BORDERS and MODERNISM

Borders are an interesting thing.  For some reason the first thing I thought of in class when I read that was race.  I looked around the room when we were sharing our borders and I realized that I was the only person in the room who wasn't totally caucasian.  It was just one of those weird moments when I felt like "weird.  I'm different than everyone in this room."  I didn't think anyone else would probably write that on their sheet.  I wasn't thinking of race as so much of a border that keeps me from other people, but I admit, I think it probably does that for all of us at times.  I was more thinking that sometimes I feel like I'm sitting on the border.  I'm just as much White as I am Asian, but I think more people think of me as Asian than think of me as White.  It's just interesting sometimes to sit on that border.  It's strange to think that's something that people probably think about when they think about me.

I also thought of my fears.  I'm a really fearful person sometimes.  I get scared of making the wrong choice.  That one can be like an impassable wall for me.  I get scared of other more trivial things.  I don't like playing sports in front of other people.  I don't know how to swim.  The trivial and the significant have impacted what roads I've taken though.

I wonder if Modernism drew its own border.  In reading Greenberg's writing about Modernist Painting, I wondered if Modernism showed us that we were thinking about pictures the wrong way.  It drew a line between the representational and then realistic and the picture.  It created a new realm where 2D was emphasized and medium was emphasized.  There was no story and there weren't necessarily recognizable forms.  Modernism drew a border between what was thought about good art and what good art is.  Probably every art movement does that.  But they drew a border between the representational narrative and what they wanted to make, which was art for arts sake.