20th Century Modern Genius by Tommy
Petroskey
At the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts the Linde Family wing of
contemporary art has a fantastic collection.
However one piece stuck out the most.
Josiah McElheny is a contemporary artist who is most commonly known for
his blown glass sculptures. His piece
titled Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism was fantastically
futuristic and mesmerizing to look at.
The piece uses chromed glass blown effigies displayed in a casing of
one-way mirrors. The mirrors, all facing
toward each other, allows us not only to see into the casing at the captivating
glass sculptures but also creates an infinitely receding reflecting of the
piece. This gives the art an appearance
that no matter what angle you look at the glass sculptures will continue in a
line forever in every direction.
I found this specific piece
fascinating because of the creativity and simplicity it expresses. Most contemporary art is pushing for their own
attempt to have a unique meaning and to be different from all the rest. However what makes this piece different from
all the others in the exhibit was its lack of meaning and complexity. Don’t get me wrong this piece was noting
short of extraordinary and it was nothing like I have ever seen before, but the
depth in significance McElheny was portraying was practically
non-existent.
Finally I believe the staging of
the actual work of art I believe was substantial in different ways. The actual piece was displayed within a large
reflective cube. The contrast of the
mirrors on the inside of the artwork to the mirrors on the outside display was
interesting to me. I think that McElheny
chose to do this because it gave the affect of the art inside the case more of
an important denotation. I look forward
to seeing more works of McElheny because this piece impresses me plenty. The futuristic appearance certainly gave this
piece a lot of style and I give McElheny a great deal of credit for the
design. 
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