It was my first time at an opera and I found the physical setting to be somewhat weird because we were a bunch of kids while the theater was filled with well-dressed adults. However, all the awkwardness aside, I felt that the opera itself was really grand to say the least. The huge stage was filled with massive sets and the opera singers sang really well alongside the talented orchestra that did not receive as much credit. I also liked how enthusiastic the audience was, they would always clap where it was due, well I guess it’s because most of them actually came because they wanted to see it and knew about it.

I didn’t really know what to expect from the opera and how it would work out. The tale in itself seemed interesting but relatively short. I had no idea how they were going to make the story into a grand opera that would last three hours. My favorite part was act two. I actually don’t know why, but I felt that act two had a great deal of action in it, despite Tosca killing herself in the final act. I was really amazed at how quickly they were able to change the entire set during the intermissions. The Opera definitely made a bigger impact on me than just reading the story had. I didn’t really picture that much emotion and expression until I watched the actual opera.

The only problems I had with the opera isn’t really about the opera itself. One thing that distracted me a lot in the beginning was that I found it annoying to look down at my seat to read the translation and then look up at the acting going on in front of me. I wanted to just speak Italian and understand what they were saying so that I wouldn’t have to miss parts of the acting while I was reading the translations. Another annoying part was one of the kids from Staten Island who would constantly complain about people clapping during the opera. He would rant about it every intermission and it ruined my break. However, I feel that the opera was a great experience for me and a great way to end the class because it was such a great one at an amazing place.

I happened to notice this work of art particularly because it reminded me of a much more famous piece. Although very different on what the pieces portray and signify, the two seem to have a resemblance on how there is a reproduction of a certain type of iamge. The piece I saw is by Rob Pruitt, a collection of different smiley faces. The piece it reminded me of was Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Collection.

I don’t really feel that the two are directly related, but I found the concept of making a project out of a collection of similar art pieces. After looking up Rob Pruitt, I found out that he is a really big fan of Andy Warhol. One of his latest pieces include “The Andy Monument” which is a 7 feet tall chrome-finished statue of Andy Warhol.

Maybe it’s just my lack of understanding, but what defines art as art? For example, I find it very hard to appreciate pieces like the one I posted below. Even after discovering that the piece is not just a canvas covered in black, I still can’t seem to consider it ‘art.’ Shouldn’t there be a difference between art at a professional level compared to, let’s say, my horrible artwork? I value abstract art to a certain extent in that it shows a great deal of creativity and expression once you really learn the story or history behind each piece, but I don’t really know what to say about this.

This piece is part of Ad Reinhardt’s Black series and it just blows me away, dumbfounded on how I am supposed to react or even look at the work. Although it made me feel a little bit better once I did my research and found out it wasn’t just a single black, I find it hard to believe that a piece like this goes on display. The piece actually consists of smaller squares that are made up of different shades of black. People say that works like this are timeless, relationless, changeless, etc.. I find it rather bland.

I recently met up with a friend of mine who graduated from Parsons, an art school in NYC, this past spring. I asked her about college and the different things she was required to do. I was really surprised by some of the weird things she had to do in certain classes.

One specific class that she described to me was what i was most fascinated by. She said she had a very ‘creative’ professor who would give her a number of different tasks, much of which made no sense to the students. For instance, the sketchbook they were required to draw in consisted of old newspaper articles. The professor made sure no one was using a blank, white sketchbook to do their drafts and doodles. The next task they were given was one that I did not even realize was possible. They were required to draw using charcoal….underwater. They placed a white canvas within a tank full of water. They would then continue to draw a portrait of a friend or someone in the class using the charcoal they were given. The end result looked something like this (luckily she had taken a picture of it).

On November 18, the Alexander String Quartet was visiting Baruch College in preparation for two upcoming concerts they were going to have. My history class was invited to watch the group perform. It was my first time going to Baruch’s performing arts centers. The performance was taking place in the Engelman Recital Hall. Though it wasn’t a very large venue, I found it to be a very comfortable place to be.

Though I’m not too big on classical music as a whole, I always found it fun to watch the performers themselves, at least on a professional level.  I found classical musicians to give a different feeling, when performing, compared to say pop or jazz. musicians There seems to be a lot more structure and formality behind classical music that works its magic on its performers as well.

The quartet was made up of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. One of the violinist took the lead role for the majority of the performance, although each musician had his moments of glory. They played famous quartet compositions that were supposed to help us better understand the time period we were studying. After the performances, we were given time to ask questions. I was able to learn a lot about quartets in general because they were very knowledgeable on the history of quartets. Performing famous pieces and arranging/composing there own, It was a very enjoyable experience. However, I was only able to sneak one picture in because my professor did not want us to use our phones.

While walking towards a group of seats with Stella and professor Eversley, we passed by an exhibit that was limited to MoMA members. Hoping we would be able to check out this special exhibit, professor Eversley took us with her to the exhibit before we interviewed her. The exhibit was called Retrospective – Isa Getzen and focused a lot on architectural design. The placement of the different sculptures, rocks, and installments amongst many other things seemed to have undergone a great deal of thought. My favorite installment in the exhibit is shown in the picture below.

