Category — Visual Art

Often times, when I attend an arts event, such as those part of the Macaulay Seminar, I rarely feel the art for arts purpose. I know that statement doesn’t make any sense, so I’m gonna try and explain. When I am required to attend an arts event, I never seem to enjoy myself. I always feel as if they are a hassle, an annoyance. After many of these events, I started to dislike the arts, which scared me when I came to that realization.

I wanted to figure out whether I truly disliked art, or rather, I disliked being forced to see, hear, or feel art. I truly appreciate art; I have since my senior year of high school, when I was exposed to a lot of it. Therefore, I decided to head down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, just myself, to decide whether I still had an affinity towards the art world. I decided to go by myself, because I didn’t want any distractions. I didn’t want to discuss pieces of art and try to explain what I saw, because I felt as if the purpose of art is to feel it and enjoy it, not justify that feeling to others.

My favorite section at the Met was the Greek and Roman statues. These statues have always fascinated me; I don’t know why. I liked how they were amazingly realistic, and embodied the power, the gentleness, and wrath, and evil, of man, and woman. All these emotions, carved into stone, made them so relatable, as if I knew these people in my own life. It was an amazing, powerful, an overwhelming feeling. I spent the next hour just walking around and around that section, looking at all the statues, admiring the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, and just the feelings that I created in me.

I then head down to the American sculptures, which were all recreations of historical and mythological figures done by sculptors in the 1800s. Here, I wasn’t as blown away as I once was. Perhaps this was because I felt that these artists were mere copycats, doing something that had already been done before. Their works weren’t as grand or as powerful as the works of old were, at least to me. These newer pieces of work were far to polished, and almost perfect, as opposed to those I had seen before. The ancient Greek works truly depicted the human body, with curves, and muscular tones, and posture, all of which gave them a sense of life; not so with the American ones. There was no realism in them. They looked, essentially fake to me, a terrible attempt at reviving at olden days.

Looking at these two sections for hours on end at day, I felt satisfaction. I had truly enjoyed myself. Studying the human body encased in stone, I felt a sense of….I don’t know, something, that I cannot fully describe, or yet understand. There was power in those works, a power that I never really got from anything else I’ve seen so far. I’m still trying to understand what I saw, and felt when I saw the sculptures. Maybe it was the fact that they were three dimensional pieces, giving them a sense of realness. Perhaps it was the poses each statue struck, or the emotions I felt from each one, that stuck with me. I don’t know.

Before last Thursday, I could count the number of ballets to which I’ve gone on a single hand. This trio of performances, however, awakened an interest in ballet that none of the others had done. Yes, BAM’s production of The Nutcracker is fantastic, but I viewed it as I would a show and not necessarily as a ballet.

Theme and Variations is what I imagined a standard ballet performance to consist of: a man and woman dancing while surrounded by ballerinas and their partners. Although it didn’t follow a story, I felt that it was a general depiction of how a courtship might go. The man and woman represented blossoming couples of all sorts. While the other dancers twirled about in a fanciful (yet precise) manner, my focus rested on the couple in the center, their heated passions being spoken though choreographed movements. This does also spark another question: in the context of Theme and Variations, might the idea of choreography serve to understand the art of courtship and tendencies of a pair of lovers? I think it does. Just as love may very well be an art, the goal of choreographing such a beautiful work as Theme and Variations is a labor of love that requires an understanding of such relations.

The second performance, A Month in the Country, is to me a multi-layered one. Each of the characters served to intensify the audience’s reception of the performance as a whole. For example, Kolia (the son) danced whimsically, and in a sense, lightened the conflict between the other characters. However, I was left thinking more. Might his whimsical side serve to mask his desire to see his family remain settled with each other? After all, he did try to get his father’s attention with his new kite (among other actions).

After the show, a number of you and I discussed the idea that ballet performers who play in performances such as A Month in the Country must refrain from voicing anything, so all of the emotion and meaning they wish to convey must come though to the audience though their movement and even facial expressions. In comparison, the use of facial expressions in this second performance were needed all the more because of the set storyline, whereas in the first and particularly the third performances, movement of the body was much more the focus.

Piano Concerto #1 is much less an interest of mine, but was nonetheless a spectacular performance. I felt that it is much more a show of raw dance talent than a groundbreaking example of contemporary ballet, under which category the latter two performances fall.

At the end of the show, I wasn’t as tired as I had been after the opera. Although my day prior to attending the ballet was draining, my spirits were lifted. I am glad to say that I now have a greater appreciation for ballet and that I plan to attend more performances in the future, near and far!

I have quite mixed feelings about the visit. I actually love photography, but I feel that some of the photos didn’t deserve to be there. Particularly with the first floor and how although I get how they are sending messages on drugs and poverty and such, the actual quality of the photos weren’t that good. Funny enough, the older photos downstairs had much better quality and I enjoyed them so much more.

The photo I loved the most showed a girl in distress, surrounded by a background that you shouldn’t see a little girl in (first photo seen when you walk in). The emotion was really captured and the vastness was beautiful, yet heartbreaking.

My visit to the ICP was an eye-opening experience. The picture that really affected me was one capture by Zoe Strauss, titled “Two Women”. This picture depicted two women, probably mother and daughter. When I looked closely at the photograph, I saw scars on the mother’s arm, and what looked liked the fading evidence of a black eye on her right eye. Turning towards the daughter, I faintly saw yellow bags of skin under her eyes, which I realized to be the signs of malnutrition and lack of sleep. In other words, these women have been abused. What really struck me about this photograph was that my own mother, and her mother, my grandmother, had also been abused decades ago. My mom would tell me stories about the abuse she and her mother got from my grandfather, and I was never able to imagine what it must have been like. However, looking at this picture of two battered women, I was flooded by emotions; some sadness, but mostly anger. Prior to this momen, I have never been so affected by art, any art, because I was always able to distance myself from it. But not this time. No matter how much I tried, I kept getting pulled into it until I finally let myself be captured by it. Zoe Strauss has done an amazing job with this exhibit.

I was extremely excited to go to the International Center of Photography. I was expecting to see extraordinary photos, photos that are unusual and unique. I wasn’t sure how I would choose just one photo that was intriguing!

However, I actually struggled to find that one photo that I’d be blogging about. On the first floor of the museum, I found disturbing photos and was forced to quickly turn the other way. I noticed a photo of a nude man, an uncovered woman, a face filled with frightening bruises, a hand with missing fingers, etc. I was caught by surprise. Who would’ve thought the museum would display such photographs? What was the message the artist was trying to convey through her photos? What exactly was I supposed to infer from each and every photograph? I wasn’t sure how any of these photographs would interest me.

As I continued to glance through each section, I found one particular photo that caught my eye. It was a photograph of a beautiful chandelier, looking as if it was hanging from the sky. The sky was the lightest blue, with thin clouds, and the chandelier looked as if it was balanced in the air. The chandelier was in between the clouds and the blend of the blue and white colors made the photograph seem soothing and the chandelier in the middle of the sky, made the photo striking and spectacular.

Overall, this trip was not one of the best. I can honestly say that if it weren’t for this photo that caught my eye, I would have had trouble coming up with a particular and interesting photograph to discuss. However, it was an experience!

Here is the photo…