Investigating The National Gallery of Art's East Wing

Conducted and curated by Evan "E-Train" Wollerton And Kai Okai-Brown

On January 14, 2022, Evan Wollerton and Kai Okai-Brown ventured into the highly acclaimed Smithsonian National Art Gallery. They embarked on a journey of self-discovery and intelligence to unearth America's definition of art. What will they find? Who will they see? Will they ever be the same again?

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Into the Thick of It

As we entered the East Wing of the Art Museum we couldn't help but notice its first piece was outside an exhibit and slightly dressed. Despite this piece not seeming presentable it was still very much being presented. I perceive this as a testament to the American Dream. It's being lived regardless or readiness. Getting prepared is part of the American Dream, and this dream is art.

(Catherine Okai-Brown).

An Attempt to Acknowledge the Art in Body Diversity?

George Bellows, Forty-Two Kids 1907.

Pablo Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905.

I thought long and hard about this one.

The human body has been the apple of our eyes essentially from the dawn of our existence. We obsess over the most common thing we see: each other. Modern media may still be grappling with the best way to approach the possibilities of the appearance of the human body but this museum has decided it's art.

(Kai Okai-Brown)

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A walk into the exhibit holding Pablo Picasso's Family of Saltimbanques.

Nudity in Western Art

Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, 1941. Evan W.

Heinrich Aldegrever, Naked Infant Holding a Double Scroll of Leafy Ornament

It's interesting to wonder why Western museums have such a fixation on nudity. On the one hand, it could be argued to be a critical response to institutional beliefs about sexuality and the human body; on the other, it could simply be a fixation on the erotic demonstrated through media. It certainly seems as though other cultures feel less of a need to display sexuality in such theatrical and subversive manners. (Evan Wollerton)

Pierre Bonnard, The Artist Studio, 1900.

Armin Landeck, View Of New York, 1932.

The Human Effect?

Charles Sheeler, Classic Landscape, 1931.

The museum had a distinct fixation on the snapshots of the world with an interesting take on it. It took the human effect in a different direction, and eradicated the population in the most populated areas. Humans are not the center of these pieces or even featured in most, they are but the engineers. In this take the things we create is art, not us ourselves. It's a celebration of human capability and a nod to the beauty of the building itself. (Kai Okai-Brown)

Alfred Stieglitz, From The Back Window 291, 1915.

John Sloan, The City from Greenwich Village, 1922.

Clara E. Sipprell, Sixth Avenue" New York 1920.

Joan Miró, The Farm, 1921-1922.

Darker themes in the East Wing?

While touring the upper floor of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, I noticed a theme that seemed to dominate the artwork - shape. Just as the museum curates a collection of perspectives on the human body, it also presents a vision of spatial relationships that reflects the metaphysical order of the universe. (Evan Wollerton)

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Z VII, 1926. -Evan W.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, 1929. -Evan W.

Joan Miro, Head of a Catalan Peasant, 1924. -Evan W.

Unlike the first pieces we saw, which used impressions to capture various perspectives on the body and the human condition, these pieces introduce unusual configurations of geometric shapes that are purposefully enigmatic. Looking at the pieces above, there are no shapes, symbols, or recognizable figures that carry any obvious social or intellectual value. They appear to be created in an aesthetic sense that suggests a hidden geometrical logic within the universe. (Evan Wollerton)

In contrast to the rigid geometry of the above pieces, these works of art subvert traditional impressions of shapes and symbols to curious effect. The distortion of these universally recognizable symbols creates a disturbing effect; the trees develop the quality of writhing snakes, and the human figure appears to be reduced to squares and rectangles as his body is torn apart. These images reflect a darker quality of human nature as opposed to the artwork previously explored. (Evan Wollerton)

Pieces from left to right:

Franz Marc, Weasels at Play, 1911

Georgia O'Keefe, A Black Bird with Snow-Covered Red Hills, 1946

Louis Marcouissis, The Musician, 1914

The Reduction of Style - Nihilism in the Gallery?

Mark Rothko, the Classic Paintings, 1949 - 1970. Evan W.

Disturbing in their simplicity, these large, monolithic paintings contain the same lack of moralism that we observed in the paintings by Moholy-Nagy, Mondrian, and Miro. The room, which is furnished with nothing but hardwood floors and the aforementioned paintings, resembles the royal dining halls from the very end of the Stargate sequence in "2001: A Space Odyssey." In this photo, Kai is asking herself: "What is the purpose of these paintings? What do they say about society?" It is as if the lack of obvious theme within the paintings actually disturbs the human mind, which is constantly mired in a search for reason and logic in the external world. - (Evan Wollerton)

The Rooster.

(Photo by Kai Brown)

Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/Cock sculpture on the roof of the National Gallery is as quirky as it is mysterious. Although its meaning is inscrutable, the rooster is an instantly charismatic and inspiring addition to the museum that attracted the attention of many visitors, aside from Kai and myself. We like to imagine that Randy (our affectionately given diminutive for the great blue beast) is standing guard for the National Mall, and that Washington D.C. wakes up every morning at the sound of his call. (Evan Wollerton)

After a dinner with the rooster he revealed he was a 16 year old with aspirations of one day attending William and Mary. After advising him against applying to the dirty garden pool school, we swiftly realized his chances of getting into the school was dismal as he received a B plus in gym during his freshmen year of high school. -Kai Okai-Brown

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