Discovery creative feedback please!

[lys_03]

Hi, if anyone has the time to look over my discovery creative and give some feedback I would really appreciate it!

“Gallery 42 premiered its most extensive collection of controversial pop art masterpieces last night. Although causing quite a stir in the art world, this new form of artistic expression nevertheless attracted quite a lot of publicity and wider audiences than the pretentiously exclusive abstract expressionist art of Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock. If you have some down time this weekend, why not ‘pop’ down to 54th street in Manhattan with the kids? It’s just like walking through the pages of your favourite magazine!”

***

It is barely 10am and guests are flooding through the spotless foyer, purchasing tickets at the front desk and entering through the squared concrete archway to the exhibition. They probably tuned in to Johnny Carson’s ‘Tonight Show’ broadcast that James featured on last night. I am confronted with a flood of colour against the white walls of the gallery which remained blank merely a week beforehand. James had done an impressive job on curating the exhibition. I’m more suited to the administrative work.

Something doesn’t quite add up.

Children and adults alike bustle through the narrow archway into the gallery space. Like bees, they are attracted to the bright colours of Warhol’s ground breaking ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ prints and Lichtenstein’s daring appropriation of a candy wrapper comic strip, ‘Look Mickey’. crowds seem to engulf the glass cases exhibiting Oldenburg’s avant garde ‘Pastry Case.’ Yet for the amount of artworks that I approved for importation last week, there is a worrying amount of space left on the walls, with merely three to five works exhibited in each room.

In the back corner of Room 4, seamlessly camouflaged by the surrounding gallery walls and concealed further by the celebration of consumer culture surrounding it, is a locked white door. The Gallery key, only one of the two that have been manufactured, slides unopposed into the fingernail sized hole in the wall and reveals a claustrophobic staircase leading up to the Gallery’s office and down towards the basement where artworks out of their exhibition season are kept. Puzzled by the reduction of art on display, I venture down the narrow flight to investigate what James left out of the show.

The Gallery is finally living up to the dream that founded it - to broaden the minds of America through art. Throughout history, the power of art to change the world has always astounded me. The power that motivated women to join the workforce in J. Howard Miller’s ‘We Can Do It!’ is the same power we need in art today. We need that promotion of freedom, especially in this world where communist regimes are suppressing the voices of the people. That is the dream of James and I. The dream that created Gallery 42.

So why exclude so much art, at least twenty pieces I’m sure of, from the exhibition?

The murky scene of the basement fades into focus as my vision adjusts from the brightly lit gallery above. We’ve been meaning to repair the bulbs down here for a while now.

The sound of my shoes bounce off the walls and ceiling of the enclosed concrete box and return to my ears like whispers which almost seemed to emanate from the locked crates accumulated in piles in each corner of the room. Two piles of which I am familiar with - James’ cubist collection and our collection of impressionist works.

The new addition to the storage room however is the large sinister crate standing lonely and stiff against the furthest corner from the door, barely visible.

With the help of a screwdriver, the mystery crate is pried open.

A series of images assault my eyes.

A blasphemous caricature of the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy rests at the forefront of the pile. An untouchable smirk between smooches on either cheek by pin up girls mocks not only his deified character, but the naivety of America’s patriotism and my trust in the President. As much as I wished to dislodge the message of this image, it merely attracted more evidence from my memory to support its truth - the rumours of Marilyn Monroe, of his drug addiction.

This print was followed by canvases bravely depicting the shameful acts that we as American citizens are aware of, but choose to remain silent on. Why?

Images of countless Vietnamese struggle to keep afloat in waters infected by Agent Orange below Liberty Island. Our country’s service in South Vietnam is no secret, so why is this painting?

My stomach churns at the sight of these images, but if Manet’s ‘Olympia’ was forever hidden from the public eye, would men ever be confronted with their own infidelity and immorality? Should our glorified capitalist system not be held accountable for its equal part in the turmoil this world has been thrust into since the War ended?

These images may not be pleasant, but the reason they are kept here, locked in the dark, completely contradicts this country’s doctrine of freedom and the First Amendment. I guess, after all, we are not as free as we think we are in our minds.

I lift with care, the first canvas with both hands. American society has to know. There is more to the world than the simple black and white. Real life is not as bold and clear as the colour blocking of pop art. I know exactly where this image belongs.

The rest of the paintings are left unveiled in the basement as I exit the room, ready to expose America’s greatest hypocrisy.