A Picture NOT Worth a Thousand Words?

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ said Napoleon Bonaparte.  Some famous pictures are also worth thousands of dollars.  Okay.  I understand that.  But can a mere scrawl be classified as a picture worth a thousand words and several thousand dollars?  Apparently it can.  A guy I don’t know said Abstract Art is a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered!

A painting by Barnett Newman

How I agree with this quote, on visiting one of New York’s exalted museums on Modern Art.  This is not to disparage the Whitney Museum of Art or MoMA or anyother. But seriously, it did feel at the end of my visit, that all Modern art and so called abstract art is a huge con.  A racket meant to deceive people into calling absolutely silly stuff they call‘Art’.  Art critics or artists may feel offended by an absolute layperson like me talking on a subject which I have no authority on.  But, let me give you examples and you might just agree.

In the museum I visited, exhibits included honestly- a graph paper drawn by pencil, a square, a few rectangles, just a plain colored canvas with a line across it, scrawls that a two year old might draw, some random squiggles in multiple colors or in one color, a few threads hung on a hanger, shoes hung outside a boxing ring, some scraps of colored paper on a wall, some twisted ropes in no particular shape and several such.  I can understand art in nature, in a leafy or in a bare tree, in water, in the sky, in living beings, in buildings, in objects.  But seriously, just lines in a commonplace graph?  Come on! And people pay millions for this!  Why, I almost regret paying the few dollars that I did to enter the museum!

Moreover, all these paintings are described in so many words.  A single rectangle might be described to have perfect symmetry (well isn’t that expected of a rectangle?) or if it is a trapezium, describe it as a rectangle with imperfect symmetry and then go on to call it Bold, Charming, Evocative, Reflective, Callous, Mystic, Timeless, Lyrical, Strong, Touching, Expressive, Deep, Raw, Powerful, Amazing, Rebellious, Anarchic, Idiosyncratic, Nihilistic, Avant-Garde, Surreal, Symbolic, Blunt, Imaginative. 

I would probably describe it as insipid, inane, silly, absolutely unimaginative, hollow, fake, is that art?, a scrawl, a line, trash!

A painting by Rothko that recently sold for $18 Million

Take this one exalted artist for example, Rothko who has several famous paintings to his name. Do gaze at the painting and see for yourself, what wordplay transforms the painting into!  ‘Rothko happened upon the use of symmetrical rectangular blocks of two to three opposing or contrasting, yet complementary, colors, in which, for example, "the rectangles sometimes seem barely to coalesce out of the ground, concentrations of its substance.’

When criticized about the lack of substance in these large paintings, Rothko retaliated, “I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however . . . is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command!”

Well, okay, if he and the art world insists.  Maybe one could stand infront of a gaudily painted wall and experience that instead of paying a million bucks for the same experience.  I would rather go anyday with a painting that has some real art in it instead of something that I can or a five year old can draw. I hope the Renaissance days return with more landscape paintings or still life paintings or portrait paintings (Realism and Impressionalism), less esoteric symbolism, and more substance instead of deceptive squiggles and scrawls described in flowery language and given a fancy name.  Let the picture be worth a thousand words rather than a thousand words that make the picture sell!

To Spend or Not to Spend

I recently read an article on Mukesh Ambani’s One Billion dollar splurge on his 27 storey home and some readers’ reproachful comments about him frittering away wealth instead of feeding 68 million kids for 20 full days! Mr Ambani is the fourth richest man in the world, has built a vast empire employing several thousand people and still people expect him to be charitable as well as though it is his responsibility to eliminate poverty in the world! Eliminating poverty is certainly not as simple as all the rich people in the world donating their wealth to all the poor. If they choose to be charitable, it certainly helps in some way, however that is not something that should be imposed on them and it certainly is unfair on them to be judged because they spend their money the way they like. And honestly, I wouldn’t even call living in a beautiful home a splurge (even though I found the Ambani mansion pretty ugly!) Everyone has that one dream of having a beautiful home and a comfortable one. Why then deny Mr Ambani that pleasure and insist he live in a 3 bedroom house just because the even wealthier Mr Warren Buffet does. Who is John Galt after all. (for those of who may recall Ayn Rand’s tome Atlas Shrugged)

Well, those were my views on this one rich man spending his money on his dream house. However, this article brought to my mind the other stuff the rich and famous buy and which I don’t approve of! I know, now I m being judgmental just after all those statements above about each to his own. . I completely endorse buying something that would lend value, a technologically advanced car with more features, a large home that’s in a prime location with the latest gadgetry and comforts, to some extent for creativity in outfits and accessories, but I fail to understand how people can actually pay the ostentatious amounts they do for objects that are as ephemeral as passing seasons and stuff that they may not use probably twice. My case in point is handbags

The Luxury bag market is a multi-billion dollar industry and luxury brands Hermes, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Chanel all jostle for space as new brands try to entice rich gals with their expensive goodies. Well, I was astonished that salaried people even bought these bags at all but apparently they do! Check out the prices of these bags below. Don’t be taken in by the simple design you have probably seen on the roadside purse shop as well! For starters this seemingly simple wallet from Hermes costs $2,600 or Rs 1,16,000.

Now if that ain’t too bad, how about a fancier and larger purse from Hermes for you? Well that costs $7,600 or Rs 3,40,000.

