Shrem Museum Response

For my museum response, I visited Shrem Museum. The first thing that catches my attention are Robert Arneson’s toilets. The toilets look old and disgusting, but what is most disturbing about them is that the some of the toilets included random body parts. For instances, there were lips on the top of one toilet. Wayne Thiebaud paintings featured everyday scenes. His food services included pieces titles (Double Decker, BBQ’d Chickens, Cup of Coffee, Cottage Cheese Salad). He also had a beautiful landscape painting called Orange Grove. I enjoyed his work because it is simple and calming. His pieces are very realistic, ad I wonder if I draws still life. My favorite pieces were by an artist named Daniel Shapiro. His pieces were dark, textured
paintings. While taking a close look at the paintings, I realized that the painting was a collage. From a further distance, the colors and textures make an elegant, cohesive picture. I tried to figure out how Shapiro made the textures. It looks like the paintings included crumbled paper, fabric, clothing, and a heel of a shoe. All of these items were painted over in black, white, and metallic gold. Unless you were looking closely at the painting, these items were almost unrecognizable from the background. I liked this painting because it reminded me of a collage assignment that I had in my painting class last year. My collage was a hot, manic mess. I had feathers, chains, puzzle pieces, and buttons. After visiting Shrem, I realized that I was focused on gathering interesting, distinctive objects to tell a story in my collage. However, I should have viewed the assignment more like a painting, and making a more cohesive piece.