Das-pretty-good

ART 2103: Freshman Studio Research Workshop

[subharghyadas]

Reflections on ART2103 and my first semester at Cornell,

As cliche as it might sound, it feels like yesterday when I found out about my Cornell acceptance. Over half a year and many transitions since, I feel like I’ve gone from no art class experience in high school to a well versed, well-rounded idea of the arts and my practice. Although I was highly skeptical of the quality of my discussions given the time difference, I was amazed to see substantial results in my ability only a few weeks into the semester. 

Although frustrating at times, it has been an absolute pleasure being in this class. Thank you, Professor Vadera and Morgan, for all the compromise and feedback this particular semester.

Here’s to meeting all of you on campus in a month or so!

Post #3 Week 15 ART 2103

[subharghyadas]

On the duality of Land Art in the works of Michael Ashkin,

The author gives a dual definition of land art in the video last week, stating that “art that is made within or atop or involving a landscape” or “art that this made from material drawn from a landscape.” On looking back, although not wholly, Michael Ashkin had elements and often entire pieces that fit perfectly to this binary definition of land art. I think Michael Ashkin makes the most robust case for land art on both ends of the spectrum within this class's domain. While his photography work makes a case for art upon the land, his bonseki-esque woodworks work towards the ‘art derived from the land’ part of things.

His Garden State Photo or Proof Range series, for example, are of the more ephemeral characteristic fitting the former definition of only involving or viewing the adulterated landscape as the art.

Garden State, Michael Ashkin

Proof Range, Michael Ashkin

His models between 1993-1999 were more miniature sculptures that used materials often drawn directly from the land, hence fitting our second definition.

Post #2 Week 15 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On The Appeal of  Land Art,

The appeal of the land as a medium lies in the dynamic which allows it to build a rapport with all human senses as opposed to the restriction to the visual plane as seen in the case of orthodox mediums. The appeal lies in the uncontrollable and hard-to-capture characteristic, similar to Hsieh’s approach to time as a medium in his “Doing Time” series: which attempts the taming of an otherwise obviously indomitable medium.

In mentioning my favorite quote from last week by Tania Bruguera, ”for me, the most critical moment for an art piece is when people are not sure if it’s art or not,” I feel like land art evokes similar emotions alongside very nomad instinctual feelings within the audience that makes for a spiritual experience. Having been introduced to the medium, in questioning man’s fundamental understanding of art, man tries to capture/frame the visual magnificence like an attempt to cage a bird that must be let free to strive. This, therefore, becomes a love-hate relationship between man and the earth representative of the very strained condition of nature in the contemporary world. Although I struggle to grasp at the extent of abstraction in the medium, as someone who grew up in a purely urban environment, my association of the medium with the purity of the unadulterated land gives me a sense of connection best described as therapeutic: an aspect of which relates to the little understanding of art therapy I received from Guadalupe Maravilla.

What I mentioned as man’s need to ‘capture the bird’ is what the series of videos defines as man’s hubris: the dominant predatory confidence in oneself to alter what is often millennia of geology at work. In this very uncapturable trait that baffles the artist in the documentation, be it via video, still imaging, and audio, all fall short of the sensory experience of a land art construction. In this very trait lies the appeal of land art.

Post #1 Week 15 ART 2103

[subharghyadas]

Notes from Guadalupe Maravilla's Talk,

An introduction to Therapeutic Art

"What does it mean for an undocumented person to make a documentary film?... What does it mean to make the undocumented immigrant experience into art?" 

Miko Revereza

Maravilla's inspiration, that is, the quote, seems very similar to Tehching Hsieh's understanding of the relevance of his career. The less-than-legal immigrant status of both artists is overlooked by an otherwise growingly hostile the United States entirely by virtue of their artistic talent. Hsieh often speaks of this being one of his significant motivations of looking at the audience as secondary, for he spent the majority of his career never receiving attention from the elitist New York artists of the 70s and 80s

Collective Subjectivation

Crossing Performance: Testing the fluidity of borders is something that, when artistically strained, seems to work best in the case of expressions as vibrant as in the case of Maravilla. The whole performance hits quite close to home as an almost life long resident in West Bengal, India, sharing a remarkably young and porous border with Bangladesh (what was once East Bengal.) Tensions are always high between the boundaries, often basing itself in religion as intended by the British Raj (yet to pay reparations!) However, once a year, both sides are brought together on the final day of Durga Puja, a religious festival common to both sides. Often during the visarjan, that is, the watery sendoff of Durga's idol back to the heavens, both sides come together in an exchange of glimpses, candy, and chants.

