Free Art Appreciation Essay Sample

I had the pleasure of interpreting artist Paul Ramirez Jonas’ artwork entitled Admit One: The Great Hall at Cooper Union. The artist is American Born 1965 in California and currently living in New York. The artwork was completed in 2011; Sheet: 44 1/8 x 77 inches; two dimensional. The materials used in the piece conclude of Ink, coloured pencil, and graphite paper. The frame of the artwork is white, as is the wall behind it.
The artwork located at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, includes a seemingly architectural drawing of a grand hall seating formation and a stage, in direct variation with the seats. As any large hall or stadium the seating arrangement allows an arch in the position of the chairs in order for all of the interpreting viewers to individually have a beneficial view of the performance. The artwork was framed, clearly visible and hung on a simplistic white wall, as the frame for the artwork was also white. The appearance of the artwork is very realistic and looks merely as a business oriented concert layout and seat-sold map as opposed to a work of art.
Representation of each individual venue seat is by a tightly ordered, small stamps reading “Admit One” and fill the body of the artwork. There are seven seating sections and beginning with the middle section, various and the majority of the seat tickets are coloured yellow, then each section to the left and the right of the middle section onward, contain a bit less yellow seats, and then onward in that exact manor concluding with the end sections of the hall on both the left and right of the stage containing the least of all yellow seats. There are exactly eighteen black dots parallel and evenly spaced with the size of the graphite which represents the posts assisting the roof structure of the hall.
This sense of symmetry I feel was most definitely intentional and the true meaning of this piece because its presence gives the viewer a somewhat optical illusion if you look at it properly. These dots were my favourite part of the artworks entirety, and mainly because it spices up the simplistic ticket arrangements. These black dots are so perfectly parallel that they pose to the viewer an optical illusion. If you stare at a single dot and focus on solely that black dot, you will notice that the other dots to the side of your eyes begin to disappear. This is another reason why the white wall and background of the artwork plays a huge role in the optics of the piece. I also noticed that if you focus long enough on one black dot until all the other dots disappear, immediately once you blink elsewhere you will see those dots only for a few seconds as they vastly disappear.
I feel as though Ramirez has incorporating himself into the piece. As we focus on the seats and the large stage in front, it is like the seats are the audience of his work (you and I) and the stage is the performer (Paul Ramirez Jonas) as if he is reinserting himself into his own audience, which would be his artistic viewers and critics. Perhaps the optical illusions in the piece represent the many different ways that people see artwork in general and his personal work specifically. As if the work is telling us that not everyone has the ‘figuratively speaking’ magic eye to recognize optical illusion (or true meaning behind the work), and therefore expressing the idea that not everyone will be pleased or catch on to the illusions in his artwork, however it tells us that everyone sees things differently and has a different perspective on his artwork, on their own self and on the spectacle of life in general.