Standing staring at a painting sometimes, I'll be overcome with a bit of frustration. Eyes scanning the painting laconically, but with a frenzied energy. I'm looking, waiting, almost, for some bit of sense or meaning or greater story to appear from the swirls of paint splotches or color blocks or mazes of lines on paper. I want there to be a greater meaning to the work, to see it with my own eyes, to have it pop out livid from the canvas/paper/slate rock/polyester.
The last time I was at the MOMA, I caught myself doing this. Skimming above the paintings and sculptures, looking for ones that had an easy story to tell or some political message that could be divulged from just staring at the thing, or reading the title. These are easy to find at momas. But what of the ones that frustrated me?
For some paintings, there's more to it than political message, simple statements. Rather not more to it, but less. Things can be exactly what they are, without appealing to some higher need of purpose or message. Sometimes swirls of color are nothing more than that. They necessitate no response, there is no call to action, there is no greater purpose than just to be a splotch of color on canvas.
As of late, relationships frustrate in the same way that abstract paintings do.
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