Museum Art and Future Inspiration!

This week, we paid a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, where we analyzed art in different forms in the exhibit “Memories of Underdevelopment.” ​

This was a really interesting exhibit I analyzed because it centers around Latin America and different artists from there. Here, we would obtain inspiration from certain art pieces and artists, and we could then apply those Elements of Art that we observed into our future zines. This was so interesting to me, because there had only been 2 times where I visited a Museum in the past, and I’ve always loved to visit them. To be able to uncover the secrets stored away in artwork and meanings that Artists give to their pieces.
    Through my eyes, I noticed so many different colors in the pieces. Some were in black and white, and some were abstract. Some pieces were composed of just shapes, others were composed of different elements of art (collage, magazines, etc.), while some were of drawings and others of photographs. There was so many to look at, and I realized that art can be anything you make with these elements of art incorporated into it. It can be a simple letter with a drawing, and that would be considered art. But what I learned, is that back then, art wasn’t allowed. If you were caught distributing or creating art, you would be incarcerated. So, artists that I saw, had most art pieces made from so many little things.
    One of the art pieces that I saw was a cage of birds. It was decorated with flowers and beautiful vines on the outside. Here’s what I never saw coming: there was an art piece on the bottom of this cage (the cage was hung from the ceiling), and what our guide told us, was that the art piece under was a very religious one, and the birds did their business on the piece. I was shocked because I’d never seen anything like it, but on the other hand, I realized that back then, religion was sacred, it was something that was brought from another place, and not originally from there, so the significance of the birds going to the bathroom there, was that they didn’t care about this religion at all.
    During this whole exhibit, I was curious as to why some artists chose to do religious pieces or do hidden messages. Even though art was prohibited back then (1960 - 1980’s), they still chose to send messages and display art. But I also found myself immersed in the art, in the different styles, and already imagining what I could do with my future zine. I’m so excited!

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