For my fourth event, I decided to attend Judith Hopf’s
gallery at the Hammer Museum. If I am
being totally honest, I am not very experienced in observing, analyzing, or
interpreting artwork. So naturally, I was
pretty intimidated when I entered into Hopf’s gallery. She set up her artwork throughout an all-white
room. At first, I was not sure how I was
supposed to navigate through the space, or interact with the pieces. To me, it seemed disjointed – with pieces
sitting here and there, a short brick wall built down the middle that separated
the room into two sides, as well as ropes hanging from the ceiling and poking
up from the ground. My first instinct
was to watch the film on the television screen that was mounted on one of the
walls, hoping that it would provide some sort of answer to what this exhibit
was about. However, the film played on
the screen just made me more confused – because I did not see how dancing
mummies could relate to the rest of the items in the space.
As I started to settle in, I began to realize that perhaps
Hopf wanted to evoke this sort of confusion and sense of ridiculousness with her
artwork. I first noticed it with the
ropes hanging from the ceiling and coming out of the floor. They seemed very
out of place – but this was a museum, so I felt it was safe to assume that everything
in that room was there for a reason. I feel
that she put those ropes there to make viewers uncomfortable at first, and then
force themselves to ask why their immediate response was that they didn’t belong. I felt that this work especially played into what
our society has deemed to be “normal,” and I think this tied in nicely with work
done by other artists we have discussed throughout this quarter.
I was also intrigued by the other pieces in the room, mostly
constructed of red brick. These pieces
were especially interesting because I had never seen brick configured in such
ways – sculpted into a ball shape, as well as a figure that mimicked a
child. There were also pictures of
laptops on the walls that had been given human features. The use of anthropomorphism in both the brick
pieces as well as the artwork on the walls tied into the topic of technology and
art we have been discussing in this course.
I feel that Hopf was intentionally giving these inanimate objects human
like qualities to highlight how much technology has taken over our lives. I also liked a quote from the pamphlet I received
from her exhibit explaining her motives behind it. It said, “By animating the
inanimate, [Hopf] imbues it with the potential for purpose and agency.” I thought this was really cool because she
uses a medium like brick to sculpt pieces that people normally don’t think
could be made out of brick. I think Hopf’s
ability to bend the rules and push the limits of what society believes is
normal and appropriate is very noteworthy, and although hesitant at first, I really
enjoyed her exhibit.
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