Awakenings

Jason Cottle and Tori Spelling in Cthulhu, a sci-fi film. 

The Meet the Artists event the other night was a very intriguing program. After a long day of classes, I really did not feel like attending the program. However, at the end of the program I was very glad to have been there.

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Body bags, stretchers, young men and women with cold blank stares of death – these are the sights and realities of war that today’s generation has become accustomed to. Before the Vietnam War though, information regarding the conditions of war was not so readily available to the mass public. However, as early as the 30’s and 40’s, photo journalists such as Robert Capa were capturing gory pictures of death and the horrors of war. The International Center of Photography’s current exhibition, “This is War: Robert Capa at Work,” exhibits these provoking and ground breaking images.

Robert Capa was, with out a doubt, a master and innovator of war photography. His most salient images all appeared in the top picture magazines of the day. For instance, “Boy Soldier: Hankos, China” appeared as the cover shot of the May 16, 1938 issue of Life Magazine and features a young boy soldier looking up into the sky. The use of gray tone and low contrast adds to the dreary portrayal of war – of a boy’s lost childhood. The shadow from the boy’s helmet consumes his face, perhaps to further illustrate the oppressiveness of war. The most gripping part of the picture, however, is the boy’s eyes of determination.

Capa’s own determination to capture the most transfixing truths of war is evident in many of his pictures. The “Death of a Loyalist Militiaman,” or better known as the “Fallen Soldier,” depicts a militiaman falling, almost unnaturally to his death, from a bullet wound to the head. This picture was a great source of controversy, with allegations that the pose was staged. Regardless to say, Capa risked his own life to capture these images. Another one of his most famous shots is one with the American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach on D-day. The beach is faint, almost undistinguishable, and the blurry focus captures the storming action of the troops. It is remarkable that Capa was actually in the water during a major invasion to capture a moment of history. Capa was a pioneer of war photography, and his work remains a source of awe today.

How abstract is too abstract? In an age where cynics slander abstract art – “My toddler could finger-paint better” – the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works exhibition would beg to differ. The exhibition, consisting of an impressive collection of fifty-five works from artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline, follows the abstract expressionism movement through the 50’s and 60’s. This stunning display of abstractionism’s evolution proves the inherent skills and artistic planning behind some of the world’s greatest work of abstract art. (more…)

The day had come when I would be meeting an opera singer who is the lead singer in Aida at the Metropolitan House of Opera, one of the world’s most famous places for opera. Her name was Angela M. Brown. I thought Ms. Brown would be a very reserved and serious person since that she is such a famous singer of classical music. However, that was not the case. She was very energetic and charismatic. I think she was very warm and friendly for a celebrity. She told us the story of how she became an opera singer at the MET.

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The Metropolitan Opera House is a grand place. It is the perfect stage for Aida to be seen and for Angela M. Brown to sing. Aida at the MET is sensational and the talented opera singers only add to its marvelousness. The stage design in combination with the orchestra make the spectators feel as if they are present at the time and place in which the show occurs. This show really has it all–singing, dancing, music, and art in its stage design and costume design.

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When first reading about the concept of abstract expressionism, I was very bewildered by the idea. It was a very difficult concept to understand by merely reading about it. However, visiting the Abstract Expressionism exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art made the theme a whole lot more comprehensible. I realized abstract expressionism is a form of art that needs to be experienced to be fully understood.

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The theme I choose was cultural dining on New York City streets. When I state “New York City streets” I literally meant the streets, not a restaurant or anything indoors. My photographs illustrate people buying and consuming food sold from street vendors. Additionally, the type of food that was being sold displays the culture of the people living in the area. For instance, the first place I went to was Washington Heights, where there are mostly Latinos. Here I found “majarete” and “habichuelas con dulce” two Latin dessert dishes, which I love. I also found empanadas and “quips” two typical Latin foods. This trend continued as I traveled to Sunset Park and Chinatown. Sunset Park is mainly populated with Mexicans. Thus, you encounter Mexican foods and dishes. A Mexican street vendor in Sunset Park will sell corn on a stick or Shish Kabob, although Shish Kabob is not truly Mexican. They also sell cups of “Choco” or a couple of hot Tamales, two common Mexican foods. In Chinatown I encountered Americanized Chinese food, such as vegetable lo mien, egg rolls, and pork or beef on a stick. Yet, I also found some weird Chinese food that I could not identify such as rice noodles and fish balls. In all, one can see that the food a vendor sells depends on the people he is selling to. I found traveling around New York City and photographing different food vendors as a thrilling and exciting experience.

Washington Heights

Appetizer

Entree

Dessert

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“Tings Dey Happen” is a play about the experiences a scholar Dan Hoyle had when he traveled to Nigeria to study oil politics. Nigeria is a significant oil producing country, which is actually America’s fifth largest oil supplier. Major oil companies such as Chevron and Shell both have flow stations in Nigeria. However, the oil industry has caused nothing but conflict and turmoil between the Nigerian government, which profits from the oil companies, and the people of Nigeria, who really do not benefit from the profits or the oil of their country. (more…)

(Spoonbridge and Cherry, Knife Ship, Giant Soft Fan)

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28, 1929 in Stockholm, Sweden. He shortly moved to America and developed into a Pop-Artist and to this day he continues to create his innovative and provocative art through sculpturing, drawing, and much more. Since his early art work, Oldenburg has been emphasizing the commercial aspects of every-day life. In the late 1950’s, Oldenburg’s’ “The Happenings” gave a new spin on abstract expressionism by coupling artistic scenes with theatrical aspects, which were partially staged and partly spontaneous. One of the key qualities of such an art was the interaction between the audience and the art work. “The Course of the Knife” was a two-day multimedia land and water performance which involved human performance and also highlighted the connection between art, architecture, theater and people. In 1977, he married Coosje Van Bruggen, who he has been collaborating with since 1976.

Oldenburg is known for his unusual-sized and textured sculptures. He explores the concept of spacing, irony, and positioning with his large-scaled works that put a comical and/or critical analysis on everyday objects. His unconventional works include not only hard-sculptures but soft-sculptures, soft replications made out of flexible material of traditionally rigid objects. Some of his famous soft sculptures include: a calendar, drums, fans and telephones. Oldenburg used the concept of metamorphosis by creating sculptures that would transform when inflated or viewed from a different perspective. Oldenburg works have truly challenged convention and continue to develop new views on modern art.

Gerda Taro and Robert Capa, were two war photographers who teamed up to capture the essence of the Spanish Civil War.

Taro’s earlier work focused on the children of the war, almost as if trying to capture the innocence being destroyed by the war. Photographs such as “Two Boys and a Barricade, Barcelona” and “Boy with Fay” showed how the battlefields became playgrounds for little children. A feeling of coldness swept through, to imagine that these boys used guns as toys and real bullets replaced water. Her other main focus in 1936 and early 1937 was children as they should be in “normal” life–pictures like “War orphan eating soup, Madrid” and “War orphan seated in a circle, Madrid”. (more…)