culture vulture art fart

hello! welcome to the ago! my name is jennifer robeson and i'll be your docent today. we're going to take a little look at the highlights of the ago or what i like to call 'the tour of things jeremy and i found interesting'.

admission is free!

this painting entitled 'isaak abrahamsz massa' is by frans hals. frans was a dutch painter during the dutch golden ages which is a time in history when dutch people were wearing a lot of gold accessories. JUST KIDDING! it was a time in the 17th century when the dutch were doing a lot of neat stuff, scientifically and artistically speaking.

most famous for his portrait painting, frans works were special because they often showed his subjects in very relaxed and expressive poses when typically portraits at the time were very proper and posed. why just look at isaak here! i bet he's so glad frans is painting him and not some one else who would most definitely pooh pooh his wild sideways chair sitting.

also interesting, the holly sprig that isaak is holding is a sign of fidelity meaning if isaaks wife saw this painting she could immediately shelve any fears of isaak getting a little side action with the ladies (possibly also cause he's gay though). (but that is my own assumption based on his blusher).

next we have 'the peasants wedding' by pieter brueghel the elder. old pieter was a renaissance painter which means he's probably had a beard since he was four and he always opens up doors for old ladies.

pieter was very interested in peasants and the daily life of peasants which is interesting because most painters up until that time were interested more in rich people and rich people activities. they thought the poor were uncouth drunkards who threw wild wanton parties.

sounds like fun to me!

i like this piece in particular because it's how i hope our wedding turns out. a drunken mess of people with their pants unbuttoned.

this is my favourite painting in all the ago! if you go and see it in real life the colours of the skin are so amazingly realistic. like you can see veins and real variations of flesh tones and she really looks and seems real. she's called 'the little shepherdess' painted by a man named paul peel and i think she must like living at the art gallery sitting around nude all day not paying any attention to her sheep whatsoever.

NEXT! now we move onto contemporary works which in my opinion means stuff people salvaged from the recycle bin but there definitely are some interesting works so maybe i just don't get most of it? also visiting this section of the gallery did inspire me to make some rather unique art of my own out of kleenex so maybe the point is that art is in everything? or don't ask questions cause it makes you seem uncultured. or i forgot my art supplies at home but look what i made out of coke cans.

this piece is called 'helga matura' done by gerhard richter. helga was a high class prostitute who was killed mysteriously and gerhard did this work as a tribute to her upon her death. i like that story. not the death part but the pretty picture tribute part.

gerhard projected photos he had taken onto canvas and painted them and blurred them and out comes this nifty smudgy oh so dreamy effect.

jeremy and i both loved the wall of marcel dzama's pictures. from far away they have this adorable quality like you think it's going to be a picture of sunshine and lollipops and sleeping beauty on horseback and you get up close and they're these extremely graphic sometimes pornographic images paired with vampires and cowboys and bats and animals with people legs.

also he's from winnipeg! go winnipeg! i've never been to winnipeg. maybe the cold air makes you draw things weird so he isn't actually talented just his brain is frostbitten.

this last piece is called 'forget it' by yoko ono and it really busts my chops. forget what? cause if you mean this art piece i would be able to forget if you'd just tell me what i'm supposed to be forgetting.

the docent we had said she wrote a letter to yoko asking what the piece meant and yoko wrote back that 'art was subjective' and 'what did she think the piece meant to her'. i hate those sorts of answers! does that mean you don't know? i'm going to write yoko ono a letter myself and tell her i think this piece is sad because it has no identity and could she please give it one so it won't feel so lost in a universe where everyone clings to definitions. and then if she writes back that subjective blah blah answer i'm going to send her an apple with a paperclip in an unmarked manila envelope.

and that concludes our tour! i sure hope you've enjoyed yourself. be sure to visit our gift store on your way out! we have a special on kleenex art.