Josiah McElheny and Charline Von Heyl

On July 1st I went to the ICA.  I felt I couldn't leave Boston without seeing what they had to offer.  At the time they were showing works by Josiah McElheny and Charline Von Heyl.

I feel like I can relate better to Josiah's reflective work like his scale model of a totally reflective landscape.

Scale model of a totally reflective landscape 2005

 

 

 

I guess it is the simpleton in me that appreciates being reflected in the work and seeing my own landscapes and feeling my own memories.  His "chandelier" work, though amazing, was not as thought provoking for me.  Maybe because I wasn't allowed to touch them and I really wanted to.  Maybe because I was tired from the residency.  Either way I did not get a sense of modernity and the universe.  I felt like I was looking at every day objects. 

Island Universe 2008

Maybe this is what Fia was talking about.  The sense of feeling something personal in relation to the work without seeing the private.  I'm just not feeling the personal in these later works.  They feel cold and rapidly executed.  Maybe that is what I'm supposed to feel.

From the permanent collection the ICA had on display Charline Von Heyl.

Yellow Guitar 2010

 She is an artist working abstractly from abstract forms.  This I find hard to believe.  The brain relates to abstract forms and attempts to make it a known object.  Like seeing a face in something that has no face.  I think the complete dismissal of symbols and known objects is complete bunk, personally.  How can you not be influenced by what you see around you, unless you work in an isolation chamber.
I found this show gave me a lot to think about.  Questions about my own work are surfacing from the questions about these "great" artists' work.