Posts from the ‘Reviews’ Category
Nov
4
This is going to be a strange post. I want to throw an idea out and I want to hear your thoughts on it. I’m going to tell you to touch art. I know, I know, you’re not supposed to. But I think you should. Here’s why.
My favorite way to spend a day off is to visit a gallery and give myself time to wander. It’s even better when my wife comes along. I love to experience art with someone, watching and learning from their reactions to the work. If I miss something, she often catches it. She pulls me back into pieces I breeze by. I’m fascinated by our different tastes, and where those tastes overlap tells me that beauty is not always subjective, “in the eye of the beholder”. Sometimes our trips bring a real revelation as we chat about what we see. That happened yesterday on Jasper ave near 124th street.
My wife made a tiny, fast comment. She told me that she likes work that invites her to touch it. Not that she does, of course, as touching the work is almost always forbidden. But she wants to when the work is good. It is work with layers, work that literally pulls her into itself. Often it is work with texture, employing gels or wax or mixed media collage. Work, she says, that makes her want to feel its surface and discover how it was made. There is something beautifully uninhibited and child-like about that response.
Do our "don't touch" rules about art keep us out of an experience?
I try to hide my cringing forward lurches, designed to pull her back from the canvas. I am an obsessive rule-follower, she will tell you. Taking my kids to a gallery, as much as I love it, sometimes fills me with more stress than pleasure as I think to myself over and again, “don’t touch!”, their eyes getting within inches of a piece. Especially when that piece is a Renoir or a Warhol.
But why not touch? Why this ironclad rule? Sure, I understand the motivation. We want to preserve work for future generations to enjoy. The oils in our skin can ruin a piece. I get this. But I wonder if preservation is always the top aim, or if preservation for future enjoyment sometimes eats away at potential enjoyment now. Are we stopping ourselves from experiencing part of art with this rule? Is touch not a vital sense, a potentially potent part of our experience of art? When my wife wants to reach out and feel a work because it speaks so loudly to her, does this not compliment the work and its creator. Don’t artists long for viewers to engage with their work? Touch is a sure form of engagement. I wonder, on a larger scale, does this “untouchable rule” contribute to the distance a large portion of society feels from “the fine arts”? Does the prohibition to touch artwork contribute on some level to an separation from it? Some of you may know better than I if these rules were always in place, or when they came into being. And what was the driving motive?
As we are looking to create an art space in the near future, one goal is engagement. We don’t want people to simply look at the work and pass by, we want them to interact with it. Sure, this happens mentally. It happens in relationship and conversation, but could it also happen literally? What if we curated a show where viewers were encouraged to touch every work? How would their perception of the work, and of the gallery itself, change?
Taking it further, what if we had a “touch, don’t look” gallery? Artists are invited to create work that will be experienced only through touch. “Viewers” are blindfolded, or sent into a pitch-dark room. They are rendered “blind” and must experience the work through other senses. How would this change our experience of art? How would it impact the artists involved?
Earlier this year I took the family to another art show, this one by sculptor Brian Jungen at the AGA. A sign at the entrance encouraged us to not only take photos (something forbidden in every other exhibit space), but to share those photos publicly online. Before I even saw the work, I felt encouraged to engage with it. I took photos. The kids posed with the massive plastic dinosaur skeletons, sometimes standing within the ‘bones’. They were still not supposed to touch, as far as I know, but even the change in attitude made us all relax and enjoy the work on a different level. I wonder if this invitation could be cultivated intentionally in all art shows? I wonder how that sort of invitation would change our approach to fine art?
This post offers more questions than answers, because what I am wrestling with here is not an answer, but a question. Should touch play a greater role in our experience of the arts, and particularly visual art?
What do you think?
Tags: bleeding heart art space, curation, senses, touch
Posted in Art Shows, Essays and Reflections, Painting | 8 Comments »
Jun
24
This past weekend, Bridge Songs: ?rogress took place on Alberta Avenue, and took over many of our lives. Mine included.
