Art Un-Appreciation

Besides Baseball, we also looked at the art collection at the Oakland Museum. One of the exhibits was "CaliVera: Days of the Dead Altars Remixed." I had seen a similar exhibit four years ago. This one featured art from a couple of schools in Oakland as well as some new artists. The exhibits were interesting, although my children didn't let me read much more than the title of each exhibit and skim the synopsis. My favorites, of the professional artists, were the personal ones. But, of course, being artists, many of the exhibits were also political.

Usually that doesn't bother me. But by the end of the exhibit, I was bugged. I couldn't figure out why. Finally it dawned on me.

"I wonder if it's possible to talk about art without sounding pretentious?" I asked DD#1. (A docent happened to walk by at that point--I don't know what he thought about my comment!)

"I don't think so," she answered.

It's not that I don't appreciate knowing and understanding the background of the piece. But too much explanation is like having a joke explained. If it needs that much explanation, then it failed.

Exhibit writers need to refer back to Strunk & White's Elements of Style, which I summarize as "Keep it short & simple."

I must be getting old. I just don't have the patience for this kind of "showing off," I guess!