Week 2 Blog Post

According to Stephen Greenblatt’s article, “Resonance and Wonder,” we interpret history, just as we interpret works of art. The social practices that we study aren’t immediately accessible to us. We read about them. And their relevance to the present are not static either; the connection between the circumstances in which the text was written and our own are dynamic, rendering the idea of a “correct” or “valid” interpretation meaningless. Therefore, the key to interpreting historical texts or art is to contextualize the issue of interest, or more specifically, to make cultural connections at a given moment in both its history and our own.

Greenblatt argues that it is this contextualization of objects that leads to resonance, or the ability of an object to evoke cultural connections in the viewer. In order to contextualize displayed objects in museums, Greenblatt suggests that museums be more willing to get in touch with “aesthetic openness,” that is, share with the public details that show the object’s fragility – its wear and tear and state of imperfection that give insight into the circumstances in which the object came about.

Greenblatt’s idea of “aesthetic openness” reminded me of an installation that I saw last winter at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) called “Home within Home within Home within Home within Home” by Do Ho Suh. It’s a life-size, fabric installation of the house where Doh lived when he was studying art in Providence, Rhode Island. By meticulously measuring every inch of the apartment where he was residing and making a precise and detailed cast of it out of fabric, the artist defined a “home” as one’s intimate, clothing(skin)-like space. The installation includes not so perfect hand-stitched door-knobs, crooked etches of Doh’s and his American neighbors’ names on the mail box, cracks in the windows and wear and tear of the Victorian facade – details that seem to reach out and pull the viewer into not only the embedded message or theme of the object but also the artist’s surrounding.

2 thoughts on “Week 2 Blog Post”

  1. I really like how you connected the article to your own experience at LACMA. I think it is really cool how the artists really had to look inch by inch at Suh’s home in order to truly create a homelike environment. This is porbably also working to creating resonance with the viewer and hence wonder, something a good piece of art or art exhibit should have.

  2. Your definition of Greenblatt’s “aesthetic openness” reminds me of the approach conservators take to the restoration of works. This is especially true with ceramics. If part of the ceramic is broken/ missing conservators will fill it with a plaster material that is slightly off color from the body of the original ceramic. The intent is to be honest with the viewer as to what is original and what is a recent addition. The technique is more for honesty but it also shows the literal fragility of the work.

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