The Good Art

As previously prophesized, I went to the Scotland National Galleries this past weekend. In addition to their permanent collection, there was an exhibit on contemporary Scottish art of the past 25 years and let me tell you that the whole experience was Very Good. Not only was the contemporary art cool and thought provoking, but the classical art in the main building was Exceedingly Ridiculous (of course in addition to also being awe-inspiring etc.).

While the entire modern exhibition was pretty good, there were a couple artists that really hit it out of the park IMHO. One of the first rooms you come across was wallpapered with ink drawings and gestural paintings by Stephen Campbell, with big framed paintings in the center of the collages. All while an old time radio played from a small end table situated in the center. The space it set up was really remarkable.

And this flippin haunting ass girl, one of the signature pieces that they used in the marketing was one of his.

my phone pic obvi doesnt do it justice

The next dude that really caught my eye was David Shrigley, a name befitting of the style/look of his work. It's pretty amazing what can be accomplished with really simple woodcuts; woodcuts in general are pretty bangin. And it should come as no surprise to people that I like this:

What you can kind of see in the reflection is the gallery floor - covered with small pillars with black ceramic boots on them.

these little dudes tho

This one was particularly enlightening.

He reminds me a lot of Don Hertzfeldt. Melancholy satire. I was very tempted to buy a million prints but then I remembered that I'm POOR and a STUDENT.

But enough of the kids stuff. I know why you people came here. I know. You cant fool me. 

You came here to see weird ass babies.

Some weird ass medieval babies.

Well friend.

You came to the right place.

It never ceases to amaze me, medieval art. They were just so bad at people. Analyze the symbolism and historical parts all you want, but when it really comes down to it they had no idea how to paint people.

And they had ZERO CLUE how to paint babies.

babies cant do that, he was just born

Not even the slightest idea. It's like they didnt even look at babies, not for any length of time. They were just like "right, baby, small person, just a scaled down person, this will be easy." And then this is the result:

Or these poor things with the weird old lady faces:

the poor things, such poor things

And, on an unrelated note, seeing them try to figure out perspective is equally as amusing. See if YOU can spot why this next one doesnt look right: (HINT: there are a lot of reasons)

 It was undoubtedly an amazing day. There was so much art, the vast majority of it exquisite. But not nearly as interesting, at least not to me. And my love of weird babies. ANYWAY.
Adventure complete, box checked. I'm eager to see their next series of exhibits; these galleries are really amazing spaces and its FREE to the public. Like, what could be better.

Life keeps rollin, peeps.