The sculpture pieces extending to rituals relates, to an extent, to the art genre of performance art. A scarce combination of fields, I am reminded of the mask pieces by photographer Ibrahim Ahmed.

I couldn't quite grasp what connection Maravilla saw between untreated trauma from crossing the border and his cancer later in life. However, I saw a clear correlation between depression and anxiety as a side effect of untreated trauma.

I noticed a very literal approach in terms of the representative narrative in his work. E.g., The sucking of the blood being suggestive of the draining jobs, standing in a literal cage for his monologue piece, standing in a model of New York City and declaring himself illegal, cleansing of space using vacuums, etc.

I noticed an intriguing introspection during Q/A when he defines himself by a story and not a medium in the context of his practice. This entirely relates to my approach to fine art and goes back to my decision in choosing Cornell: the freedom of choice in terms of the medium as opposed to other art schools, which often segregate artists by the same. Having struggled to commit to a single medium for a very long time, I find solace in Maravilla's success.

Post #3 Week 14 ART 2103

[subharghyadas]

MISSING's Public Art Installations,

MISSING often creates highly minimalist installations throughout the city of silhouettes of young girls. Contrasting against the urban skyline, these iron forged, pitch black, sharply cut pieces appear like black holes cut out of the sky: representative of the millions of girls who disappear from the face of the earth without leaving as much as a trace. These silhouettes intend to remain constant reminders of humanity's negligence and as memorials of the girls never found.

The piece above was one such public activist sculpture that was displayed at the Pune Biennale.

Post #2 Week 14 ART 2103

[subharghyadas]

Activistic Performance: Art for tangible change?

“For me, the most important moment in an art piece is when people are not sure if it’s art or not.”

Tania Bruguera

Exploring the dynamic of performance art that questions the characteristic ‘artness’ of a piece is something that has evolved for me throughout my first semester of Art School. In the context of this class, I initially found the activist nature in the form of mass gathering in Jaishri Abhichandani’s Feminist participatory ‘Me Too’ projects, the feminist narrative of which extensively carried over to the works of Suzanne Lucy. I also saw a repetition in the theme of exploring one’s culture in Burguera’s piece previously seen in the case of Nicholas Galanin, Chitra Ganesh, and Jaishri Abichandani. Given such overlaps, it comes as no surprise that conversations of contemporary feminist art most recently seen in TheFeministArtProject 2019 include Lucy and Abhichandani on the same panel: a rigorous attempt at maintaining a dynamic outlook and coherency on a global scale.

Abhichandani’s Feminist participatory ‘Me Too’ projects

I’ve always considered art in terms of use to make tangible change without commercializing the field in the process. Given my orthodox view of the arts or perhaps plain ignorance (both of which were challenged by my choice of artist for my 20x20 artist Tehching Hsieh), I often overlooked the social activist elements present in the art around me. An example of this would be the MISSING girls graffiti campaign primarily based in my city, which I managed to miss after spending my entire life here. The campaign challenges, to great lengths, the artistic credibility of street art and the activist nature of the artform in spreading awareness of girls that go missing as a consequence of human trafficking for sexual exploitation; The works usually include the stenciled silhouette of a girl with a hashtag followed by a helpline number. 

Post #1 Week 14 ART 2103

[subharghyadas]

I'll be presenting Tehching Hsieh for my 20x20 in a few weeks and have spent the last couple of days studying his life's work. For me, his standout piece(s) are his final two pieces titled the One Year Performance (1985-1986) "No Art Piece" and Thirteen Year Plan (1986-1999), respectively. Both resonated with me in their anti-establishment narrative, for both saw the audience as secondary, which to me, defined the blurred boundaries of performance and theatre arts. During the year-long performance piece, he distanced himself from art in every way possible: he did not create any art, didn't talk about art, didn't look at anything related to art, didn't read any books about art, and did not enter an art museum or gallery. Subsequently, for the next 13 years, he declared that he would make art during the time but would now show it publicly. 

On the Thirteen Year Plan's final day, Hsieh finished his career with the following report in cutout letters - bringing his genre-defining career of over 36 years to an end.

