Art Hopping: NYC 2017

a journey through contemporary art

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November 29th- The Whitney and The Museum of the American Indian

This was an interesting day to be me. I felt a bit like I was both out of the conversation and deeply embedded in it. As I am mixed race Native American, I felt both insulted by Jimmie Durham’s exhibition, but I also understood where he was coming from. The idea of being “real” or “authentic” is a concept that I also struggle with, especially as I am still learning about my culture and who I really am in relation to that culture and history. However, I do feel like Jimmie Durham uses stereotypes of Native Americans rather than traditions form his personal culture as the artists at the Museum of the American Indian did, but I feel like he used some of the effectively to show how a native person might feel about being characterized in that way, in a kind of revealing satire. For example, with the piece “Pocahontas’ Underwear”, I saw an issue that I myself deal with. One of the first occurrences that happens to me when I tell someone that I am native, is that people tend to sexualize me because many of the Native American women in the media that they see are hypersexualized. I have had men whisper to me that they would be my John Smith too, which is just gosh darn creepy because Pocahontas was like, eight, in the actual history. I didn’t want to see myself in the Jimmie Durham exhibition, but I did, I saw the exploration of a new side of you, a side that you want to show that people may not automatically label you as, which is both a blessing and a curse. Maybe this want for what you consider your true culture to be acknowledged is selling yourself as a unique commodity and using that part of you to get attention, but I feel like artists highlight what makes them unique all the time in order to get sales. When we were at Keltie Ferris’ studio, I remember that she said that she didn’t want to just emphasize the elements of her personality that made her unique and underprivileged, such as being queer and  women, because she’s also white, and she understands the privilege that she has with that. She wanted her body prints to be an expression of the whole her, not just particular aspects. Not all artists think that way, they try and sell what makes them “underprivileged” at different levels, and I feel like a level of that is occurring in the Jimmy Durham exhibition which does make me sad. Native American heritage is hard to prove due to lack of documentation, and even if DNA testing does come back with Native elements, they are not able to tell what tribe you are from yet, since they would need a large pool of “full-blood” Native Americans from all the different tribes to give their DNA in order to compare what makes the tribes different. So, even if Jimmy Durham’s DNA does have Native American within it, it is practically impossible to find out what tribe he is from, so he could still be accused of lying about being Cherokee.  

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November 17th- The Guggenheim

Okay, let’s talk about the Guggenheim show, because it was actually my least favorite show that we have seen this whole semester. There were a few elements about it that I really enjoyed though, so let’s talk about those first. My favorite section in the China exhibition was section based on Buddhist tradition that was housed in one of the tower rooms. As a person who follows some Buddhist doctrines myself, I understood the spiritual context behind these pieces and this had a stronger connection to them. I also really enjoyed one video that I found by Ai Wei Wei about grieving parents and the process of grief following a devastating earthquake that destroyed many schools and left hundreds of children dead. I do think that this piece was hard to find though, since it was one of many Ai Wei Wei works in the show, and it is not one of his most splashy, so it didn’t really have to opportunity to truly be noticed. I think that having an exhibition showcasing contemporary Chinese artists is a great idea, but I do not feel like the Guggenheim was the right choice to have the exhibition in. Chinese artwork tends to be very conceptual and hard to digest, which is why I don’t feel like having it in a spiral on a slope is a great idea, I got so overwhelmed when heading back to the ground floor, I felt like I was getting motion sickness. And then of course, there’s the controversy over animal cruelty. I felt like my voice was kind of talked over while we were there on the visit, so I am going to say them now. First of all, I felt very uncomfortable knowing that living beings had suffered in that space. It’s a part of my empathy, I felt like I could feel the pain in some way, and it made me really upset to be honest. I have to believe that all living beings are equal and have the same right to happiness and to avoid pain as a human, otherwise I feel like we as humans will forget where we have come from as an evolved animal. We will lose our empathy and our connection to the earth and will become snobby and entitled (I mean, a lot of us already are, but I strive to not be like that). Like many other people, I believe that an important conversation was glossed over at the Guggenheim, but I believe that that discussion should have addressed the way that humans use animals. Humans use animals constantly; we slaughter them so we can eat their meat, their babies are taken away from them so we can drink their milk, they are kept in cages their whole lives until we skin them so we can wear their fur. Why is it that when animal cruelty is portrayed in art that people protest?  What is the difference between this kind of use and the kind of use that we take for granted every day? I believe it is because they are not just looking at product, but a process in this case.

