Marlee White ENC 1101 November 6, 2011

Art piece

I went to the MOMA site and right away found a piece that was compelling for the one reason that at first I had no idea what I was looking at. It was a painting by Willem de Kooning called Pink Angels. When I clicked on the painting I realized that it was made by using oil and charcoal in 1945. This painting is very abstract which is why it took me a few times to figure out what I believed it to be. I know it is titled as the Pink Angel but to me I do not see angels the only thing that resembles the title to me is the pinkness of the bodies. What I see are two men. One seems to be kneeling in front of the other bowing his head, as in the man above and sitting is the one in charge. Now this man seems to be sitting in a chair looking down, or even looking down his nose, at the man on his knees in front of him. I at first interpreted this as maybe a king and his knight for it seems as though the one on his knees is wearing a cap of some sort on his head. Though as I know think about it I can see the painting being interpreted as God and one of his angels looking and bowing to him for guidance of some sort. Yet that wouldnt necessarily explain the plural of the word angels. I really liked how the artist was abstract

enough that after spending some time looking at the piece they could interpret something, but not too abstract where people are looking at it for an eternity without seeing anything. Maybe that is the point of all art, the possibilities of different interpretations.

Photography piece

I chose this piece of photography by Nick Veasey because I love the idea of photography by xray. It lets you look into objects that are merely simple in the eyes of the world yet when shown through x-ray look entirely different. This photo for instance, I found extremely compelling due to the popularity of the iPod. People every day all over the world buy, use or even sell these electronic devices but I doubt many stop to think about what the inside may look like. Veasey shows the complex insides that seem simple to us, yet he was able to get into the depth of the iPod. I feel that he was attempting to show his viewers that simple everyday things, such as this iPod and even flowers, look uniquely different when shown through the inside instead of outside materialistic view. This also goes along with the fact that due to all of his photos being x-ray they are in turn black and white. Therefore it seems

ironic that he is showing the complexity of the iPod which displays that it isnt just black and white, yet when looking at the photo thats the first thing people see.