On November 12th, my Intro to Humanities class took a field trip to the Harn museum. On display were innumerable pieces of art, each individual piece was completely unique but they all seemed to belong together. It seemed as if each piece was a part of a body, the body being the museum. Although I really enjoyed looking at many pieces, several pieces stood out to me. There were two particular pieces of art that seemed to interact.
The two pieces that interact are "M is for Mao" and “Scene on Snake Key, Gulf Coast”. Although they seem to interact with each other they seem to be yelling at each other. They have a love hate relationship in my opinion.
The piece “M is for Mao” puts emphasis on China, Mao Zedong and McDonalds. The art piece uses the colors red and yellow. According to www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html, the color red symbolizes “strength, power, and determination”. Yellow is usually an “attention getter” and is often used by food industries. Together, red and yellow have been shown to cause people to become more hungry. McDonalds uses both red and yellow to their advantage by using this color scheme throughout their restaurant. This business strategy increases their consumer spending thus giving McDonalds more power in the fast food industry.
The colors red and yellow are both found on the Chinese flag. China itself is a communist country. They seem to be building up more power each day and have become extremely military defense. This power hungry country was once ruled by Mao Zedong. He started off wanting to change China for the better. As he began to gain more and more power, he was increasing education, promoting women’s rights, and making positive changes in healthcare. Despite these improvements, he faced problems and rashly began putting his opposers in prison. He showed his fear of losing power because of his reaction to this opposition.
In the art piece “Scene on Snake Key, Gulf Coast”, the piece is focused on nature. The art work uses the largeness of nature and compares it to the minuscule strength of humans. Within the picture the artist uses a man walking with his dog to show off the greatness of nature. They are surrounded by large trees and a vast sky. Within this picture, the sky seems to be grey and symbolize a storm. Is the storm coming? The storm symbolizes the dark future mother nature faces.
In today’s age, businesses are constantly trying to expand. In order to expand, they destroy beautiful nature sites such as Snake Key, Gulf Coast. These business do this in order to gain more power within their industry. They fail to realize the true power of nature and forget how powerful storms can be. Once in awhile, mother nature strikes back taking businesses down through hurricanes and other occurrences we call natural disasters.
Comparing the two pictures, there is a tension between business and nature. Businesses are extremely power hungry whereas nature is just trying to protect what it has left. Is power really what can give us a good life? Based on “Scene on Snake Key, Gulf Coast”, the grey clouds show that there will be another power shift. We just have to wait and see if the businesses or mother nature will win the next battle.
