I chose “Beacons,” which is a mural I found while walking along the High Line with my group. I don’t think it can be replicated as a painting because that would fragment its meaning and purpose on the High Line. Now, looking back at the picture I took, the mural does not look half as majestic as it did when I first saw it at the High Line. I could tell it’s huge by the angle of the picture; still, the image doesn’t compare to what my eyes witnessed and the context in which this picture was taken. As I’m writing this post and analyzing the image I took, my head is at a 90-degree angle looking straight at the screen. However, when I took this picture, I was looking up, in awe of the mural’s beauty and size. Though I have analyzed this image twice from my point of view, the feelings it evokes in me are different. At the High Line, I thought the mural was vibrant because of the contrast of its colors, and I thought of it as a symbol of hope and excitement for the uncertainty of the future. The person in the mural is walking regardless of what is coming up ahead of them and uses the light to clear the darkness in the path. But when I saw it on my screen, I started to question whether my perception was accurate or not, and it wasn’t because the mural is actually meant to honor young climate advocates who are trying to save the world one innovative idea at a time. I lived through completely different experiences based on the context of where I saw the mural. Isn’t that the reason why we are not supposed to duplicate art?
I wonder if I were in a museum and saw this mural as a medium-sized painting, would I even take a picture? Perhaps not because its context would not have evoked anything in me. However, when I first saw it on the High Line, just peacefully existing amid the chaos of a touristic site and the combination of the concrete jungle and the nature inhabiting the place, I was speechless. My experience of seeing my picture and the mural in person should be an explanation of why replicas don’t work out of their original place.