Wednesday and Thursday last week were given to our feature exhibition at the Stollery Gallery, as Edward Van Vliet and the artists installed work. Thursday was also a day for renting (a lot of) equipment for the performances, setting it all up in our venue, sound checking and trying to squeeze in some practice time. Our Event Space Gallery was set up that night, and it was absolutely chock-full of art.
Friday, Jennifer worked like a mad woman to complete the ambiance for the space, working right up to performance time while weaving in and out of practicing performers. When 7 o’clock rolled around and people trickled in through the doors, the space looked great, but we sure didn’t feel ready. It’s too soon! Too soon!
With not one full dress rehearsal to our credit, we had to begin. The show must go on. This is the kind of unpreparedness yielded by the fusion of a dozen busy lives creating an event like this in their “free” time. But begin we did, and that night, for about 50 guests, we performed Bridge Songs: ?rogress for the first time. It went alright, but I knew it could have gone better. We all knew. I went home wishing I’d had more time to prepare, wishing more people had come out (we’d hoped for 100 that night), wishing I hadn’t made so many mistakes, wishing myself into an uneasy sleep (or lack thereof).
Saturday was a different story entirely.
We were still tight for practice time, but had at least had a full “practice” the night before. The exhibition at the Stollery was together and people were enjoying it. We knew our stuff now. Joe Gurba was reading poetry. A burgeoning crowd grew outside the sanctuary doors, wanting in. More time, more time! Ok, open the doors!
As we waited backstage for the first film (John Osborne’s Genesis) to end, we could hear the energy of the crowd. We could feel the electricity that precedes a great show. We all knew this final performance would be our best. And in that confidence we began.
Song after song, we nailed it. Mistakes were smoothed over or made to sound intentional. Even my cracking voice mid-scream miraculously landed on a note that fit just right. Our final song was supposed to be sung by Jeanne Williams, but she lost her voice. Daniel Mantai took over and I doubt anyone but us knew. Joe’s poetry glued our narrative together, playing right off of Jordan Majeau’s “Soul City” story arc. It was a beautiful night, enjoyed by near 150 people, many from outside of the Urban Bridge and City Centre communities. As we closed with Jaimie Clements preview from The Avenue Movie, then the song Hope there was a tangible sense of that “hope” in the room. Many from the Alberta Ave community were there, with hopes of their own. I’m sure they’ve asked many times, “is this progress?” I hope they got a sense that, through the steps forwards and back, it is.
By the Numbers
Our hope was to have 200 people enjoy Bridge Songs. When you add it all up, we likely exceeded that by a bit. About 50 on Friday, about 150 on Saturday and over 20 for Sunday’s workshop takes us right about where we wanted to be. It’s nice to see the event growing little by little. It’s nice to know it’s being enjoyed far beyond the little group of us creating it.
Of course, the numbers will continue to grow as our “?rogress” exhibit at the Stollery Gallery continues through to the official closing reception on July 5th, as part of The Works Festival.
Those people not only supported the project with their presence, but financially. Everything we took in those two nights is to be donated to the Nina Haggerty Centre for The Arts and a home for abandoned seniors in Mexico. In total, just over $1500 was raised. I’m pretty proud of that, and offer up a big thank you to every who bought a CD, bought some food or just donated to our causes. Because of you, Nina Haggerty Centre will be able to buy a touchscreen drawing tablet that will enable some of their clients to create digital art works previously impossible because of their physical limitations. Because of you the project in Mexico will continue to grow into a reality. It’s nice to know we have reached beyond ourselves and our communities, both across the street and across the world.
Where Do We Grow From Here?
From here, we’ll be doing a lot of soul searching and evaluating. Were the two nights worth the sacrifice required? Was the album a rewarding undertaking? Was the workshop what we had hoped? Without stretching ourselves too far, how do we continue to challenge ourselves, and move beyond ourselves involving the local community to a greater extent. How many people would we like to see attending? And how many participating? What theme should we build Bridge Songs 2012 around? With prayer and discussion and discernment and the wisdom of many, we’re moving forward.
