Completing this project helped me to explore the role that art plays in my life as a New Yorker by being able to visualize the variety of cultures that are within me as well as the amount of culture that others inhabit within themselves. This made me reflect on the thousands on New Yorkers that are so complex individually. Everybody’s identity is so expansive where each separate category can sort of has its own identity within too that describes who we are. From the music we listen to, to the movies and shows that watch, each part identifies the individual.
Last Friday, in seminar we had multi-talented artist Rich Stremme join a zoom call with us to talk about the history of tattooing as well as share his personal experience with tattooing from back in the day. Whilst listening to his presentation we were creating our own graffiti art on paper as well which was a nice addition. All in all listening to his presentation was very insightful and I was able to learn a lot about the history of tattoos and shaped my idea on tattooing and the art of it. I always wanted to get. tattoos of my own in the near future and this only made me more interested in getting them. Hearing his passion and his severe interest on the topic on tattooing made it just 100x more interesting. Everything from learning about the pirates and how they would share appreciation for cultures through stick and poke tattoos, to learning about the mechanics of the first tattooing machines and comparing them to modern ones, to learning about his experiences with seeing how tattoos went from being a strict gang practice to being accepted within all of society was really fascinating. Learning about this made me more appreciative of the art of tattoos and hopefully I can get my first one soon.
I really enjoyed the night at the museum trip. I found it really interesting to view a bunch of different art works from various different genres and seeing how different people view them as well. I enjoy going to museums typically, but this one was one I never seen or been to before. So this was a really interesting trip overall for me. The bus ride was not that bad overall. Im glad we were able to all travel together rather than us having to individually go and leave since that would have been a hassle to do. Getting there, I was able to see some old friends that I went to high school with since this was an event for all of the Macaulay ’29 class from all the CUNY’s which was nice. They had a nice beginning presentation describing the purpose of this trip that didn’t go well due to some technical difficulties but it was still funny. Then the trip really began.
With the amount of time that we had I was able to go through all of the different exhibits on the 5th floor at least 3 times so I got a good look of what was around. I was not disappointed in the slightest. I liked how they incorporated a lot of different styles of art with also different time periods of art as well. I really liked the addition of the newer art that is added since it talked a lot about modern topics. In fact, one of my favorite pieces was a piece from 2017.
This was one of my favorite pieces from the exhibit titled Shifting The Gaze by Titus Kaphar. This piece was made as a way to battle the other old paintings that had slaves blocked out and only shined light on the slave owners/royalty in the painting. It was a really powerful piece for me since I took an AP African American Studies class in high school so I was able to understand the history behind the art pieces that blocked out/redacted slaves so to finally see one that challenges that idea in such a way is really touching. Especially for it to be displayed in a museum at that. That alone speaks volumes in many different ways that shows how the professional art scene is accepting art that can be deemed controversial to emphasize a message that isn’t deemed good enough.
On Sunday, October 12th, a bunch of us went to go and see the Arpino dance show in the Joyce theatre. While heading to the show I had my low expectations and was not excited to go really since I had little interest in things like these. I am never interested in shows of any sort like musicals, theatre, etc. But this was a dance show so even with my prior premonitions I still had no clue what to really expect from this. Some people travelled on their own to the theatre but I went with majority of us on the ferry there so we could all travel together. The public transportation wasn’t that bad as I thought it would be but it was a Sunday so it wasn’t super crowded and complicated. We didn’t really face the rain as much until after the whole show and a little right before hand. Before arriving we walked by this really cool car that had graffiti on which I felt like was art. It was really out there and took a lot of us by surprise when we first saw it. I thought that the concept of the car was really cool and described what NY is.
Arriving there I unfortunately sat directly in the first row which blocked a lot of my view from the stage which sucked since certain parts of the show had props and/or had instances where they used all of the stage and I couldn’t see everything especially when they were far in the back. When the show began I was completely taken away from what I saw. There were 4 different acts total but each act was really amazing (besides the first one I didn’t really like it as much as the other 3). Besides the stage blocking a lot of my view, from what I saw I really liked the show especially some of the music that they were using. My favorite act was the last one since they had 3 mini acts in one and the music choice was really cool. This show really exceeded a lot of my expectations and made me glad that I went overall. This is a picture from the last show that was really cool and what I felt like described the mood of the show. It was fast, shiny, and expressive. It is a blurry image of the beginning part of the show where the dancers where moving their hands a lot before starting to dance.