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November 15th- New Museum and International Center of Photography

Ohh, the “Trigger” exhibit… what an experience. It was so overwhelming to go through three floors full of intense artwork that often didn’t feel like they should have gone together or that there could have been a more choosy selection process by the curators of the exhibit. I’m hopeful that the exhibits at The New Museum are not usually this overwhelming, because I’m not sure that I could come back if that was the case. I did really enjoy one section of the floor that we were on, which was an installation by Liz Collins (in a strange coincidence, one of Katie’s teachers during grad school). I enjoyed this part of the exhibit best because at least most of the elements felt like they went together, since they were created to go together. I also am always drawn to people who work in textiles and other “women’s” crafts such as knitting, weaving, and rug making (there have been soooo many rugs this year!) I feel like the “Trigger” exhibit was such an important exhibit to have happen and that it occurred at just the right moment, but that it was the curation that brought it down. There was quite simply too much stuff and stimulation. If an exhibition is going to have three floors, then I feel like the work should be spaced out nicely through the space and not crowded off into little corners like works sometimes were in the “Trigger” exhibit. If you have the space to allow the artwork to breathe, then I believe that it should be given that space, since that also hives your viewers the opportunity to breathe. In addition to the added breath, giving the work more space would lead to a more selective process of curation, which I feel would benefit the “Trigger” exhibition because there was just plain too much stuff involved, and some of the pieces fit with the theme better than others. Although the Lauren Greenfield exhibit at the International Center of Photography was also large, I feel like it was better curated, as it didn’t make my head spin. As a matter of fact, I felt quite calm in the space and could have spent a much longer time exploring the show, since it was very well organized and had clear sections set out for each theme that Greenfield worked with. As I said before in a previous blog, I felt like the photographs in this exhibit were much more critical of wealth that the paintings at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. I think that this might be due to their documentary nature, which can capture people both at their best and at their worst, and show that they are real people, not celebrities as Julia Jacquette depicted, and when Greenfield did photograph a celebrity, they captured the performative nature of being a celebrity, which I feel was more clearly shown in photographs than in paintings. I was a bit more distracted by how wonderfully the paintings were made when I was looking at the Jacquette pieces, something that I did not see happening while I was looking at the Greenfield pieces.

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November 10th- MoMA PS1 and The Sculpture Center

The two locations that we visited today were, in my opinion, two of the best and most interesting spaces that we have been in architecturally. We began at The Sculpture Center, where we had a talk with the chief curator of the space, who is very influential in the emerging art world according to Katie. I was thinking that we could actually get her information in some way and invite her to the Senior Showcase, I doubt she would have the time to come, but it would be fun if she did, wouldn’t it? One of the very first pieces that I noticed in the first section of the center that we were in was a textile piece on Joan of Arc. There were pieces on other women that were up as well, but the Joan of Arc piece struck me the most because I was rather upset that she was not featured in Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party” since I feel that she is an example to women and young girls everywhere, and is also my patron saint, so I have a personal connection with her. There were also many elements that reminded me of my time in Greece, just as the reccurant symbols of the evil eye and the seashell. The first part of the center seemed like a normal gallery, but when we went downstairs into the basement floor, I immediately knew that if I were to present my work at the center, I would want it to be here. The space was so interesting and different, and I enjoyed looking for the little glass pieces hidden throughout it for the exhibition, however, I do feel like the space could have been used better through the inclusion of larger pieces o more of an attempt to bring the space into the work, such as using the arched in the hallway down to middle for something interesting (something like wallpapering them, or making them into columns, or even making them look like they were coated in glass). I took a lot of pictures there, and also in PS1, not so much about the works, but about the building itself. My mother is a schoolteacher and she loves old schools, so I took a lot of pictures of the building for her that I showed her over thanksgiving break and she absolutely gushed over. In terms of the exhibition, I personally enjoyed the Cathy Wilkes show more than the Carolee Schneemann work, but I liked both of them a lot. I think that I was drawn to the Cathy Wilkes show because of the aesthetic of it. There was one room in the smaller section of the exhibit that I could have stayed in all day, which was just a white room, a window with a curtain, and a small painted plate labeled “Teenage Mother” on one side. This room is exactly how I wish more at was presented, minimalist and in natural lighting, so of course I loved that exhibit since it was sparse, yet lovely, and it made you think.  

