The Gates of Hell...

Gates of Hell...

or is it? This piece was incredible. What I didn't realize (and probably missed in humanities class) was that this piece incorporates many famous works of Rodin. The top figures are the Shades--three different poses of Adam. Right below those, perched on the mantel is The Thinker--something most people probably recognize. Scattered throughout the rest of the piece are other famous works--such as The Kiss which is in the bottom right corner. Very interesting piece!

After studying these two pieces by Rodin, we ventured into the other part of the gallery and studied the works of Byron Kim. I'm not much of a contemporary art 'person' but was drawn in by these works. Kim is best known for his work "Synecdoche" which is a large panel of 394 panels of various 'flesh' colours. He used 394 'subjects' whose flesh colour he painted onto canvas and assembled them in postage stamp quilt fashion into a giant work. Unique. His smaller works probably appealed to me more--"Emmett at Twelve Months" was my favorite piece of his. It was a similar postage stamp quilt collage of various coloured panels--but each panel's colour represented a specific colour of his son's body. Striking! Another series of panels also struck a chord with me: Sunday Painting series. He painted the sky (whereever he was) each Sunday and captured the colour, weather and even jotted 'journal' notes at the bottom. Interesting in that this series spanned the Sept 11, 01 events--he, too, was extremely affected by the tragedy.