We’d love to hear your feedback about Bridge Songs: ?rogress. We’re more than open to your suggestions. Got a crazy idea you’d like to try next year? That’s how most of this event was born! Leave a comment below, or send us an email at info@iloveartists.ca.
Tags: Bridge Songs, bridge songs: progress, is this progress?
Posted in Bridge Songs: Progress, Essays and Reflections, Event Reviews, Events, Is this progress? | Comments Off
Mar
23
Last year’s Bridge Songs event raised around $900 for ACE, a community initiative from Big Brothers and Sisters in Edmonton co-led by Jennifer Wilde, one of the “Part Time Lovers” (leaders of iLoveArtists). ACE is an after school arts program working at Delton School near the Alberta Avenue area of Edmonton. Jennifer and her team asked the students to contemplate Hope, and create a work of art about what Hope is to them. The results are beautiful, if a little heart-breaking at times. Thanks to Jennifer and her crew at ACE for sharing this book with us.
ACE Book 2010 – Hope Is
Tags: ACE, Big Brothers and Sisters, community arts, Hope, Jennifer Wilde
Posted in Alberta Avenue, Book Reviews, Hope, Illustration | Comments Off
Nov
30
Edward Van Vliet likes to chew long and hard on words, like beef jerky. His words often seem as innumerable as the stars. He is the most frequent commenter on this blog and you will find his thoughts salting the faith and art blogosphere under the name of etechne. Van Vliet is a man of many words, and I wonder if he isn’t obsessed with their power. It is no wonder then that Edward Van Vliet’s current exhibition, Your Thoughts, Like Stars, presents four installations orbiting the power of words and the thoughts they carry.
Anyone who has followed Van Vliet’s work will find familiar images and themes. Books play a large part. Recipe’s For Kneeling, II, revisits the illuminated books and kneeling cushions of earlier installations at The Paint Spot gallery. the space between, a smaller installation, features a single book, half buried, fossil-like, in a mound of glittering sand.The imagery for “The Weight of Things” brings an explosively expanded vision to imagery created for his NAESS show, I’m Not Finished Yet and Whisper before that. Text is again laid over the nebulous wonder of outer space. Edward also returns to his love for viewer participation and feedback, this time inviting his “readers” to create a page for a yet another book by reflecting on the significance of a single block of color (red, blue or green).
While much is familiar, none of it feels repeated. The exhibit as a whole is surprisingly fresh and bold. It is the show one would hope to have evolved and grown from the sprouts of past efforts. Each piece builds upon and enlarges an earlier concept.
Taken as a whole, the show weaves a thread of contemplation, wonder and ultimately action. We are not here to simply look. We are here to think. We should wrestle and, if Van Vliet would have his way, act in some way. Not counting viewer contributions, which continue to increase at this writing, Van Vliet has presented us with 113 “thoughts” in total here. The cumulative effect is both overwhelming awe and the inability to focus in one particular direction. There is a paradox on display. The phrases offered read as timeless truths, and the images Van Vliet evokes, from the expansive universe, the vast seas and countless sand on a shore to ancient books and inverted Albrecht Durer etchings of the Apocalypse, draw us into into a transcendent timeline. But the collection of so many thoughts in one small space feels more suited to the bite sized attention span of internet information addicts. How do we make sense of all this knowledge? How do we catalogue and process the wisdom of the ages? Perhaps this is the thought behind the title for “The Weight of Things”. Are we to view all 100 thoughts, displayed like polaroids, in one go, or are we better to sit with just one?
After taking in the whole, one does well to sit with each part and reflect. I began with The Weight of Things, where “thoughts” are rooted to sculpted bases, white and porous as sand dollars in the sea. The pieces pinwheel out from the center into five tentacle-like arms, also evoking a sand dollar. These arms seem to be moving, reaching to pull us inside, towards some center. Knowing Van Vliet’s faith, I’d guess that centre is the very heart and mind of God. I walked the length of each arm, one by one, letting each thought sink as far as I could in a short span of time. By then end I did feel the weight of things. At times encouraged, at times convicted, each phrase leaves little room for complacent comfort. Some sooth, but in surprising ways. Each phrase and image creates a world we could lose ourselves in. We could dive inside that expansive space and get to work kneading the wisdom of these words into our lives. But, as all to often happens, we must soon change the channel and move on.