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November 8th- Brooklyn Museum

Today I woke up so excited. Because today I finally got to see “The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago. Working in feminist art, particularly textile and ceramics work, I have heard about Judy Chicago so many times, particularly her most influential, controversial, and well-known work, “The Dinner Party”. When I entered the space that was designated for feminist art, I felt so relaxed and excited because I had never known that a space like this existed, a space where feminist art could be appreciated as art while being surrounded by art that reflected and expanded on their values. This also applied to “The Dinner Party”, as woks by African American and Native American artists might be presented alongside it in order to create a conversation on the way that race has been depicted in feminist art in the past. “The Dinner Party” however, is the main piece in the wing designated for feminist art and the space was designed in order to give it a permanent home and not allow this important, labor-intensive work to be thrown away or to sit in boxes all these years. The piece is contained within a glass triangular space, where people can walk round the periphery of the piece. The space that it is actually in is very quiet and reverential, as though it is a memorial to the women that are portrayed in the piece. The lighting also added to the ambience of the piece, as it was somewhat dim, but consisted of spotlights that each shown a light on the women that were highlighted, similar to an empty spotlight honoring a fallen actor after a play. When I entered the room, I was immediately reminded of the piece that we saw on the roof of the Met due to the use of table settings, although the meanings behind the piece were completely different.  My favorite element of how “The Dinner Party” was set up though, was the exhibition that surrounded it. There was list of all the women included in the piece and a bit about their life, which I thought was very interesting, particularly if someone didn’t know these women and wanted to know more. There was also a list of the women artists who worked on the piece, since Judy Chicago didn’t do it all herself, which I felt was long overdue, since it should be acknowledged and looked at as a group work. Of course, there is a lot of controversy surrounding “The Dinner Party” and its depiction of women of different races and cultures, which I agree could have been dealt with a lot better (I think that there are better choices to represent Native Americans than Sacagawea, personally), but I think that this discussion also allows the viewer to learn how feminism was in those days and how it has changed since. I have now begun thinking about making a recreation, but with women or women-bodied/ feminist people who have inspired me throughout my life in particular.

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November 3rd- Visual Arts Center of NJ

Today we started a bit later than usual, so let me fill you in on what I did in the meantime before we met up for the bus to the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. First, I woke up a bit later (yes!), then I had breakfast, went to the studio for a bit to do some work, did some yoga, and then had lunch before I hopped on the bus. No offense to the days when we’re in the city all day, but I felt much more accomplished this day than on the others because I felt like I got a lot of things done during the time that I might be on the train. When we went to the Visual Arts Center, I was immediately drawn to the staircase in the middle that has river rocks around it (I didn’t take a picture, I don’t know why) but I just felt so relaxed by it and it almost felt like something that would be at a museum at home in Vermont, so I felt really comfortable in the space. The Julia Jacquette show that we saw was also very interesting to me, as well as being beautiful. I was very drawn to this one image of desserts with text pointing to them that read “your every word a perfect jewel and knife in my own heart”. I think that I was both drawn to it for the colors (I’m really calmed by that millennial pink color that is everywhere recently, and that was prominent in the piece) and the words, which would be rather disconcerting if they didn’t perfectly describe my feelings about my ex from a recent relationship, which made me have a stronger connection to that image. The other set of work that Julia Jacquette included in the show (which originated at Hamilton College which, fun fact, is my brother’s alma mater), was about advertising and the way that we portray men and women in media. Looking back, I also saw it as closely related to the show that we saw at the International Center of photography the following week because both shows depicted wealth, glamour, and luxury, but with a slightly satiric twist, using positioning and color to show that these attributes are not always as positive as we feel like they are. Both of these shows play with the human desire to obtain material items, through showing idealized human forms, jewelry, pools, and general excess through the depiction of whisky and other alcohol. However, I do feel like the Julia Jacquette show was more reverential than the other one, since every element seemed perfect; the pools were full rather than empty as in some images in the photography exhibit. One of the elements that I found most interesting about the Visual Arts Center itself was their art therapy program. I am personally thinking about going to grad school for art therapy, probably outside of the US, and being in that environment and hearing about the good work that they do, made me even more inspired to do just that.

