The Art of Choosing

Of the two exhibitions that we went to, I personally enjoyed and felt drawn to the photography of Sebastião Salgado more than the art in Zero at the Guggenheim. The fact that the photographs themselves were portrayed in black and white made them even more compelling and interesting. Many of the photos made me want to take the extra time to stop and really observe everything that Salgado captured at that particular moment and try to understand why it felt so powerful.

Salgado beautifully captured nature, wildlife, and people throughout different parts of the world, at angles I never thought could be possible. I especially was drawn towards his photos of both nature and wildlife. I really like animals, and to be able to see such majestic photos of them in their natural environment at such close angles was pretty amazing. I also like to travel, and one of my dreams in the future is to have the opportunity to travel parts of the world and see and experience things I’ve never seen or experienced before, which is one of the reasons why I think I was so drawn to his photos.

This also brings into perspective how important his message behind his Genesis project is. Through these spectacular pictures, he is trying to make people more aware of environmental and climate issues around the world. If we don’t take care of the environment that we live in now, eventually we’ll lose the beauty that is right before our eyes, before we even get a chance to actually see and experience it. And I think that’s essentially what Salgado is trying to convey through his stunning photography. A quote that Salgado said about his project that really struck me was, “In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.”

Complexions Contemporary Ballet put on a good show of human flexibility and finesse. Just like my experience at a prior dance performance, my attention was drawn to the lithe movements of the dancers. This performance was much more focused, however; it was one dance company that performed throughout, and they focused their multiple dances to convey a common theme.

The prominent theme that ran through their work was “free thought”. In their music, one related phrase came up that was quite interesting: “If only fools are satisfied, take my sanity away.” The logical nature of this statement is appealing, and it pleads for analysis.

This statement is a plea by the singer and the dance company to someone with the power to give and take away sanity. The contrapositive of the statement reads thus: “If my sanity is not taken away, then fools are not the only ones to be satisfied.” This contrapositive should be equivalent to the statement by the formal logic taught in high school geometry class.

The problem with this contrapositive, however, is that it involves a plea to someone. That someone could lie and take away sanity even if it knows fools aren’t the only ones that are satisfied. That someone could simply not answer. That someone might not even know whether only fools are satisfied. Therefore, there is no conclusion that can be made about this statement by changing its form.

What is determinable by the statement above is that these dancers and the singer behind the music would dearly love to be satisfied. It’s also quite easy to see that the singer and dancers feel, to some degree, that only fools are satisfied. And, that is human desire, is it not? Wouldn’t we all love to be satisfied? I know I would!

I just don’t think that only fools are satisfied.

While each exhibit and play we attended was well done, “Zero Tolerance” had the most profound impact on me. This exhibition did an incredible job of showing the many emotions that people go through when they are trying to overcome oppression. Some people choose to rebel in the form of peaceful and quiet protests, while others have violent protests or riots, but they all have the same intentions of making changes to the current system.

We have heard enough about the layout of “Zero Tolerance” from earlier posts, and while it was an impressive setup, there is no reason to go through it again. This exhibit was so impactful for me because it relates to what is going on around the country right now. After the events in Ferguson and now in New York and the rest of the country, I wanted to see this exhibit to get a better understanding of what was going on. I was especially interested in learning why people demonstrated in such different ways, as some chose peaceful protests, while others chose to loot and riot. Having grown up in St. Louis, I have followed the Michael Brown case and the riots that occurred as a result very closely. I always support peaceful protests for whatever cause, even if I do not necessarily support the cause, but it was painful to watch the rioters and looters that terrorized the city of Ferguson. I could not understand how robbing businesses and burning down buildings that had nothing to do with the issues they were fighting for would help their cause. It seemed like these looters were taking advantage of the situation rather than actually trying to cause positive change. That is why I wanted to see this exhibit so badly, however, as I was hoping it could show whether these types of actions could actually have a positive impact. While the exhibit showed violent protests, these examples were directed to people involved in the situation and not just causing destruction to anything in sight. “Zero Tolerance” validated my concerns that many of the protesters were taking advantage of an unfortunate situation and were detracting from the efforts of the protesters who worked hard to have organized and peaceful demonstrations.

This exhibit was a fantastic display of many different protests across the world. The timing of “Zero Tolerance” could not have been better, as it relates so well to exactly what is going on across the country. It made me very appreciative of this assignment, “The Art of Choosing”, because I do not think I would have visited this museum or even heard of this exhibit until this assignment was given to us. It was a very influential show of everything that goes into these protests, because it is more than just showing up and having a demonstration, these people go through many things that compel them to sacrifice their time, and sometimes safety, in order to cause change.

The most controversial performance that I have watched this semester was Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men. I originally chose this not because it sounded interesting, but because of the director herself. Young Jean Lee is the director as well as the playwright who runs her own company the Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. Her bold endeavors are admirable and even more so because her plays are all on extremely tough subjects. They deal with feminism, race, privilege, and all the things that even make Young Jean Lee uncomfortable when she writes them. Her playwright’s philosophy is interesting: she wants to explore the uncomfortable topics and make her audiences move past their initial defense. She strives to “open people up to confronting difficult questions by keeping them disoriented and laughing”, as Young Jean Lee best puts it in her artistic statement.

My own experience going to watch the play was quite fascinating. I couldn’t believe they were playing the kind of music that they were playing as we were finding our seats before the show. The space itself was interesting and I felt it fit the personality of Young Jean Lee really well. The Public Theater had many different dynamics all housed under one roof. There is a bar just as you walk in, and a few parties going on at the same time with gentlemen and ladies dressed to the nines holding their posh glasses of wine. There were even women in their gowns holding glasses of wine and retouching their makeup in the bathroom. The group of people that were watching the play were mostly white and older, around 50-60, so it was fascinating to see their reactions to the very contemporary music. After the play, I tried to see Young Jean Lee’s perspective and understand why she would have used that particular music and I discovered one thing. The play was addressing issues that everybody seems to be tiptoeing around in society, and just how the rap song made the audience feel uncomfortable, it was a foreshadowing of the actual play. Young Jean Lee aims to make certain crowds uncomfortable by addressing taboo issues head on.

The storyline started off playful, showing a typical sibling interaction. As it goes on, we began to feel the building tension between the brothers. When the play climaxed, everything exploded. The unaddressed topics that were hiding behind the politeness of being respectful were confronted. Young Jean Lee took the epitome of privilege in society’s eyes, a straight white male, and made them seem so vulnerable. She taught the audience that there was flip side to being a straight white male and completely changed the view that they have it easy. What made her characters respectable were that they weren’t society’s stereotypical straight white males who took their privilege for granted. All the brothers were brought up by their mother to be fully aware of their status and privilege. This made the story and message even more impactful because they were equipped with the knowledge of social inequality. All in all this was a performance that I would like to watch again. I want to find something else that I might have missed in the experience or during the play.