I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with art. On one hand, I’ve always been an “artsy kid,” experimenting with drawing, music, and many other mediums. They are forms of expression that often surpass words. But I’ve never been a huge fan of museums. Sure, I’ll walk around, quickly taking in exhibits that looks interesting, occasionally perusing several descriptions that happen to capture my short attention span. But there’s always been some key doubts lingering in my mind:

If this art piece wasn’t framed in an esteemed museum space, would anyone bat an eye? Conversely, if you took the haphazard craft project of any five year old and placed it in an established museum, would audiences still gawk, scrambling to find meaning in something that never was meaningful? This all reminds me of the old fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin, where the miller’s daughter is commanded to spin straw into gold, to make something valuable out of nothing. It feels like a great metaphor for glorified bullshitting, something I suspected lots of art was guilty of.

I’ve been trying to approach the many museums and forms of art in this program through new lenses, doing my best to resist the cynical, devil’s advocate in my brain. I’ll be honest, the results have been mixed. But I really appreciate our visit to the Biennale Museum of Contemporary Art. While I wasn’t able to appreciate all of the pieces, I did connect with quite a few of them. I loved the amount of intimate interaction with the artwork that was not only allowed, but encouraged.

I had so much fun weaving myself through this elaborate sculpture, exploring every nook and cranny from every angle. I’m very much used to art being behind glass or barrier, which I feel estranges the viewer from the work. Plus, I have a strange affinity for being places I’m not supposed to, which was oddly satisfied by the interactive nature of the piece.

This was a different kind of sculpture entirely, a large inflatable incorporating Renaissance paintings, puppets, and mazzocchio (geometric Florentine headwear). There was such a playful, inviting feel to it, and the square “hole” or arch in the middle was such a curious shape that I wanted to echo with my body. (By the way, thank you Carter for taking the picture!)

Although I’m still learning to appreciate all forms of art with patience and an informed mind, the visit to Biennale definitely deepened my understanding. Sometimes the physical structure may not look impressive at first glance. Maybe the design looks makeshift, or the materials mundane. But there is so much thought and meaning imbued within the creation. And that meaning multiplies exponentially as visitors encounter and interact with the art, each in his or her own way. The artists have made something out of nothing. They have spun straw into gold.

~ Karis Ho