Too Much Close Reading

I would like to again offer my critique of another piece of art which I found in the gallery.

The piece, in short, is of massive proportions and very modernist in nature. It is a large slab of painted plaster, measuring between ten and twelve feet in height, a foot in depth, and perhaps 24 feet in breadth. There were actually multiple copies of this piece and it came in two varieties. One was a piece of the description above in an eggshell white coat of paint, the other is a shad of teal blue. More interestingly, these slabs are adorned with other works of art on them ranging from lithographs to paintings to drawings to photographs--all framed, all haning on the larger plaster background piece.


I think these pieces pair beautifully to create a great commentary on America. The white plaster symbolizes to me the blankness of a character. This is the apathy of American citizens. The other works of art serve to show the disspassion we have toward our actual Americanism and how we define it through various activities and ideals portrayed in these rather distracting images. With out these distractions to pull us away from our basest identity, we are a pure but apathetic character. On the surface, we appear to have many interests, but we these interests are all so superficial. Underneath, we are blank and boring: a white wall.

Until...
Until we are defined deeper with a new color, a new character. That teal blue color of the gallery wall is the new American character. We have just the same superficial identity and interest, but when we look beyond those we find something else. The blue is symbolic of the sky, an open space for us to explore. The white is much like this, but the white is too pure, too blank. The sky is a higher goal for us to reach. A higher purpose for America to aspire to.

Perhaps the blue wall is the symbol of America while the white is the symbol of a nation with out a character.

This is the kind of bullshit I think about.