Consuming Culture

Walking through the Chester Arnold exhibit “Between Heaven and Earth” shown at the Nevada Museum of Art, the work of art that stood out to me the most was a piece titled The Road to Paradise. The main visual image that stands out in the piece is the water spurting rapidly out from the broken pipe in the ground. Behind the splashing water is a piano with an open top, a few rusted keys, and a blue binder sitting atop of it all. Along the right side of the piece is a sidewalk with many cracks. An old shoe, cigarettes, as well as a paint can and brush rest on top of the sidewalk. A roll of grass turf, a little green frog, as well as unopened letters from a mailbox are scattered amongst the dirt on the left side of the artwork.

I was drawn to this artwork for all of the different elements in it. You cannot walk by and notice everything in a quick glance, a long hard study of this piece will eventually tell you everything. With a ladder, mailbox, briefcase, even a broken down car in the background, this work of art is representing what we, as Americans, consume in everyday life. The items we consume are often not thought a lot about and thrown away without hesitation and build up in our cities streets and neighborhoods as litter. As consumers we always want more and more and are rarely satisfied. Immediate gratification is what most Americans want. The culture we live in today is very contemporary. Art is displayed all over, we see it everywhere; as billboards, TV commercials, the latest fashion trends and so on. Culture changes over time, every minute of every day. Styles change, and new advanced technology and products come and go without warning, and we must have them now!

This artwork resembles a broken down suburb. Most people live in large cities and towns, verses destroyed neighborhoods with abandoned houses as resembled in this artwork. The feeling of claustrophobia overwhelms me when looking at this piece for all of the clutter and garbage that has been thrown into a once beautiful landscape. Sadness is also an emotion I feel to see the frog sitting in dirt looking into the sewer water, a place I’m sure he used to feel at home, now taken over by the cruelty of inconsiderate people. To get to paradise, as hinted in the title, The Road to Paradise, we must change how we act today. Making changes is hard but necessary at times. You cannot simply over step through waste and junk to a plentiful area without the thought of needing to lend a helping hand. Hoping to bring a new persepctive to people about what we are really doing to our world, Chester Arnold shows us his take on our consumerist society.

This piece speaks words to those who will take the time to listen and reflect...