Author: sean

This work created by Rachel Feinstein portrays a figure with a clock for a head, guns, and swords for arms and hands, and a mixture of weapons, booze, playing cards, among other objects for a body. According to the description posted to the side of the sculpture, it was originally a drawing by Rachel Feinstein’s son from when he was ten years old. Feinstein brings this drawing to life and gives this drawing meaning—something that is usually difficult to find in a ten-year-old’s sketches. The material used is powder-coated aluminum and vinyl. The colors chosen by Feinstein were selected to resemble a sketch—tieing the work back to its original source. At first, the piece seemed like an abstract mixture of various items. However, after examining the piece for a few moments, I began to realize why Feinstein—or her son—chose specifically the elements that he/she chose. Weapons represent violence, booze represents vulgarity, and cards represent gambling. The artist wanted to portray several vices that a person could inhabit. I believe that by having a clock for a head, which does actually tell the time accurately, it shows that the figure is currently stressed—maybe from racing against time to get an assignment done or just always feeling burdened by limited time. Because the figure is so stressed, it takes up these various vices represented throughout its body. Although I don’t think the sculpture is tied to politics, I do believe that it is connected to society. The figure stands for humanity—when we get stressed because of time constraints, we tend to act irrationally and may acquire bad habits as a result. Additionally, I think that Feinstein made the clock functioning to show that this is a serious problem and is occurring in our time. It seems like it is trying to show the viewer the potential negative implications that arise from stress and that you should try to avoid it. Another interpretation of this artwork can be that it shows us the inner thoughts of a ten-year-old. Because it was sketched by Feinstein’s son, this whole drawing and all/most of its aspects can be attributed to him. Maybe this is the way her son sees the world: a bunch of people racing against the clock, causing violence, acting vulgar, and gambling. Maybe Feinstein’s son has a bad view of humanity and this is how he represents it artistically. Feinstein may have wanted to represent this view to the world to show everyone what a delegate of the younger generation sees in society.

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I see a man in front of me waiting to use the turnstile, I see his hand reach into his pocket to grab his MetroCard;

I see a metal fence, resembling those which occupy jail cells;

I see a group of musicians, two on guitar and one on the drums, making everyone’s day fill’d with a bit more music and a bit more joy;

I see a fight for a cause, being execut’d in a creative and thoughtful way, I see happy faces, who get to do what they love for a cause they support;

I see a security guard, uniform as dark as the night, standing as still as a tree;

I see a shar’d goal—to get from one destination to another that is out of walking distance;

In the subway that facilitates my everyday commute and the commute of countless others;

In the station that boasts millions of people like me, New Yorkers waiting for yet another delay’d train;

In the heat of the moment, my card is swip’d, just as the lady beside me has her purse swip’d;

In the background, I hear the arrival of my train;

In the busyness of the hour, I must push myself through the crowd and through the closing doors;

In the cramp’d train im stuck in, an odorous individual stands directly by my side;

In the situation, I recognize the uniqueness of New York;

I am under the ground but not underground, as the subway is no secret—it is the battery that keeps New York running.

Part One:

Many photographs are, alas, inert under my gaze. But even among those which have some existence in my eyes, most provoke only a general and, so to speak, polite interest: they have no punctum in them: they please or displease me without pricking me: they are invested with no more than studium. The studium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of inconsequential taste: I like / I don’t like. The studium is of the order of liking, not of loving; it mobilizes a half desire, a demi-volition; it is the same sort of vague, slippery, irresponsible interest one takes in the people, the entertainments, the books, the clothes one finds “all right.”

To recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer’s intentions, to enter into harmony with them, to approve or disapprove of them, but always to understand them, to argue them within myself, for culture (from which the studium derives) is a contract arrived at between creators and consumers. The studium is a kind of education (knowledge and civility, “politeness”) which allows me to discover the Operator, to experience the intentions which establish and animate his practices, but to experience them “in reverse,” according to my will as a Spectator.

– Page 27, the first paragraph of chapter 11

This passage is important to the text as it helps identify the difference between studium and punctum. The studium illustrates the intentions of the photographer. It has only a minimal effect on the viewer, not arousing any deep emotions but instead simply just sparking a small sense of appreciation or disapproval for the work. The analogy Barthes gives of people who view clothes, movies, and books as “all right” allows for easier understanding of his definition of studium. In comparison, punctum “pricks” emotions within the viewer. It is the wave of emotions that hits the viewer when looking at a particular photograph. This passage really helps differentiate the two and is, therefore, crucial to the text.

Part Two:

At the time (at the beginning of this book: already far away) when I was inquiring into my attachment to certain photographs, I thought I could distinguish a field of cultural interest (the studium) from that unexpected flash which sometimes crosses this field and which I called the punctum. I now know that there exists another punctum (another “stigmatum”) than the “detail.” This new punctum, which is no longer of form but of intensity, is Time, the lacerating emphasis of the noeme (“that-has-been”), its pure representation.

