Whitney Museum of Art

Amanda and I went to the Whitney Museum of Art. Unfortunately, We were informed that we weren't able to take any photos. Here Is a written evaluation of some of the key pieces of Art that I was attracted to the most.


Whitney Museum Of American Art Experience
The Whitney Museum of American Art is located in New York City, on 945 Madison Avenue. The Whitney’s collection comprises more than 18,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and new media by more than 2,800 artists. The museum contains some of the most significant and exciting work created by artists in the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the founder of the Museum, focused her collecting efforts on living artists, and this emphasis has been a guiding principle of the collection for the past eight decades. Unfortunately, The Whitney Museum was going under some reconstruction the weekend we decided to go, so we were only able to experience the first, fifth, and sixth floors. Even though we didn't get to take in everything the Whitney had to offer at that time, I did enjoy many intriguing pieces that I would like to share.
The first piece of work that really caught my eye was by artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, called "Rememor with Membry", 2001. This piece was created with acrylics and plastic on canvas. I was automatically drawn into this piece because of the classic black and white design. I love everything black and white, so this was a great start to my attraction. The picture was an entire black and white forest with intertwining textured branches creating almost a surreal, mythological world. I loved how the only color that was mixed in this black and white piece, was this light blue shiny textured plastic that covered only small portions of the lettering all over the canvas. The phrase "Rememor with Membry", is repeated throughout the entire piece throughout the branches of the forest. Creating a crazy psychological impression you get when you first view this piece. I love how this piece created such mystery and wonder within my head. The artist Trenton Doyle Hancock's work, is based on personal mythology of epic dimensions. In his narratives are half-animal, half-plant beings that he calls "mounds." If you were to lay on your back looking up at this piece, you would view this mythological forrest with it's long twisted branches, sky, and forest floor interlaced with the words "Rememor with Membry" interpreted as "Remember with Memory", a sentimental phrase. This piece was truly amazing in my eyes and really intriguing with its dream like design.
Another piece that was quite intriguing was by Stephen Greene, "The Shadow", 1950.
This piece was created with oil on canvas, and displays a broken down human skeleton seeming to hang off of an artist's easel of some sort, casting a large shadow of the skeleton itself and the easel on the wall. This sort of morbid, creepy piece caught my attention mainly for the feeling of loneliness you took away from the large shadowed cast. On the floor, beneath the skeleton's feet, rests a large bone that could represent a part of the broken down skeleton's frame, either being from his leg or arm. The bone also cast a large dark shadow on the wall. The piece is dark and mysterious making you wonder the story behind who the skeleton may be, or how it got their attached to the easel, and for what reason. I like the concept in general.
Another one of my favorites from the Whitney goes to Philip Guston' piece, "Corbal" 1977. I loved how abstract the image was and you could basically take away anything from what was painted on this canvas. The picture portrayed a large sort of island scene with complete black background sky mostly concentrating on the large mountain in the center which looked like to me, made out of human eye balls. I called this piece "eyeball mountain", due to the odd shaped eyeballs that created a mountain. You can see almost a human head as part of the mountain structure and an eyeball closed with lashes and all. This is a very strange, dramatic piece, because the ocean in which the mountain of eyes are coming out of, is a bright red body of water. This sort of depicts a bloody river, which can be interpreted in many ways, possibly death. The eyes are almost sort of crying blood, which is why the river is that color. It's dramatic and abstract at the same time, due to its color scheme being only red, white, and black.
Last but not least, I enjoyed viewing one of Jasper Johns works of art known as "White Target", 1957. This piece is made out of wax and oil on canvas. I liked how even though this is a still just a picture of a target bulls-eye, it's not your traditional colored target. Jasper actually has two different versions of targets, one being in color yellow and blue, and this one being a cream color and white wax bulls-eye. What really attracted my eye to this target, is how the wax caked on the canvas gives the entire piece a stone-like look. A look in which you want to come up real close and touch it to feel it for yourself. The illusion of this texture is unbelievable. The wax texture also gives the piece an ancient roman look. It looks like a staccato wall in some ways. Definitely different, and tasteful.
All together, our journey to the Whitney was a great time, other than the fact that we were only limited to viewing three floors of the museum. I definitely enjoyed my time there, and have gained new favorite artists that really caught my attention. I would love to take a trip back to the Whitney again sometime in the near future, to experience their entire collection they have to offer.