Stanford Arts Immersions @artsimmersion - Tumblr Blog

the experience economy

Discoursing with Raul de Nieves about his piece at the Whitney was a dream come true. It was incredible to be able to meet an established artist and to have the artist himself discuss his creative process was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

#NYCArtsImmersion #tatianagrossman

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Henry Taylor, A HAPPY DAY FOR US (2017), at the Whitney

This painting feels like a nice way to end my tumblr report from NYC. Before we went to the Biennale yesterday, a speaker came to talk about the Aeroscene and future humans’ ambition to occupy air.

I lean more towards Henry Taylor’s kind of flight. Gold wings on the ground, potentially taking off, decidedly aware of the dark weight of history. The flowers, too, beautiful and uprooted, capture the violence embedded in hopeful discourses on flight, progress, conquest of nature. These winged angels’ happy day is perhaps a walk in time.

#NYCArtsImmersion #quyennguyen

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Anicka Yi works in fragrances. In 2015, for a show at The Kitchen, she took swabs from 100 women, collaborated with an MIT biologist to nourish the bacteria in an agar billboard and posed the question “What does feminism smell like?” I have a feeling the show mortified and exhilarated many.

Yesterday at the Biennale, she showed a 3D film on a quest for a mythical plant in the Brazilian Amazon. The searchers are flavor chemists with their typical rainforest gear and colonialist swagger.

Without the 3D glasses, the images look blurry, trippy, incoherent. But that reflects how history is hard to see.

I lay on the mattress and watched the film several times. You could sense the floor vibrate each time the music surged or fellow viewers giggled. What a strange pleasure to lie down with strangers and watched plants scintillating like a disco ball, syringes injected into plump fruits, chemists turning into dead material, mythologies compounding mythologies.

But I wouldn’t have noticed Yi’s “ethnic” name and demanding work if I hadn’t previously seen her name in the 2016 Hugo Boss prize announcement. I keep having to remind myself of what directs, manipulates and excites my attention. It’s hard not to feel like a lot of what I’ve come to find beautiful and meaningful the result of largely chance and economy.

#NYCArtsImmersion #QuyenNguyen

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to the right of Dana Schutz’s hot mess at the Whitney Biennale, there were two paintings of fictional New York Times front pages, titled Executive Function and Executive Solutions. I normally look for text in images but weirdly dig the absence of news, information, commentary, sensationalized headlines, ads, etc etc in these paintings.

They’re by Julien Nguyen (b. 1990). I can’t find much information on the artist, and it makes me wonder about the hidden economics and network of relationships that brought this young talent to the Whitney biennale.

#NYCArtsImmersion #QuyenNguyen

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One of the works I liked the most at the Whitney Museum today were the banners hanging from the 6th and 1st floor roofs. In particular, I like the “STOP” banner on the left edge of the picture above. By taking a government sign/symbol and subverting it to communicate the intent of the artist, the artist is in many ways engaging in “tactics” as discussed earlier in class to subvert “strategy”.

#NYCArtsImmersion #ChristopherKoenig

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Thank you Garrett for lending me the reflection through your lens… one of my favorite pieces at the Whitney (second to Madani’s Shitty Disco). Hearing Raul de Nieves speak about the progression of his work was very admirable. In an exhibit crowded with paintings and live demonstrations embodying violence and its ramifications, I felt Raul’s piece brought back a lot of the sensitivity and remembrance surrounding loss and mortality. There is continuity to life… there is renewal.

#NYCArtsImmersion #lisafu #modelstatus

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One of the things I loved most about New York City was how wonderful things surprised me at every turn.

#NYCArtsImmersion #kari

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experiments and dialogues. who decides the story, and who can decide who decides the story?

#NYCArtsImmersion #ashleyhuang

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In short (for I have twice tried to compose a more robust post and had Tumblr crash): Sweat is a much needed piece of representation for today’s “villains” of the liberal political rhetoric. However, the ending fell to the common mistake of catharsis, and the climax relied mostly on the tragedy of the circumstance rather than the perhaps unnecessarily long and repetitive buildup.

#NYCArtsImmersion #danielcai

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Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I would say Hi, but

I’ll just friend request you.

#NYCArtsImmersion #anaordonez

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The artwork reflects its creator. Raúl de Nieves discusses his own pieces with us at the Whitney Biennial–what an honor to hear him speak!

#NYCArtsImmersion #muselee #whitneybiennial #rauldenieves #whitneymuseum

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Decolonizing art by removing the portraits and letting everything flow organically, freeing artists from the perpetrators that inserted the systemic forms of control and policing.

“Traveling at the speed of light and then At the same time I’m in the same spot too…” taken at the Studio Museum in Harlem

#NYCArtsImmersion #cameronmirhossaini

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It’s cliche, but going to the Whitney today felt like a dream come true. I literally have dreamed about seeing some of this art. And some of this art seemed as if from a dream (or wonderful nightmare), like Raul’s costume pieces Somos Monstros.

#NYCArtsImmersion #madelinelibbey