I continued this eye-popping exercise of checking the prices of these bags till I reached a magic figure of…. 1 Million Pounds or or $1.6 Million or Rs 7 Crores for the world’s most expensive bag!!!

Well if Mukesh Ambanis wife, Nita Ambani buys 600 of those bags, it would cost as much as her home would! I guess, the new home is a good bargain after all then!

The Big Apple: New York City

Every city in the world has a pulse of its own…a fast paced pulse like that of Mumbai or a slow languid pulse reminiscent of any smaller city in India such as Nagpur. It could be a pulse where u see money and opulence everywhere, like Dubai or yet another pulse, that of power, like that of New Delhi where the heart of politics can be felt. It could even have a pulse of heritage, which the great cities of Europe with all their works of Art and architecture revel in. There could also be a pulse which is cosmopolitan as compared one that is very regional like Chennai. Well, the New York City has this vibrant pulse to it…one driven by money from the Wall street, by the power that comes from the money besides its imposing sky scrapers, a pulse that is as heterogeneous as the mix of global cross cultures that inhabit it, a pulse that draws hordes of tourists and dreams from all over the world.

New York or the ‘Big Apple’ was always a city that I looked forward to seeing. After living virtually for several years with the characters of all the television serials, Friends, How I met your Mother, Sex and the City etc, apart from watching a string of Bollywood movies such as ‘Kal ho naa ho’, a movie called ‘New York’ itself etc, Well, I had to go see the place!

As I got out of the subway at the Penn Station, the neon lights of Times Square dazed me as did the sheer vibrancy of the place. The Desperate Housewives and other television stars winked tantalizingly at me from the massive lit up hoardings. Broadway musicals dotted the road and the huge swarm of tourists buzzed around happily in wonder. Everything wore a festive look including the NY Police Dept. and the Subway! It certainly was difficult to tear away from the place in the coming days. I have never seen as many tourists in one place as I did in the Times Square.

New York has a lot to offer in terms of tourism. We took this pass called the New York City Pass, which was quite cool. Most of the entry charges to various places, are indeed quite high (in the range of $20-$40 per head), because of why these passes help save atleast a bit. We had taken a 3 day pass that gave us admission to most places and a metro unlimited pass that allowed us to hop off and on any trains for that fixed cost for seven days…Well, for first timers, it would be helpful to check out all these offers on travel, and sight seeing before they venture out and pay individual destinations. There are options to travel by the metro, by the Grayline sight seeing buses and cabs. It was fun taking up the map of NY City and exploring all the various options.

Amongst the touristy buildings in NY, the Empire State Building is well known throughout the world, and has featured in several movies such as KingKong, Sleepless in Seattle and some older classics. The 86th floor observatory gives panoramic views of the entire New York City on a clear day and they say one can see as far as Massachusetts on an ultra clear day. It certainly is worth the wait of well over 2 hours, after being a part of the hordes of tourists, who throng the place from all parts of the globe. It was awesome to just look and look down below at all those tall buildings! The New York sky ride was also an interesting experience too in a 4D theatre and almost felt like we were actually in a helicopter seeing the city down below!

The other tall building which we saw by night was the Rockefeller center from the 68th floor observatory deck or the ‘Top of the Rock’ as it is called. The illuminated city of NY and the grand Empire State building were another visual treat from way up there.

Coming to the museums, the Madame Tussad’s Museum was a lot of fun, and let us hobnob with the celebrities around the world including our own Gandhiji and Amitabh Bacchan. The other interesting museum was the American Museum of Natural History where the dinosaur loving Ross Geller of ‘Friends’ worked for sometime and where the movie, ‘Night at the Museum’ was set. For Art lovers, the Metropolitan Museum of Art located on ‘Museum Mile’ near Central Park, is one of the world’s largest art galleries.

Another famous landmark, the Central Park is a vast expanse of greenery and beauty, and an oasis among the high rises. With artists sitting around the park, drawing caricatures and portraits for a small fee, horse drawn carriages with horsemen dressed in medieval attires, the Central Park is a wonderful picnic spot where one can sit back, relax and just chill out in the open. We also entertained ourselves at the Central Park Zoo where we unfortunately didn’t see Marty the Zebra or Alex the lion of ‘Madagascar’ though we did see the cute penguins!

Another really touristy thing that one can do, and we did, was to take the Circle Line Sightseeing cruise. This 2-3 hours twilight cruise, took us across the Manhattan shoreline on the Hudson river across the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty, showing us the high power Financial District in Manhattan, Chelsea, our home in New Jersey City :) that overlooks the Hudson etc etc in the daylight, twilight and dusk. We ended the tour with a bang as the Diwali firecrackers took off onto a spectacular show!

There are also interesting regional nooks in the city such as Little China, where the early mandarin population clustered around and where even all the sign boards are in Chinese! A romantic dinner in one of the quaint restaurants in Mulberry Street which is one of the dwindling lanes of Little Italy should certainly not be missed.

I guess, there is a lot lot more to be told and even more to be explored. But I guess, these are some of the things that I found quite interesting.

Apart from seeing the city, its living there that is an altogether a different experience. Cities like NY, Mumbai, cannot be really seen. They have to be experienced. Like I said at the start, it’s the pulse of the city that makes all the difference. Its not just tall buildings and neon lights that make the city’s heart beat but the power that is reflected in the great throng of ordinary and brilliant people who go about their work purposefully day after day.