Cantor Observation

When first arriving on campus nearly 11 months ago, my interest was piqued by one attraction imparticular. This attraction was the Cantor Arts Center. What truly drew me in about this building was, at its core, what it represents. More important to me then was what was displayed inside the complex rather than the complex itself. I was dazzled by its various exhibits and was interested in the art that filled the rooms inside. Fast forward to Spring Quarter of my freshman year and I am put to the task of dissecting the Cantor and exploring it through the realm of the actual building structure. It is interesting to realize that even though this building houses hundreds if not thousands of exhibits and artifacts, it is an exhibit in its own right.
The beauty of this building is not to be understated by its contents contained inside, but rather it sets the stage for its contents to live up to its gorgeous and well thought out architecture. From its four ionic columns that stand on the building’s facade, to its complex indoor floor plan, this building is art in and of itself. This building is a major pillar on our wonderful campus and instrumental to our art department. The official name of the Cantor is entitled the “Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts”. It was formerly titled the Stanford University Museum of Art. First opening in 1894, the building in its current form consists of 130,000 square feet of space when taking into account the sculpture gardens that are placed on the museum's grounds. The building has had its fair share of mishaps in the past, and wasn’t always the building that you see today. First, starting in 1906, an earthquake damaged three-fourths of the original building beyond repair. The museum’s budget lessened and the museum was all but forgotten. The push for reconstruction didn’t occur until the 1950’s and over the next 24 years, an initiative was created to help develop the museum. This effort was halted by yet another earthquake that once again caused the museum to close in 1989. The Cantor Arts Center that stands today was architecturally spearheaded by the architectural firm “Ennead Architects” and more specifically Thomas Seligman. The renovations were major and the budget pushed past 36 million dollars. This renovation turned the building into a spectacle and something that has turned into a main attraction on campus. The renovations included a complete seismic of the building in its entirety. In addition to making the building more apt to withstand earthquakes, a new 42,000 square foot wing was added. The gardens were restored and made more grand than they were previously. New, more modern gardens were installed to place contemporary work. This cross of modern and original architecture is a theme throughout the building as the new wing added 12,000 square feet of availability for new works. When first walking into the Cantor, what stands out is its grandeur. The quite impressive lobby is definitely a highlight of the whole museum. The white mixed stone that adorns the room as well as its two-sided stairwell is not only eye-catching, but inviting. The lobby is massive, including high ceilings and a tradition arch leading straight ahead into the Stanford family room. If one continues forward, they would come upon the museum auditorium. The museum continues to the left with various different exhibitions. These exhibitions are housed in the Pigott Family Gallery. Through the hallway works of art are displayed in what is called the Meier Family Galleria. Continuing on you will see a classroom and a cafe to your right and stairs straight ahead. Upon taking a left you will venture into a hexagonal shaped room. This room is especially interesting because of its shape and has a mirror image of itself on the opposite side of the museum. In the left wing, this room is named the Susan and John Diekman Gallery. This gallery houses Auguste Rodin’s works. Traveling further, you will reach the left wing and more exhibits. Immediately you will find more Rodin work in a room that is called the Eugenie B. Taylor Gallery. African and specifically Egyptian art is showcased in this wing. Proceeding through these rooms will lead you back to the lobby which would be where you would have entered if you started at the left wing. The museum forms a circle upon itself in this fashion. Now, crossing the lobby, you will enter the right wing, which houses exhibits and also, as mentioned, another six-sided room. The room you occupy first is the J. Sanford Miller Family Gallery which is home to Asian ancient and religious works. This continues into more decorative Asian works in the Madeleine H. Russell Gallery. Turning to the left you enter the hexagonal shaped room located on the right wing. This room is entitled the Khoan & Michael Sullivan Gallery, and houses Asian jades and ceramics. Instead of this wing forming a circle, there are stairs located in the center of the room that take you to the second floor. Upon entering the second floor on the right wing you find yourself amidst works of art from the ancient Americas in a gallery titled the Carolyn Wiedemann Reller Gallery. Moving on, towards the front of the building, you will find yourself around Native American Art in the Rehmus Family Gallery. Taking a right and moving through the passage, you will see early European art from ancient Greece and Rome. Exiting this room will bring you to the Geballe Family balcony which overlooks the main lobby. This balcony presents a beautiful view of the lobby’s contents. To the left there is a small room that houses changing exhibits. Going around the balcony and to the right, you will find yourself in the Ruth Levison Halperin Gallery which also houses changing exhibitions. Moving forward you approach several contemporary art galleries, the first of which is located in the McMurtry Family Terrace. The hallway is entitled the H. L. Kwee Galleria and to the right you will find the Freidenrich Family Gallery. Taking a left just before the stairs puts you at in another hexagonal room, above the first one, which is called the Oshman Family Gallery. Straight ahead, in the next room, you will find works of art from early 20th century America and Europe in what is the Marie Stauffer Sigall Gallery. In the room to the left you will find more European and American artwork, but this time from the 19th century in the Robert Mondavi Family Gallery. Exiting this room will bring you back to the balcony overlooking the main lobby and completes the same circle as the first floor.
