[Reading reflection to “Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.”]

Holy cheeseballs did I love this reading. I had no idea who Robert Irwin was (which I very much do now) or what he had done.

I am so utterly impressed by his artistry and the thought behind everything he did. The bowing of the canvases for the dots, the material experimentation for the discs, the “un-presence” he achieved with the columns (and then lost), the sheer mindfulness of what most people don’t think about twice. The sheer determination of spending YEARS researching and iterating towards something that he sometimes wouldn’t even show!
It saddens me because I have before been one of those people that questions art at the museum (especially modern and contemporary art) because I don’t know any of this backstory. So to me, I’m left with this pebble in my shoe about the fact that there’s so much to know about artists and their processes that we dismiss or don’t even know, that would in turn make their art so much richer for us.

I also really enjoyed, towards the end, the recognition that art and science can be one. And more importantly, can feed off each other! The incessant need of this world to divide and categorize if feel hinders more than it helps. I love collaboration, and I’m a firm believer that two heads think better than one.
the possibility of bringing in several POVs into something, influenced in turn by their nature/nurture situations seems to me that would only enrich whatever you’re working on, instead of narrowing it to something with no depth.

I can’t think of an artists better suited/related for this class than Robert Irwin. His focus on perception and experience vs the actual lines or paintings is enthralling. Still, I think his way of thinking is his greatest piece of art.

In a nutshell, I’m now an Irwin convert.