Author: Rushabh Mehta

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair may ring a bell to the average New Yorker as the piece of literature that spurred reform in the food and meat industries during the late 1900s; this ‘Jungle’ however is much more different and tests the strength of human perseverance for freedom and identity. The Jungle is a fabricated name for a refugee camp that was located in Calais, France. The population of the refugee camp at its peak was around 8,00 people. The performance that we watched at St. Anne’s warehouse was an enticing performance about how social and political situations affect the way communities function with each other. Throughout the play, there were moments that represented the democracy of human nature, and the need for order as the refugees set up their own communal government based on their cultural and traditional beliefs, but at the same time remained unified in times of distress, despite the differences of languange and culture between them. The play did an excellent job at portraying the real emotional and physical struggles of refugees in France.  Although the play had many captivating moments that left me, and others in the audience on the edge of their seats, it was unfortunate that it took a play to showcase the harsh realities that occur in the world around us. An eyeopening moment for me, or the punctum of the play, as one would say through a Barhtean lens, was the footage shown on the side television screen during moments of the play. One specific video that left me both speechless and grief-stricken was that of a young Syrian boy that was lying on the shore of a beach dead. I had personally seen the picture before on the news, internet, and other mediums of social media but it was different at ‘The Jungle’. The screens were black and then suddenly there was a picture of a young boy face down, Alan Kurdi. Although the picture wasn’t taken in France the silence in the theater, complemented by the gentle caressing of waves around the young boy’s lifeless body let everybody know that this wasn’t just a play but rather a public service announcement of the realities in the lives of refugees.

Alan Kurdi, 3 Years of age, Syrian

Alan Kurdi, Shore of Turkey

I personally think this part of the performance was the most eye-opening for me because I had seen this picture numerous times over the internet and through news coverage, and when I had first seen it it was just as shocking to see young children the age of three be affected over an international refugee crisis. When I saw the picture at St. Annes, I cried. I think the picture was more moving when I witnessed it at the theater because the producers had presented the image as gifset, or maybe even the original video. Viewing the photo as a motion picture was more moving because you saw life continue around Alan. The waves would hit the top of his head, retreat, then go past his nose, then retreat, then to his chin. Each wave that washed over Alan’s petite body, made witnessing the moment too vivid and the truth about the international refugee crisis too real.

The play does a great job of giving each of the characters from each refugee country a story, and a goal. In the performance, the characters explain that there is the common goal of the “good chance” (which reflected on their luck of making it out of The Jungle) but at the same time directors and writers managed to give each person a post-camp goal. Some wanted to open up restaurants, while others wanted to work with family, or study and gain an education to make a better life for their succeeding generations. This addition of detail in the play allows us as the audience to really understand that the people in the shows represent others who have goals and achievements that they strive for, and the striking difference is what goals each person has. For many people goals, in their life could drinking 8 cups of water everyday, or leading a healthy lifestyle by going to the gym everyday. For the refugees of Calais, their goal of getting out overshadowed any other small feat that we may consider hard to abide by. This resilience shows the true nature of the human spirit when faced with hardships. Towards the end of the performance, as part of the camp was about to get destroyed citizens of Jungal overturned their unanimous decision of peace, for resistance. Resistance, for a cause. The play highlights a great deal about how humans deal with situations together and alone, rather than the situation itself. Often times we take what is around us for granted, The Jungle does a fantastic job at provoking legitimate empathy towards the emotions, situations, and struggles of how the refugees of Calais live on a day to day basis.

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge by El Lissitzky

El Lissitsky’s print of Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge served as a controversial piece of work during the Russian civil war because of the message it sent out to the public. Firstly, Lissitsky uses more constructed geometric shaped for his print, this is a new and unusual for artists at his time but he uses the geometric shapes to compliment his ideas about the political situation in Russia at the time. Another way Lissitsky’s print is avant-garde because it uses minimal ideas, to express his idea. Even in the painting regardless of the meaning, one could see Lissitsky utilized single Russian words which pushes the idea that Lissitkey wanted to use the least of visual stimuli to get a concept across.

