Warhol, Andy

1) Painting- Campbell’s Soup Can (1962) by Andy Warhol. These soup cans were each strategically placed in a horizontal line on the narrow shelves of the store. He bought cans from the store to trace the projection onto the canvas. Each is had slight distinction despite its obvious similarities. Each can is different in favor. For one of the cans, it is missing a gold band on the bottom. This painting of the soup cans is unique and different from other artists. Warhol used a repetition of cans to illustrate an element of advertisement and unstructured chronological order of the soup cans.

 

2) Poem-Mugging by Allen Ginsberg. In the poem of “Mugging” by Allen Ginsberg, he talks about his incident of getting mugged on the streets. The young teenagers grabbed the narrative by the neck and threatened to kill him with a knife if he does not pass his money, credit cards and watch. The two teenagers are seen as aggressive in which they harshly hauled the narrator into the dark ally and thrashed him to the cold cement. Their conduct is more cynical and unethical. The teenager’s action can be viewed as an economic instability, which can be a driven factor for their aggression of stealing from others.

3) Song- 4’33’’. John Cage composed a piece called 4’ 33’’ where there is no music and the instruments are not played. This piece was quite unconventional and controversial. In this piece, it includes three sections where the conductor comes in the starts the orchestra and everyone holds the still pose for the entire the time. It is classified as a minimalistic and contemporary music. He wanted this piece to redefine art through its ugliness, chaos, and spontaneity. The sound of nature is deprived in the traditional instrument, so he wanted to illustrate the beauty of nature through the value of being silent.

4) Movie- Wall Street is a film set in New York City about investment through the stock exchange on insider knowledge. Bud Fox is a young intelligent stocker broker who tries to get an interview to speak with Gekko, the role model. Fox told Gekko about the investment in Bluestone Airlines, where his father worked for decades, but this information is not released to the public. This film showcases the act of illegal acts of insider trading and spying in the stock exchange for Gekko’s benefit and investment. Fox exposes Gekko’s fraud and ousts him to the Securities Exchange Commission. This film portrays the idea of greed and selfishness on illegal trading that was a driven force of success in New York City. This film greatly reflects on NYC as a city that never sleeps and flourished in rapid success, wealth, and greed.

 

 

5) Sculpture- The Harp was a profound artwork created by Augusta Savage. It was influenced by the values and idea of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harp consist of twelve black singers lined up in height order as the harp strings. There is one man with a music book kneeled on his knees to represent the foot pedal. This artwork is a symbolic representation of unification of the black community under the god’s hand. Harps are usually associated with loyal and the upper classes. It is ironic that Savage used African Americans to close the gap of socioeconomic status between the whites and blacks.

 

 

6) Opera-The Exterminating Angel, composed by Thomas Ades, is an opera about a sophisticated group of the bourgeoisie at a dinner party where they cannot leave the room. The Exterminating Angel evokes the answers to society’s many pathologies involving the loss of consciousness in humanity through its scenery elements. This opera illustrates the determination of human sanity as the guest are challenge into their basic instinct for survival. Through the artistic element of music and costume and design element of scenario background, the composer proves the deeper principle of turning humanities into savages when places into the convention of life and death situations.

http://www.metopera.org/Season/2017-18-Season/exterminating-angel-ades-tickets/

7) Painting- The Watermelon Race by Palmer Hayden. Hayden was an artist and social commentator who fought against racial profiling of the African American community in the Harlem Renaissance. I was fascinated by the painting of The Watermelon Race because it exaggerated the physical feature of three black people eating huge watermelon slices. This painting is iconic because Hayden is mocking the stereotypes of African Americans with enlarged lips, bosoms, and nostrils. These are stereotypical clichés about black people eating fried chicken, watermelon or even playing basketball. His concept of depicting African Americans lives was heavily criticize and ignored by the public.

8) Song- “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday. Holiday was jazz and pop singer in the Harlem Renaissance and rose to fame with her controversial song, “Strange Fruit.” She performed this song as the Café Society in Greenwich Village where she debuted this song that arose political issues into mainstream entertainment. In the lyrics, she metaphorical links the strange fruits as the dead bodies of black victims as they were murdered during lynching. Their blood sinks into the leaves and ground. The rotting flesh on the decaying body becomes food for the cows. The underlying meaning of this song is to bring awareness to the racial inequality and brutality of black people.

9) Photograph- “Winter, Fifth Avenue”(1892) by Alfred Stieglitz. This photograph was made on George Washington’s birthday, February 22, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 35th Street. Stieglitz illustrates a man with a black coat in his horse carriage as he drives past the gray snow. This photograph specifically captures the weather and lifestyle of New Yorkers in the 1890s. Most contemporary photographs of the winter season are clean and untouched snow of the New York skyline. On the contrary, this photograph clearly shows the true scene of the city with dirty and walking pedestrians. It is a robust city with fast movement even through the freezing winter.

 

 

10) Famous Shadow Box- Soup Bubble Set by Joseph Cornell in 1936. Cornell was a supporter of Surrealism in which rejected reality ad portrayed social aspects as irrational and juxtaposing elements. In this box contains a bird’s egg in a wine glass and a doll’s head on top of wooden still. In the center, there lies a clay pipe with the map of the moon. The top portion of the box prints “Leaning Tower of Pisa.” There is no direct correlation among all these objects which Cornell used to express his ideas of Surrealism. The meaning of this work is for the audience to interpret the meaning of the Soup Bubble Set in their own ways.