I continued to The Art of Kneeling II, where 12 illuminated books hung low, awaiting my kneeling gaze. I approached each cushion and opened covers to reveal beautiful woodcuts, inverted to appear harsh and dark. The covers were notably more drab than those in Van Vliet’s previous show. The images inside have no color or gradation. Black and white alone convey a sense of absolutes. The font used on these pieces feels as old as the woodcuts themselves, a gothic script spelling out messages that are immediately jarring. I am being watched. There is power in my tongue. I begin to feel I am part of the battle depicted in these dramatic scenes of Apocalypse. My actions here and now are tied to then and there. What I do and what I say is of eternal importance, and it also matters today. Twelve is an easier number to digest than 100, and so this piece comes together for me, clearer than whole of The Weight of Things. I feel an urgency.
I move on to the space between, where the focus narrows onto one single book, unearthed part way from a pile of sand, like a fossil from a sea shore. I cannot help but notice the sparkle of the sand, it’s thousands upon thousands of tiny pieces mirroring the titular Stars of the whole exhibit. On the book’s cover a single skeletal torso is overlaid with flaming red and the words “made of earth/made of stars” (the latter half printed upside down and backwards). This piece feels ancient, organic and intimate. Something of our true origin and nature is to be discovered. This torso would house and protect a heart. A heart born of the earth, and yet beyond. A heart to house the countless thoughts on display. Perhaps to act before the tide comes in to wash away this moment. the space between somehow touches me most deeply of all four installations. It somehow gives me hope that I am more than dust.
And now it is time to add my own contribution, as I move to NAME THIS, where I am invited to write my reflections on a primary color. I choose red. I think of the fear and pain and passion of loving. I think of myself undone, broken and transformed by love. It’s a good place for an art show to have brought me.
I leave awash in thoughts of beach, sea and stars. A million points of light that can illuminate as well as burn. A million points of light spanning time and space. Dying out. Being born again. Without seeing Christ, or reading His name, I have been drawn to Him.
I leave in the grip of the Thinker, whose “thoughts, like stars” keep me moving.
Tags: art show, Edward Van Vliet, exhibit, profiles gallery, review, Your thoughs like stars
Posted in Art, Art Shows, books, Essays and Reflections, Galleries, Reviews | Comments Off
Sep
29
Perhaps I’m thinking about progress a little too much these days, but as I wandered the halls of the Art Gallery of Alberta this morning, an overall story arc couldn’t be stifled. The juxtaposition of images and ideas frames each with new context, and I cannot help but mine for meta meaning.
Framing is precisely where my journey began today, and mining is where it ended. The fact that each verb, to frame and to mine, can be full of either possibility or potent is perhaps no accident. Ascending the iconic AGA staircase from bottom to top I moved from images of the Canadian landscape towards Edward Burtynsky’s Oil. The higher I climbed, the deeper I sunk into an onerous feeling of forward momentum that cannot be slowed.
I began with a room full of architecture imagined by Piranesi, centuries ago. His etchings of Roman prisons, overlaid with physical impossibilities and complexities, somehow bring optimism and play to the darkest of places. How one can be inspired to imagine and create within such dismal surroundings is beyond me, but imagine he does. The ingenuity and spark displayed are indeed the driving forces behind industry and progress throughout history (well, those and money). It is as if my AGA journey began by questioning what is possible and answering, “most anything!”
Those possibilities soon meet the inevitability of changes to our landscape. The beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and how its portrayal has shifted over time, were the subjects of the next gallery I visited, “Reframing a Nation”. Idyllic forest scenes weave heroism, whimsy and beauty into a tapestry of Canadian identity. As lovely as it all is, even in the midst of this apparently virgin wilderness an irony is noted in the description of one piece. In order to discover these vistas, the artists travelled roads or rails. In cars or trains. Their view of natural wonder was made possible through the technology that would encroach upon it. One wonders what nature was disrupted to make possible even the gallery itself where these images can now be enjoyed. Perhaps, without progress, we cannot even look backward effectively?
