Author: Absara Hassan

After reviewing Robert Rauschenberg, his style, and his most popular works, we got a chance to see it in person at the Museum of Modern Art. The museum itself is simple in design, making Rauschenberg stand out even more. The class’s favorite, the taxidermy goat, felt way bigger in person and was very fascinating so up close. Rauschenberg took a tire, but it around the goat’s head, and put the goat on a collage. Altogether, it showed to be a beautiful piece. What I like about the exhibit is that his artwork is open to so many interpretations, where everyone’s own perspective and opinion is very creative and interesting. The tour guide did an amazing job with giving us the most concise tour of the exhibit. Although it was rushed, I did absorb alot of material and saw many great things. My personal favorite was the section with objects and materials put together with noises, making it sound as if we were walking through the city. I also liked the silhouette-like artwork Rauschenberg did of his wife. The colors were beautiful.

Our trip to the Rubin Museum was one of our most interesting. I remember liking this trip mainly because of our tour guide. She was very kind and knowledgable on all aspects of the museum. The museum itself had an intriguingly beautiful architecture, built in such a way that the museum centers a spiral and can amplify sound to certain areas of each floor. The meditation room was also interesting, in that the bench in the room “speaks” to you. The brief video on the evolution and formation of our galaxy was fascinating, almost hypnotizing. When we visit museums, we focus on art our eyes can see. At the Rubin, sound is the art.

The STEAM festival was a very interesting way of getting to know students from across all campuses. Being stuck in a room with dozens of seminar 3 students proved to be a blessing for my group rather than anything else because we got the chance to really dive into the projects. Unlike seminar 1, seminar 3 takes more of a scientific analysis of New York City, and walking around, meeting sophomores, and learning about their studies gave us some insight on what is to come. Some were also interested in our collage, “IF”. Our project portrayed the opposing concepts of life and death as well as the past and present and asked the questions “what if I didn’t do this today?”, “what will happen tomorrow?”. The makerspace was also a nice way to end the festival.

In the Turandot opera, the costumes were very colorful and heavily decorated, and in all, extravagant. Headgear was utilized, especially on those of more higher status. In contrast, the crowd of townspeople had drabby clothing. This shows the difference in classes and implies that the townspeople weren’t seen as “people”. Turandot’s costumes were the intentionally the most decorative, with many jewels and vivid colors. They were also very long in length and were equipped with a headpiece. As for the prince, he was dressed in clothing that was less luxurious.