The Postal Museum

I had no intention of visiting the Postal Museum at Washington DC. It sounded boring, and I was never interested in stamp collection. It's likely to appeal to only those who collect stamps, and I don't have enough background understanding of stamp collection to be able to appreciate those little pieces of paper. However, I found myself dropping into the Postal Museum one day, simply to get away from the 38 degree heat. I was at the Union Station to purchase my train ticket to New York, and also to take a look at the architectural features of the train station. Bored with just the shops, I left the station to see if there're any interesting sights around, and the only one I could find around the corner is the Postal Museum. Oh well, it's free (one of the Smithsonian institutions) and it's cooler than outside.

What I thought was a 20-minute respite from the heat turned out to be a 2-hour fascination with new discoveries. Stamps could tell so much. Other than the usual display of precious stamps (interesting that they have higher value if they are mistakes in printing, or they have not been used before), the museum has cleverly used stamps and the postal service as an underlying theme to talk and make commentaries about wars (poignant letters from soldiers in the field), innovation and invention (mass production of envelopes), frauds (email bank transfers) etc. I also learned that the pony express (as romanticised in the cowboy movies) lasted only 2 years; it was quickly replaced by the invention of the telegraph.

In the end, I realise that it's all about telling stories, the perennial links that tie human beings to one another. The form may be different, the environment on opposite sides of the world, the era several generations away, but the fundamental humanity in us is all about love, family and friendship.

Big Is Better

Big is impact. Large installations are like buildings. It's difficult to ignore their presence; they just intrude into your physical space and force you to pay attention. You are not allowed to remain neutral and not feel anything. You just have to go WOW!

At the P.S.1 Museum in New York, an installation is being set up, so huge that it occupies the whole courtyard space. The place is very busy, full of sweaty workmen, carpenters with their tools and technicians poring over blueprints. It's just like a construction site. Watching a works-in-progress has its intrigue. How will the final piece look like? What is the artist trying to say? Are there more pieces to come? Are the parts built on site, or they pre-fabricated elsewhere? What are the materials being used? How does the artist decide on what materials to use? How long will the installation stay on site?

Across in the heart of Manhattan, in what is known as the English Channel at the Rockefeller Center, a 6-storey installation called What My Father Gave Me (appropriately named as Father's Day is round the corner) has been set up. It is assembled from one million small pieces of stainless steel toy parts, put together like Lego pieces. It is based on an old-fashioned toy that no longer exists. The artist Chris Burden has to commission a factory to manufacture the components. Although the installation is tall, it is dwarfed by the buildings at the Rockefeller Center, and because it is made of metal sticks, it does not feel solid and imposing. I kind of like it. It fits quite naturally into the environment. I suspect most of the tourists are not even aware that it is a temporary work of art that will come down after some time.

Am I Seeing Too Much?

I see so many possibilities in art expressions that I'm beginning to see art everywhere I go. The interesting configuration of the two bicycles (or shall I say one-and-a-half?) stacked vertically against the lamp-post caused me to do a double take and to wonder if this is just someone's practical way of parking his bike. Or is it an art installation placed there on purpose? After all, this lamp-post is just along the walkway outside the New Museum. Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? What do you think?

I have an idea. If I'm an artist with the means, I would choose a road (in China?) with a row of lamp-posts and put up a series of bicycles, stacked in different configuration of completeness or in parts. Then I can spin a story of how I want to comment against the environment assault on fossil fuel and say that I want people to go back to the good old bikes. Deep, eh?

In Glory of the Living

I have not met JP since after Sec 4. She now works in the World Bank and calls Washington DC her home. Through just sheer coincidence, I happened to mention my trip to US to a mutual friend, WH, who suggested that I might be able to get in touch with JP. Through the power of email, here I am today, at the World Bank having lunch with JP. She looks exactly the same as I remember her during our school days, perhaps with more white hair, (and a PhD to boot) but same hairstyle, and now doing work to help the African states. A further coincidence, JP had, 2 years ago, brought a group of African educators to Singapore, and arising from that trip, had edited a book on education with Prof L Tan and Prof Lee SK. Small world indeed. Of course, we caught up with news about our friends, who is doing what and where, who is married, not married or divorced, who has retired, and who is still in the grind and mill. We reminisced over old times as JP brought out her old photo album when I was at her home the day before.

JP hosted me to a lunch at the World Bank today and used the opportunity to fill me in on the functions of the World Bank. Quite proudly she highlighted this sculpture at the atrium, built to commemorate a World Bank project that successfully eradicated riverbank blindness caused by the tsetse fly. Many monuments are built in glory of the dead who gave up their lives in wars. We should have more monuments in glory of the living, those lives saved because of the good work done by people with the compassion and know-how to help their fellow beings.

Art from Art

I felt bad about intruding into this couple's private moment but I enjoyed watching how they were interacting with the installation art piece. In fact they were experimenting with different angles to capture an interesting photo image. I think this is where it's good for museums to allow people to take photos . It encourages interaction with the sculpture, and promotes engagement and involvement so that art is not just about passive viewing. The invitational environment provides warmth and positive feelings, almost like a day out in the park for children. Museums don't have to be art-farty stuff. Notice that the sculpture has evoked a different creative response from the audience. Art as a multplier!

1+1 = New

I love the way I've framed this photograph. In the background is, of course, Andy Warhol's pop-art picture of Mao Tse-tung. In the foreground is an installation by Shapiro. The way the 2 art pieces are placed in the MET by the curator, it looks like a red dancer paying homage to the Chairman. I can easily picture in my mind the red communistic ribbon-swishing girls singing and dancing in praise of their great Chairman. Notice also the shadow grid cast by the light through the window, the straight lines seem to play with Shapiro's Y-lines.

This is an interesting example to illustrate that sometimes, art is not just about the piece itself. The interplay and interraction of 2 seemingly unrelated art works within the space afforded gives rise to another dimension of experience. So just a small tip to museum-goers: create your own building blocks and achieve a new unit of experience.

Same Picture or Not?

These two paintings look similar, but they are works of art by two different artists, both famous. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), the paintings are hung side by side. The top picture is by Georges Braques (1882-1963) and the bottom by by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) . The artists were contemporaries and started what is known as the Cubism style of painting. Cubism made use of shifting viewpoints. For example, we can look at a table from different angles: from above, from below or from an oblique angle. Cubists attempted to capture this on the same flat canvas, which then made it difficult to distinguish objects from each other and from the space they take up. And yet, for this radical approach in representing 3D, which results in a very abstract painting, the subject matter of Cubists is usually conventional and drawn from the still life tradition.

Picasso apparently did his painting to complement Braques'.