Belagio Art Exhibition

A Sense of Place: Landscapes from Monet to Hockney

The exhibition at the Bellagio gallery of fine art was an exceptional assortment of art pieces. The pieces were made up of paintings, photographs, sculpture and video installations. The exhibit was made up of different pieces showcasing the different ways artists have represented or portrayed landscapes over the years. Some of the ones I found to be most interesting to me were Catherine Murphy’s “curtained window”, Robert Rauschenburgs’s “Soviet/ American Array”, Ana Mendieta’s “Silueta”, Christo’s “running fence” Steven Hannock’s “vortex at dawn” and the most interesting piece for me was Inigo Manglano Ovalle’s “juggernaut”. I found Robert Rauschenburg’s piece to be a very interesting combination of colors and pictures giving me the viewer a number of things to think about while trying to interpret the pieces meaning for myself. I also found that the large mural representing the running fence of Christo’s creation to be quite interesting as well and would love to have been able to see the real running fence before it was taken down.  Steven Hannock’s painting of a missile vortex at dawn over the ocean captured my eye and for a moment I could imagine seeing the missile turn and twist over the water before either splashing down in the water or disappearing over the horizon, all while standing on the beach watching the sun rise.

I think for me the three pieces that stood out the most was Ana Mendieta’s “silueta” which were a series of photographs taken of a wave washing over a hole in the sand that appeared to be the imprint of a body. Ana Mendieta was known to use actual blood in her photographs and that is probably the reason my eye was drawn to the photographs. Looking back and forth to each of the different photographs my mind was trying to put together a story of the event that could have possibly taken place on the beach as the tide slowly washes away any trace evidence.

Another of the three pieces that stood out to me was Catherine Murphy’s “curtained window”. When I first looked at this painting I thought it was two separate pieces, because the right third of the painting is the curtain separated from the other two thirds of the painting by a straight vertical line. Once I stood back and listened to the short informational narration the painting came alive to me. The painting was an artist’s interpretation of how we view the world and the chaos that can be nature from within the confines and safety of our houses.

The last piece which for me was the best piece was a short film made by Inigo Manglano Ovalle’s called “juggernaut”. Inigo Manglano Ovalle’s originally intended to make a film on some endangered whale and instead turned his 16mm film camera to the salt flats and the goliath sized machinery used in collecting the salt giving the piece its name. This piece by far is my favorite piece in the whole exhibition. It caught my eye from the first moment I walked into the exhibit and I found myself going back to watch the video over and over again, each time I watched it I found something new interesting about the piece.