Art Of The Day: Excavation

Today I went to the Getty Museum for the millionth time (I LOVE art and i'm an Art History minor). A friend of mine needed help with an art paper (I am by no means an expert, just a helping hand). We browsed around for a while enjoying the nice weather + smog (gotta love L.A.). Any who, I want to share with you all one of my favorite pieces of art. The first time I saw "Excavation" by Willem de Kooning (1950) was last year in my contemporary art class and I immediately fell in love with it. You see fragments of what might be eyes, teeth, curves, fragments of bodies, lines. It is difficult to understand as are most abstract expressionist works, you can stare at Excavation for two hours straight and not understand it all. De Kooning was very concerned with the relation of the individual to his or her environment. He once said, "Everything that passes me I can only see a little of; but i'm always looking and I see an awful lot sometimes." That is a fair explanation of what we see in the painting. It is difficult to understand because it is a recollection of fragments of what we see all sorts of mixed up. What I like is that if you try to think back to what you did today in a way it all sort of looks like this painting, you don't remember EVERYTHING you saw and did. This is an interesting concept, attempting to capture everything you remember. Try it.



Here it is in its current location, The Art Institute of Chicago.