Custom essays on Museum Visit: Whitney Biennial

The contemporary art may evoke quite controversial feelings and emotions because artists attempt to create original works of art but their experiments are not always successful and bring positive outcomes. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the Whitney Biennial, where I would single out the works created by Pae White, which I liked a lot, and Aurel Schmidt, which I did not like at all. Frankly speaking, both works are noteworthy but I can hardly appreciate the experiment of Aurel Schmidt, whereas Pae White’s work evokes very strong emotion and reminds me works of the early 20th century artists. What is more, Pae White’s work makes me thinking about eternal themes and admiring with its beauty.
In such a context, I would dwell upon both works briefly. Pae White was born in 1963, in Pasadena, California. Currently, the artist lives in Los Angeles, California.
Ignoring traditional boundaries between the applied and fine arts, Pae White encourages viewers to take a deeper look at familiar encounters and ordinary objects. In 2006, White began creating tapestries with photographic images of crumpled aluminum foil and plumes of smoke. Still, Untitled, one of her most recent smoke tapestries, stages what White describes as the cotton’s “dream of becoming something other than itself” by contrasting an image of something immaterial with the physicality of fabric. This vision of an ephemeral moment suspended in space — the slight and fleeting unfurling of smoke monumentalized in the heroic tradition of tapestries—transforms an everyday image into a seductive evocation of transience and longing (Pae White, 1).
Aurel Schmidt was born in 1986, in Kaloops, British Columbia. Currently, the artist lives and works in New York, New York.
Aurel Schmidt’s intricately detailed drawings include objects and creatures such as flies, condoms, and cigarette butts that are pieced together to form larger figures. Master of the Universe: FlexMaster 3000 is a portrait of the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull mythic creature who represents both creation and destruction. Through exquisite draftsmanship, Schmidt questions conventions of beauty and masculinity as well as standard associations with decomposition, rot, and refuse. She relates her interest in finding the beauty in ugliness to the idea of the human condition as a cyclical process of renewal and decay. By using the detritus of our lives as the building blocks for her subjects, Schmidt’s work becomes a sort of memento mori — a reminder of our own vulnerability and mortality (Aurel Schmidt, 1).
In fact, the two works are absolutely different but they can hardly keep the audience indifferent. In this regard, it does not really matter whether they evoke positive or negative emotions because tastes differ and I think many people would disagree with my opinion. At any rate, some of my friends liked the work created by Aurel Schmid by I am still an admirer of Rae White’s work. What makes me feel so impressed and admired with this work is the simplicity and beauty of this work. On the one hand, the artist uses quite complex lines and figures which resemble a sort of smoke which seems to be blowing throughout the wall. On the other hand, this complexity of the form is annihilated by the simplicity of the nature of the smoke which looks so natural. In addition, the artist uses two colors black and white which dominated over the entire work. In such a way, the author contrasts two colors creating the impression of the hidden struggle or juxtaposition between two antagonistic powers. This is actually what makes me think about such eternal themes as the struggle of good and evil or about the opposition between life and death. Thus, in spite of seeming simplicity Rae White’s work has a profound, implicit meaning.
As for Aurel Schmidt’s work, it seems to be a bit fragmentary and misbalanced. The artist attempts to combine some elements of ancient mythology with modernist elements. In fact, such extrapolation of modern views on ancient epic motives in art seems to be a bit strange to me. At any rate, I cannot overcome my biases in regard to the ancient and contemporary art because I believe that ancient art should preserve its uniqueness and any attempt to use elements of ancient art in a contemporary work of art are doomed to failure because I cannot view such a work as a true, original work of art.
At the same time, in spite of striking difference between the two work, it is possible to trace some elements which reveal the gender of the artists. In fact, both artists are female and it can be traced through the lines and forms created by the artists and the choice of colors as well as composition of works of art. For instance, Rae White uses soft, wavy lines, whereas Aurel Schmidt focuses on the emphasis of masculinity of the Minotaur she depicts but this masculinity is depicted sarcastically that reveals her true attitude to men and her criticism of male chauvinism.