Please read John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” chapters 1, 3, and 5. Please also bring the text with you. Have a great weekend!
We passed this building a couple of times on our way to the park on our trips, and it made curious. What was this big elaborate building? Thanks to Google maps and Wikipedia, I found out that its the NY Appellate building. It was built in 1899, and is a New York landmark. It has a few statues on the building representing justice, wisdom, and strength. I think its a beautiful building, but its also cool becuase its a remionder of what you can find if you just look around (and don’t get distracted by the big Credit Suisse building). photo from manhattansideways.com
LOIS LANE by Keone Madrid featuring Rudy Francisco
When Professor Eversley first mentioned about the multimedia project, this video came to my mind. This video combines a few different works of art: spoken word poetry, music (more specifically, a R&B song called Lois Lane by Keone Madrid) and choreography. I really liked the structure of this video and how it connects these different aspects of art. The way the video is organized really makes it a great combination of spoken word and movement. It starts off with Rudy Francisco reading the poem out loud. He reads it with a strong tone and emotions, and this really sets up the setting of the overall theme of this video, which is love. Another reason why I love this video is because of the beautiful song that accompanies the dance; their choreography is so smooth! Some of their dance moves reflect the lyrics of the song, which I thought was really cool. I also thought it was interesting how they made choreography to this song, which is different from the usual hip hop, upbeat songs people dance to.
Lizards in NYC
When I used to live in Florida, I would see lizards like I see rats and roaches in New York. So in a way, I felt really happy to see the lizard, probably because I remembered the life I had as a kid back when I used to live in Florida. The lizard had swift movements, and it was difficult to take a snapshot of him, but I got him in the end.Afterwards, I thought about how quickly we destroy animals and little creatures like these, but do you think it’s fair that I didn’t let my friend squash the lizard, but allowed him to squash the roach or centipede we saw previously? The lizard was just too pretty to destroy. He’s considered exotic when in comes to city animals, so my friend and I just left him alone after I was done taking the picture. I’m going to definitely watch out for more exotic creatures, and so should everybody else who got a chance to see this!
Visit to Pace Gallery, “Poppy Fields” 9/24
During our trip to the Pace Gallery at 534 West 25th Street, we were greeted by one of the strangest paintings I have ever seen. Immediately after, I see a very similar painting in a different color and size only a few feet away from the first painting. I was appalled and stunned. Even more than that, I was confused.
It turns out that this was the “Poppy Fields” exhibition by none other than the artist Zhang Huan. According to his biography on the Pace website, it describes him as “one of the most vital, influential, and provocative contemporary artists working today.” (1) All of these are just so true, especially the provocative part.
Hey look! Colors on a board!
From far away, the painting looks like a mesh of colors. It’s quite impossible to tell what the painting is trying to convey. But, in an NY Times article about the exhibition, Zhang Huan describes it as: “The paintings represent the hallucination of happiness and the hallucination of fear and loneliness in this life as well as the hallucination of happiness in the next life.” It’s quite a stretch to give this painting such a wide range of emotions when it simply looks like an assortment of random colors. (2)
These creepy skulls stare straight into my heart…
But, close in, you get to see the details of each and every skull. You could see how each skull isn’t on the same plane. One’s a little higher than the rest; another one is a little lower than the rest. This almost gives the painting a 3D aspect, making the viewer examine the painting even more. The painting itself was incredibly detailed. There’s so much labor involved, making each skull individual. It almost gives the impression that each skull was created separately, and then collectively put together. Also equally noticeable is each smile of the skull, it was near unnoticeable from far away.
What do I think this painting means? I’d take a more as an outsider viewing humanity. From far away, you really can’t tell what humanity is like. It seems like a mess, just as the painting. But, as you move closer, you can see that each individual is different. I personally don’t see the “hallucinations” described by Huan, but everyone has their own take on paintings and exhibitions.
Some sources:
http://www.pacegallery.com/newyork/exhibitions/12596/poppy-fields
its an illusion
I was just looking at news headlines on Yahoo when I saw this slideshow of optical illusions. There about thirty, and almost every one of them is worth seeing. 
