This quote flashed up on a television exhibit while wandering through the industrial and magnificent architecture of the Tate Modern. Being only a small moving piece of one larger exhibit, it managed to pique my interest in the idea of art as a philosophy. Modern and contemporary art are unique in the fact that they become the eye of the viewer's imagination--an open-ended question asked by the artist and answered by the world.
The exhibit I found most intriguing was a combination of neon lights--triangular, alternating between the words silence, violence, and violins. At first, this spoke to me on a purely aesthetic level. The combination of multicolored neon lights in contrast to the dark background was eye-catching, but as I began to actively watch, I noticed it cycled every 30 seconds between each word individually and ending the cycle with all three of the words lit up.
I took this to be a political piece of art, especially since the artist, Bruce Nauman, hails originally from California and had the artwork commissioned for a fellow state school, CSULB. California is known for political and social activism, and my interpretation of this piece follows suit. At first, before a crime happens, silence. The country minds their own business, living their daily lives without a second thought to anything greater than what falls directly in front of them. Then, violence occurs. A school, church, movie theater shooting, police brutality, any number of various crimes that have become far too normalized across the United States. Finally, violins. We hear the music of people who are angry, people crying out for change and vowing to make a stand, it all comes together in a grand finale....until it doesn't. Until the media silences, the oppressed and the world forgets until the next great tragedy comes along.
Rather than comparing two pieces of art, I chose to compare two interpretations of one piece of art: Violins Violence Silence. The question of ownership mentioned in the start of this rings especially true for this piece of art: in the time I spent viewing this exhibit, I saw multitudes of people take out their phones, snap a picture, and even have pictures taken of them in front of it. At this point, when it becomes used as an arbitrary backdrop of an Instagram picture, in the words of Barba Kruger's exhibit (picture below), Who Owns What? Do I own the interpretation of this artwork as a messenger of social justice, or does the girl behind me own it with the Instagram post she just snapped of it? Do we appreciate art for art itself, or art for the aesthetic benefit it can give ourselves in the realm of the social media world?
If I had to ask myself this question, I would honestly answer the second. In most cases, I struggle to appreciate art for what it is. But in a sense, that lack of analytical understanding becomes my own interpretation of the piece. I am studying marketing and media, so I have been trained to see how the piece markets itself and the role it plays in social media cultures. To an English major, its meaning could dwell from so many possibilities I could not begin to connect. This piece lights the way to an endless number of interpretations and allows every viewer to make their own story--making something seen so often in everyday life, just plain neon lights, into a vessel for a world of possibilities.
"Violins Violence Silence" taken by me on an app recreating the aesthetic of a 1998 disposable camera.
Photoception--a photo of people taking a photo of the art.
When you share an image, is it still yours?
Who Owns What?
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