First Hand Feedback

    After class on Thursday, I decided to visit the AIC. To my suprise, I found that the Stone gallery exhibiton was taken down, so I went to the second floor of the Morden Wing.  I chose two paintings, in front of which I each stood for a while to try to catch other visitors' comment or reaction to the artwork. While pretending to study the art work, I had more of my attention on the people around me.
    The first painting is "1951-52, 1951-52" by Clyfford Still from1950s, exhibited in the Karla Scherer Gallery . It is an Abstract Expressionism Field painting. "I do not over simplify, instead I reveal the complex" was one of the sentences among what were written in the label beside the painting. On the appearance, It is basically just a really huge black painting with much texture on the surface of the canvas.
    Here are some of the reactions I came across:
    "Amazing, absolutely amazing!" shouted out by a young man while smiling at his lady company. Then he quickly turned away from the work, and both of them had some giggles.
     Two man came in front of the piece. After looking at it for about half a minute, one turned his back at the painting and towords another piece on the wall beside. The other one looked at it a little longer. Shaking his head he exchanged few words with his friend. The former men looked back at the black painting again and shaked his head too.
    Some other people came to the paining without saying a word except a laughing sound.

    There were only two women seemed to really interested in the work, among all fifteen minutes I stood there. One of them was doing the majority of talking as if she was explaning the work to the other person. I was very suspicious of whether the former women had been teaching in SAIC.
    The other painting I chose is from Mark Rothko called Untitled (Purple, White, and Red) in 1953. I heard comments like "Ennn...I don't understand this thing right here." "Boring! Hehe..." "It's just amazing...!"
    Occasionly I saw some people go to the labels. One totally yarned while he was reading. There were a group of high school looking girls appeared really excited to see the artwork. However, one was expressing her thoughts after they finised the exhibition room. "There are some stuff to see and it was really cool! I just don't see paying handreds for it though" she said.
    After staying in the exhibition room for about half a hour, I thought I got a pretty good view of what the general public feel about even just those two morden paintings --most of them felt pretty disconnected. I just wonder if that is how the public still feel about artwork from the morden art era, how much different should we expect them to feel about the contemporary art now in general?