Monday, October 1, 2007

DAIO-SIEUN LIM

Sieun Lim
Ms. Wieringa
Drawing
29 September 2007



So Simple, but So Strong

This is my favorite drawing entitled What happened to us? by a modern artist, Dan Perjovschi(Romanian, b. 1961). It was drawn on the museum wall by Perjovschi in 2007. This artwork just have two points of interest, the foreground and back ground. The foreground is composed of lots of scribbling drawings that look like done by a kid, and the background is just blank space which is the white wall in the museum. Although the drawing would look very messy, it also looks funny and interesting.

The drawing was just drawn only with a black permenant maker, and except the line and shape, there is no special elements of art like colors, space, texture, and value. However, despite of its simplicity, the drawing attracts its audience very strongly. If it were just a normal drawing on paper, it would not be well-known by many people as it is now. However, because of the artist's ability to use the space for his art, every single drawing on the wall can be found easily by visitors at the museum with its huge size. Not only the size, but also the strong ideas and messages from Perjovschi's work enchant its viewrs. Since he drew simply, it helps the audience to understand his points directly and makes them interesting with various issues from each drawing. In his artwork, Dan Perjovschi satirizes things that have happened and that are happening to the United States, so most pictures look sarcastic and fun although they are so simple. For example, there is a drawing that criticizes self-interest. It shows two smiling people hugging each other, and one of them put his hand in the other one’s pocket and tries to steal something from him. Another picture also shows prejudice of people. There are people having same bubbles above their heads, but only one person among them has a different shaped bubble as only his face is reddened. This shows how the society forces people to think in same way and isolate those who have different concepts. Lastly, there is a drawing of three cars that represents that the wealth of men is judged by the size of their cars and satirizes the materialism. Dan Perjovschi does not onlydeal with these topics, but also talks with various other topics and points out problems from them, such as environmental pollution, the Iraq war, isolation of arts from the public, nationalism, and so on. The stories in the drawing are still happening now, so it attracts its audience strongly because it is what is in the new now and makes them think carefully about those issues again.

I love this drawing byDan Perjovschi because his art style is similar to mine. When I work on my artwork, I am mostly concerned with how to communicate my idea and messages to the audience effectively through my art rather than how to use techniques well to make the subject more realistic. Although Dan’s simple drawing could be ignorant to some people, it successfully communicated his messages to the audience. He knows the way that makes his works more attractive and effective as my art teacher said," if he drew these pictures on a normal size paper like most artists do, his drawing would not be very great as it is now." The other reason I like his drawing is that the stories seem to happen in not only America but everyplace around me. I was really touched by the messages he gave. I hope this great work influences many people’s thoughts and leads them to make some changes for a better world.



Work Cited

Perjovschi, Dan. WHAT HAPPENED TO US?. 27 August 2007. Museum of Modern Art, New York.30 September2007. <http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=3956>.


4 comments:

SLW said...

I'm so glad you remembered seeing this at the MOMA. Do you think it would have caught your attention if you just saw it online? Or did seeing how big it was in the museum catch your attention?

Seo-Yoon Kim said...

When everyone including me choose a work of art done with colors and textures, she choose the art piece that is very interesting to me. At my first glance, it just looked like a cartoon. I, however, realized that it is modern art and has a meaning. I realized that I can see the certain period of time in history through the art piece as 'What Happen to us?'is saying about modern issues. Now I know the meaning of "Moma"(The Musium of Modern Art)

Ashley said...

I find this piece of art very interesting. I like how the artist uses his abilities satirically to point out real problems in the U.S.

cindy said...

Your piece is very interesting because it is very simple but it has hidden meaning in it. I like how they represent what they want to say by drawing.