Daily Archives: December 3, 2013

The Astor Place Cube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcl9NPl481k

Hi all! So Michele’s post about the house in the bottle reminded me of this video, which describes how a man supposedly lives inside the Cube on Astor Place (obviously, this is not true. If you actually have seen the Cube in person, there aren’t any openings) but I just found it interesting how people were able to come up with such interesting ideas involving a sculpture that people pass by every day. As for me, I never took notice of the Cube until this video. I actually checked it out, with a couple of other classmates, before we headed to watch the play “Fun Home,” (we were actually able to make it move a little!!) and even though I was a bit disappointed that there was no one living in it, I was glad it made me more aware of a sculpture that has actually been existent for quite a while. Also, I was pretty amazed at how creative this video was; it was so descriptive, creative, and sounded like it made so much sense so people including myself actually believed there was someone in there.

The House in a Bottle

This week has been particularly rough, I was in the hospital a few days ago doing cat scans, x-rays, EKGs, blood tests – the works. While I was there, I desperately tried to mentally escape, and the television showing some reality program not helping. So I decided to get creative and rely on my imagination. I remembered seeing a public art piece while walking along Chelsea Piers. It was a home inside of a bottle that I was planning on blogging about, so I decided to construct an elaborate plot behind its construction.

Inside of the bottle - toilet is off to the side, television and chair in the distance

Inside of the bottle – toilet is off to the side, television and chair in the distance

Inside of the bottle - sink

Inside of the bottle – sink

Outside of the bottle

Outside of the bottle

To sum up my story: a boy and girl lived next to each other and the girl’s dad made ships in a bottle using “magic” – not allowing anyone to see the process. The boy didn’t believe him so he hid and watched, once he “understood”, he tried it in big scale. The boy brought the girl to his magnificent ship but she disregarded it because she knew only magic could create it, so to prove it worked they tool it for a test run, but they crashed and landed on a deserted island. The boy still remembered how to create the bottle, so he did, and he wanted to use it to get back home, creating livable situations inside. Their life would then become a message in a bottle for everyone to explore and piece together, and when they landed on Chelsea Piers, this became their gift to New York City, for everyone to see.

It’s not the most beautifully constructed story, but it helped me escape and showed me the beauty of art. I must admit, I never saw the purpose of the majority of art, especially as an environmentalist who mainly thought they were wastes of our resources. And while I still do adhere to this principle in many ways, I suppose I can become more tolerable of grandiose art pieces such as these, especially if I begin to think that each art piece helps someone in some shape or form. Behind my environmentalist ways are simply a concern for others to ensuring everyone a healthy and happy life on Earth, and if art can successfully do that for some, as I can now understand, perhaps I can appreciate art that much more.

Pop Art Totem Pole at City Hall Park

One day I went to Pace University to meet up with my boyfriend. I got there a little early so I decided to take a little walk through City Hall Park. While walking, I stumbled upon this humongous sculpture. It looked like a totem pole, but not like the traditional, Native American totem poles. No, this totem pole featured four segments, each segment being a different color. This sculpture is part of a series of artworks featured in the park called Lightness of Being by Gary Webb. However, despite there being other sculptures in the series, this sculpture caught my eye because it reminded me of pop art in a sense with its bright colors. Also, it seems like some of the paint was trying to move away from the totem pole, since some of the paint extends out of the sculpture. Rather than having the paint stay on the artwork, the paint seems to be coming off, which is completely against traditional ways of painting (hence why I thought of pop art!) I looked online and saw that this will be in City Hall Park until December 13th, so if you are interested make sure to check it out before its gone! A, C, J, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5 trains to Fulton Street!

2013-10-17 12.53.56

Theresa Bernstein at Baruch’s Sidney Mishkin Gallery

About two weeks ago, my Art History professor, Gail Levin, invited our class to see her exhibition at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery right here at Baruch. Professor Levin’s exhibition featured the works of the late Theresa Bernstein, who was a 20th century American artist, painter, and writer. What I like most about Bernstein’s works of art is the messages she always tries to convey within them. Bernstein is a realist painter, and often depicts many aspects of NYC. Some of the subjects in Bernstein’s paintings are immigrants. She does this to show the hardships immigrants faced at the time–the struggle of coming to America and assimilating into NYC life. Bernstein was also famous for her works that showed everyday life in NYC, such as painting break dancers in Central Park. If you are interested, the exhibition will be open at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery at 135 East 22nd St. until December 11.

http://nml.cuny.edu/theresabernstein/

GRiZ the Wiz

IMG_1664
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure to see a DJ from Detroit perform at Terminal 5. His stage name is GRiZ. Unlike the rest of the people I’ve seen, what made GRiZ stand out was his saxophone playing skills. While he was up there on stage mixing, he was playing the saxophone at the same time. The sax is his secret weapon in standing out amongst the myriad of EDM artists popping up all over the nation.
Before going in, I did not know that he played the saxophone. When he took it out in the middle of his set, I was confused as to what he was going to do with it. Then right when he started to actually play the sax, I was blown away. The soothing, jazzy sounds of the sax complemented the hard beats of his electronic set. It was incredible that he was able to do such a thing. His saxophone playing was effortless, and his ability to switch back and forth without messing up made it even better.