Lissitskys work pushes boundaries of representation. His work is described as an example of an agitprop or Soviet political propaganda which seems ironic because political propaganda usually has a phrase or a limerick to make sure the person viewing it could remember the stance of the argument, but in Lissitskys work he simply writes the Russian words for what the viewer is seeing. Although his work could be classified as a mimesis in the sense that it represents the idea of a revolution which is something that occurs often in real life, I personally do believe his work is more abstract. The fact that Lissitsky uses colors like red and white and presents them with the connotation of winner and loser is somewhat interesting. In addition to the usage of color, Lissitsky’s choice of shapes to represent the two forces in the civil war is interesting as well. The wedge serves as the winning force because of its penetrative shape. At an immediate glance, one can think that the red wedge is infiltrating the white and when one looks at the shape of the wedge and the narrowness of the shape it looks as if it is impaling the white circle. In addition to impaling the circle, it seems as if the wedge reaches the exact center of the white circle, which for me means that the Russians have infiltrated the root of the Anti- Bolshevik forces. The political statement behind the art is described as the reds winning since the reds represent the Russian forces while the white is Anti- Bolshevicks. I think that in terms of style Lissitsky experimented with shapes and color more so than other artists that did during the century, the fact that the shapes and color were there for a symbolic purpose which was different from other painters who often manipulated the contents of their paintings for more emotional purposes.

As I stepped out into the sunny, but brisk cold morning of November, I wondered for a few seconds where I was about to head. While thoughts of plausible destinations raced through my head I chose a song to set the mood. I decided on classical, Chopin to set the holiday mood and Nocturne no.2 in C-Sharp Minor to reflect on the cold depressing weather that was stirring on outside. I chuckled as the the cold wintery breeze slapped my face, and the voice in my head said with the most regal of tones “Winter is coming”.

My first few steps led me to the façade of the building I called home. Home was a new and abstract term for me, considering that I wasn’t someone who moved frequently. I didn’t have many experiences that required me to get used to a new space, especially alone. I decided to make a right and walk up 3rd avenue. Looking up, the grey and ominous looking sky teased the people below with the uncertainty of a downpour, but I decided to take the chance anyway and continued my meander through my neighborhood. I walked down 3rd avenue and saw what looked like endless scaffoldings, which gave off a rustic iron smell because of the humidity. For a split second I wanted to decipher where I lived, I noticed the heavily Hispanic community to the north of my dorms, but the heavily gentrified community to the south. The location of my dorms seemed central, almost like a border to two different socioeconomic lifestyles that I observe on a daily basis in NYC. I realized after another block or so that the city blocks weren’t going to do me justice, and so I decided to go to Central Park where I could focus more on the nature and literal environment of my surroundings.

My treck up the avenues to get to central park was arduous, often times people forget the anatomy of Manhattan. Being an island, the gradual slope upwards from the water’s edge from 3rd avenue all the way to Central Park East left me out of breath and stopping at every other avenue. As I climbed the avenues I passed many restaurants that left me wondering about my plans for dinner that evening (I ended up eating Mexican Food). The wide variety of restaurants in the neighborhood gave me a sense of relief, it felt as if anything I wanted would be available to me. My walk between Park and Madison Avenue reflected upon the changing season as the gradual incline to Central Park involved more trees with vibrant leaves that were amidst changing colors and more leaves that were soggy and plastered all over the ground. I approached my favorite part of the journey to Central Park, Park Avenue Malls. It is a small park that separates Park Ave North and South and underneath is the tunnel that allows Metro North and Amtrack to operate their trains to and from Grand Central Station.  Hearing the trains roar under my feet and clack on the metal tracks below is music to my ears. The rhythmic whirr of the diesel engine produces an autonomous sensory meridian response and satisfies my interest in transportation vehicles.

