Such a Big Fish by Theresa Rauh

“That was my father's final joke, I guess. A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories.” This is a quote of the musical “Big fish” we visited last night. It is about a son trying to get to know and understand his father.

Edward Bloom always tells mysterious stories and fairy tales about his life. But there are so many different stories and versions, that his son fells he doesn’t really know him. Edward Bloom became a story himself for his son and the people around him. In telling the story of his life it is impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. His son fears that the stories are hiding a darker history and they are. Sort of. Maybe. You don’t know what to expect concerning this man. He delights everyone around him with his “larger-than-life stories” as a salesman. When Edward Bloom is diagnosed with cancer and about to die, the family comes together and his son is starting to get to know and understand the stories and therefore the man. He finds out not only how his father met his mother but also how he left his little town he had lived in his entire life and saves it, as it is about to be drowned. Edward Blooms love towards his family can be seen in every aspect of all these stories. The big fish is an ongoing metaphor for Edward Bloom, who not only himself left his “own pond”, but also motivated other people to “move on”. It can also be seen for example as a metaphor for the relationship between Edward Bloom and his son. As Will Bloom discovers and gets to know his father’s “pond”, in which his father once was the “big fish”. The musical starts and ends with fishing a “big fish” and therefore in my opinion the connection is made, that someday even the biggest fishes are caught and brought out of the water and people start understanding each other’s actions, as the mysteries and stories about a person are uncovered and the element of truth comes out. The metaphor of the “big fish”, which goes through the entire story, can be interpreted in many different ways, which I really like.

The acting as well as the singing was pretty good. I really liked the stage settings too. They contained some interesting special effects, like knives throwing or images of the actors projected above the stage, to keep the stage setting entertaining. Also some of the costumes were really complex and imaginative. The fact, that the performance was a little kitschy in some ways can be seen more in a positive way in my opinion than in a negative way, because is also among other things a point that brought life in the show. Overall, I really enjoyed the show and liked the metaphor of the “big fish”.

The Piano I Am Saving My Money For by Theresa Rauh

When the elaborate case of this Steinway piano was displayed in London in 1885, the press called it “splendid”, “remarkable” and “superb”. The piano I am talking about is not a normal piano, which I have to admit is also already really pretty, but no, this piano is more a piece of art than anything else and it seems to be too special to actually play on it. Art and music are connected in one piece. The space around the piano seems to be captivated by its beauty. It has lavish materials and decorative flourishes. On the sides there are fine, difficult carvings, covered with different colors of wood. On the front of the piano, above the keyboards, there is a beautiful image of a roman scene, woman and men standing in a temple, and even the names of Apollo and the Muses are inlaid on the lid. On the top of it there are five circles, with Greek letters, describing five arts theatre, painting, architecture, dance and carving. This is another thing I really like it brings everything together in some way. All these arts are so different, but it shows, that they are connected and similar in some way, it seems to carry a message of everything belonging together somehow, maybe this message goes even beyond arts… ? The piano’s story is pretty long, so many people before us saw it’s beauty and could enjoy it’s probably incredible sound (if it sounds like it looks like…), it was placed in many different places until it finally came to the museum. At one time it was used in Broadway shows, at another it stood in the lobby and people were not only using it as an instrument and piece, they were sitting, leaning and drinking on it… I would have loved to hear the sound of it, the sound of the beautiful, old wooden mallets hitting the strings of this piece of art.  I would have loved to see the keyboards moving. But for that unfortunately I will probably have to wait until I am invited to play, or until I become incredibly rich and can make the museum agree on selling it to me…

But as long as I haven’t reached these goals I will definitely keep the memory of this astonishing piece of art.

