"What is it that makes us human?"

Walking into my first high school Humanities class, Ms. Cornelius started the year with what I know now is a teaching strategy known as an essential question, "What is it that makes us human?"  Students began contributing answers about being mammals, about developing civilizations, working in groups and so on.  Her simple answer was, "That which makes us human is our ability to create beauty."  She continued to say that the Humanities are the study of all that is beautiful humans have created.  The study of the enduring literature, art, philosophy, and music that elevates the human spirit.

So began my love affair with the humanities.  I've been trying to answer that essential question ever since.  As an undergrad. student at CSU Chico, I continued this exploration.  Although a liberal studies major, humanities was my area of emphasis.  My favorite classes were centered on religion, art history, philosophy and even music appreciation.    

My youth was a time of exploration, grand ideas, optimism, and ever expanding idealism.  Every time I go into a museum now, at the ripe age of fifty plus, those ideals rise to the surface.  I know when it seems that people are at their worst, sauntering through works of art reminds me that people are capable of creating incredible beauty, of rising above the trivial, of going beyond the pettiness and avarice.

Recently, I watched a Netflix show entitled "Nannette", a stand-up show by Tasmanian Hannah Gadsby.  Among her many excellent and thought provoking points, she lambastes the art world for it's continuously misogynistic focus on straight white dead guys and nude women.  She brings up Picasso and his misogyny as an example of the art world turning a blind eye to the deplorable treatment of women in the art world.  "Picasso is sold to us as this passionate, virile, tormented genius man ballsack, right?  But he did suffer a mental illness….the mental illness of misogyny."  This is in reference to Picasso as a 45 year old married man seducing a 17 year old girl and the art world looking the other way as it was a different time and he was a tortured genius.  Hannah Gadsby does not let him off the hook, nor should she!  

She also points out the staggering number of female nudes painted by men in museums even compared to the number of female artists represented.  She goes on to point out, although Picasso is one of the artists credited as introducing cubism, in her view cubism was meant to provide the viewer multiple perspectives of the same thing.  This does not succeed because the artist Picasso can only provides his view, his perspective.  He cannot represent the lens of those under represented in the art world.  When continuously forced to revere the 'mastery' of straight white men, even when the work or the artist is not only dismissive but violent and abusive to women, this reverence rarely leaves room for the alternative voice.  (As an aside, if you have not seen this special, do so ASAP!)  

Why bring this up now, when clearly my post is to exalt the beauty of life.  Mainly to remind our gentle readers that although we can agree on some universal standards of what makes a piece of art beautiful, there is a high degree of subjectivity and historically we have only elevated a small portion of the cannon of work in the humanities.  

I define beauty by works that move me emotionally, that stimulate my senses and elevates my soul.  With this in mind, gentle reader, let us stroll through some of my more memorable moments from these past few months fulfilling my addiction for the humanities, helping in my search for what makes us human.    

April at the SFMOMA (my favorite museum):

A rainy day at the SFMOMA - absolutely love the living wall and the sculptures on every deck. 

Awesome, creepy and beautiful.  

Totally feeling like a 1950's creature feature.  

Sol LeWitt is always a crowd pleaser at the SFMOMA.  

Kara Holthe, a colleague that always brings me joy, joined me for one of my many trips through the MOMA.  

An interesting disorienting few minutes in this darkened room. 

Twins in a photo display, although photographed long before, this photo reminds me of the twins in the  Shining.  

This photo does not really convey the size of this painting.  

Last Friday (7/6), my good friend Eyan and I wandered the new exhibit at the SFMOMA, the Renee Magritte show.  Over 70 works of art.  Exhausting to say the least, but a wonderful retrospective of his post World War II works.

Hannah Gadsby (yes, gentle reader, again with the Tasmanian lesbian), speaks about comedy being the creation of tension by the comedian leading up to the punch line.  She discusses it in terms of why it is a destructive and abusive relationship between comedian and audience (see the show if you want more on that one).

In the art world, Magritte does a similar thing.  He juxtaposes incongruent items to create tension for the on-looker.  Sometimes innocuous items are oversized or placed next to very different seemingly mismatched items.  The on-looker experiences tension, and yet she/he seems almost to be in on the joke, as if anticipating a punchline.

Many of his paintings explore this interplay of scenic landscape and a canvas,  almost as if the canvas were a window.  In this one the canvas is at once a window and yet reflecting the light from the fire...tricky Renee, very tricky.  

This image was very disturbing to me.  Although this was  painted many years ago, in light of our current American climate, I found this to unsettle me.  

Surrealism at its best.  

Can anyone look at a bowler hat and not think of Magritte.?  I believe this was intended to be a self portrait.  

This is a great example of this pairing of objects to create tension for the on-looker.   

This is difficult to see in the screen shot, but I love the colors of the mountain, somewhat reminiscent of Maxfield Parrish.   I also love the morphing of the mountains with the eagle.

My love of museums is almost eclipsed by my love of gallery shows.  I've got way too much art to display properly in our tiny house, and yet I still attend gallery shows and buy pieces.  In Oakland, finding art by our communities often under represented in the art world is not a hard task.  

I often attend gallery shows at Faultline Art Space, the artist collective of which Yosiell is once again a part.  

"Pandora's Box" by Raul D'Mauries.  The details of the evils released into the world are amazing. 

Felicia Ann from Faultline.

A chalk drawing on Felicia's chalkboard at the studio- the pastel colors are intriguing to me.  

One of Bud Snow's masks from her solo show in march.   This piece brings me a sense of nostalgia as she used a shit ton of pipe cleaners for this, and my early years as a camp counselor were spent creating many pipe cleaner crafts.

The size of this piece is lost in the photo.  An awesome piece.  

Let us not fall into the trap of thinking that my tastes run purely to the high brow, the thought provoking, and the sophisticated.  It takes all of my will power to pass the world's largest ball of string or a good alien museum when traveling anywhere.  I will pay the five dollars to enter odd and off the beaten track museums and attractions.  These are definitely not on the Ms. Cornelius Humanities 101 syllabus but every chef will tell you nothing beats a good hot dog on occasion.  

I've been to the Museum of Death, several Museums of Oddities, Foster's Bighorn taxidermy bar/restaurant (largest private collection of taxidermied animals in the world right in Rio Vista, California - interesting side note, Rusty's cousin is or has been the Sherriff in Rio Vista), and countless others.  

My most recent foray into the strange and unusual was at the Bearded Lady's Mystic Museum in Los Angeles.  The store part of their shop carries Yosiell's products so we had to stop by and of course tour the museum, especially for the historical talking boards displayed (commonly known as Ouija Boards).  

Hello Lady Leona...I'm not sure what a radio mind is but I must have this poster one day! 

In front of some beautiful historical talking boards, many of them Ouija, but other brands as well.  

This one is my favorite, it's from 1940, and the illustrations are just amazing. 

A Victorian ghost hunting kit!  Yes please!

The spirits were kind to me on this day! 

Well, gentle readers, I've enjoyed reliving some of the reasons that I enjoy the humanities.  If ever you find yourself doubting that there is beauty in the world, the way I have lately in our United States climate, try traipsing through a museum, or better yet, pop into a gallery and linger as the concert violinist in the subway station plays a concerto.  It will remind you that there is something more grand than our concerns at play, we can find beauty everywhere, things that will touch our souls, cause us to think, or just to laugh.  Very refreshing.