As I reached Central Park, I thought to myself “do I really want to do this?”. Reason being, getting engrossed into the park seemed like a task. I wanted to experience the park and people watch within the park, things that I normally can’t do from the outskirts. I took a deep sigh and took the first steps to my long meander through the park. Aside from the mothers running with their strollers or the fathers here there for soccer practice, I noticed the rest of the people that utilized the park. I was always under the impression that the city was a youthful place and I would only see people running and walking in Central Park, but the reality of it was there were a lot of people who were there just like me. Many of them drawing, many writing, many just looking over the Jacqueline Kennedy Onasiss Resovoir thinking about the thoughts that train through there minds, similar like the ones that occupy mine.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

Entrance to The Dixon Place

My Halloween evening was spent at The Dixon Place on the lower east side, where readers from the  Guerilla Lit Reading Series came together and read excerpts of their work. We heard readings from three authors that lasted about an hour long. Jacob M. Appel,  Laura Catherine Brown, and Brian Leung all told us about their literary backgrounds before they began to read their work and told us what inspired some of their work, and the backstory to the pieces they were reading that evening. The venue for the evening was comforting and somewhat cozy for the cool October night. It was dimly lit like a fire almost burning out, and there was a pride flag on the wall almost wanting to welcome everyone into the location. There was a bar, which allowed readers and guests to place orders for beverages if they choose. The walls were decorated with frameworks of art but the dimly lit setting made it somewhat rhetorical to have artwork hanging.

Our first reader, Jacob M. Appel read a portion of his story of a pet hedgehog. Appel modestly confessed to his popularity and describes that his story was from an anthology that he wrote titled ” Einstein’s Beach House”. The story started with Appel talking about his relationship with his girlfriend. The story progressed to the couple purchasing a pet hedgehog. Instantly one can notice as the story progresses that the hedgehog isn’t simply a hedgehog. The pet was a signifier to Appel’s second character (his girlfriend) as their child together in the relationship. Appel continues to state in the story how his girlfriend took care of the house pet as if it had human emotions and could be tended too as a baby. Appel’s rise and falls in the tone of the story kept the story interesting to hear. The lack of monotonous speaking engaged me, the listener, and allowed me to make inferences based on how Appel was reading the story. Appel also stood firmly and projected his voice during his reading allowing for listeners to have a clear idea of what was going on, instead of mumbling his words. Appel also changed the tone of his voice to signify the change in character dialogue between him (in the story), and his girlfriend.

Brown reading her excerpt from “Mary Made Me”

The second reader was Laura Catherine Brown. Brown came to the venue in festive Halloween attire and dressed as her character’s who she explains are mostly hippies. Brown read from a book she published titled “Made By Mary”. The part of the book the Brown started to read from was speaking about a lesbian couple who were struggling to have a child together. Parts of the dialogue describes the struggle that the two couple faced before deciding on surrogacy, and struggles they faced after such as the chosen mother being a pagan, and a drug trafficker. Although Brown spoke with an animated voice, and into the microphone, certain concepts of the excerpt were hard to grasp and analyze which made understanding the jist of the reading a bit difficult. As a spectator, I can’t help but feel that if Brown had maybe chosen a different reading, or adjusted from where she began the reading the passage, it would have been a bit more of a different experience.

The last and final reader was  Brian Leung. I found his work a little odd, and personally, I was not a fan. Although Leung did a great job in reading to his audience with a clear voice, the concepts presented in his book/excerpt were hard to grasp, as well as the character attributes. As Leung was reading, my mind was trying to form character connections and give certain people in the passage personalities, but it was very hard (no pun intended) to read the characters. Another thing that struck me as somewhat shocking was that Leung often stopped in the middle of his passages to correct what he was saying, or ask Laura Brown the previous reader if that’s what she took away from that paragraph in the book. This initially seemed like he was asking for opinions and a general critique, but the continuous questions about his own writing made it seem like Leung was reading a rough draft rather than a published novel. Inadvertently, making his excerpt harder to comprehend.

All three reading were an interesting experience. As a first timer at a literacy reading, I thought it was interesting how authors share and appreciate each other’s work. We learned earlier that a gallery is a space where artists can display their work, but now I also learned that readings are a way for authors to use their reading and speaking skills to showcase their work and have it sold in places other than a bookstore.

This photo was taken by Susan Meiselas and was a part of her works titled Prince Street Girls, 1976–1979. Prince Street Girls began as a series of photos of young girls who stood at the corner of Prince Street in Lower Manhattan near the neighborhood of Little Italy. I choose this particular photo in Meiselas’ work of Prince Street Girls because of the punctum rather than the studium. The punctum as described by Roland Barthes is something that captures or animates the view of the photo or also wounds and pierces the view, regardless it is meant to be a detail within the artwork that arrests the onlooker’s attention. The studium is described as the rest of the photo or the remaining bit that compliments the punctum.