For now, one can forget such questions as he ascends the stairs to floor two. Here I found the mind-boggling imaginations of MC Escher, who took Piranesi’s ideas further beyond possible, along with an homage to the animation of Warner Bros. I didn’t enter these galleries, having enjoyed them on a previous visit. Still, I couldn’t help note the significance of their placement, next to the installation Celestial Bodies, which I had not yet seen.
Entering Jonathan Kaiser’s Celestial Bodies I felt immediately afraid. An eerie air filled the darkened room as I entered an empty children’s bedroom. Beside the main room, pajamas hang in an illuminated closet. The beds are empty, though one seems somewhat inflated, held down to the ground by a set of children’s storybooks. I cannot help but connect those stories to the dreams that have apparently given the missing children flight. Or perhaps nightmares. Though the room is devoid of people, a presence looms to the left. It is the giant head of a bison, horns bared, black as the paper-flowers that compose it’s ambiguous body, receding into curtain and shadow. I could not help but be terrified of the monster, nor could I stop staring at it. Though it stands adorned with brightly colored flowers, somehow made beautiful by the young minds imagining it, it broods still and black as oil. To me, the beast was encroaching upon the innocence and optimism of Bugs Bunny next door. He was coming to tear up the sketches of Escher and mar the landscapes of the Group of Seven below. It was as if we, dreamers of a bright future and idealized past, were the missing children in this bedroom, facing a nightmare in the midst of of our dreams.
One floor up, Edward Burtynsky takes that nightmare on in large scale. Oil, like all Burtynsky work I’ve seen, somehow blows up industrialization to the scale of beauty, wonder and even abstraction. As we see these new landscapes from his perspective, we are forced to question the world we have made, and whether it can be unmade or remade at this point. I cannot say I felt hopeful at the end of Oil, and I’d be surprised if I was supposed to.
In the “Afterword” Burtynsky has written for the exhibit, he tells of the sense of wonder and awe that drew him to these “manufactured landscapes” when he began photographing large scale industrialization. Over his twelve years living with oil as subject matter, his wonder began to char and flake into ash. HIs personal punctuation next to “progress”, once perhaps an exclamation point, now seems at best a question mark.
This mirrors my own relationship to technology. I consider myself a “gadget loving luddite” because on the one hand I love the MacBook Pro I’m typing this on. I love that I can get internet in the downtown core and carry over a thousand songs in my pocket. I love that I can capture images on digital film and add a virtual symphony to the skeleton of my songs with the click and drag of a button. Yet, as I have aged, my love affair with technology has soured. It has ceased to be messianic. It has begun, at times, to be invasive. I’d rather not be “always on”, because some days, well … I’m off. I want private spaces and moments kept sacred in packets of time. I want face to face relationships and for my imagination to arrive at point B in tact. I fear these things are being extracted from me like oil from the tar sands. I feel, sometimes, like I myself am becoming a manufactured landscape. I feel, sometimes, I have little choice in the matter.
Perhaps there is more hope to be found here than I’ve yet discovered, because the fulness of one’s glass is all about perspective. Perhaps, as was suggested at the beginning of my AGA journey, a frame has everything to do with the landscape one views. Perhaps I need to return to these galleries, this time descending from the top floor to the bottom. For now, from idealized landscapes to those manufactured, today’s trek to the AGA, itself a marvel of innovation, has got me asking deep in my spirit that recurring question; Is this progress?
Read more about the current AGA exhibits here.
Tags: aga, Art Gallery of Alberta, canadian art, edward burtynksy, gallery, group of seven, is this progress?, jonathan kaiser, mc escher, piranesi's prisons, review, Technology
Posted in Art Shows, Is this progress?, Reviews | Comments Off
Sep
20
Good Christian Books for Christian Artists.