This journey through the museum would not be complete without venturing to the Cantor’s outdoor art collection. This outdoor collection is equally important to the museum’s structure as the artwork inside. These sculptures include more works by Auguste Rodin and is actually his biggest display outside of Paris. This Garden was dedicated to B. Gerald Cantor in 1985. The layout of the garden was designed by Robert Mittelstadt who was said to have drawn from the mystique of the Parisian gardens. In addition to the Auguste Rodin collection, there is also a Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden that contains forty wood and stone carvings. These carvings include people, animals and mythical creatures. The basis for this garden was to help display the culture’s creation stories as well as cultural traditions. This sculpture garden was designed by ten different artists all on-site in 1994. The outdoor area gives the Cantor a life outside of the normal structured realm which is the inside of a museum. This allows for more creativity to be created by an onlooker instead of being constrained to a particular space.The beautiful weather that we are so fortunate to have on campus also plays a role in why these gardens are so important. IT plays a role because it makes it more enticing to visit them and spend time with the art as you are also enjoying the day. The drastically huge issue of existentialism is accurately depicted through a medium that contains no words. This medium is Nathan Oliveira's Stage #2 with Bed. (cite) This dark yet warm, figureless yet inviting painting is accentuated by the light that protrudes from the almost closed doorway at the left of the painting. The Godlike view achieved by placing the scene upon a stage points to the undertone of addressing the question which becomes quite loud as one peers deeper and deeper into the image. It is thought provoking. It fuels the imagination in a way that the energy radiating from the work is that of importance. This importance points directly into an existential state thought that leapfrogs the mind into a place that is focused heavily on producing meaning. The thought provoking nature of this painting moves the viewer further down the rabbit hole that is pursuing the question, and allows us to continue the journey. This journey is an overarching theme that Nathan Oliveira continues through his art.
The nature in which thought is advanced through a painting is a peculiar idea that eludes most average onlookers. Another work of art that contributes to this idea that art can add to the human experience is Frederik Marinus’s “Tranquil Landscape with Women Washing by a Stream with Cattle and Sheep Resting”. At a quick glance, this work is strikingly dissimilar to Nathan Oliveira's “Stage #2 with Bed”, but with a careful eye and further analysis, this painting allows us to turn a new page in an effort to extend our understanding in what the question is and allows us to move further in our journey of finding a concrete answer to the most abstract of inquiries. This painting, although completed over 100 years prior to Oliveira's is moving and striking in a very similar way even though their content is completely different. This derives from aesthetic. This picture is beautiful and tranquil. The colors are soft and the setting is dreamy. To this point, maybe the answer to the question actually is aesthetics. Beauty, if you will. The answer could be enjoyment. As complex and developed as us humans believe ourselves to be, maybe our instinctual and primal desires of pleasure are the true driving force for anything that we seek to accomplish. And even moving further, past just plain aesthetic, maybe we seek to find things that move us, and that is the human experience, and the fact that we are
able to be moved by such things, or anything for that matter, contributes to us being thrusted into the human experience and the quest for knowledge. With all of this on the table, conclusions can be drawn. Proper aesthetics promote feeling. Feeling promotes the movement of feeling. The movement of feeling advances our path in life and thus a sense of meaning of arises. But is it really this simple? THrough this approach, you can deduce that life is actually meaningless and completely subjective towards each individual’s experience within the life and choices each and every person chooses to take. This could seem to many as taking the easy way out. If we just address the question as meaningless than we can discard the answer because the answer holds no value. We approach a point where very little, if anything has meaning, and all perceived meaning is created through society and subjective perception. But what if this isn't the case. The sheer fact that we cannot know the answer for sure no matter if the answers we find happen to ultimately be correct, we will never definitely know. Because of this, it is difficult to accept the answer of “everything lacks meaning” because there are so many other possibilities out there, and without the ability to confirm any of these ideas it is also impossible to stop searching for new and different answers as this is the plague of the human condition. The next work that I will introduce involves the human relationship in regards to each other.
This is another work by Nathan Oliveira and it includes a stage as well. However, instead of being figureless, there is a figure lying in the bed. This work is more somber and less aesthetically pleasing than the first two, even though there is a figure apparent in the scene. This gives rise to discussing the role that relationships play in the journey of life. As mentioned prior, a large part of this cascade involves the subjective experience, but with over 7 billion souls existing on earth, the subjective experience can be intervened with and changed by interactions with others. This labyrinth of communication changes people every day. In this image, the figure is seen to be alone and thus the mood somber. This implicates loneliness as undesirable even if that contradicts our journey to finding the ultimate answer of life. As we said before, subjectiveness and finding answers through oneself is the most pure and direct way to getting to the bottom of it all, yet we yearn to belong. We strive to be included. Why is this? In theory this would support the previously discussed idea of our primal instincts being the driving force of our life motivation. Even though love may seem divine, and might very well be, the cycle of life has been completed again and again for thousands if not millions of years. Born, reproduce, die, is a cycle that is based within the most basic foundation of
living organisms. Our challenge, as conscious beings, is to transcend these base thoughts in a way that moves toward the more complex and scattered, and in doing so we complicate the matter more. This complication may not be the positive result we like to think it to be, but also, it may be. The answer is unclear but is a detailed possibility nonetheless.