Teaching with MoMa

Landscape with Steer. Pollock. 1936-37.

This was my first time going to MoMa. It was really interesting. I really loved seeing all that different kind of art from simple paintings to extravagant sculptures.

One of my favorite things about the trip to the museum was the opportunity to see the art pieces of three Venezuelan artists, one of them being the famous Jesus Soto (in case you are wondering why, I am Venezuelan).

I got into the Pollock Gallery, it was really amazing seeing his paintings in real life. I chose an art piece by him to explain it to my friend it is called “Landscape with steer.”

I enjoyed the experience to teach/explain to my friend about art, giving her different examples and explaining to her the technical language along with the painting itself. Then I asked her to analyze it with her recently acquired artistic knowledge.

It wasn’t hard to explain her everything, but since we both are Deaf some technical words were a little hard to explain using Sign Language, so she had to read them. Overall she understood me, so I guess I was a good teacher. Also was a funny experience because I would never imagine I was going to be explaining this topic, and doing it in Sign Language made it more captivating.

Her analysis is this:

            “It’s a landscape painting and it has a representational form (the ox). The red section shows the aggression part of the painting and it looks like smoke coming out. The yellow part looks like a farming because the ox. The blue part looks like the ocean on a house with mountains with snow (white color). It has lines and shapes; the hue is analogous with a little primary colors. More warm than cool colors, with different values.”

            I can say she really understood me after checking her analysis, because I did my own one in order to compare both, and we have some similarities. I came with this:

My friend notes

            Is a 2D form (lithograph), installed in the MoMa as the “Pollock Gallery,” it has a Non-representative abstract style with the exception of the ox which is the only identifiable part of the landscape. It has different lines that make silhouettes that I can’t understand but let my imagination do the work, I doesn’t have a negative space, the painting is fully done. About the hue, Pollock used the Primary colors to realize this art piece, however for each color he used different values to add a special effect in the painting, which at the same time helps to add texture too, like rocks and fire.

            The painting has a Warm-Cool combination, being the wines of this challenge. My emotional response is chaos, this painting make me fell emotionally twisted, lost, if I watch it as a whole, but depending where I focus my attention also makes me feel a special way. If I focus in the read part I can feel the anger, the fire getting out of me, the blue part makes me feel nostalgic, and the yellow one bring me peace.

            Although my analysis is deeper than my friend, I can tell she had a basic understanding of the explanations I gave to her. Also was an enjoyable experience because this topic (art) is something that even though is subjective, always keep people together.