I think this one below is my favorite, because it must have been really freaky to stand there, and then look down at empty sky. My favorite part was seeing the illusions and trying to figure out what was going on. I think that in general, optical illusions are interesting because they make you think twice about believing everything your eyes tell you. Sometimes you see a friend doing something crazy, and after thinking about it for second you realize your perception is just skewed because you walked into something in the middle. Posting the link so everyone can check it out.
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/optical-illusion-photography-slideshow/
You Can’t Hide Everything
At the Pace Galleries’ Irving Penn exhibit, this particular photo stood out to me the most. I had no idea what the significance a turkey’s head held in the world of beauty. The photo was a part of the Extreme Beauty section of the gallery.
However, after reading the review of the photo by Nora Ephron in one of the magazines they had on display, everything made sense. The writer started off by stating how much of the outward appearance of a person was fake. People cover themselves with makeup or accessories so that one would never know what lies hidden beneath this mask. However, the author states that one of the hardest parts to cover up is the neck. Apparently, the photo was placing a great deal of emphasis on the neck of the turkey. While people can look 35 when they are actually 45 nowadays, she claims that you can tell how old or aged someone is by looking at their neck. I never had much reason to stare at people’s necks and don’t plan on doing so anytime soon, but I thought it was pretty cool. It was an interpretation of the photograph I would have never come to the conclusion of making. It was interesting to see how Irving Penn even decided on taking a picture of a turkey’s head to be a part of the Extreme Beauty portion of the gallery.
Parasitism in action!!
Art is all around us and can take many different shapes and forms. Sometimes nature itself can create fascinating things. At first glance, you may think, cool a caterpillar! But closer examination shows that this caterpillar is INFECTED with some sort of parasite!!…. 🙁 I found this caterpillar in my backyard hanging out on one of the tomato leaves and I immediately took a picture. After consulting a friend who is very knowledgeable of bugs, I learned that this is in fact not a caterpillar at all but actually a Tomato Hornworm (Manduca Quinquemaculata) infected with the cocoons of braconid wasp larvae. The Braconid wasp is a parasitic wasp that lays its eggs inside of the Hornworm. They feed internally on the hornworm, which eventually kills the host. After a period of time the larva emerge to form cocoons on the outside of the worm. This is probably the state at which the worm pictured above is at. After a few days, the wasps emerge and the cycle starts all over again. Nature can be beautiful, fascinating and sometimes terrifying at the same time! Isn’t parasitism cool?!?!
Why, hello there Mr. Worm…..and guests!!
Henry “Sax” Young – NYC Street Performer
About half a year ago I was standing at W4 Street Station at 11 o’clock, extremely exhausted and stressed out about life, when I heard some beautiful saxophone music playing down the station. Despite having to be in the front of the train, I walked towards the music at the back of the platform and came across this man: Henry Sax. He had an amplifier with a distinct blue “on” light and a microphone that was attached by a rope to hover over the saxophone’s opening, delivering the perfect volume of music for the crowd. And my god did this man have a crowd – there was at least 20 people there and perhaps a dozen more sheepishly grinning from the sides. I was unaware of the mellow hip-hop tune that he was playing but managed to alleviate my worries for the five minutes that I stood there in total trance. I vowed to give him a dollar once he was done performing but unfortunately had no cash (although I would’ve happily given him my debit card, that’s how good he was). He had a container of business cards that just said “Henry Sax”, and after a furious two week quest of finding out more about this man, I gave up – only to find new videos of him on Youtube from the past 2 months. These videos are below!
Ugly Beauty
When I was younger, I used to always watch modeling competitions on TV, but never seemed to pay attention to the photographer. I have a newfound appreciation for photographers after visiting Greg Broome’s studio. I realized that without the photographer capturing the perfect moment, there would be no picture. That moment could happen in a split second and all the pressure is on the photographer.
I also found the concept of photographing moldy food noteworthy. No body would question photographing fresh food, and most people wouldn’t even look twice at it. Why is the human mind interested in the unusual things? It reminded me of that cliché “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and the whole “ugly beauty” concept. Finding beauty in things most people consider “ugly” shows a unique characteristic in someone. The ability to think outside of the norms created by society shows true creativity. This idea transcends into another cliché, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Everyone has their own perception of what they see and photography finds a way to capture that. 
