Richard Renaldi - The Nicolaysen Art Museum

Richard Renaldi
Western Lives
American culture has become singularly obsessed by
the lurid spectacle surrounding the banal mechanics of
everyday life. Through endless reality-based television,
behind-the-scenes exposés on the inner torments and
tantrums of notorious celebrities, there seems to be a
boundless need to be filled in looking at the foibles and
differences of others while comparing them to ourselves and
our daily, predictable routines. What should be private is
played out in public in a continuous visual loop. Much of this
culture glut is an obvious overload of images needing to
processed, sorted, and forgotten. Who has time to look at
others, to really look, when surface and quick judgments
of people are all that matters in such a world Difference,
whether cultural, racial, or political, is cause for extreme
divisiveness rather than the opposite of looking for
common ground in order to bridge perceived gaps. In the
end, it is quite quaint and homespun in its simplicity—we
really are all human underneath and worth stopping to
gaze at to really see and acknowledge. Maybe there is a
storythere,somethingoutsideournarrowrealmofexperience
that will cause us to open up and stretch our boundaries
to possibly connect with another. Beyond that, what is
there that is most precious and worth striving for
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