Post #3 Week 11 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On Justifying Graffiti,

Graffiti has always had an undeniable ekphrastic quality in its unintelligible letters found on the walls of most metropolitan cities in the world. The art form has often been shunned in practice similar to most other elements of hip-hop in comparison to the mainstream and orthodox (both often seeing significant overlaps.) Such was the case of breakdancing and its rejection from the dancing arts or emceeing and its rejection from the vocal arts. This was often, especially in the case of graffiti, a cause-and-effect scenario that played out repeatedly in the bourgeois’s flight or flight response to reverse-gentrification, by the result of which, the elitist art practicians were at risk to lose their selective status and relevance. 

Graffiti, being the illegitimate child of art in the form of visual self-expression and theatre in the way of audience-specific creation, is by its very existence anti-establishment. Since the appeal of the same blurred the line between street art and ‘real’ art, it saw a rejection on a large scale from the mainstream art world. The failure in such an attempt lies in the fact that graffiti was born of a lack of platform, so to outlaw, the same would do nothing more than exasperate the stakes for the artist who set out to display a pseudonym identity publicly. Thus, to deny graffiti the right to be called an art form is to deny visual (and in the contemporary - rebellious) expression.

Post #2 Week 11 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On generational Indian feminist art: Chitra Ganesh and Jaishri Abichandani,

Jaishri Abichandani is a desi Brooklyn-based artist and curator with an intense focus on the intersection of art, feminism, and social practice. Given her choice of interests and background, it comes as no surprise that she is one of Chitra Ganesh’s key inspirations - both of them have significant overlaps in both thought and practice. Her talk this week inspired extended research into my 20x20 artist, during which I found a critical narrative they arrived at in their work via different sets of inspiration. 

The element that stood out to me the most for both artists was their work with goddess Kali and an overhead commentary on India’s religious paradox. A Hindu majority country, India, by virtue of the same religion, sees the most significant number of goddesses and their rituals but ranks in the lower quarter of the world in terms of woman safety. Out of the many choices, therefore, Kali seems the most fitting, for she represents demonic murderous rage in the protection of innocence reflective of the internalized emotions of the Indian non-male population. However, it is highly insightful to see the variety in approach and inspiration to the same in the case of both artists. Abichandani takes her inspiration from the paradox stated above, being of the curatorial nature and having had previous works such as the Feminist participatory ‘Me Too’ projects working in an extension of her feminist domain. Having taken inspiration from her work, Ganesh works in an extension of this narrative and adopts further from the formalization of the same paradox in the contemporary via the works of Amar Chitra Katha. This religion-inspired art often extended by and large to their work on the gaze that surrounds the female body. Both artists see this in their fashion but with a standard feminist agenda propagation in mind via the work. However, they do as most overlaps, tangent off into their practice - with Ganesh’s amalgamation of cyborg art and Abichandani’s focus on the Indian religious sacred texts.

Jaishri Abichandani, Grief and Glory, 2019.

Chitra Ganesh, Eyes of Time, 2016.

To see such a commonality in work after such a difference in inspiration threw light on the nature of the creative process of both artists. It also answered questions concerning the relevance of this course. I realized that an artist who can hone his/her ability to create tangible ideas via connections from various inspirations is an artist who can critically think and express ideas via verbal and visual expression. This development was wholly circumstantial in the case of Abichandani and Ganesh and made me glad that such shall not be my case.

Post #1 Week 11 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On The Political Economy of Mass Media and the words of Stuart Hall and Edward Said,

In my recent independent reading of Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman's "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media," I realized a stark overlap in their views on modern corrupted media and it's propagandistic nature, which, time and time again, we see Stuart Hall and Edward Said be criticize.

The book sees the Propaganda model of communication be formulated into five filters of editorial bias, some of which I naturally covered in my previous posts on similar topics. On further research, I found them to be the following.

1. Size, ownership, and profit orientation: This bias, which I have previously discussed, speaks of the dominant mass-media outlets being profit based operations and therefore being required to answer to the financial interests of owners such as corporations or controlling investors

2. The advertising license to do business: Since media outlets are not commercially viable without their advertisements, news media are often forced to cater to their advisors' political prejudices and economic desires.

3. Sourcing mass media news: This bias discussed the financial danger in avoidance of which media businesses distort their reports to favor government and corporate policies to avoid getting shut down

4. Flak and the enforcers: The book defines "flak" as the negative response to the program's media statement. It discusses the multidimensional use of flak as an expense to the media that deters it from reporting certain kinds of facts or opinions. Almost like an invisibly enforced censorship of the press.

