In this project, we had to sit with a piece in The New School collection for 30 minutes 3 time within a week.
Here are my notes I took and a piece that I wrote for my seminar based off the format In Bluets by Maggie Nelson.
I chose an Untitled piece by Paul Mogensen that is located on the staircase from the 6th to the 7th floor of the UC. Above the library.
Untitled (1987) by Paul Mogensen
Seminar part
- I walked through each floor to find a piece I wanted. I somehow ended up choosing one that was closest to my room. I was attracted to it for its’ privacy and the colors red and black.
- It isn’t just any red though. It is red but looks as though it has been coated over with the thinnest amount of black. Just like the shadows in the stairwell it is placed in, it seems as though the red is hidden by another shadow of paint.
- Every time I have had time to go, it seems as though I am in a whole different place. Silence, except for a few voices on occasion. Nothing like New York. And the Sun actually beating down on me hot. I wonder to myself if the painting is safe under this heat.
- But then look up to remember the Sun barely touches it. It is alone in the shadows.
- Sitting there, only a couple people have walked by. But no one has ever looked. A pair speaking italian walk down the stairs towards the piece, pointing at everything except for the painting itself. As if the corners of the wall, fire alarm, and windows are what they find themselves drawn to.
- But I am not drawn to it in a way that I am with many other pieces of art. At times, I find myself getting butterflies or having an overflow of emotions staring at pieces, but staring this one I did not feel emotionally attached.
- I sit for longer, I realize that the attachment I have created with this painting is because I am intrigued by lonely things. And at times I get that way too. In a non crazy lady way, I feel like I have found a friend. Or if anything, a safe place for me to go to when I need, and at the end of the day , isn’t that what a friend does?
8.My aunt whom I am close with calls me every time I go there. I wonder if she knows how alone it makes me feel to sit there.
- It feels like I am the only one in Parsons who has ever seen it. It feels like it is mine.
- What I find most amusing about this painting, isn’t the painting itself. It is the placement. Above the the library quiet room, which is essentially a glass box.
- I think of a zoo, all the animals alone in a box while I view them, the only park visitor. People who walk by look at the people but never at the painting.
- What I love most is the fact that no one in that box knows that there is this painting hanging above their heads.
- I wonder if the painting wants to be seen.
- I don’t even love the way the painting looks that much. Would I even buy it if I had the chance? Probably not.
- On my second visit a familiar face sits right below it, facing out through the box and straight at me. I am unsure now who the audience is. I felt like I was invisible but now they wave.
- My privacy and loneliness with the painting seems removed. I was nervous that he was going to leave and come say hi. I didn’t want him to be in my space with my painting.
Research on Mogensen
Paul Mogensen seems like a private man, considering the difficulty finding information on him.
He developed as a painter in the mid-late 1960s. Most of his works are minimalistic, geometric, and he considers the relationship of color and space. Many are mathematical in the arrangement of it and typically it seems that Morgenson sticks to two colors.
This piece Untitled in 1987 is Acrylic on Canvas. He painted this at age 46. And like many of his pieces this one is untitled. He still resides in New York City and paints. This piece would have been mid way through his career. I have not found it online at all nor does Morgensen have a website. I also have not found any paintings from this time.
I chose this piece because I the colors stood out to me. Red being my favorite color. I also liked where it was placed, above the 6th floor of the UC. It doesn’t seem to get much recognition and i wanted to draw attention to it. If I didn’t have this assignment I probably wouldn’t have ever noticed it. It makes me feel somewhat lonely as the colors are dark, and no one ever interacts with it. Though sunshine does hit the surrounding areas, every time I have visited it seems to miss it. I also am intrigued by it’s placement above the library’s quiet room. You can see people under it not even knowing of the art hanging above head.