In 1865, young Lewis Payne tried to assassinate Secretary of State W. H. Seward. Alexander Gardner photographed him in his cell, where he was waiting to be hanged. The photograph is handsome, as is the boy: that is the studium. But the punctum is: he is going to die. I read at the same time: This will be and this has been; I observe with horror an anterior future of which death is the stake. By giving me the absolute past of the pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in the future. What pricks me is the discovery of this equivalence. In front of the photograph of my mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die: I shudder, like Winnicott’s psychotic patient, over a catastrophe which has already occurred. Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.

– Page 94, the first paragraph of chapter 39

At this point in the book, Barthes realizes that there is another element to punctum: time. Barthes explains that if the subject of a photograph is a living being, then there must be a time, whether past or future, where the subject dies. This means that when he looks at a picture of his mother, although she is alive in the picture, she is eventually going to die. This sparks a feeling of grief within Barthes, almost as if his mom had actually just died. Every photograph is connected to a set moment in time—a time when the subject is still alive; however, the subject will one day die and this adds to the punctum of the photograph. This passage is important because it builds onto Barthes’s previous claim about stadium and punctum, adding a new element to punctum that helps us understand what types of emotions photographs can trigger.

Question:

Which factors lead to the rift between the photographer’s intentions and what the viewer actually gets from the photograph?

Picture:

Planning the layout of an art gallery is an extremely complex job. The planner must take into account a variety of factors: the spacing between each artwork, the color of the walls and its effect on each painting, the number of artists that will be on display at the location, and much more. This creates an immense amount of diversity within the structure of art galleries—as can be seen by the following two galleries I visited in Chelsea.

This is Metro Pictures Gallery, with Judith Hopf’s “Alifi” on display. Hopf makes use of the viewer’s perspective very wisely—one can look at the arrangement of brick structures through the circular wall cut-out or from the opposite end of the room and feel like they’ve witnessed two separate works of art. The sketch-like paintings on the wall initially seem like simple drawings, but, after taking a step back and looking at the room in its entirety, it is clear that the drawings enhance the view of the brick structures. The room that houses this artwork is extremely large and contains only this one artwork—with that comes the benefit of being able to space out each aspect of the entire artwork with rather wide spacing. The walls are completely white so that the viewer focuses only on the artwork at hand and nothing else. The white walls and canvas frames do have a strange effect on the paintings, however, where it makes them seem like they are drawn on an extension of the wall rather than on a canvas that is separate from the wall.

The pictures above were from the same “Alifi” exhibit; however, this art piece is located in a different room. Although this room is smaller than the last, there seems to be a lot more open space. The walls are still white and the artwork itself is a combination of various different art pieces that include sculptures and paintings interacting with each other. By using large rooms with completely white walls, the gallery is able to really emphasize the artist’s two separate sets of artwork and keep the attention entirely on the art while allowing viewers to see completely different pictures from various angles.

These images are from Mike Dargas’s “Reflection of Dreams” exhibit at the upper level of the C24 Gallery. At first glance, these artworks can be mistaken for photographs; however, I was notified by an employee at the gallery that these artworks are, in fact, hyperrealistic paintings. The way the upper floor of this gallery is utilized is very similar to Metro Pictures Gallery where white walls draw attention to the paintings and there is sizeable spacing between each drawing. The main difference is that this exhibit only houses paintings that are similar in style but don’t really interact with each other, meanwhile, the exhibit at Metro Pictures Gallery was a combination of various pictures and sculptures that come together to form one large artwork.

This exhibit is on the lower level of the C24 gallery; however, it looks like an entirely different gallery. All of the artworks on display are from different artists, yet the artists’/artworks’ names are not explicitly displayed anywhere. Also, these artworks are extremely packed together—very little spacing exists between each artwork. This makes it very difficult to focus on one specific art piece: while looking at an individual painting, your eyes naturally wander towards nearby artworks. There is a mixture of drawings, physical sculptures, and videos to examine and it seems like no actual theme exists between each artwork. There is evidently a very stark contrast between not only this exhibit and the exhibits in Metro Pictures Gallery but also between this exhibit and the one situated upstairs. The lack of a central theme and ample spacing guides the viewer’s perspective away from individual smaller artworks and towards the larger/more bizarre pieces. This exhibit juxtaposes Metro Pictures Gallery where the viewer’s perspective is more so fixated on how each art piece interacts with one another to form a larger picture because this exhibit guides the viewer’s perspective solely towards individual pieces. These two examples clearly portray the effect that a gallery planner has on the viewers of a gallery: they shape the viewer’s perspective by indirectly leading them towards what they should be looking at and how they should be examining it.

This statue is located at Midland Beach in Staten Island. The base of the statue looks like a hemisphere that has had the vertical direction reduced in size by about half. Protruding from the base, there are two separate cylindrical pillars, whose bases are comparable in size to large tree trunks, that wrap around each other almost like a DNA molecule. Although the bases of these two pillars are relatively large, as you look upwards, the width of each pillar decreases. These pillars hold up a life-size mimesis of a sea turtle, and the statue is designed to look like the pillars morph into two of the turtle’s flippers—one becoming the front left flipper, and the other becoming the rear right flipper. The turtle is tilted approximately 45 degrees so that its right side is higher than its left. The entire statue is around 10 feet tall, made out of rough metal, and, for the most part, takes on a mix of green and grey colors. On the bottom of the pillars, the color seems to resemble that of an old penny; this is most likely due to the fact that humans constantly touch it. Moreover, the base and pillars are decorated with many symbols of ocean life, including seashells, squids, fish, stingrays, and even fungus.