Personally, the punctum of this photograph for myself was the bubblegum that the girls are blowing up. This photo invokes feelings of satisfaction when I look at it because of the size of each bubble and the fact that they are all consecutively getting smaller from left to right. I’m not sure if Meiselas had intended to capture the moment as such however, this addition satisfies my need to see things in chronological size order. I also think that the punctum leads you to look at each individual girl in the photograph. Upon looking at the girl in the far left-hand side of the photograph you can see not much of her face, except for her eyes. Without reading more about the photograph and the series I would have not been able to tell that the first girl was, in fact, a girl. Evaluating her gender with simply her long, but boy cut hair and chubby facial structure led me to believe that the girl was a young boy. Despite fabricating a wrong assumption, the punctum allowed me to more closely analyze features of the girls because of its location with respect to the rest of the photo.

The studium for this photo is the urban background of Little Italy. I think the studium really describes the time and era at which this photo was taken. In the far background, you can see two individuals carrying out what seems to be a conversation on a regular day. You can not also help but notice in the more foreground the open hood of an old car. Both details of the photo make the photo seem as if it was taken in a close-knit community, where people publically conducted their life. Upon reading more about the photographer and about the collection from which this photo was taken, you learn that it is probably just a regular day in Little Italy with everyone else doing their daily business. I think both the punctum and studium play a larger than expected role in interpreting the picture. Although, many parts of the picture are subjective and up to the viewer’s discretion, the punctum and studium by Barthe’s definition allow the interpreter to start with specific details as a foundation to later interpret not only what they are looking at, but the meaning and (no pun intended), the bigger picture behind a photograph.

First, we start off with a portrait of a woman that is naked, but the artist of this painting Ray Turner calls this painting “half-naked”. At the immediate glance, there are not appealing colors or patterns to this woman’s face. There is, however, emotion. Appropriately named, the woman in the picture is not wearing any articles of clothing and her pale skin and lack of emotion are the first things that one can notice. The lack of vibrancy in the canvas and bland nature of the artwork almost leaves the viewer thirsty for more information about what the picture is about and what information or mood the artist was trying to portray.  Once one looks at the face of the woman, one may realize that color or lack of, is the meaning of the painting.

The black, white and grey undertones of the canvas make the painting bare and only support to the artists claim of the painting being half naked. There is no frame to compliment what the viewer is experiencing. The first thing one may notice, aside from the fact that the woman is not wearing any clothes, is the jet black color that Turner used to paint her hair. This specific tone of color to paint something that is usually multiple tones of brown or dark shades is simply just painted in a dark rich charcoal black color. The texture of the hair in the painting is smooth, and Turner has not used specific brush strokes to differentiate the different parts of the woman’s body. In addition to not exhibiting many realistic features to her hair, Turner also paints her hair straight down as linearly as possible, there are no curves or stands out of place to distinguish an irregularity. There is, however, a black grey to white transition, an almost unnoticeable small ombre that separated the head and hair of the woman from the white blankness of the canvas.

The woman has almost a thin fragile face that has a plain emotion. She does not look like a certain distinguishable emotion. She has a poker face of plain emotion that looks somewhat unimpressed with what she is looking at. Also, Turner has painted the woman almost gaunt in nature because of her thin face, visible cheekbones, and narrow shoulders almost as if she has not eaten a proper meal in days.  Towards the lower bottom area of the painting, you can see that Turner incorporated the natural beauty of the female figure and lightly painted two breasts to show the actual nakedness of the painting and the female. There is a “half” nakedness to the painting despite the unclothed exposed nature of the woman, the other half of her is actually full of emotion.

Another large aspect of the painting is the woman’s eyes, they seem almost natural because of their color which in reality is just a mixture of black and white, but the almost graphite/sterling silverness along with the specks of white to resemble the reflection of light on a regular human eye make the painting seem natural in setting, especially in the  large open art gallery which would have light reflecting off a human eyeball. The gallery space definitely complimented the painting because the white gallery walls combined with the whiteness of a canvas truly made the parts of the painting with color pop in vibrancy even thought the colors used were not necessarily vibrant (white grey and black). Through deep analysis, one can realize why Turner titled the painting half naked. Because yes, she is not wearing clothes, but she is not entirely naked.