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November 1st- Cecily Brown 

Okay, I’m not going to lie, I was really, really nervous for today, I’m not sure if I slept at all the night before. It was my turn to start off the questions for the artist and keep the conversation going, and I had picked the hardest to get, most well-known artist of the entire group, plus I had two very smart partners that I knew would come up with amazing questions. I pushed myself so hard to come up with questions that I felt were interesting, fun, and somewhat controversial, in the sense that they were topics that usually weren’t brought up in discussion that we had with artists. I was really unsure if I could ask some of these questions, so I had separate lists for if Cecily Brown was in a good mood, a bad mood, or an uncertain mood. Luckily for me, she was in a good mood. However, I’m not sure how she couldn’t be in a bad mood because her studio was absolutely the nicest one that we had been in during the semester. Plus, she was surrounded by her work in the studio, which was filled with beautiful colors. Many people find Cecily Brown’s work very chaotic, but I actually find it rather calming with the colors involved and the way your eyes move through the paintings. Once we got settled down in the studio, the questions began. During my preliminary research on Cecily Brown, I had discovered that her work went for a lot of money, and I had wanted to ask how she felt about her work selling for so much, but it was a terrifying question to think about asking. However, the topic of art as business came up, and I took the leap. She actually thanked me for having the guts to ask the question, and she said it was very weird for her. We then had a long, informative discussion on the business of art, which can often be a difficult concept to understand, but she made it very conversational and easy, just as if we were some friends or colleagues talking about what happened at work that day. We also talked with Cecily Brown about her process, and one of my favorite pieces from that discussion that I took away with me was that she very often does puzzles of different works of art and considers them an artist’s crossword puzzles. It gives artists practice in collecting visual cues and similarities. She often uses some of the pieces that she creates as puzzles as inspiration for the pieces that she creates, as she will often do works based on famous works or works that she personally enjoys. Recently, Cecily Brown has been creating pieces based on famous works depicting shipwrecks, which she feels depicts the state of the world and the United States at this point in time. After we left the studio, Professor Rhodes (Kim) told me that this visit was one of the best and most informative ever, so I guess I didn’t mess it up too bad with my impertinent questions and got myself all worked up over nothing (again).

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October 27th- Studio Museum in Harlem, Gavin Brown Enterprise

The first place that we visited, the Studio Museum in Harlem, was showing an exhibition called “Fictions” that showcased emerging African American artists whose work created narratives. Before we went to the show, we picked two artists to do further research on for our Moodle forum posts. I chose Patrick Martinez and Genevieve Gaignard. Martinez creates mainly multimedia work, with neon lighting and bright colors playing a large role in the works. Regarding the “Fictions” show, Martinez works with both human subjects and landscapes that the subjects can be in, reinventing the idea of the narrative. I was disappointed to find only one work by this artist in the show, I would have liked to have seen more, but I feel as though his work fits very well into the contemporary art that we have been exploring this semester, especially the resurgence of neon as medium of art. Theories as to why this has occurred include inspiration being driven from artists from the 60’s and 70’s, particularly from Dan Flavin’s work, which we saw at Dia: Beacon and the Judd Foundation. Another element of why neon has grown popular may be the increased interest in lighting in photographs that people have now due to selfie culture and the rise of filters on Instagram and Snapchat. Having a neon light affect an image like a selfie is a natural filter, so people can use the hashtag “#nofilter”, but still have an interesting look to the image. The other artist I focused on, Genevieve Gaignard works with photography, multimedia, and installation. An installation of hers was shown in the show, and dealt with issues of race, status, and class, both in the past and the present. I was very impressed with the amount of work that went into the installation, and I felt like the piece got across the message that Gaignard wanted to get across, but didn’t scream it, which I found highly effective. The other place that we went where the exhibitions really caught my eye was I believe was Gavin Brown Enterprise, where an artist had recreated the set of a movie, then recreated that movie within the set, but with a man playing the lead role instead of a woman. One of my favorite moments from arts semester happened this day, when Kim opened the door to the next section of the gallery, turned around, and whispered to me “there’s a bar in there!” We all entered this “bar”, which is the place where the two main characters met in the movie, and the actual bartender was there, offering what the people drank in the movie. In addition, something crazy happened that would not usually happen, but the lead actor was actually there watching the movie for the first time, chilling out with a cigarette and a beer. This experience was absolutely amazing, and probably one of my favorite installations that I have ever been to. I prefer to interact with an installation rather than just view it, so I was very pleased that I got to interact with the space and even some of the characters while watching the film, for me it made it a much more enriching experience.

