o_haselden_01.28.04TEXTBVNE+â-ªc-¦;*-+-¦<\emBIN+âc+â-à+â-¦YAleshia Haselden
"The Price of Tea in China"
Junior
Journalism Education
As an overweight child with the athletic ability of a beanbag chair, I grew up with a deep appreciation for the arts. My arts-appreciating mother forced some of my endeavors, by which I mean piano lessons. But finger painting on the kitchen table, spending my adolescence on a band bus and playing every available senile, old woman part in the school plays came from my own will to participate in the wide world of artistic exploration. I do, however, draw the line (ha) at appreciating most modern art.
I work in an office that was recently completely redecorated "Trading Spaces" style (minus painting the appliances, constructing random walls to divide the room and watching the neighbors bawl uncontrollably because of what you and the crazy designer have done to their foyer). The redecorating included a dry erase board, some potted plants that may or may not be real, and three paintings that look very much like art I produced circa 1989 at Minnie McFall Elementary.
To avoid offending any avid consumers of art that doesn't really look like anything, I will refer to the artist of these paintings as Rark Mothko. You are free to make your own assumptions.
To truly understand my disdain for these paintings, you must first understand their composition. Imagine, if you will, a colored rectangle. It does not matter what color, because Mothko has painted color variations of the same design to match even the tackiest of color schemes. Next imagine two to three smaller rectangles of different lengths and colors all stacked in a column within the first rectangle. Now name your imaginary painting by listing the colors of the rectangles.
Voila. You've created a modern art masterpiece.
Now, before all the art buffs pelt me with sharp abstract objects, I will say that Mothko's work does exhibit a certain element of wonder and enchantment. This may have had something to do with the fact that he was so adamantly involved with color before the introduction of the color TV in the 1950s, after which solid colored rectangles became, suddenly and without warning, less impressive for the skeptical consumer.
Yet more examples of the weird modern art explosion lace our very campus in the form of metal sculptures not widely recognized in brochures and on letterhead.-á I recall about two summers ago I was walking along the cow path with a friend from my hometown. As we passed one such sculpture before we reached Riverside Avenue, he said, "And what would we name this piece? 'Millipede Orgy?'"
The genuinely bizarre element surrounding the phenomenon of modern art is the people who continuously worship its existence. These people think that colored rectangles and giant slabs of metal in the middle of the Quad are intensely personal and that the artists responsible are geniuses. Rarely do these people think, "Hey! I did one just like this in Mrs. Noah's kindergarten class!"-á
Fortunately, we live in a country in which the artsy portion of the population, can create and admire modern art without shame, and they can ridicule the heathen slobs who will never truly appreciate the intellectual meaning of art. We may not hear them, though, over our sobbing in the foyer.
Write to Aleshia at aahaselden@bsu.edu.
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