The second piece of art that I went to was public called the “Group of Four Trees,” by Jean Dubuffet.  Each tree does not look like a tree off the bat but if you look long enough you can make out what the artist was trying to portray. Dubuffet constructed the trees through varying amounts of cement and plaster planes that are all irregularly shaped and sized. A noticeable feature about the pieces of the tree is the thick black outline on each vertex of the walls as well as throughout the tree structure as well. Without the sharp black markings, the sterling grey color of the trees would blend in with the sidewalk and the buildings that they surround. The pitch black outline works almost like an eyeliner and extenuates contours the curvature of each bend in the tree. Even though the title of the sculpture is called “Group of Four Trees” the “trees” look almost as mushrooms because they lack the bodacious lusciousness of a tree’s leaf composition. Being flat-topped,  it is almost difficult at first to realize that the structures are representations of things we see around us almost on a daily basis, at least out of the city, and its parks.  Along with the tops of the trees, the columns that are supposed to be tree trunks are also irregularly shaped, many of which look wavey and unlike the straight nature of most tree trunks. Aside from the shape of each of the trees, you also can not help but notice their placement. Many times trees stand alone or single with only small grasses and shrubs around them but this compilation of trees are more intimately placed together in a large courtyard that definitely has enough space to spread them out but their closeness seems familial and had they have been separated it would have given the art a different meaning and uniqueness where one would be able to look at each tree individually and analyze versus looking at the entire sculpture and observing its meaning as a whole rather than each tree as an individual facet.

View from under all the trees looking upwards

View from under looking outside

The trees almost fit in perfectly in the cityscape that surrounds them, but yet they still manage to perform the functions of a tree. It blankets whoever is under them making them feel almost inferior to their presence. For comparison, there was a 7-year-old child next to the tallest trunk, and one can see the sheer size of the structure, even the smallest of trunks was in no way “small”. I believe these differences in the anatomy of a regular tree versus the tree sculpture makes us look at why Dubuffet wanted to give his trees these unique characteristics. Their location in bustling downtown Manhattan brings a sense of nature to a location that is not necessarily surrounded by nature, but ironically there is nothing natural that makes up the material composition of this sculpture.  Although mentioned before, the irregular shape of the trunks and foliage of the tree makes us realize that it is different. I believe it serves as a reminder that although it is different and not normative it is located in a metropolitan area that has been the foundation of difference, and it is the difference that made the art beautiful.

Oh Dear, poor deer. This painting is oil on canvas, named The Repast of the Lion and painted by Henri Rousseau in 1907.  At first glance,  you immediately notice a lion in the foreground, eating its prey. The painting itself is relatively flat in sight, Rousseau didn’t employ techniques in his painting to texturize the nature of the canvas. Although the lion is accurately painted, you can’t help but notice the simple brush strokes Rousseau employs to make the painting somewhat minimalistic. The colors used on the lion are the brown and caramel colors of lion fur; however, Rousseau adds a white in its coat in order to almost make the lion glow with prestige, as if catching the prey was its ultimate goal, and it is portrayed achieved.

The body of the lion is hidden is hidden in the grass and you can almost see nothing but mostly its face and mane. The lion looks midway through its meal and so it looks as if the onlooker has interrupted his meal and he has looked up. In addition, Rousseau used a bright red near the lion’s mouth and the neck of the deer to signify that the lion has killed and is eating its prey.  The lion is in what looks like a dense forrest, because it is surrounded by shrubs and flowers.  In the background it seems as if the sun is Rising because there is a bright white, but cloudy sky. This leads me as a view to believe that the lion’s diet is just a cycle and just like a day, he will get hungry again and kill another animal. Rousseau also titles this The Repast of the Lion, so it simply is another meal for a lion.  As a view I feel as if Rousseau did a wonderful job at describing the natural cycle of a lion’s hunger through a delicate scene of flowers and forest shrubbery in the back, and foregrounds of the painting. Although Rousseau did not add texture to the painting, one can almost sympathize for the deer who’s neck belongs to the Lion, or rejoice for the lion’s sucess!