The Tourist’s Rose Tinted Glasses x Music From The Balconies by Ed Ruscha
I’ve been meaning to do an Art x Travel with one of Ed Ruscha’s artworks and it took awhile to narrow down to one. He uses dream-like photographs and paintings of landscapes and writes in his signature clean, modern font; statements that sometime go against its background. Here, the soft pastoral imagery all in oil on canvas, transports you to relaxed and content state. The blue sky hiding behind soft tufts of the late afternoon pinkish clouds. A wide expanse of the prairie. The text jerks us to awareness: “The music from the balconies nearby was overlaid by the noise of sporadic acts of violence”. The prairie is the music, and you’ve ignored the burning forests in the distance.
How high do you turn the volume up to ignore the cracks in picture perfect renditions of cities you travel to?
I have championed for experiencing a city you call yourself a local in through the eyes of tourists, because it is they that find delight in the mundane, they who appreciate things you have overlooked and taken for granted. The other way applies too, you should experience a city as a local when you’re in fact, a tourist, and this doesn’t mean just going to all the cool local spots and dismissing tourists with city tour bus passes and cargo shorts.
This means taking off your tourist rose-tinted glasses, if not for a moment.
Intentionally or not, when we travel, we have a rosy view of the place we’re in. It’s only natural. It might be the first time you’re there and every time you’re there, you are a tourist. All the places the city guides recommend are beautiful places that represent the place’s culture, nature, and identity. You came all the way here to enjoy yourselves and the beauty of the city, why look for its flaws? Why voluntarily immerse yourselves in it?
Because it’s the truest portrait of where you are.
Beauty and its blemishes can coexist. It adds texture and builds a clearer image of the city by giving context on all the things you might like about the place. Vietnam’s landscapes are a thing of beauty, but learning its dark past including the Vietnam War and its lasting impact gives depth in understanding the Vietnamese culture and resilience. Speaking of war, you cant escape its past when you explore Berlin. A friend I've met when I was there even joked, "It's as if there entire city is showing how guilty it is for what it did during the World War." It's exactly like getting to know a person. They're such a bore if all you see is a perfect portrait. You want to know its vulnerabilities, because flaws are what shows character.
It's important to be a tourist who is aware. Being aware of both the good and the bad of the city you travel to doesn't mean being so overcame by the failings that you can't appreciate where you are. You can do both. Learning the intricacies of a country's politics, environmental issues, and such not only gives you utmost respect from locals (and we all know how great getting brownie points from locals could be); but it also gives you a great learning experience. You know so much more about a country beyond reading it up on the news and history books. This means that you could learn more in order to perhaps better where you are and the world at large, little by little.
So pull down your tourist's rose-tinted glasses for a little while.
The true picture can be, if not more, beautiful.
Ed Ruscha's work is associated with the pop culture movement and to me, really represents American and especially California culture. Above all, it's absolutely beautiful and I wish to have his prints decorate my apartment. Learn more about him and admire his work here.
"The Music from the Balconies" by Edward Ruscha. Oil Paint on canvas. Collection by Tate / National Galleries of Scotland.
Words by Nadia Pritta Wibisono.
