Connections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Click here to watch the series

With a sophisticated version of a power point program, workers at the Met speak about art from every era and culture tied together by one word and the diverse interpretations this person can extrapolate from each work in the list.  The interpretations themselves can go from the literal to the very abstract.  Sometimes the narrators provide historical background, but this series represents something personal beyond the factual information.   So personal, their own artistic expression and life seeps in to provide visual context.  All in all, this celebrates beauty of the subjective opinion.  For anyone who wants to learn how to interpret artwork, I think this could as a great teaching tool.  In a way, this series reaches for this universal, “Regardless of where artists come from, you can tie them together by themes.”  Hence the “Connections” title.

Having never gone to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the immense variety of art they use for “Connections” leaves me astonished and overwhelmed at the same time.

On the technical side, the Met website gives gorgeous reproductions of each work with a nice black and white photograph of the narrator which acts as a bookend for the presentation.  The photographs pose the person as this candid personality who lets you into their world.

Mind you, I am still going through the series.

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