After the show some of them left with Lisa back on the ferry, others went to go on their separate ways back home or away but a lot of us decided to go out to eat afterwards. We didn’t know where to go at first but we decided that we wanted to go to Dave’s Hot Chicken in Midtown. On our way to Central Park that is where the rain started to hit us and it was hitting hard. A lot of us had umbrellas but even still that wasn’t helping against the rain. I had just used my hood since I knew that my umbrella wasn’t going to do anything in the end. On our tumultuous journey to Dave’s Hot Chicken we finally arrived and got our food (after a long wait) we took our food and went to the McDonalds right next door to eat since they had an upstairs section and a lot of tables.
I enjoyed my food and finished everything since I was starving but others took theirs home. After we ate we figured out how we are getting home. We split up into 2 separate groups with 3 of us going to a bus stop for the SIM4c and the other group went to go to the SIM1c. I couldn’t say for their group, but my group was struggling a lot when heading to our bus stop was a big hassle since this was in the peak of the rainstorm. On our way there the umbrellas was actually useless to use since it was insanely windy and rainy. We kept laughing about how bad the rain was and got lost a little bit since the gps wasn’t working for one of us so I took initiative and brought us to the first bus stop at Central Park to wait for the bus. While on the way we saw a couple other art galleries that looked really cool since it had a lot of figures and other art. It looked really expensive though but the art pieces were cool to see from the outside.
The art was way different from the ones we’d normally analyze it reminded me of designer fashion in a sense. Still seeing all the different art pieces was really cool.
To end the day we got on the bus and had a nice 2 hour bus ride due to the rain causing a lot of traffic in the city but was cool since we were talking to each other the whole time and had fun since the bus wasn’t packed. Overall I had a good time during this trip and cant wait for the other trips we go on for this class. I found it really interesting and learned to be more open to different experiences.
On Saturday 9/6, a bunch of us went to the free art exhibit in snug harbor together and had a really fun time. When I arrived I was somewhat late due to the bus taking forever to get there. Considering that I do live quite a ways away from snug, I tried to leave early and make it but unfortunately that did not help in the end. Luckily, everybody started off in the ceramics room and I was able to join in despite being a few minutes late.
The guy that was leading was pretty cool and the experience was nice. There were times where he showed off some of his work that he done himself and showed us this instrument he made and played it in front of us. It was really cool seeing how vast ceramics is and how it can be used when done properly.
I never done anything remotely close to ceramics ever so it was fun doing it for the first time. I did not expect it to get as messy as it did. I wore a nice hoodie and it get messed up immediately so I was kind of annoyed but it was fine. Towards the end of the experience a lot of people started to freestyle and make their own designs on their pots that they’ve made. Some made the pots different shapes, some made just different works altogether, it was really cool to see the different works that other people made. I chose to add a star onto mine (which took me a little while not gonna lie) and it turned out way better than I expected.
It is not the prettiest but it is still cool in my opinion. I got a lot of compliments on it too. I would like to try it again maybe but I would have to go with friends or something.
After the ceramics I moved on with some other people to different rooms and stumbled upon the painting room. At first I wanted to spectate since I am not the most creative, especially when it comes to anything drawing or painting. However, seeing all the people start to paint and their intense focus, it inspired me to attempt at making my own painting. Spoiler alert: it did not end well at all. I did appreciate the environment of the place however. There was an older lady that was there and she was orchestrating the whole thing which was nice and she was helpful. She even had some of her works on display but they were kind of small and farther away than the actual workshop itself. For the workshop there were statues we referenced off of and I began with a sketch of the statues. I took my time and was very careful with my sketch, but once I started to paint it just kept going downhill from there. That’s when I knew that painting is just not for me and that is ok.
