good part of the mystery, armed with a reading knowledge of Armenian that past writers have often lacked. Matossian proves that past sources on Gorky's life, such as letters published by a nephew, were forgeries. She probes deeply and without sentiment into the tragic life, which included a devastating studio fire, a colostomy after rectal cancer was diagnosed, followed by a broken neck in a car accident. These mishaps, along with his wife absconding with the "'bright and glib'" surrealist painter Matta, may have compelled Gorky to hang himself at age 46. At times, Gorky seems like an outsized fictional Armenian such as novelist William Saroyan might have created on his darkest day. Still, Matossian reveals lighter moments: in one, the artist-as-suitor pays clumsy compliments to one woman by exclaiming, "Oh, what charming little wrinkles you have around your eyes." Little space is devoted to describing the art, but by bringing us closer to Gorky the man, this book makes his life's tragedies all the more immediate and appalling. (Feb.)

From Library Journal
One of the most influential painters of the New York School, Arshile Gorky zealously kept his true identity a secret from everyone throughout his sad life. When he hung himself in his studio in 1948, most of his intimates did not know that he wasn't the cousin of the Georgian writer Maksim Gorky, as he claimed, and that in fact he had spent his childhood in a Turkish Armenian village before fleeing the genocide of 1915-18. Tall and shaggy-haired, he personified the Marx Brothers-like stereotype of the histrionic and vaguely foreign artist. Yet he had enormous artistic talent, and although he was never a financial success he was mentor to many postwar painters, most notably Willem de Kooning. Matossian follows Gorky from the village of his birth to his lonely suicide 44 years later, concentrating less on his art than his oft-strained relationships with everyone else.

--Ray

Just tell them making crappy modern art will drive them to despair.


What?

Okay, tell them you're only as sick as your secrets.

No?

Then I'd probably go with a nutshell version of his life and leave it at that.

Well, I guess my question is at what age is it appropriate to talk about how such and such artists hung himself to death and lived a lie most of his life... pretending to be people he wasn't... and for whatever reason, painted a lot of interesting paintings.  

--Ray

Um, I liked it.

It drew me in immediatly, not all Modern art does that. I found myself looking around shapes to see what might be behind them.

Say what you will, I'm not trying to be an elitist or contrary, but that painting evoked an emotional response in me. Not a "that's crap" emotion. A "speedy heart beat" response. I could look at it for a very long time without losing interest.

My suggestion, Ray, would be to teach the kids to see something that isn't standard. Sort of like finding shapes in the clouds. There are TONS of things that could be drawn out of this painting - I see a woman at the hair salon, and - yes - water and flowers, of all shapes.

It goes along with the same idea as teaching kids that trees don't always have to be green. It teaches them to look with an artists eye instead of the symbol-driven minds eye. Eyes aren't always almond shaped, mouths aren't always kissy shaped, pine trees are rarely triangle shaped.

And I love, love, love the use of color. That's a whole lecture there.

ETA: had to back and look again: I also see a ladies shoe store, an elephant, a boy with a spinny-hat on, a penquin.....

-- Edited by Ros at 12:34, 2007-10-11