I really enjoyed the exhibit "We Could be Heroes". Many of the pieces offered different insights into our notions about heroes and monsters. Two pieces that stood out to me were the picture of the mom wearing a superman outfit, and the piece that had "Fantastic FDNY" written out using cut out pieces from different super hero comic strips. I thought it was very creative how the background of "Fantastic FDNY" was made from speech bubbles, while the letters were made up of red, white, and blue images of Captain America, Spiderman, and Batman. The painting of soldiers that was taken from a Facebook picture was another one that I liked. The thing that struck me most about these particular pieces was that the authors used unique mediums (comic book cutouts, facebook picture) to show that there are many types of heroes - mothers, firefighters, and soldiers are all heroes just as much as Superman or Captain America are. The use of nontraditional art mediums made these pieces creative.
Another set of pieces that I liked were the life-size pictures of James Bond and Buffalo Bill. The way the pictures were displayed by being higher above the floor gave them the impression of being bigger than they actually were. It was almost as if the author was saying that this is something we do with our heroes and monsters - making them into myths and legends that are larger than life, and larger and more important in our minds than they actually are.
I also really liked the painting of old people playing cards in superhero costumes. It was just such a funny and quirky image.
I think the authors of these pieces got their creative ideas by drawing from their knowledge of myths and legends as well as our contemporary culture regarding superheroes. Without prior knowledge of superheroes and myths, it would be harder to create pieces that successfully delivered the authors' messages. Having the creative ability to look at those traditional views in a different way and sometimes turn them on their head helped them to make some really cool creative pieces.
There were definitely some pretty cool mediums used; this was probably the high point of the exhibit for me. I also absolutely loved the person who bought a piece of art (it looked like it was something Victorian or Renaissance-style; very idealistic) and painted a big pink 8-bit monster on top of it. The lack of respect shown for the original piece of art is, in my mind, absolutely perfect.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about the James Bond and Buffalo Bill being "bigger than we are"....thinking about that makes me a little intimidated by those pieces.
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