Blogger Ben Guthrie compiles a good starter list of books for Christian artists here. I have read three of his five suggestions, and would highly recommend all that I have read (Walking on Water, Scribbling in the Sand and For The Beauty of The Church).
The nice thing about Ben Guthrie’s list is that he gives a short, concise summary of what the book is about and why we would want to read it. I appreciate the time taken to do that, and look forward to getting into the other two books on this list.
Read Ben Guthrie’s list here.
Visit Ben Guthrie’s own blog here
Tags: art and faith, book list
Posted in Book Reviews, Resources, Writing | 3 Comments »
Jun
14
This year, more than one person took the time to capture Bridge Songs on film on June 5th. I’m glad they did, because it was a wonder-full night we want to remember for a long time. And for those of you who weren’t able to make it out, these images give a glimpse into “the sound (and sight) of glory”.
This first batch of images was captured by Susan Wilde, with post-processing by our own Jennifer Wilde. They’re simply lovely.
http://wildelifephotography.com/Events/Bridge-Songs-Faerie/
Tags: Bridge Songs, Bridge Songs: Faerie, event, performance, photos
Posted in Alberta Avenue, Art, Art Shows, Bridge Songs: Faerie, Concert Reviews, Event Reviews, Galleries, Photography | Comments Off
Mar
25
Posted in Alberta Avenue, Art, Art Shows, Events | Comments Off
Feb
19
I’ve been to the new Art Gallery of Alberta, and I have not been disappointed. But how to sum up the experience? I could shout at you to simply GO! My descriptions will, I fear, make it smaller and not larger in your mind. There is so much lost between words. There is so much my soul saw that speech cannot satisfy. I could tell you about each exhibit and what I learned there and how each has inspired me. Perhaps one day I will. But for today, what seems right is to “criticize by creating”, as Michelangelo has entreated. I will respond to art with art. My own poem. My son’s drawing. My daughter’s photograph. For what is a gallery if not a place that inspires more creation, pouring forth beyond it’s own walls into the waiting world?
TO SAY I WAS THERE
to say I was there
climbing moonlight stairs
blue illumination of
name after name
builders and blocks
delighted by details
My son Jack's drawing of the Art Gallery of Alberta (click to view full size)
to say I was there
stealing the children from school
playing hookey and playing
ascending secret stairs in long lines
all of us waiting as
years’ worth of waiting boil down to
one more line
all of us waiting
as young as my two children
mouths and eyes agape,
looking up
taking this in for the very first time
seeing
My daughter and I attempt a Karsh potrait
this new thing that will be that old thing
this one moment that will settle back into flat timelines
this loud and boisterous “yop!” waiting to fade
and echo
and fade
but not today
not yet today
to say I was there today
somehow different than tomorrow will be
somehow other than yesterday was
today was
carbonated anticipation
and we all drank deep
to say I was there
beneath the borealis
swooping and diving like a whooping crane
a ski slope past gliding through present
on towards future
we were
in the belly of a burgeoning behemoth
in the laugh of a generous giant
in the glimmer of a city’s hopeful eyes
widening
reflecting on glass
held up on steel
skyward
reaching
to say I was there
and it was different than I thought
and it is really something
and I can keep the memory
a gift
Tags: Art Gallery of Alberta, Poetry
Posted in Art, Art Shows, Creativity & Inspiration, Event Reviews, Friday Feature, Poetry | 7 Comments »
Feb
2
Really? That was Avatar?
This deflated statement is the best summation I can offer the time I spent at the movies on Friday night. It’s an odd statement to make, because it’s official now. Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time. Just this morning I found out it’s been nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. All of this considered, I figured this was a movie I should see. After seeing it however, I’m the one who feels like the alien. In a world where Avatar was king, I did not like Avatar.
