Last week before the Thanksgiving break, I went to pay a visit to my high school for Alumni Day. My school is located in Tribeca and so I decided to walk through City Hall to get there. While walking I noticed the building pictured above. It is the Beekman Tower at 8 Spruce Street. It was designed by architect Frank Gehry and it was his first skyscraper. I never realized that it was completed and upon further research I found out that it was completed two years ago. As a high schooler I used to always walk by the building as it was under construction. Designed by an architect superstar or not, I thought it was ugly then and still think its an eyesore. Many praise it as one of finest skyscrapers to have risen in New York. To me, it will always look like an uncompleted building still waiting to receive its finishing touches.

Watching “Complexions” at the Joyce Theater was a novel experience for me. I’ve watched dance performances probably a hundred times before but never one in a setting like this. The fact that everything in the theater was copyrighted reminded me right off the bat that this wasn’t one of my old dance recitals but a real professional debut.

The first act, I have to admit, was particularly boring for me. Perhaps it was because I was expecting something more exciting than what I was given. I understood the ferocity in the dancers’ faces and their movements but nothing really stood out. Eventually, I shamelessly dozed off until intermission.

The second act was my favorite one. Maybe it was because I had just woken up from a nice ten minute nap but I think it was mostly because of the specific part of the act where one of the dancers was engaged in shadow dancing. While another couple was in the middle dancing, this lone dancer was dancing against a white background. The lighting emphasized his shadow against the background and it created this really cool simulation. Suddenly, it felt like the dancer wasn’t on stage but that he was in the back doing his own thing. There was also another part where all of the dancers got up and close to the edge of the stage. They were so close to the audience that you could hear their deep breathing loud and clear and watch drops of sweat glide down their faces. It was kind of disturbing to see this because I’m used to the classical ballet dancer: the ones that are in sync and perfectly composed. I think the choreographer purposely put this in to ignite some kind of feeling in the audience.

The third act was, without a doubt, the liveliest. In fact, if they had thrown in some singing, it could’ve easily been a musical. Not that I’m complaining. I love dancing that follows beats and rhythms because that is my comfort zone. Unfortunately, while exciting, the act loses points for originality.

All in all, it was a very different experience watching this dance performance in relation to my old dance recitals. I wouldn’t exactly pay to see this again but I’m glad I did.

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Isa Genzken, a female German artist, recently had her work on display at a exhibit at the MoMa. Because of Professor Eversley’s membership (thanks!), Jeong Woo and I were able to view her work in private setting.

The title of the exhibition was called “Retrospective”. This is entirely reflective of Genzken’s work which largely dealt with the post-war urban environment. The sculpture above was one of the most notable ones for me because of its simplicity and its position. On the outset, it can easily be dismissed as a couple of frames on top of each other, but in an architecture perspective, it reminded me of the the foundation or framework of a building. It made me think of Genzken’s view of rebuilding Germany after the World War II. The position of the work is also interesting. Professor Eversley had mentioned that the work must’ve been purposely put under the skylight to direct attention to the buildings outside. This reminded me of photography class where we learned about leading lines. Lines provide direction to the viewer; guiding them toward where to look. This sculpture guided the viewer to the skylight, and where the sculpture was the beginning of the making of a building, it directed us to look at the prominent skyscrapers outside. It’s a bright outlook when emerging from troubling times.

Overall, I felt like the exhibit was very interesting. Genzken’s later works were, understandably, less of of war and more about color and dioramas. Personally, I’ve always gravitated toward works that depicted a specific time period. I’ve always felt that those works were always rich with culture and history that may no longer be around.

On Tuesday, September 10, we went to visit the International Center of Photography. Two displays stuck with me in particular. One of them being the blown up pictures of iPad scans by Andrea Longacre-White. She scanned iPads and the light from the scanner would produce heat making the iPad respond thinking it is human touch. Her pictures of the scans depict the iPad glitch and trying to decide what it wants to open up. Also visible were the many fingerprints from everyday use on the screen of the tablet. The fingerprints showed intimacy of the owner and the iPad and this showed our increasing dependence on our digital tools.

The next piece was the diorama map of New York by Sohei Nishino. There were 10,000 images used to create the map. Nishino photographed and collaged the whole thing by hand. His diorama creations are his way to reminds us that human imagination is needed to create meaning out of accumulations of visual information. In an age where everything is handed to us, for instance Google maps, we need to remember that we still have our own imagination and creativity to build on.
I remember spending a long time looking at the map trying to figure out where everything was and how different it was from an actual map. It was intriguing to see my own city depicted in a different way.