Event 2: The Fowler Museum at UCLA

Me and Staff in "Making Strange"

"Making Strange"

On April 29^th, I went to the Fowler museum at UCLA. I had an economic class in the lower floor of this building before, but it is the first time I visit the museum. I visited the “Making Strange” exhibition, and I also visited “Singular Spaces” which are photographs on the wall. “Making Strange” gave me a very profound impression, and this exhibition actually shows a close relation between art and medical science. Besides, it certainly shows some “two cultures” ideas. A lot of knowledge I just learnt in Desma 9 class can be applied which makes me so excited.

Pill-fill

I saw a large number of art pieces in the exhibition, and most of them are mixture of some different materials and objects. It reminds me “two cultures” I learnt in class. Even though it is different from idea and definition I learnt for “two cultures”, it gives me some intuitions. If we put different materials and objects together, we can get some very artistic result, and I am really surprised the amazing combinations. For example, “Pill-fill” is a humanoid artwork, and it is made by pills, capsules, glass-nylon and zipper. In my personal point of view, it not only gives me intuition of “two cultures”, but also reminds me the close relation between art and medicine. The artist utilizes the pills and capsules to make this piece more artistic.  

Holdall

Shoeskin Hoop

There are another two examples which also gives me intuition of “two cultures”. They are “Shoeskin Hoop” and “Holdall”. “Shoeskin” is a nice and fashion dress which is made by shoelaces and shoe pad. I was totally shocked by the extremely creative thought. I thought there is no relationship between shoelaces and fashion dress, but the artist perfectly combines these two “cultures” together. “Holdall” uses very similar idea, and it is a big bag which is made by many different small bags. This kind of combination will flash our conservative mind, and it can give us a different perspective of beauty and art.

Just before I left, I saw an art piece which shows directly relationship between art and medical technology, and I also used this as an example on my week four post. This piece marks all the acupuncture point in Chinese on the left part, and it shows human’s muscle and veins on the right side. The perfect combination of art and medical technology really attracted me.

Visiting Fowler Museum is my recommendation for my classmates. You can really enjoy and learn a lot. By the way, it is free for everyone.

Work Cited:

 Sundaram, Vivan. "Making Strange." Fowler Museum at UCLA. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. <http://fowler.ucla.edu/exhibitions/making-strange-gagawaka-postmortem-vivan-sundaram>.