I wish I could say I did like Avatar. I wish I could say I was transported for nearly three hours to a magical world and reminded of the transformative alchemy of cinema. I wish I could say I became someone inside of that world, like Jake Sully himself, pulled for a time into another realty. I wish, at least, I could say the visuals were the most stunning I’d ever seen. I wish, at least, I could concur that this is the reason 3D movies are worth it. But I cannot. The visuals were indeed impressive (but not to my mind revolutionary), yet the movie felt so thin and translucent to me. For over half the film I felt like I was watching a computer animated film, which I was. For a great portion of that time, I felt like I was watching someone play a video game. But I wasn’t supposed to feel that way, was I? It was like watching a magic show from backstage and knowing full well that it’s all a trick. The dialogue was, literally, laugh out loud awful at points. Lines like “shut your pie hole” kept popping up. I was glad for the comic relief, but I don’t think it was intentional. Characters were one-dimensional with predictable story arcs you could decifer the moment they appeared. The political message was so heavy it crushed the films’ joyous and playful moments. And it’s not even a message I disagree with. Worse than all this, there is actually an unobtainable natural resource that causes great conflict and it is called, really, Unobtainium. How does something like that make it into the final draft of a film this big?
What this movie did teach me is that story is king and that there is a deeper beauty that I long for.
I love story. I believe we all love story. I would rather listen to Stuart McLean of The Vinyl Cafè tell me stories for three hours with not a single projected image than gorge myself on vapid visuals, as beautiful as they may sometimes be. I think, for me, the issue here is that I felt like I had no reason to see beauty in the world of Pandora (the world Avatar takes place in) other than the fact that it is physically impressive. But I am not moved by topography alone. All colors are bright. Really bright. Heck, almost everything even glows in the dark! But you know, the old apple tree in my backyard is more beautiful to me because there is a little swing hanging from its branch and every year my kids spend hours beneath its shepherding shade. That tree has taken on meaning for me. I possesses a deeper beauty. That is a true gift. A beauty beneath the beauty. I didn’t sense that in Avatar, and I wish I had.
Reading Jeffrey Overstreet’s excellent review of Avatar, I was reminded that in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, we don’t get an entirely new world. We get New Zealand, with alterations and enhancements here and there, but essentially, those forests and hills exist. While Overstreet makes the case that Cameron has to work a bit harder, creating a world from scratch, I’m not sure I agree. Through nothing but the power of story, Peter Jackson reclaimed the natural landscapes of New Zealand for the world of Faerie. They became someplace magical because of the deeper beauty behind each location. Because we care about Frodo and Sam and the ring, we care about those forests, too. We cared about them for decades before we got to see them. Even if they don’t glow in the dark.
To me, Avatar’s world is too flashy to be, in any sense, real. Even fantasy needs the weight of reality to some extent. In reality, we notice beauty because it stands out. A flower is such a humble thing, there in the bushes waiting quietly to be discovered by our gaze. Every plant and animal begs for our attention loudly in Pandora, but it is a desperate beauty, like a 60 year old lonely bleach blonde buried beneath blush and concealer. The true beauties of this or any other world do not need their makeup.
I realize that in all of this personal preferences come into play, too. I personally did not like the look of Pandora. I found the characters somehow ugly and I wondered why no creature has any fur. A small thing I know, but everything looks like it’s made of wet leather. I enjoyed the phosphorescent night time jungle, but other than that I personally wouldn’t care to spend much time in Pandora. On the contrary, many people did find it breathtakingly beautiful. Cameron has struck a chord, and that’s fair. I can certainly appreciate the effort that went into designing the world and making it come to life. There is a lot of hard work on screen and that deserves respect. It’s certainly not that Cameron has done a terrible job here. The movie did not feel nearly 3 hours long. It breezed by. I was entertained overall and I do not regret going. It was pure movie escapism and that’s OK. It just wasn’t movie magic, as I’d hoped it might be. As it so easily could have been.
For all the glowing forests of Pandora, I’d trade 30 seconds of Carl Fredrickson’s balloon-bouyant dreaming in Up.
Here’s to more of that deeper beauty at the movies this year.
Tags: Avatar, Faerie, film review, James Cameron, Up
Posted in Art, Bridge Songs: Faerie, Film, Movie Reviews | 3 Comments »