Entering a another world by Theresa Rauh

When we entered this museum I knew from the very beginning that this museum was totally different than all the other museums we had visited before. The Mass MoCA museum in Western Massachusetts is a huge, old storehouse and factory building full of 100000 sq. feet of incredible contemporary art. Some of these things could never be displayed in the traditional museum/gallery setting. 27000 sq. feet of Mass Moca are occupied with wall drawings of Sol LeWitt from 1968-2007. All these wall drawings are painted differently. The drawings are painted directly on the wall. The exhibit is also special because Sol LeWitt didn’t do the paintings himself but gave directions to his assistance on how to paint them. It is very impressive to see that all the paintings have the exact same style within the exhibitions, although they were executed by different assistance. The first paintings were executed graphite, which are painted very fine.  Later Sol LeWitt executed them in colored pencil and finally in chromatically rich washes of India ink, bright acrylic paint, and other materials. With these materials Sol LeWitt painted large area shapes and patterns. It was interesting to see the enormous differences between his earlier and later works and how is style of painting changed over time.

But the wall paintings are not the only incredible thing about Mass MoCA. We also visited an exhibition by Lee Boroson, called Plastic Fantastic. This exhibition consists of four components: Moisture Content, Depp Current, Uplift, and Subterranean Set. Moisture Content consists of sheer fabric draperies and transparent and translucent crystalline forms arranged to create passageways. It is like moving through shifting fog. First you stumble through the occasional clear view through the haze, but then you lose your view completely when entering the veil, which is set up creating passageways and you feel like you are lost between all these layers. After entering Moisture current we arrived at Deep Current. It is a wooden decking, with a big hole containing white little balls. The entire deck is surrounded, by a railing above the deck. There is a visible machine, which makes the balls fall down sporadically. Deep current is supposed to be a referential ode to Niagra Falls. I think this connection was a little too abstract though. Just past deep current we entered uplift, which is a dark room with blown up plastic bags tied together. Overall it looks like a dark forest, with trees made out of plastic bags. It reminded me in a way of the forest in Snow White when she is escaping the bad queen in the Disney movie. From this dark room, we came in the Subterranean Set, which is a field of hand blown glass shapes containing colored lava like fluids, that move around within the glass lamps. They are located on green, carpeted floor that looks like grass. Both Uplift and Subterranean Set present earth and fire components to the exhibition. This whole piece of art is something I had never seen before and I really liked the reference to nature and that the message it carried about a controlled version of it. Everybody can interpret the message in his own ways. This museum is not like other museums in any way. It is more like entering another world. It is like traveling to an unknown planet, you would have never dreamt of and I would totally recommend going there and making this experience yourself.

 

How to see infinity by Theresa Rauh

Mirror is one of the most interesting surfaces. Sometimes it can make you embarrassed when you have to face yourself in it, but besides that it can have so much more functions. You may find it at the dentist, (where the reflection of yourself may not be that pretty) but is totally necessary, at car lambs, where it suits your safety or even in art where it can create virtual spaces and even infinity. Creating infinity is what the mirror effect does to my favorite piece at the museum of fine art. It is some mirror effect art by the artist McElheny.

It is actually a 3m*3m*1.5m large box in which are five pots on each side in the upper side of the box. There are mirrors located in the box, in a way, so that the pots are reflected over and over again. This gives the viewer the impression that the box is infinite, because as you look through it you don’t see any ending of pots.

If you look it at from the outside, which is covered with mirror surface as well, you see the reflection of yourself and don’t concentrate on the reflection, which happens inside, but as you come you see the infinity within the box. This is the thing, which really made me thing about this piece of art. It can be interpreted in many different ways. Everybody can make up his own interpretation out of that. For me it is that nothing always seems like it looks from the outside. You cannot only see something in one way or another. Things have to be getting to know, otherwise something is missed this for humans as well as other things and live situations.

This is what I really like about this piece. I have never seen something like that before. It is nor a sculpture but also neither a picture or painting. It is something different, which seems to make infinity, we always have trouble imagining, visible.