5. Anti-communism/war on terror: This is a specifically American filter and specific to the period in which the book was published. In the contemporary context, post the cold war was replaced with the "war on terror" narrative. This closely echoes the analogies of “The Empire v. Han” and the discussions around CIA agent Amaryllis Fox.

Find the book here

Week 10 Post #3 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On Style Wars,

I think films like Style Wars are beyond documentations: they are artworks in their own right. Although my argument may be emotionally influenced and not objective, I believe such films are foundational in creating new cultures. Having been part of the budding Indian hip-hop community, I have seen how far the ideas preached in these documentaries cant send waves of culture and vision halfway around the world. I partook in graffiti and beatbox mainly and saw the rise of a culture that already had a pre-game plan set out for them via digital media sources scoured from the depths of the modem-era internet. Perhaps the most exciting part of such an experience was in the generation of artists created, who saw collaborating their culture with the hip hop roots they self-learned. I witnessed the adaptation of the westernized 1st world culture into the 3rd world, creating its own new set of wonders and issues. 

Therefore, I found it apt to feature two of the most incredible South-Asian artists I met and how they are now the face of hip hop culture in the South Asian 3rd world.

The first is Daku, whom I had a brush with at one of Kolkata’s scarce graffiti events. There is no confirmation of whether I actually met the right man, for he is in the public eye still unknown. He was India’s first, in 2008, to start the culture of graffiti beyond just the English language, setting trends in what was the first example of India gentrifying western culture. Both in his name (Daku, meaning Bandit in Hindi) and in his work, he used the Devnagri script to create a new form of vandal writing. I have included below some of his most famous works containing commentaries on politics and consumerism.

The second is Annie Azaz, a.k.a Mirch (translates to spice in Arabic), who I met in my early years as an amateur graffiti artist. Annie is Pakistan's first and youngest female graffiti artist.

Week 10 Post #2 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On Ka-man Tse,

Over the past few weeks of artist talks, it seems that the artist indeed remains affectionate to the place he/she is local to, creating identities that transcend nationality and exploring deep roots in culture. As strongly summarised by Taiye Selasi, the real defining characteristic of oneself, and by extension, ones' creative practice is rooted in his or her connection to the places she lives or had lived. We saw examples of this before in both the case of Nicholas Galanin, Nicole Awai and Sasha Phyars-burgess, who, in expressing their creativity, captured the part of their identity they believed to be the most unknown and hence the most curious. The element of curiosity being associated best with the young mind, it's not surprising that most of these artists were very young when introduced to components that strongly influence their practice in the present day.

In Ka-man Tse, I see the creative mind and bright eyes of an immigrant child who embodies the vast majority of the Asian population's struggle in terms of pursuing the arts. In continuation of the Asian taboo culture, we see feminist and queer struggles commonplace in playing into the Asian artists’ narrative, being the case for Ka-man Tse as well as my 20x20 artist Chitra Ganesh. Chitra Ganesh's series titled Queer Re-visions and Sasha Phyars-Burgess's work Untitled And Yet To Be Determined seem to almost combine in a piece to create Tse's Portraits and Narratives of LGBTQ Asians and Asian Americans. Like Ganesh, Tse draws on the stigma around being queer in the Asian community and finds strength in expressing oneself unapologetically. Additionally, like Phyars-Burgess, Tse examines community and human agency through photographs, both staged and organic, of subjects open to the public gaze.

Queer Revisions by Chitra Ganesh

Portraits and Narratives of LGBTQ Asians and Asian Americans by Ka-man Tse

In further elaboration of the queer identity, Ganesh and Tse both involve the gaze and body into their practice expressing the same through a focus on specific interest: Amar Chitra Katha for Ganesh and beauty and drag for Tse. They both glorify the female body, often in rebellion to the patriarchal culture in which they grew up. The likes of Ganesh, Tse, and Phyars-burgess, embody a generation of artists who express to the male-centric white art world, an immense decisive majority, the female-centric Asian narrative, the historically oppressed minority. 

In tune with such a narrative, I am excited to watch next week's artist Jaishri Abhichandani.

