Blog Post Number 2
Daniel F. Ambia

I chose this piece from the Metropolitan Museum of Art because it caught and held my attention as I was trying to figure out what it was. It is entitled "Sun Sets the Time Zone on Fire" and was created by the artist James Roenquist in 1989. According to the website the piece is a collage using colored pressed paper and lithography. I believe it is 2 dimensional and is mounted. Lithography is a form of printmaking so the type of work would be considered a print. The implied shapes are geometric as the red circle in the background resembles the sun and the blue circle resembles the Earth. The negative space in the piece would be the black and white borders behind the circles. The dominant subject is definitely the two spheres. The sun is a warm color wherein the Earth/Clock is a cool color. It is difficult to see but the piece seems to be two photographs, one of the sun and one of the gears to a clock. There are angry lines cutting through the clock and the sun and there are two eyes that can be seen peeking through. I can take a guess at the statement the artist was trying to make. Perhaps the Gears represent the Earth and how time keeps moving along and the sun maybe represents the inevitability of our mortality and the consistency of time and space. Perhaps the eyes represent God or human beings. I would say the piece is abstract since the viewer can tell what it is supposed to be from a distance. It would be nice to see this print up close so I could see how it was put together and what the texture of the piece is. I will definitely look into this artist more and check out other works he has created.