This week I went to see an exhibition at the Museum Brandhorst in Munich. After a short time I felt very tired, my body became heavy and after only thirty minutes I felt like I had to leave. It was so hard for me to relate to the works that were shown. I probably would have needed an explanation. Yes, true! I just couldn't feel anything in the works, and that's something that happens to me quite often now, especially in connection with some contemporary art, and not just recently.
Anyway, I decided not to leave until I had gone up to the second floor at least once to see the works of Cy Twombly, whose fine sculptures and paintings are part of the collection and are on permanent display in the museum. I immediately breathed a sigh of relief, the tiredness was suddenly gone – there was a feeling of connection and a desire to discover, even though I had seen the works so many times before. What had happened or what was different?
OM MANI PADME HUM – can you see it written? This is one of the highest Mantras in Tibetan Buddhism about compassion. And even if you are not familiar with it or do not immediately recognize it – the frequency it carries is in some way palpable in the room, whether you believe in energy or not. What a gesture of light, silence and poetry these works radiate! “Everything is Energy and that's all there is to it.” – Albert Einstein
Let’s take a closer look: You can see a wooden box that is painted over rather irregularly with white paint. Another board is mounted perpendicular to it, supported from the back, and on it the writing is almost calligraphed in blue paint, or you could also call it scrawled handwriting, with the paint still running down. It has an almost childlike signature like most of his works. Yes, it really doesn't need much to have a strong effect; it doesn't need to be big per se, not flashy and not loud. But the spirit from which things emerge is crucial. And for me, this art needs no explanation. It speaks for itself. It lets this infinite spark jump over.
On another sculpture is written in the same scrawly way with a thin black pencil: FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS. How beautiful is that? (Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take a second picture.)
For me, the education of tomorrow is an understanding based on the heart, and art is a space of higher consciousness and knowledge. People can relate to it because they are touched by it without having to understand or know anything; because its language is universal.
In an unpublished document "The meaning of art" from the 1970s the Israeli artist, Holocaust survivor and one of my long-term mentors in life, Jehuda Bacon, once stated:
“An artist is somebody who is in command of his hand, his head and his heart – with one only it is no good. Young people are much more attracted by technique and by knowledge, the hand and the head. Only later do they see the qualities of the heart. You cannot separate these three qualities. Life is like a spiral: you repeat yourself, only on a higher level.”
I like to see more of that kind of art!
It’s time for an (art world) (re)evolution!
Love,
Tina
TINA GUTHKNECHT