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Images from October 25th, 2017

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October 25th- Artsy, Claudia Bitran, and A.I.R

Today we got to see more of the business side of the art world, visit a very interesting artist, and also see one of the first women-collective run galleries. In addition, we got to ride on a carousel that our coordinator, Katie Bell, works on, which was a very fun, unique experience. For me, one of the highlights of the day was going to Artsy, although I know that many people disliked the environment and could not see themselves working there. For me, the space felt comfortable and inviting and I actually could see myself working there. I need a space to work in where I am surrounded by art, but also media and other collaborators. I could definitely see myself making artist videos for Artsy ad having the ability and the creativity needed to make my own work, but having a steady job that I enjoyed as well. I feel like a lot of people see being anything other than a working artist or a museum worker as “selling out” and not doing what you actually want to do, like you’re missing out on your true dream. But for me, I would rather be working with media as well as art, as I am tech savvy. In addition, we as young artists have an advantage in the media game as we have skills that we take for granted that other people in the workforce do not have. I think that it is important for us to highlight these skills in other jobs which will help us make connections within the art world. People in the class also though that that the man who was giving the presentation to us was too stuffy, but I thought that for a person coming from the business world, he was actually doing quite well trying to relate to us while also giving us information about the company that we needed to know. I also really enjoyed going to visit Claudia Bitran (actually, I think I just enjoyed this whole day in general, it was probably one of my favorite days, I also just remembered that the gala for the 50th anniversary of the Art Semester was that day, so yay!). I am always interested in the connection between pop culture and art. As Lady Gaga said in her song “Applause”, “Pop culture was in art. Now, art's in pop culture in me”. I feel like that quote really exemplifies what Claudia Bitran gets at in her work. Not only are art and pop culture intertwined, although perhaps not as obviously as during the pop art movement, but they also combine to create us, the people of the world, whether we are artists or not. Claudia shows this connection by becoming iconic characters, such as Rose from “Titanic” or Brittney Spears. These characters and icons are important in our culture and can even shape how a person wants to be when they grow up. These women exemplify not only the “ideal body”, but also romanticize the idea of forbidden love (Titanic) and sex and sexual attraction (Brittney). We then went to see the A.I.R gallery, which was exhibiting a show on quilts and their use in art, being a feminist tool usually as a way to reclaim crafts that were once deemed “women’s work”. It was interesting to see this exhibit because it hit home for me how many artists, especially women artists, are creating textiles now. I really think that textiles (and rugs) are making a comeback in the contemporary art scene.  We then went to Washington Square Park to hang out before the gala, where we got to see the other Ai Wei Wei piece. Then we all went to the gala and ate cheese off of napkins, listened to the president of the university blabber on and on, and drank a lot of wine (people of age, of course).  Kim’s speech was the best in my opinion, but I am a bit biased.

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October 20th- Jen Davis

Today we had the amazing opportunity to visit the studio of Jen Davis, a photographer that those of us who have gone through all the photography classes at Drew have been hearing about since the beginning of our studies, so we were very excited. We even brought along a friend who did the Art Semester last year who is a photographer and really wanted to meet her. Jen Davis is most famous for her self-portraits documenting her struggle with her weight and bypass surgery, which are very well-acclaimed in the art and photography world, but recently she has been transitioning into other work, so it was a great time for us to visit her studio and witness that transition. The studio was very, very small, the smallest that we had ever been in. We barely fit in the studio, but we all sat down into little corners of the room, and to be honest it was very cozy and homey with everyone in there; it made the conversation that we had with her feel much more personal. Throughout the studio, there were huge storage boxes that were labeled with different times in her life that Jen referenced often because they contained the images that she had from previous projects. Up on the wall were images from her new work, which was based around bodybuilding competitions and the world of body modification. She just happened to come across a bodybuilding competition once and really began becoming interested in that world and how people present themselves and the performative nature of “beauty”. The images are reminiscent of the female bodybuilders series by Martin Schoeller, but with a different twist because those images do not emphasize the element of performity and beauty which are evident themes in Jen Davis’ new work. We then began discussing self-portraiture and the difficulties of being a self-portraiture artist. Jen mentioned that in the past, she substituted other people in her images to act like herself, due to the perception of self-portraiture as being narcissistic and selfish. In fact, the first show that she was ever in was a group show of self-portraiture artists called “Self Centered”. I often replace myself with other people in my own work because I’m often afraid of what people will think if I make my face the face of the issues that I am talking about; I feel like because sexual assault can happen to anybody, I have a duty to show that through using many different models, even if the photographs are stemming off of my own experience. However, I have begun to think that it would be interesting to do a small segment of work that is around my own story and healing process. I asked Jen Davis about how she made that transition from using other people to using herself, and she said basically that you just have to take the jump. I think that I will take the jump next semester in Senior Studio, although I did think about potentially doing a self-portrait shoot for my final project in this class. We also went to a bunch of galleries today, but none of them really stood out to me as much as this experience did, so I did not want to include them and water down my thoughts about the Jen Davis studio visit.

