Essay #2

Kay Hassan

Takashi Murakami

I think that the main thing that sticks out to me about our walk through the galleries last week was the amount of installation pieces for sale.  I was expecting to see a lot of paintings and photos of different sizes and probably some sculptures.  I was not, however, expecting to see an installation, 'Moun Room,' the size of most people’s apartment at the first gallery we stopped into.  I also did not expect to see two quite large tents covered in paintings set up in the last gallery we went to.  I was kind of confused about what would prompt someone would buy one of these things, especially the first installation, and what they would do with it once they owned it.  Aside from the confusion about that stuff, I was really impressed with the collages by Kay Hassan that we saw.  They were all so detailed and the colors were so well matched and used very well.  The pieces looked like painting from a little ways back and the fact that he was able to do that with all found material is even more impressive.  After having done the collage assignment and seeing how difficult it can be to make a collage that looks like something more than a bunch of pictures thrown together.  I was impressed the most by that exhibition.  The exhibition that I enjoyed the most was the Takashi Murakami exhibition.  I really liked his use of bright colors, repetition and variety, and how simple a lot of the designs were but how detailed he managed to make almost all of the pieces.  The two huge statues were also very impressive in their size and detail.  The size of his work, while it was similar to the ‘Moun Room,’ made more sense to me.  I think this was because, even the three-dimensional pieces, you could only view from out side of the piece.  You could go inside the tents and the first installation and to me that somehow makes it less usable/movable.  I couldn’t imagine ‘Moun Room’ anywhere other than that huge empty room it was in when I saw it.  I can imagine one or both of the Takashi Murakami statues in many other places.  Overall I think the main thing that I came away from this trip was a broader idea for what art is being created, bought, and sold right now.