Do you know what is hard about these bench-sittings? (Besides the majority of the cushionless benches.) It’s conveying even simple concepts concisely.
Like cold.
How do I best describe the body-clenching temperature of downtown Milwaukee today? Should I mention that both the cab driver and the housekeeper on my floor of the hotel described the city with that word, pronounced: COLLLLLD.
Or do I show a photo? But what photo can depict something invisible?
A frozen river?
Or this simple detail I found in an alley?
Imagine how much harder this task becomes when the concept becomes complex, like...
...people.
As I sat in the small art museum on the campus of Marquette, two pieces spoke to me about how to visually portray the inhabitants of a very specific time and place. They couldn’t have been much more different in their approaches.
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This photo of Dublin, Ireland, taken by Robert Von Sternberg, is far more subtle than a simple point-and-shoot. Notice how the smiling older siblings and father are cut off. The younger kids seem a bit dazed by the commotion, but the camera – viewing them from a child’s height – makes them the center of the scene. Dirty, confused, but the heart of the moment.
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Then there’s Abert Birkle’s Street Scene, Berlin. More fanciful, even a bit grotesque, it imagines a collection of people who embody Berlin in the early 20th century. No one smiles in this grouping. Misshapen faces and outstretched hands convey sadness and isolation. Or perhaps longing.
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Both speak volumes to me about a single thing: community. We wish for it, but in our age of remote connecting, we find it becoming more and more elusive. Maybe we’re like the children, left out by a laughter we don’t quite understand. Or maybe we’re surrounded by others who share our longing, but we don’t know how to break down the isolation between us.
Community. Now there’s a tricky concept to convey.
It will take more than art to do that.
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