Week 10 Post #1 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On understanding black culture through art, literature, and movement,

The artist documentation of the black struggle in America is captured in the widest varieties and mediums in the arts. The study of this struggle has been the highlight of my last eight weeks at Cornell -  my crash course in American culture. I was initially introduced to it in my Writing Seminar and Art seminar through movements and writing. Via a study of the Civil Rights Movement, the seminal documentaries of the black experience through the antebellum stories of Charles Chesnutt, the course of the Harlem Renaissance and by extension the work of Nella Larsen, and most importantly, the Black Arts Movement (which had its roots in both movements above,) I saw the painting of a multilayered picture. Civil Rights Movement writer James Baldwin due to his intersectional identity and ideas regarding art also gave depth to my knowledge. In understanding the role of individualism in play, besides Larsen, the studies on the birth of intersectional identity through the Combahee River Collective and contemporaries such as Kimberle Crenshaw acknowledge the people's struggle these niches made for the foundations of female and queer blacks. Through all these layers and lenses, I realized many similarities of such a culture to my own. I noted the idea of the trained subconscious bias that the imposing race used to see through oppression even past granting autonomy is something I noted in culture beyond just the black, in the work of other colored cultures and artists of the same such as Chitra Ganesh and Nicholas Galanin. Objective readings finally allowed me to put a title to my understandings, especially on reading “An American Dilemma” by Gunnar Myrdal (Nobel Prize for economics), where he quotes the black struggle as "The Negro Problem" (chancefully, the title of a different book by Booker T. Washington.)

I mentioned movements and writing being the most apparent, but the most seminal to my understanding of this struggle was through the black artist. Distinct in style and nature, similar in artistic purpose, I have seen commonalities in both the battle and the views and perspective of these individuals over the last few weeks. I believe my study of the same was even more niche, not through the eyes of the black man, as was usually my case with literature, but through the eyes of the black women and their intersectional identity whose alienation birthed a mindset best captured in their art. My introduction to this struggle of the black female identity, as previously mentioned, was through the works of Harlem Renaissance novelist Nella Larsen and was solidified in my studies of the black female collectives such as the Combahee River collective and the nature of their identities acknowledged in the contemporary world by people such as Kimberle Crenshaw. I saw these values, personalities, and motivations reflected in a series of artists I studied this semester. Although dissimilar in origin, all these artists had an indifferent stance on the black struggle and highlighted the same through their art. Now, this struggle came to fruition through various sorts of approaches. There were works of personal struggle and struggles of black womanhood expressed in the works of Phoebe Boswell in pieces such as "The Space Between Things" and "For Every Real Word Spoken," respectively. The struggle also solidified in other forms, such as depictions of the black female body in media culture, which is seen in the works of Frida Orupabo. In her case, she attempts to return the gaze to question the superiority of the race that once dominated them. A similar such anti-colonial sentiment is one we studied in the case of Nicholas Galanin. In keeping with Nicholas Galanins' work through monuments and critique of the American landscape and experience, we see the works of Nicole Awai. Specific pieces such as "Reclaimed Waters" maintains the same debates on Christopher Columbus that are evoked by Galanin's works and in my posts over the last few weeks. The final form of approach is in exploring the black body and its fitment into society today, whose in-depth photographic studies we see in the works of Sasha Phyars-Burgees and her exploration of the black family unit and canonically black values in Chicago. She maintains a similar narrative as all the artists in terms of how the Black body, in the American context or otherwise (Orupabo being Norwegian), falls prey to the combined political institutions and capitalist agenda. Their work weaves a narrative based on the realities of contemporary black life and highlights the black struggle.

Week 9 Post #1 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On Chitra Ganesh and the paradoxes of my culture,

While researching Chitra Ganesh, my artist for the 20x20 presentation this Wednesday, I realized how big a part STEM-oriented mindset plays in the Indian culture; the nature of which is  so woven into the Indian narrative that even the likes of Ganesh, a second-generation Indian-American, faced alienation issues on choosing the arts. India's popular belief towards the arts, summarised by Ganesh as an "option for wealthy folk or people from a family of artists," carried over to the thought process of those living out their version of The Great Indian Dream in a country of wealth and an opportunity in the art. Financial means, or the lack of the same, are often used to justify forcing one's young into STEM. No such argument held true for Ganesh - whose dad was a banker and mother an educator. Yet, she still spoke of societal pressure and acceptances being the sole reason for her late start in her art career.

