MoMA: Disappearing Acts and City Dreams

Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts

In Nauman’s exhibition “Disappearing Acts”, he used many different mediums and objects to portray an intriguing idea of time and space. In the first picture above, he uses neon much like in his older popular neon works. To me, I can see a passage of time throughout the entire exhibition specific to this piece, I see the form and shape of the neon changing, drooping down as the progression goes on. In the second piece, there is a wire figure illuminated inside of the complex black shape. Two of the columns ore open so that the viewer can see a different perspective of the figure, but then in the far left column, it is black. This piece seems to be more focused on perspective and absence. When the viewer can no longer see the figure, it feels as though it has died, or left and never to be seen again.

City Dreams: Bodys Isek Kingelez

In Kingelez’s exhibition “City Dreams” he used cardboard, plastic and light to portray futuristic-seeming, three dimensional images of different cities around the world. The architecture that he has constructed is similar throughout all of the pieces and shows what buildings could look like in the future. There is a lot of complexity in the shapes of the buildings and a lot of color and glass. The exhibition sparked a wonder in me personally, if in the future, will there be less privacy? Currently, with social media everyone’s business is everywhere, will this only go farther?

 

Compare/Contrast

In my opinion, the two exhibitions portrayed completely different ideas, and unlike Kingelez’s city sculptures and their futuristic look, Nauman’s exhibition seemed to be stuck in the present, or even drifting towards the past. A lot of Bruce’s pieces used muted or earth tones, which gave a nostalgic feeling, while Kingelez’s work used more color and light. As far as similarity goes, both exhibitions used light in order to enhance its pieces.

Leave a reply

Skip to toolbar