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October 18th- Raghubir Singh, Ai Wei Wei, Museum of Art and Design

Today, one of our appointments fell through, so we returned to the Met Breuer to see the Raghubir Singh exhibit that was not up on our past visit. The overall show was wonderful to see, since we don’t normally see artists, particularly photographers, from India. The most interesting element for me in this exhibition was the comparison between the photographs and their composition and past Indian artwork and embroideries. There was one particular image that struck me in that regard, I would have included it here, but there was no images allowed in the exhibition. The image was of two girls on a tire swing, and while the photograph and the original work were very different, when positioned alongside each other their similarities were accentuated, and it seemed as though the photograph was based on the original work. It also emphasized how similar life in the Indian countryside is hundreds of years ago and today. We then went to visit the Ai Wei Wei piece, “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”. This piece is part of a series of pieces that Ai Wei Wei has installed around the city that have to do with immigration. The piece we saw today was based on the turnstiles in the New York City subway. However, the viewers cannot enter the turnstiles, and if they could, they wouldn’t be able to leave. The circular barred structure also resembled a birdcage, which adds to the idea of entrapment. In addition, the piece was placed very close to Central Park Zoo, which made the humans who entered the piece feel like they were one of the animals that the people outside were ogling at. The other installations in the overall piece are one at Washington Square Park, another which the location of I forget, and pictures of immigrants on banners throughout the city. We then went to visit the Museum of Art and Design, which I was surprised to find was very near where I used to work at Sesame Workshop, but that I had never known existed before. The director of exhibitions that we met there was very interesting and had positive attitude, but I do not feel like I could do that job. I feel like I would excel at actually working with the artists and making everything look nice, but I am not great at digital imaging, so I do not feel like I could handle the amount of work that is done designing spaces online. It was very interesting to see the amount of work that happens behind the scenes, which most viewers don’t actually see. Learning about what the people who work in a museum actually do and how they relate to artists is important for any aspiring artist to learn, just in case they are ever involved in a museum exhibition. The exhibit we saw at the museum was based on sound, and I found many of the individual pieces very interesting, but the overall combination of all of the stimulus was rather overwhelming. Between the multitude of lights and sound that we saw and the length of the day, I honestly passed out at the end of the day with a headache.

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October 13th- Joe Fyfe and Allison Hall

What I found most interesting about today was that we got a peek into the lives of two very different artists. We started off the day at Joe Fyfe’s studio, which was also his apartment. From the moment I entered the space, I just felt a little bit more depressed. The door to the building had a structure that looked strangely like a jail cell and made me feel like I was entering a prison. Joe Fyfe himself I also found a bit depressing, not because of his work, which I found interesting actually. It had more to do with that he lived in the same small space where he worked and that he lived alone without a family or a partner. To me, a person who wants to have a family and likes having people around me, the possibility of that being my future was rather bleak, and that affected my judgement of him and his work. Joe Fyfe travels a lot, but it just didn’t seem like he was happy in his home and in general. That made me feel like his work was the only important thing in his life and only passion. I feel like although a person’s art should be an important element of their life, it should not be the only passion in their life. People should be multifaceted and have many different interests, ways of communicating with people, and hobbies. I felt that the lack of other interests made his work less interesting to me as I wound it difficult to form a human connection with either the artist or the work.  I found the difference between Joe Fyfe and Allison Hall very extreme. Allison Hall’s studio was absolutely gorgeous, and also not isolating, since there were people both in the library and that you could see through the large windows on the street. I could see myself working in this space the most, however it is a very rare space that many people do not have the opportunity to work in. I believe that the most important element of all of the spaces that I could see myself working in have the common element of having large windows and great natural lighting. I really enjoyed the process that Allison had around her work. She had a very meticulous process, but also embraced ideas that popped into her head and wrote them on the wall in little lists and notes that I really enjoyed reading alongside looking at her work. I also became interested in the inspiration behind her work, which was something not really explained clearly in the articles I read about her work. In general, I feel that it is more interesting and valuable to hear the inspiration and processes from the artist themselves than from a piece of paper, which is why I find film interviews with artists much more interesting and informative than text interviews and articles. I also became intrigued with the idea of an elegy piece to memorialize a loved one or several loved ones who have passed. As the semester continued, I lost important people in my life, so I wanted to add this piece to this blog post because I simply really feel like I need to address my inspiration for an elegy piece that I would like to create next semester.

