Student Posts

Posts written by students in The Arts in New York City (Fall 2017).

Rubin Museum

Absara Hassan

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.

 

STEAM Festival Review

Absara Hassan

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.

MOMA

Mariyah

I understood parts of Rauschenberg’s work because I agree with the idea that there exists almost no line between life and art. Furthermore, I don’t believe anyone has the right to decide what is art and what is life. Therefore, I appreciated Rauschenberg’s art since he took ordinary things and didn’t try to transform it into art, but instead, he highlighted the mundane character of such objects. For example, he took a taxidermied goat with a tire around it and put on it on a collage of materials. He didn’t transform the goat or tire into art, but simply put it on a pedestal and made people realize that this can be art. Furthermore, in my opinion, Rauschenberg let his audience discover the meaning behind his work, and I really appreciated that freedom. For example, his piece of 5 or so blank canvases was interpreted as a mirror, or as silence by the tour guide, but for me, it, simply, was blank canvases. I am not claiming it is not art, or that it doesn’t mean anything, but I am a literal person and all I choose to see are blank canvases. He took the mundanity of blank canvases and presented it to the world because anything can be art, anything can be life.

Look and Look Again

Mariyah

When I initially looked at the painting labeled “Late Afternoon, New York, Winter,” I saw a collage of color. There were dots of pink in one corner, a dash of light blue across the center, and white splotches all over the painting. It was as if the artist had captured what I would see if I were looking ahead of me while it was snowing. However, when I looked at it again, the image of Central Park began to materialize in front of my eyes. The trees started to take shape, the carriages pulled by horses were becoming clear, and more importantly, I could see the snow. When I walk through snow, I often fail to see the actual snow, only the blurry white streaks are seen. However, looking at it from another perspective allowed me to see what was in front of me but also what was underneath the painting.

The artist did a brilliant job capturing the chaos and serenity of snowfall. Yes, it is blinding. Yes, it makes the roads slippery. But, the white that it blankets everything in, the calm it instills on a city like New York City, makes one appreciate a snowfall.

 

Fall for Dance- Costumes

shainugeorge

The first performance that we saw was from the Miami City Ballet. The dance itself was very simple and graceful. This correlated with their costumes. They wore simple purple leotards, which are typical outfits for ballet. I noticed however, that all the girls and guys looked the same. They all had the same pale skin and the same colored hair. The next performance that we saw was Vincent’s. His dance had the setting of an African jungle and he played a bird. He was wearing traditional African pants. His performance was very raw. The next act was Trisha’s Dance Company’s. All of the dancers were wearing white cloth. In the final performance, Dorance Dance Company’s, we saw the most variety. Everyone was wearing casual clothing or somewhat business professional clothing. Their dance was very modernized and so was their clothing. This dance company was also very diverse. We saw people with blond pixie cuts and people of all races.

STEAM Festival

Salma Ali

The STEAM Festival was a fun experience that helped bring together all the Macaulay students from different campuses. It was interesting to see all the projects that other students worked on throughout the year and compare to the assignments we did in our own Macaulay class. Although it was slightly disorganized and disoriented, I felt as though overall it a nice gathering. The makers workshop was really nice and students were able to create pins and magnets. Also viewing the Macaulay 3 projects was a nice foreshadow to the types of projects we will do next year.