Of Kwon’s three paradigms of public art, this sculpture can be best categorized as art as a space. This statue displays a sea turtle, as well as a multitude of other sea creatures, and is located near the ocean—the natural habitat of these creatures. This makes it very clear that the sculptors had the location in mind when designing this statue. Around the fountain, there are sprinklers embedded in the ground that shoot water during the summer; this makes the statue a fun play area for small children. Also, this statue is oftentimes climbed on by kids; evidently, it is a very interactive sculpture. According to landscapeonline.com, the statue was funded by the former Staten Island Borough President, Guy V. Molinari, and was designed by the Parks design team, Jason Yu, Renata Sokolowski, and Mike Browne. Although the designers of the statue worked for the government and the funding came from a former politician, it doesn’t really have any effect on the purpose or the meaning of the sculpture as the statue isn’t intended to convey a political or social message.

This fountain is located at the start of the Staten Island boardwalk. The fountain is comprised of five separate levels of roughly equal height. Water pours from each layer down to the layer below almost like a waterfall. Each level contains only a very thin layer of water, excluding the final level where all the water is collected and stored to be recycled through the fountain through an automated system. Only the first and final levels contain flat surfaces. Every layer in between has an uneven surface that resembles a wave. There are several mosaic artworks on each level of the fountain that depict various creatures of the sea, including fish, sharks, seaweed, jellyfish, and much more. The color of the fountain is brownish-red and resembles the color of dry red clay. On the elevated boardwalk behind the fountain, there are 6 flagpoles arranged in a semicircle that each hoist older versions of the American flag. At the center of this semicircle is a 7th flagpole that hoists the current American flag, as well as a POW/MIA flag and two Parks Department flags.

This fountain can be categorized as art in a place. Although the mosaics represent sea life and the fountain is situated next to the ocean, that is the only connection that the fountain has with its location. The backdrop of the 7 flag poles seems out of place when looking at the fountain—they don’t share any connections or similarities. Additionally, this is just a waterfall fountain and can be placed in virtually any environment and still be appreciated just as much. Moreover, there is a sign in front of the fountain that forbids people from entering the fountain; therefore, it is not interactive. Knowledge of the artist that created the mosaics and the fountain is difficult to find and is not displayed anywhere near the fountain itself. The funding body is also not explicitly stated anywhere, but it can be assumed that the project was funded by the Parks Department as they are responsible for overseeing the development of the Staten Island boardwalk and beaches.

Although both of these works of public art are located near the ocean and contain symbols of sea life, they are very different from one another. One major difference between them is their relationship with the people that interact with each site. The waterfall fountain doesn’t permit entering and therefore people’s interactions with the site are limited to just viewing. The sea turtle fountain, however, is meant to be used as a play area and families often gather around the statue so their children can climb the statue together. This quality is what makes the sea turtle statue art as space; it connects the community by giving kids the opportunity to physically interact with art. During the summer, when the sprinklers at the sea turtle statue are activated, the site also serves another useful function to the community—it allows people to wash off after going to the beach. Although the water in the waterfall fountain flows year-round, it is too far away from the beach to serve this function, and, even if it was close enough, entering the fountain is forbidden. Evidently, the waterfall fountain isn’t meant to serve the community in the same meaningful ways that the sea turtle statue is, and, due to its lack of interactivity and functionality, is better categorized as art in a place.

Sources:
https://landscapeonline.com/research/article-a.php?number=7329

Artist: Théodore Gericault

Culture of Origin: French

Name of Painting: Lions in a Mountainous Landscape

Date: ca. 1818-20

Medium: Oil on wood

Written Analysis:

This picture shows six lions resting in a dark lair, along with what seems to be a bone. As the title suggests, there is a mountain range in the background. It is believed that the mountains depicted in this photo are the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. In the background, there seems to be a red light coming from the side of the mountain—perhaps it may be a sunset.

The painting is influenced by romantic art and the lions are depicted as realistic and life-like. However, the painting is in a state of ébauche—unfinished, and left in a sketchlike style—something that Gericault was widely known for doing. This can be seen through the lions as the general look of each lion is complete; however, small details in the tails, for example, seem to be missing or not yet finished.

The central lion seems to be the most emphasized one. There is a sliver of light shining primarily on it, almost in a heavenly manner. It also seems to be more detailed than the other lions. It looks like it’s yawning, forcing it to display its teeth and seem ferocious.

Gericault made this painting seem very dark and gloomy. It may be drawn this way to manipulate the viewer’s perspective towards the central, most illuminated, lion. Also, there is depth to the image, making it seem realistic and adding to the feeling that this painting may actually be a real scene somewhere in nature.