Met Musuem

Pope Benedict XIV

Marina And Yucca

The two works of art I chose at the Met Museum are over 300 years apart but show portraits of people. The First Artwork is titled “Pope Benedict XIV”, it was made in 1746, the medium used was oil on canvas, the artist’s name is Pierre Hubert Subleyras. The Second work of art is titled “Marina And Yucca” made in 2012. The medium is  Two-channel digital video, color, silent, 3 min., 30 sec. Even though that both are made 3 eras apart they show the same concept, a person posing. Both Artists captured human beings but in different times.

       The First work of art is an idealized portrait of the Pope. It has a two dimensional Pope in his traditional religious clothing. The colors look muted, toned down but still capturing the religious feel.

       The second work of art is much more different because it is made with two-channel Digital Video. It is still two dimensional because its still on a screen but that not the part that makes this interesting the one with the man in the red shirt you can see slightly moving. Her eyes twitch a little, the breeze ruffles her hair a bit too. Its almost like she is still for a picture, that is never going to be taken. The colors are bright, her sweater is bright red and the surrounding looks like its daylight. “Kydd makes what he calls "durational photographs"—a paradoxical description signaling the artist’s dissatisfaction with film’s conception of time. Poised between cinema and still photography, the pieces only became possible when the resolution of video imagery had reached a high enough level that a moving image could at least approach the mesmerizing clarity of the best color photography. Marina and Yucca is a two-channel piece in which the spiky spray of a yucca plant juts out toward the viewer, trembling ever so slightly in the California breeze, while in the other monitor a seated young woman sits immobile with her eyes closed” (MetMusuem blurb) The description above really captures what the piece was all about.

       These two artworks were made in different eras but the similarity is there. They both show a person posing, they were both made to represent something either religion or combining still photography and cinema and they both are set in a museum.

       I choose these two artworks when I setted my eyes on the digital video in the photography gallery. I loved how to really see the movement you have to stand and stare at it long enough to catch it. I than headed back to the European gallery, In search for a portrait of anyone to compare the two eras. Just from the two I can tell the different technology and materials used and even the different views of the two Eras. I believe the portrait is In the museum because at the time that it was made it was considered a work of art and it still is. The painting clearly shows a religious figure from over 300 years in the past. The Two digital video is put into the photography gallery because it captures its viewers with the combination of still photography and cinema.