Overall, the entire experience was nice and cool, I would’ve liked to actually take time to analyze the art displays but still I enjoyed my time that I was there for. I am open to explore another event like this again sometime in the future.
This piece of protest are was made by Dread Scott, an African American visual artist known for his works regarding the experience of African Americans in modern us. Part of his artistic statement is that the he looks towards “…an era without exploitation or oppression of any people.” He wants his art to emphasize how critical subjecting people into certain fates or outcomes based off of their background can impact a whole community. This flag does just that. In 2015, Scott produced his own version of the N.A.A.C.P. flag that would be used to mark lynchings that would occur and would be posted outside of the NY headquarters on 5th avenue (1920-38). The flags typically would be a black-and-white illustration, however Scott decided to be more explicit with this message through saying “A Man Was Lynched By Police Yesterday.” He produced this flag in response to the fatal shooting of Walter Scott by a South Carolina police officer. The main purpose was to highlight the amount of horrors that go unnoticed that minorities in general deal with on a day to day basis. There are countless of lynchings and systematic oppressions that occur today and still aren’t being properly recognized and handled appropriately. Scott’s response to his work was him dating back to the Jim Crow era where Black people were terrorized by lynching and how lynching would be used as a threat that for whatever reason, or no reason at all, you can be killed and the killers wouldn’t receive any sort of punishment. Now the police are playing this same role of terror that Lynch mobs would play back then. The same people that are supposed to protect and serve to help the community are the ones damaging it. I believe that this piece of work is still appropriate today with the increase of different instances happening all over America of minorities getting mistreated by the law and are facing injustice. These are the events that make the political system seem so flawed when it claims to be there to treat everyone equally and provide equal protection amongst all those people. This piece of work can be used to criticize the social and political state of America. It shows just how little these events are being valued and as time goes on the value begins to constantly decrease and decrease even more. This alongside the lack of effort to make any change, there is no telling how much society will progress as time goes on, if progression is even an option.
During this week, I was able to find time to take a visit to the Whitney Museum of American Art. Traveling to the museum wasn’t as bad of a travel with only having to take the Sim bus to the train. All in all I really liked the actual environment of the museum itself with its modern architecture and design compared to being like a more antique. Don’t get me wrong, I do like museums and their environment, however I like it when the whole “modern” look and sense of art is done right. Nowadays it doesn’t seem like that’s the case. I feel like when artists or museum are trying to be modernized, it’s almost like they lose the whole sense of what art is. People are too figurative and use the term “modern” very loosely when it is associated with something. This was very apparent with some of the art pieces on display. With some of them it reminded me of the infamous “Big Yellow Square” that keeps getting brought up. I would look at certain pieces that reminds me of that lackluster display and think to myself just “why?”. This question of “why?” from the outside might just be judgmental (which to an extent is true) but it’s a genuine question also. Most of the time when I look at art I like to get my own interpretation of it before I take a look at the description to see how it makes me feel, or if it answers that question of “why?”. I ask that question like I’m talking to the painting and asking it why are you here? What makes you considered art? What is the point?
I want to highlight this work of art since I didn’t get its name yet had the longest and most meaningful conversation with this piece when asking it “why?”. Initially, I took this piece as another one of those pieces that are considered “modern art” and are just works of art that mean nothing. But something inside of me decided to just try to analyze it. I looked for how it made me feel rather than try to look at it from a literal approach. What I discovered what that I felt a sense of indifference. Like the white almost outshines the bold and abstractness of the paint strokes. This only left me filled with more questions towards the painters purpose. It was only until recently where I looked up the painting and found out about the actual subject matter. Apparently this piece it called “Massacre at Wounded Knee II” by Fritz Scholder. Doing more research it talks about the significance of the color pallet and the strokes and everything else, but I struggle to understand how to truly feel. My indifference feeling doesn’t correspond to the actual piece’s purpose. If I miss the intent that it was supposed to show does that make the piece wrong, or the viewer. My analysis just made me fall more and more into my head and everything so I just finally stopped and decided to give up. This piece can define my trip to the Whitney I guess, on my mindset when viewing the art pieces at least. Despite that, it was cool I liked it.