Though the picture doesn’t really do the piece justice, it was really a sight to see. It just seemed like a bunch of frames put together from the side. It might have even resembled a building in progress if you gave it some thought. However, you realize just how grand the installment is when you look up. The installment seemed to stretch out towards the building from the view above. I thought the window was randomly a part of the room, used to bring some light to the exhibit. However, I discovered that it was all planned out…the lights, the window, the design, all of it was intentionally done. I felt a little foolish only considering the art within exhibits and now how and why they were placed in the areas they were.

The installments in the room were organized by time period and was mostly made up of architectural genius or emotion. There were blocks of stone piled together from a war in the beginning while there were futuristic plastic walls that seemed to represent buildings later on in the exhibit. Most of the art in the exhibit seemed self explanatory, but I have yet to understand what the piece in the picture below represents. It was rotating really slowly, but it just seems like melted wax on a stand to me. Am I missing out on the genius behind this piece or is it just what I see it to be?

I didn’t really know what to make of it at first. It was very confusing initially because there was so much going on at once. The dancers would use the entire stage, sections doing different things. I guess the dances were supposed to compliment each other, but I found it hard to focus on the entire performance. Rather, I keyed into a specific part of the performance each time. For a portion of the performance I would look at the dancers on the right while taking quick glances at the ones on the left to see if something special was coming together. The first intermission gave me some time to collect myself and actually enjoy the performance. Throughout the first dance, I found myself trying to study how the performance was arranged and structured, but I couldn’t really make much out of it. There were different groups dancing in different places all around the stage. Thus, once the first intermission came by, I decided I was going to enjoy this performance.

The performances after the first intermission were much more pleasant experiences compared to the first. Yes, each performance was very different from one another, but I was more accustomed to the style of dance and stopped trying to decipher the dance with my limited, almost non-existent, knowledge of contemporary dance. I chose my favorite dancers and followed them more closely. My favorite part of the entire performance came at the end where the music was much more familiar to me. Whether it was Stevie Wonder or Michael Jackson, it brought up a sense of familiarity, which was so distant to me during the other performances. Despite not knowing what to expect when entering the theater, I was pleasantly surprised and found it to be a very entertaining and enlightening experience. The dancing was spot on and eating afterwards was a blast too.

It was by chance that I happened to come across the work of art I enjoyed the most. The initial plan was to visit the Sackler WIng and move on from there. The Temple of Dendur is always such an amazing sight to see despite it being so familiar to me. Every time I came to the MET, I would make my visit to the Temple of Dendur, it defined what the MET was for me. Whenever anyone mentioned the MET, the Temple of Dendur was the first image that came to my mind. After I took a large number of pictures of the Temple of Dendur and its surroundings, however,  I decided that this was not what I wanted to focus in on for my review. As magnificent and grand as it was, I felt it was be too popular or well-known. Thus, I went on my search for a piece of work that would pop out at me and say ‘this is it!’

Browsing through a number of different wings and exhibitions, I felt that I was done. It was by chance that as I was looking for an exit, I found the Autumn Landscape by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Famous for his favrile glass works, it was an amazing sight. Louis would use iridescent art glass for his works, which was different from other artists. This is because the color of the glass was not only on the surface, but actually embedded into the glass itself. Its bright lights and wonderful scenery was definitely a sight to behold. The bright lights behind the glass that so wonderfully displayed the different colors of the glass really amazed me. However, I wonder why the wooden frames were built on top of the glass and not around the work on its borders. I felt that the wooden borders were distracting and took away from the richness of the scenery.

Prior to sitting down and watching the musical, I had wondered to myself, ‘How on Earth is it possible to make a tragicomic like Fun Home into a musical?’ I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the end of the musical. Though I did wish some parts were more accurately depicted in terms of comparing the musical with the tragicomic, I felt that it was a great musical. Being that it was my first musical, I wasn’t actually too sure what to expect from it. The only thing I had in mind was how the novel would translate when made into a musical where the novel would become heavily condensed by the time constraints of the musical.

I feel that Fun Home was a hard piece of literature to work with when trying to make it into a musical. This is because Fun Home is a graphic novel. The reader knows exactly how each specific aspect of the novel should look and feel. We are given images, which display the character’s emotions, actions, and motives. It is not really up to the reader to decipher what the author had intended for us to understand. Thus, we have no choice but to complain when things are done differently during the musical. The director of the musical has to plan out how each character would be best represented in the context of a musical, not a novel.

Thus, despite certain disparities between the novel and the musical, I found the musical to be a great success. In the musical’s context, the character Alison was THE central figure. Everyone else played a side role where they would lead to the growth and development of Alison. However, the novel emphasizes Bruce and a number of other characters in great detail. Bruce is made out to be a much worse father in the novel than in the musical, but that is understandable. I felt that in order to keep everyone focused on Alison and her coming out, it was necessary to change the characters up to a certain extent.

Overall, I found the musical to be a very good one by being able to maintain the central theme of the novel, while having its own flavor. The excellent music was also a plus.