 

 

 

The Glass Menagerie by Theresa Rauh

The Glass Menagerie by Theresa Rauh

 

Have you ever seen a movie and wished you were the character in it, or dreamed a dream and wished it would continue and be real? Can you imagine that the sound or an image form the past suddenly looms larger than the present for somebody? This is what happens to the family in the play, The Glass Menagerie the entire time. They live in their memories, dreams and expectations for the future.

The Glass Menagerie is a play by Tennessee Williams, which premiered in 1944. It is a four-character play. The oldest character in the play is Amanda Wingfield, a women who was abandoned by her husband many years ago and now trying to raise her children under harsh financial conditions. She is in love with the memories from her youth, and also wishes her children to have the same comforts as she does. She desperately hopes to find a suitor for her daughter Laura, who never leaves the house because of shyness and complexes concerning other people, as soon as possible. Tom Wingfield is Amanda’s son, who works at the warehouse to support his family. He is frustrated by his job though and goes out every night to the “movies”, which also contains going to bars and smoking in my opinion. “Going to the movies” is just an expression for him for leaving the house at night, to escape from reality for a little while.

Laura Wingfield is Amanda’s daughter and Tom’s younger sister. She is mental disabled in a way, and is therefore really shy. She can barely talk to other people, but her family and has isolated her from the outside world. She has created a world of her own, symbolized by her collection of glass figures. The fourth character in the play is Jim O’Connor, a guy, who went to high school with Jim and Laura. He was Laura’s one and only high school love. Jim is pretty self-confident, although his fame and success in high school didn’t keep continuing, however, by the time of the play's action he is working as a shipping clerk at the same shoe warehouse as Tom, which is why he comes to dinner one night to the Wingfield’s house. But even as he comes to dinner Laura is unable to join the table because of her shyness. After having dinner with Tom and Amanda, Jim joins Laura in the living room and starts having a conversation with her, in which he also advises her to think more for herself. This piece of advice is very enlightening to her in my opinion, as it comes from her high school love. In the end they are having a slow dance and Jim kisses the shy girl. However Jim leaves, as we find out that he is engaged to marry. In the end Tom also leaves his smother and his sister, Laura blows of the candles and the play ends.

As the play was performed on an open stage, you could see what was going on “behind the stage”, which I personally don’t like that much. But overall I really enjoyed the performance. And the more I think about it, I really understand the message, which they wanted to get across. The family is trapped in a menagerie of memories and unreality, every single member of them tries to get out of this differently and while doing this they still try to hold together and love each other the way they are. This part is what was very inspiring for me. This message was brought across pretty well by the actors, as they performed really emotionally and were really committed to their characters.

 

 

Gardner Museum by Theresa Rauh

               Things that are mysterious are always interesting and special in a way, because you don’t really know how to interpret them. They seem to carry a message, but you don’t really know what it is. One of the pieces, which seemed to really carry a secret in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, is El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent, 1882.

 El Jaleo, which is actually the name of a form of flamenco and means cheering, is almost 12 feet wide, broadly painted painting. In the foreground a woman in a white long dress dancing, one of her hands is leaning on her hip, the other one is pointing up. She is dancing very energetic. She is represented from the side. In the background there are three men accompanying her with guitars as well as two women seeming to enjoy her dance. One chair is empty, on which is laying an orange. In the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum the painting is underneath a little fixture, which is located at the very end of the room. One the left of the fixture in the inside is a little mirror. The picture is reflected and more life is given the picture. The impression is given, that the women is one time on one side and the next time on the other. In general the picture is painted in dark colors. The atmosphere of the picture isn’t friendly. Also the dark colors and the facial expressions, especially of the men in the picture don’t excite to cheering. This is also reinforced through the way Isabella Stewart Gardner set it up. The title, which means cheering, is therefore ironic in a way.

The painting El Jaleo is very fascinating. Every time you look at it you find something knew, you didn’t see before. It has something mysterious in it, as it is not painted in the way you would imagine people cheering and dancing. It seems to carry a secret. You should really try to find out yourself!