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October 11th- Paul Anthony Smith and Keltie Ferris

Today we visited the first artists’ studios in the New York Semester on Contemporary Art! The very first studio we visited was Paul Anthony Smith, a young African American artist. The space itself was very small; we could all fit in it, but it wasn’t comfortable walking around. Because Paul works with photography and also large canvases, most of the space was taken up with working space, but also old paintings, new canvases, and a giant printer. There was art in every available space, which was amazing for coming to a studio for a class, since there was plenty to look at, but that I could not see myself being able to work in. I feel like I would need either a larger space with the stuff more spread out, or a smaller amount of material in the space in order for me to be able to focus. One of the elements that I found most interesting about our conversation with Paul was when we talked about his connection with food. Paul explained that food and eating with family and friends is one of his biggest inspirations and passions. To illustrate this, he pointed out a piece he made using chicken feet, a popular food in Jamaica, where he is from. The inspiration for this particular piece was a meal he had with friend in Jamaica, New York, which he described as a marriage of the two cultures that he had grown up in. The discussion around food really struck me because I also have a strong connection to food and consider myself a “foodie”. I had never seen food as an inspiration for art that did not directly depict food before, but since that discussion, I began to notice what I was eating affecting the work that I was doing and the passion that I had for it (rather hard when you have Commons as your main source of food). After I went out with friends of mine for a good meal, I found my passion, energy, and ideas for work increased. We had lunch at Jason’s studio, which was in the same building as the two artists we were visiting. The space was a little larger than Paul’s, or at least looked larger due to the extreme amount of organization in the space. After having Jason for class and also Senior Studio, I knew that he was very organized, but it was different seeing his studio in person. I also didn’t feel like I could work in Jason’s studio, even though he said it wasn’t usually this organized, but I just don’t think that I could keep that level of organization in order. We then visited Keltie Ferris, who was the most well-known artist we visited that day, and also had the largest studio (which made sense considering she was the most well-known). Because of the way that Keltie works however, she needs that amount of space. One section of her studio was sectioned off for working on body prints, which is her most famous work, according to the reviews and interviews we read. The rest of the space was full of her new work (abstract pieces), a large table where she designed and mixed paint for those works, an old couch, and her bicycle. This space was the space out for the free studios that we looked at today that I could see myself working in because although there was a lot of art around, it didn’t feel crowded due to the large windows in the studio. One of the most interesting things that I learned from Keltie (except for that the name Keltie exists, I am totally stealing that for one of my kids), is that she works in different ways during different seasons, working on body prints in the spring and summer and abstract works during fall and winter. This made sense technically due to the application of oil to a body for prints and how one would need to be warm in those situations, but Keltie also said that she was more drawn to the actual techniques during different months personally, not as much for a utilitarian purpose. I found this idea of following what your brain wanted to make at any time very freeing, and also very self-aware, a quality that I am trying to cultivate both in my work and my life in general.

[zmlart-blog]

September 27th, 2017

Today we met a critic, Joseph Wolin, and he was definitely critical. Not necessarily in a bad way, after all it is his job, but it was very interesting walking around with him as our guide compared to our usual guides, our professors. Our professors usually take us to a gallery or museum, give us a little bit of context, allow us to explore the space and cultivate our own opinions on the exhibit or installation, and then have a discussion among us, sometimes throwing in their own opinion. With the critic, it was very different, as he told us his opinion straight away, sometimes before even telling us about the art itself. In addition, it seemed like many people wanted to impress him even more than they wanted to impress our professors normally, so it was hard to get a word in during conversation sometimes, whereas I felt our discussions with our professors are usually more organized. Our professors usually also take our opinions into consideration a bit more than I know many people felt the critic did. It was interesting for me to be in the Diana Al-Hadid exhibit with him (see first image) because I really enjoyed the pieces, but I knew that he didn’t for the most part and it really put a damper on my enjoyment as I didn’t feel like I was allowed to have my own opinions. I also felt as though his criticism of the works made a lot of people feel as though they were able to be more critical, not just of the works, but of other people and their opinions as well. I felt myself slipping into that trap myself, then decided that I wasn’t going to become someone I didn’t want to be, so I stopped talking. It was then that I realized that I could never be a critic. Having to look at something with a more critical eye and point out more of its flaws caused me to look at the flaws of everything around me in the world as well as myself, and I just couldn’t live like that. No offense to people who do, it’s a very important job, but I just wouldn’t be happy always trying to look for things to fix and not accepting things as they are. I was also a bit disappointed that he didn’t tell us more about his job and how he goes about writing about art as I would like to write about art at some point in my life (and I’m not sure I’m doing the greatest job here). Eventually, once we got to the Sanford Biggers and Kara Walker shows (second and third images), I found myself tuning out of what he was saying (sorry, sir!) and tuning in more to what Tanirah and Jamie were saying, as they seemed to be both more affected by the exhibits than him and have more knowledge. I knew that their art reflected certain themes, and I didn’t know if the critic created his own art at all, so I was much more interested in the ties that they were forming between these shows and their current work.

