Hirshhorn Museum_Death

I enjoyed my visit to the Hirshhorn Museum very much and I had tons of fun playing color games of Josef Albers and admiring John Garrad's fabricated reality. I like many of the artworks, such as the "Map" by Evan olloway and the "Green House" by Michael Lucero. However, I would like to talk about "Til Death" by Minguel Angel Rios and "Play Dead, Real time" by Douglas Gordon. Both of the artists use black and white to represent the feeling of death, it is cold, restrained, and hopeless. Yet both artists connect movement or life with death; death is the ultimate end of all lives and energy.


I especially like Minguel's piece. For me, all those turing tops are representations of human beings and the white gribs on the floor symbolize the different paths that people take in their lives. While human beings are walking their separate paths, they meet each other, love each other, or even hurt each other. However, at the end, we would all be tired and death seems to be the only ending of all. ( I also like our classmate Mel Turley's interpretation of soldiers and battlefield.)


On the other hand, I also like the way Douglas express death through movement. Since the real time short film is made from a 360 degree perspective, it gives me an impression that the elephant is walking in circles and is trapped in that little squared room. It seems confused, hopeless, sad, but yet calm and quite. The small TV on the floor provides us with the facial expression of the elephant; it is hurt to see those teary and lifeless eyes.



The two pieces provide me with two contradictory human views toward death. "Til Death" represents the human attitude of avoiding death by fighting to live or breaking through the constrains of life. "Play dead" represents the human attitude of accepting death as it is and live a calm life within the limitations.