I’ve jumped ahead a little here to write about the Museum of Fine Arts since I’ve just visited and I’m sure that the Internet is enthused to hear my feedback. I very much struggle with modern art, or at least, finding any meaning in it. So I’m going to lean into AI to help me, in the absence of the gallery doing much in this regard, and also asking whether it feels a piece is by a professional artist or a child. I appreciate this may not be the methodology most art historians use.
AI has immediately determined that this is an artwork by a professional, referencing that the contrast is the central element of the piece. It mentions that “pleasing tension” between the window, screen and barrier, with the viewer being invited to look through something whilst reminded that looking is being controlled. I’m not entirely sure that’s what I would have taken away from this artwork, but there we go. This is perhaps why AI is useful, it can find meaning where I find fixtures and fittings.
Anyway, it’s by Martin Boyce (1967-) and is entitled ‘On the Other Side of the Glass’, being created in 2014. What confuses me further is that other galleries appear to have displayed this work the other way up, which feels rather chaotic. I had assumed modern art was already challenging enough without requiring the viewer to establish which direction is correct. Perhaps that is part of the tension. Or perhaps someone just had a different wall and a quiet afternoon.