A Trip to the Whitney

by Jenna Betz

It was calm, drizzly Sunday day when our adventure to The Whitney began. Mehdina boarded the Sim1c. And as water dripped down from the emergency exit onto my ankle, I felt relaxed and ready to explore what the modern museum would have to offer.

Upon arrival we met the others who were venturing with us. A woman told me to come to her and I soon realized she wanted to check my bag. I asked if she wanted me to open it. She looked at me blankly and said, “uh, yeah.” Woopsies.

The first art we looked at was on the top floor. It was an exhibit by a deaf artist, Christine Sun Kim. Th exhibit was mostly black and white and looked to me as if it contained many doodles and words. The first thing we actually saw was a video that looked like one of those “not my arms” challenges, meaning a person standing behind another person put there arms through the other’s armpit crevices so that the person in front looked like their arms were the person in the backs. Not at all what I was expecting and I audibly laughed out loud, which was probably not well received by other people observing it. But I say oh well that was my authentic reaction.

I don’t go to the city a lot so seeing the cityscape was really cool. It’s a whole different way of life with playgrounds on roofs and apartments with peoples blinds wide open.

I really enjoyed when we got the opportunity to converse with James Michael B. ( I don’t remember his last name). We were inquiring about a sting of lights on the floor to one another and James jumped right in to clarify that the art came from an immigrant who was reminiscent about the lights and gave them to museum, allowing them to decide how to display them. very interesting to me. James seemed knowledgeable about the art here and it was nice to talk to a human we didn’t know about something we didn’t know.

While there were some more abstract pieces at the Whitney, there was a lot of art that appealed more to my tastes. I really like this architectural/landscape/slice of life painting.

I also got to see one of Yuji Agematsu’s pieces which my sculpture teacher recently showed us. It was a cool coincidence because before i started taking that sculpting class I had no clue who that was.

On the way out we looked at souvenirs and got those little picture card things that come out of the machine when you insert four quarters. I even saw one of the artworks printed on to mugs which I know Lisa loves!

Overall I definitely enjoyed looking at the art within the Whitney. Some of it made me think, Why the hell is my art not in a museum? But a lot of it was really cool and made me think (about the art itself or about the artist). I don’t go to museums very often so it was a nice push to get out there, see the city, and see what people have made for us to see.

On the way back we stopped a K-Town where Khadijah led us to a lovely Korean cafeteria place in which I enjoyed 7 pork-fried dumplings. It even had little karaoke rooms which we partook in.

On the way back we started to wind down after a nice long day in the city, feeling a little closer and perhaps a little more artsy than before.