Albert Barnes in the Barnes Foundation ca 1950

The documentary has a very strong point of view, obvious from its title, and as a viewer you are certain to react one way or the other. Last Sunday morning I introduced an advanced screening of The Art of the Steal at the Charles Theatre here in Baltimore, and moderated a very lively conversation after the screening.

I think it would be fair to say that 80+% of those present agreed with the thesis of the film.

It will be shown at the Charles later this month.  And all over the country.

SEE IT!

The exhibition “Beauty and the Brain,” on the 4th level of the Walters’ Centre Street Building, is small (just one work of art!) but it has gotten a whole lot of attention, not only in the SUN, but also in:

• The Wall Street Journal‘s article entitled How Art Affects the Brain: A new exhibit explores science and aesthetics
• The Washington Post‘s article entitled Beauty and the Brain at the Walters
• ARTNews article entitled Is Beauty in the Brain of the Beholder?

But we need your help.  This is more of an experiment than an exhibition. You, our visitors, come down, put on 3D glasses (think AVATAR!), and pick your most and least favorite shapes from among each of 10 groupings.

Put your scorecard in the box, add your e-mail address, and we’ll keep you posted on the progress of the experiment.

We are exploring, with Ed Connor of the Mind/Brain Institute at JHU, the notion of “significant form.” Do some shapes appeal more than others to our visual brain?

And is this what artists are after?

And there are no wrong answers!

Photo: GV

Each Wednesday, thoughts on art and science….

We in art museums spend a lot of time researching and writing labels, but sometimes I wonder what value they add to the museum experience – which, for me, is an aesthetic experience first and a learning experience second. 

Artists, after all, whether their works are in the caves at Lascaux or the galleries of the Walters, are no more “teachers” than their viewers are “students” or their setting a “classroom.”

Anish Kapoor’s gigantic stainless steel elliptical sculpture “Cloud Gate” in Millennium Park in Chicago hardly needs a label. You simply experience it! 

In his book Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain, neuroscientist Semir Zeki invokes Cezanne’s dismissive dictum that “all talk about art is almost useless,” and observes that language was a relatively late arrival in our evolutionary history. 

Four years ago Walters curator Eik Kahng did an innovative (and controversial) exhibition without labels called Courbet and the Modern Landscape. The art experience was instead accompanied by contemporary music composed in response to the works, and by subtle fluctuations in the light levels in the galleries, to evoke the passing of clouds in the paintings. 

We discovered through research that our visitors not only said that they had a more immersing art experience than usual, but also that they spent significantly more time with each work of art than is typical for museum goers.  

Is there a disconnect between those mental processes that are called upon to create a verbally discursive art historical experience of a work of art - e.g., learning to put a “new” Courbet landscape into an art-historical sequence - and those that are useful in maximizing an immersing aesthetic experience of that same work?

I think Cezanne would have said so.

Photo: GV ("Velvis")

On January 23rd of this month, after four years of much notoriety and some ridicule, “Velveteria,” the one and only “velvet painting museum,” in Portland, Oregon, closed its doors. Its 300 plus paintings on velvet were a monument to a peculiar medium that seemed to have reached its apogee in Tijuana in the 1970s.

Elvis pictures have been so prevalent in this medium that they have their own term of identification: an Elvis on velvet is a “Velvis.” Why the association?  Is it simply because velvet painting is ipso facto a genre of high kitsch art and for many, Elvis Presley is the essence of kitsch?

This may explain some of the association, but probably not all of it. Think of what dominates the iconography of velvet painting, besides Elvis, naked women, and unicorns. This is an art form for charismatic martyrs, including Jesus, JFK, MLK, Michael Jackson, and Che Guevara, and for various incarnations of sad, big-eyed waifs, sad big-eyed clowns, and sad big-eyed puppies. And everywhere possible in velvet art there are tears.

The decent from canvas to velvet is the decent from pathos to bathos.

With their dark, dramatic backgrounds, and sketchy, ambiguous details, paintings on velvet are powerful agents for opening the emotional floodgates of susceptible viewers. As neuroscientists have recently discovered, our visual brain will “complete” the compositional and emotional ambiguity of works of art to suit our own sensibilities. This is part of the work and the joy of viewing art.

The sweating/weeping Elvis on velvet will be empowered by our mental workings both to capture and to evoke a profound sense of compassion and pity.

Photo: GV (Elvis Icon)

As an Elvis icon (above) is created to enable viewers make conversational contact with the King, a Velvis is created to enable viewers to tap into their most profound emotions about the King.

That’s why they looks so different.