[zmlart-blog]

September 27th, 2017

Today I discovered that I don’t like most galleries. Why, you ask? Because there’s no places to sit! I forgot to mention this piece of information while I was writing about the Judd House, but our guide told us that Donald Judd believed that viewers should be able to sit with a piece and really be able to appreciate it by being given opportunities and places to sit. I totally one hundred percent agreed then, and agree even more now as I am massaging my poor feet after a long day. It wasn’t just that my feet began to hurt after a while, it was that there were so may pieces that I wanted to sit with and truly enjoy and I felt as though I couldn’t sometimes because I was standing and some part of me, however small, had to focus on that. We also went to so many galleries that it was very hard for me to tell them apart from each other at the end of the day, so that made it a bit difficult to put my thoughts together. However, I would like to talk about one gallery showing in particular that really interested me. During our lunch break, I went into the Hauser and Wirth gallery as our professors recommended we do if we had time, and I found myself enamored with a new era of art: Arte Povera. Arte Povera is the name given to a style of art created in the 1960s in Italy, primarily by students who were working with political undercurrents in mind (I mean, students in the 60s, how surprising that they were political). I found the pieces in the gallery (some of which are pictured above) all compelling and surprisingly simple and minimalistic. It was refreshing to me that a piece could be both political and subtle, which is what I am going for in my Senior Studio project. It was also interesting for me to see that most of these works are from when they were students and to see how refined the works were for student work.  I don’t know if there was something in the water in Turin, but the works all appeared to me to be the work of professional artists who knew their styles, not students that were trying to find themselves. Maybe this connectivity and clarity of purpose comes from being in a movement… that’s been something I’ve been interested in lately, the concept of movements and how I haven’t really seen any modern day art movements arising. It’s surprising to me that there aren’t multiple happening all the time due to the social connectivity that is now available due to social media, but I guess they might actually be happening and I just haven’t been a part of them. Anyways, although I know I am kind of continuing a tradition of feminist works and therefore furthering that movement, I still think that I would jump at the chance of being able to be in a more real-life, direct movement and having the opportunity to work with other artists, like I saw in the Arte Povera exhibit.

[zmlart-blog]

September 22nd, 2017

Today we visited the Whitney Museum and explored the Helio Oiticica exhibit there. And yes, explore is definitely the tight term to use in this case.  The pieces, especially the installations were crazy, fun, and sensory, but also had deep meaning behind them. The main installation was composed of sand, and also other materials such as books, foam squares, and hay that the viewer could walk on and interact with. One of the saddest parts of this exhibit though, was that parents were letting their children run wild through the piece as though it was a playground. I’m not a parent, so I might not be in any situation to critiques,  and I understand the appeal in taking your child to a museum that they can interact with, but they still need to be made aware of the fact that it is art and to be respectful of it. Throwing the foam blocks out of the place where the artist intended for them to be is going too far for me. In addition, it really wasn’t an exhibit that was meant for children. It had darker themes due to what the artist was dealing with at the time he was creating them, such as the dictatorship happening in Brazil and his own drug addiction. I also saw a group of schoolchildren there on a class trip who went into the room full of beds were there pieces projected on the wall that were made using, among other materials, lines of cocaine. They were drawing the pieces in their journals, and I’m sure no one told them the meaning behind them and what they were made out of, since they were giggling and saying how they didn’t understand the pieces. I know that we don’t want to expose children to difficult issues, but it can be quite rude to the artist, fellow visitors, and the children themselves if you don’t explain the seriousness of this work, despite the fun way that it is laid out. However, that is just my opinion, and we as college students also had a great time exploring the exhibit (see Christian trying on some clothing pieces in the second image) although we also appreciated the deep meaning and the history we were able to learn about through the works. One of my favorite rooms was the hammock room. Feeling weightless is one of my favorite feelings in the world, so being able to feel that after a day of walking and also to be able to experience a video piece going on around you. Sometimes the noise was too much for me though, so I did have a slight headache for the rest of the day, but it was worth it for the weightlessness, which I think was one of the key feelings that the artist wanted to express in that particular work. We also went out to the balcony to see the stunning work by Larry Bell that is installed at the Whitney. The pink boxes both reflect and morph the landscape of the city depending on the way you look at the pieces. The breeze was also lovely to feel that day, as it was hot and we were all hot and sweating.