I went to the city today to visit the new Whitney Museum of American Art. They have built a new building downtown, on Gansevoort Street designed by Renzo Piano, and their iconic Marcel Breuer building uptown has been taken over by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There was a huge exhibit covering two floors, called "Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney Collection." It was an amazing collection of paintings and photographs, and sculptures. I was looking at paper sculptures of a number of buildings, when I realized that the plexiglass cover reflected people walking by. So I positioned myself in one spot and waited. In the background, by the way, is another artwork showing raised fists, which adds complexity, and some mystery to the image.
The word that came to mind after studying this photo is "cameo". I like the effect of apparent texture created by people and reflections in the foreground and unusual black and white art on the far wall and everything surrounded by a neutral off white perimeter. But there is one element that I find a bit out of place (the painting in blue on the left) - I am left with a question as to whether or not the blue painting should have been cropped out of the scene? I hope some of your blog fans can help me with an answer.
ReplyDeletePrimo: I considered cropping out the left side of the photo, then decided against it, thinking that it added another layer of depth, and a bit more complexity to the image. I didn't that it was all that distracting. We'll see how everyone else votes... :-)
ReplyDeleteBizarre is what came to my mind. I enlarged it to try and comprehend the entire scene. So much is captured in this one photo. After seeing Ken's comment, I had to go back to see blue photo, which I did not notice at first look. I was concentrating so hard on black and white, I became short sighted.
ReplyDeleteJoan
I agree with Ken Schwarz. It is distracting and the photo seems much more cohesive without it. Stunning picture, though. Love the composition.
ReplyDeleteSo I too missed the blue picture when I first looked. I will also have to agree with my big brother... :)
ReplyDeleteI think the blue picture needs to go.
THE WORLD IS AGAINST ME! HELP!!! Seriously, thank you all for your comments. I will think about this some more...
ReplyDeletelove the layer of mystery that the blue adds.
ReplyDelete