“It looks like it was made by aliens,” said my kid.
“It was not made by aliens,” I urged. Just seconds earlier, I playfully told him that art was open to interpretation, with no “right” or “wrong.” Now, I ate my words.
“But mommy,… you said,” he insisted.
“Okay, it’s not made by aliens, but… I guess… it looks like it could have been made by aliens,” I conceded.
In my defense, I don’t know anything about art history, and rely heavily on the museum’s placards for context, so I probably shouldn’t explain art to a young child. One time, I thought I did a good job of guiding us through some Greek sculptures, but he later announced, very loudly, “my mommy took me to the museum and there were naked people.”
A docent once told me to completely clear out my mind, and then examine the artwork for at least 30 seconds, from top to bottom, then left to right, and all around the borders, before coming to any conclusions; I managed to explain this 30-second rule to my kid without mangling it up too much. We usually try this exercise on abstract art, so, while some may see alien fingerprints things their own way, we’re allowed to agree to disagree.
Currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930 to 1950 showcases many great pieces, all totally new to me, but I kept coming back to Minna Citron’s Death of a Mirror, 1946. I don’t know why, maybe because there was something hypnotic about it.
A movement called abstract expressionism began in NYC, I learned from the exhibit, around the 1940s, give or take. Some other pieces that caught my eye were Lee Krasner’s Still Life, Barbara Olmstead’s Memory of the Dark, and June Wayne’s Black Ball in a Room. Maybe I liked their monochromatic style, except for Krasner’s, which was jumping with color.
Using the 30-second rule on Death of a Mirror, I came up with:
- A tent in the woods.
- Spiral staircase within a house.
- A rainy day in the city.
- A play between both flat and three-dimensional shapes; cubism.
- Snakes and ladders (the board game).
- A sailboat.
Or, maybe she accidentally broke a mirror, sparking this piece, and all the lines and various shapes are shards and flecks of glass shimmering in the light. This exhibit inspired me to dig deeper into abstract expressionism, so maybe I’ll find out if any of my theories on Minna Citron, and some others, were correct. If you saw this exhibit, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.
Edit: After some online research into Minna Citron’s background, style, and influences, I changed a few of my earlier thoughts. I wonder if Death of a Mirror reflected, in some way, her life in NYC’s Union Square, Jungian psychology influences, or her travels. Also, maybe the “mirror” in the title alludes to printmaking, or experimental techniques, from the group Atelier 17, since the final product reverses the initial.
Notes of Currant 