Gallery Art: Monet
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This piece by Claude Monet caught my eye as I was looking through the oil paintings at the Met. I really like the colors – the sea foam green and aqua blue that make up the ocean, then the bright blue sky and its puffy white clouds. Everyone in the scene looks like they’re enjoying life whether they’re taking a leisurely stroll or heading out on a canoe.

This peaceful beach town scene reminds me of my hometown. Nothing beats sitting on the beach watching the tides roll in.

 

I think it goes without saying I miss summertime at the Jersey Shore!

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On the rooftop of the Met earlier that day    photo

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Chicago the Muscial
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During the last few weeks of summer my mother and I felt that we need to spend more quality time together before I had to leave for school. And so we headed to the city to catch a show on Broadway. I wasn’t familiar with the story line of Chicago but because so many people raved about it my mother and I decided to buy tickets. I’ll admit that the first ten minutes of the show was absolutely awkward because of how scandalous the actors and actresses were dressed however, the performance of the show was just so amazing that I realized that attire is a huge asset behind the art of Broadway. In the show that I watched, Amra-Faye Wright was the leading actress and she made me collect a whole new level of respect for performing artists. To be able to memorize hundreds of lines without a slip, profess emotion through body language and on top of that sing/dance…it was absolutely stunning. I give Chicago the Musical a rating of ★★★★★!

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Provenance- Metropolitan Museum of Art
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In the film Provenance, Amie Siegel represents the global trade of furniture from an Indian city to various parts of the world. The piece of furniture that she mostly focuses on is the chair. At the beginning of the film, we saw photographs of some very old buildings in India that serve as factories for the production of furniture. The factory looks practically dark and abandoned; however, the same photographs also reveal color and light, specifically sunshine. In one of the images that I have attached, it is possible to see a single chair standing outside in the sunlight. From that point, we begin to recognize its significance and value. Throughout the rest of the film, we see all sorts of chairs in different colors and different positions, sometimes surrounded by other chairs standing upright, and sometimes overturned on top of each other.

As the film progresses, we begin to see other styles and forms of chairs in distinguished shapes and colors, though the focus is always on the basic structure of those chairs, which remains the same all throughout. As the film begins to take a more modern setting, we are introduced to a myriad of other pieces of furniture that are capable of replacing that one, old traditional chair. In a series of photographs, we see couches, sofas, beach chairs, stools and a bed, but the one aspect the remains common to all of these photographs is the fact that the same chair is always present as well. In one of the scenes, a man takes an old looking, half-broken chair and begins to break it apart even further, leaving only its fundamental wooden structure. After destroying it completely, we suddenly realize that the chair has been transformed into a newer, modernized piece of furniture. It was absolutely amazing to notice the transformation of something so dull into something so beautiful.

At the final stages of the film, those pieces of furniture that were produced in the Indian factory are being transferred to other countries as merchandise. Once they arrive to auction houses in Paris, New York and London, I was surprised to discover that their monetary value is as high as $70,000 (!!!) Although this seems surprising at first, we quickly realize that the meaning behind this film is to represent the historical and artistic values that are hidden within those pieces of furniture. The film’s unique demonstration of the movement of the furniture around the globe points at its unique history, which consequently influences its fluctuating value. This film made me realize that something as simple as a chair may, in fact, have such high artistic significance that people often fail to acknowledge it with the proper recognition and admiration. The conclusion: don’t ever judge a book by its over.

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Amie Siegel's Provenance
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Amie Siegel’s Provenance sheds light on the relationship between art and capital. The furniture’s value was determined by the setting. First, in Chandigarh the chair was tattered and unwanted as it sat in different workplaces unnoticed. As the film went on, the furniture was refurbished to a more desirable, profitable form. With this, it could be sold for thousands of dollars at auctions, or sit in lavishing homes as a symbol of the family’s wealth.

The aesthetics used in the film were important in Siegel’s message. The perfectly clear images, as well as the surround sound makes you feel as though you’re part of the journey. To add to this, there wasn’t a typical frame to the film, it was simply projected onto a white wall. This made it more personal, like you were travelling to each stage with the furniture.

Lighting played a key role in Siegel’s film. The lighting was dark in the warehouses of broken chairs to signify worthlessness. On the other hand, the lighting was piercingly bright in the beautiful homes and the attractive yacht. This technique made the furniture more appealing and desirable as its value increased.

The unique form of storytelling backwards served the purpose of tracing the value of the chair from its original decrepit beginnings. In this journey, Siegel captures capitalism in the art market. Showing the furniture in exquisite homes, and then being sold at outlandish prices at auctions demonstrates the materialism in today’s art world.

It was interesting that we saw the film from the ‘end’. In our eyes we saw the chair being constantly upgraded from its original shabby state in the first setting in an orderly fashion. Overall, I found that film as a form of art was more captivating, and the lack of narration made the message mysteriously powerful.photo 4

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Provenance Review
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“Stylish aesthetics and fashionable conceptualism trump documentary realism in “Provenance,” an extremely suave film by Amie Siegel.” I could not agree more with Ken Johnson from The New York Times, Art and design (click here  for the full article!).

 

When we started watching Provenance I was actually a little bit confused. I could not figure out what we were looking at, where everything was taking place, and why we were so obsessed with all this furniture! It took me some time to figure out what was going on: we were actually starting at the end of the film, as Prof. Eversley noted, we watched the film in a non-linear way! The irony was that the film is already non-linear to begin with, because it was made in reverse chronological order.

 

After reading up on the film, I can truly appreciate how interesting and provoking this art is. The NYTimes continues to describe Siegel’s piece as “an art genre that tries to expose and subvert the workings of the capitalist art market.” I completely agree! When watching the film, traveling on a journey with all of the rustic, original and unique furniture, I actually felt uncomfortable watching it become these commercial items, fixed and positioned by people transforming the chairs to a synthetic prize. Prof. Eversley pointed out that we all jumped up when the chairs went up for auction. The truth was (especially because we were watching the film kind of backwards) that until the auction, I did not realize these chairs were so special! I actually turned to the person next to me and said, “What?!?” After traveling with the chairs from India in workplaces, boats, classrooms I was so confused by the transition of this chair from being stored up in a seemingly dirty area to becoming a fancy coach settled in a beautiful home.

 

Throughout the film, the warm colors of the chairs and all of the furniture really caught my eye, which is why I manipulated the pictures I took, to highlight those colors.

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Overall, with a greater understanding, I think provenance offers some very insightful and important messages about capitalism and art in our world.

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Masstransiscope
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Taking the Subway everyday to work and now to school has made me lose sight of the many different aspects of art there are in my daily routine. Upon taking a step back to reflect about where I encounter art, I noticed that there is a moving picture of many different colors creating an image while the train is moving.  This is called the  Masstransiscope.  There are 228 hand painted panels in the area between Dekalb Avenue and Canal Street, and when these panels are seen as a cohesive unit, it is a spectacular scene.  As the train moves, an illusion of an animated movie forms.  Now I see my daily life as more than just the “routine.”

I took a video of it, but the file was too large to send, so here’s a 30 second Youtube clip of what I see every day.

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When you stop and say this will make me look artsy on Instagram
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I saw this natural wonder stirring up after sweating profusely during a painful sports game I was part of. This is a direct view of the lesser known and far less interesting New Jersey. Mini golfing sure does makes you think you know?

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