Such circumstances have almost precisely played out in the case. I was and remain highly critical of the choice to attend an art school, especially having both the means and interest to pursue an alternate career in finance. In my retrospective ponderings, I have discovered that the paradoxical and hypocritical view of my culture, one that creates a god-complex around famous Indian artists such as the likes of Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray but forces one's own to live a life of forced pseudo-interest. As discussed in my posts before in discussions of James Baldwin and the irrelevance of art in contemporary society, such cultures, and by extension society, develops an interest in fields of lesser direct impact when they see the shift in man's demands. The modern world once demanded factory workers who directly saw an extension of the market in the schooling system (as discussed in previous posts) but successively saw the same irrelevance due to machines' creation. It is no mere chance that this also saw the rise of movements such as Realism, Romanticism, and Impressionism. I believe such a change befalls every society in that, as it fulfills its basic needs, it moves to explore the abstracts of existence and what it means to be human. Such conversations also help me state, with almost irrefutable conviction, to have been born in the wrong generation, For the artist of the future is one that shall see the most revenance.

Week 9 Post #3 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

Counterfactual historical ponderings based on the works of Galanin,

Nicholas Galanin, Haa Aaní (Our Land) - hand-carved and etched AR-15 with hand-sewn sea otter strap, 2013 

Nicholas Galanin, Operation Geronimo, silkscreen, 2013 

Artworks of Nicholas Galanin, such as these have often made me ponder what would happen if those who were colonized would attempt to fight the colonizers armed with the same weapons - leveling the playing field and gaining the advantage of fighting on home grounds. It is commonly hypothesized about what would happen if India didn't follow Gandhi's footsteps and his belief in Ahimsa (non-violence) - a sentiment he hypothesized from his reflections to the work of Leo Tolstoy. Although this highly enters into counterfactual history, if India would have sided with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and chosen to mobilize the Indian National Army with assistance from Imperial Japan, India would have most definitely overthrown it’s colonizers but would have also been on the wrong side of the world war. The financial drain post such a war would almost definitely see the shattering of the country's economy and a divide into various self-declared independent nations. 

Here is an initially confidential but later released document by the CIA, which speaks in detail about the rise and fall of the INA and Japan's attempt to exploit growing Indian Nationalism. Very interesting insight into what could have been. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000709795.pdf

Week 9 Post #2 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

In my conversation about artists such as Banksy, who prove the brush (or more aptly the spray can) is mightier than the pen, I was reminded of Indian artist TylerStreetArtist whose public political commentary has aggravated politicians to the point of covering up public pieces and issuing an arrest warrant for this anonymous artist.

Here is the article I read about one of the many occasions on which his art was covered up. https://www.scoopwhoop.com/news/walk-of-shame-street-artist-tyler-interview-death-threats-art-instagram/

Week 8 Post #3 ART2103

[subharghyadas]

On Art as a weapon and its power in the hands of the artist,

In my readings about the use of art as a weapon in the past, I unknowingly found myself picking up the reasoning and vocabulary to justify the relevance of art - something I have often been critical of growing up in a STEM-oriented culture. I realized that art, be it through an applied form such as advertising or through the fine arts, provides a visual language that imprints on the viewer's mind and is far more impactful than writing; For humans have proven to be visual learners. We see such an impact in the case of artists such as Banksy, whose graphic political commentary has gained traction to the point of spreading into cultures beyond the western and becoming symbolic of resistance and expression against ideologies that are of the norm. We also see it in terms of 20x20 artist Dread Scott and his work "What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag," which questions morals and beliefs in a physical manner beyond the abilities of writing. Regarding the applied arts and its effect on the mind, I find no better example than one I have previously mentioned:  Cambridge Analytica and its involvement in President Trump's campaign and Brexit. This story was about Facebook data points from their users being used to target those deemed 'influenceable' by using advertisements that subconsciously influenced their beliefs and hence their vote.

Work by Banksy

Dread Scott, What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag, 1989

Such realizations make me reconsider my critical approach to the preachings of James Baldwin. Maybe having the great power of being artistic should indeed be taken with the great responsibility of expressing the same. However, I do stand by the realities of the world and having to earn your bread to feed the mind and retain one's ability to exercise its power.  The readings have also reaffirmed my belief in an art educations’ relevance and my harsh critique of the outdated education system still in place. While promoting STEM brings about more noticeable results, I look at art as more of a long-term investment in the same way theoretical research is to the sciences: one does not realize its value until years or even generations after it's creation. Warren Buffet has famously denounced the diversification of financial portfolios as he believes it is merely an uneducated way to hedge one's risk. He is also popular for his belief in Index Funds. Although similarly radical, one might say the same from STEM in terms of diversified portfolios and art in terms of Index Funds. As would be the case in both the investment and career, the decision comes down to the individual’s risk appetite.

Week 8 Post #2 ART2103