The Gallery was a great experience; we were able to see the Angela Grauerholz exhibition as well as the infamous Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibition.
Angela Grauerholz's work is the main exhibition situated in the contemporary section of the NAG; we headed to it first to witness her various works. The first room is several groups of large scale photographs, all in black and white, some sepia-toned. The largest wall, and the one you see first when you enter the room, is occupied by a large group of portraits by Grauerholz. In the next room there is a number of multimedia work, including a huge projected sixteen-minute video by Grauerholz; there are also a number of books on display. The third room combines aspects from both previous rooms. Featured in the third room is one of Grauerholz's Sententia works, as well as a number of other photographs and her scan-o-gram work with burned books. The reaction to Grauerholz's work was mixed, and I am sure it will be the feature of many discussions in and out of class at SPAO this week.
Pop Life: Art in a Material World has definitely been the most hyped-up art exhibition of this past summer, and it lives up to expectations with a multitude of artists exhibited, different kinds of works, and the extent of work and dates it covers. The first room is an Andy Warhol room, full of his various works over years; it is a great introduction to the idea of Pop Art as Warhol is definitely the most well-known pop artist. Other artists featured in the exhibition include Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and Takashi Murakami. This exhibition is huge and covers a lot of art; it's is definitely worth a look if you haven't already made it out, especially since it will be moving on after September 19.
This past Friday was definitely a great start to the year and I look forward to future Fridays.
