The Arts in New York City

As I was waiting at Union Square for a friend to arrive, I saw a large crowd that had gathered just a few feet away from me. Curious to see what people were looking at, I walked over to check out what was happening. From what I could see on my tiptoes behind the crowd, there stood a mime. I had never really seen a mime perform apart from on television. It was humorous to watch the emotions of fear he displayed on his face as he pretended to be trapped in a box. His rigid arm gestures created the illusion of the box and the panic that he showed made the crowd laugh. It was beautiful to watch him move because his motions made something literally out of thin air. Out of his arm motions, he threw a lasso into the crowd and struggled to pull an individual in. I though that it was wonderful how he had such an imagination to create such a vivid show for the people.

Growing up Chinese in a Korean neighborhood, I had always been interested in East Asian culture, which is why after discovering the Japanese Art gallery tucked away in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was curious to take a look inside. I had always attributed Japanese art to screen painting and handscrolls, similar to the Chinese art I had seen growing up and so I was honestly not expecting to see anything groundbreaking in the dark rooms that made up the gallery. Sadly almost half of the rooms in the collection were devoted to screen paintings and wall scrolls, which were absolutely beautiful, but didn’t stand out to me as uniquely Japanese. Luckily, there seemed to be small surprises tucked away in the corners of the gallery including a small pink bowl made in what is known as rakuware style. Rather than patiently spinning a perfect piece of pottery on a wheel, rakuware involved shaping a bowl with bare hands and putting the piece through a series of extreme temperature changes not to beautify it, but to destroy and maul it. It seemed that not all art concentrated on aesthetic appeal. The art in rakuware pieces is the process by which it is made. It is the the imperfections of cracks and bumpy surfaces that make the piece ultimately beautiful. This by far was the most surprising fact I picked up and it completely reinvented my previous notions of Japanese art.

The Moma (museum of modern art) showcases the most modern art that could still be considered art. Before I went to this museum, I had a vague understanding of what encompasses modern art. However after I returned from this museum I came to the conclusion that modern art is a wide range of works that I didn’t even previously consider art. The Moma is six stories high and it feels like every floor is a unique museum onto itself because ever floor houses a different form of art. On the lower floors was a suspended stairway that got narrower as it reached higher. There were also objects made of steel that could only be described as futurist. To my surprise not all the pieces were form the last couple of decades, there were things there that were almost a century old. The upper floors of the museum contained the pictures. These pictures were of distorted objects, geometric figures or a wide array of colors. An example of this was the work by Pablo Picasso. My favorite was the pattern that playing tricks on eyes by making you feel like you were hallucinating. Although the museum was crowded with tourists during the time that I was there, I though my trip there was interesting and worthwhile.

The Museum of Natural History does not exhibit history only. From my childhood memory, my impression of the museum was a shady place filled with scary images of animals and statues. However, this time, my biggest surprise came from the Milstein Hall with the sculpture of a giant whale hanging in the center of the room. The whale was undeniable fascinating in design. In addition to the whale, the overhead screen gave me the feeling of being underwater with its use of blue and white colors. The surrounding sounds and cool climate contributed to the impression of what life was like underwater. Even the polar bears on display had such discrete expressions, making me question whether they were artificially made or real life animals. With the help of technology, it was no longer about memorizing facts or names, but to experience them the way they should in their climate, or at least an artificial representation of it. In all, my trip was not only to learn about history, but to experience the artistic portrayal of history, especially with the help of technology.

Diwali is a significant festival in Hinduism, which originated in India. It is the celebration of the return of Lord Rama, king of Ayodhya. He returned from a fourteen year exile in the forest. People of Ayodhya celebrated by lighting rows of lamps. Today in present day, people celebrate Diwali by lighting candle at home and also at the temple. In our house, we lit up candles on the stairs and on the front steps. In addition to the candles some also light firecrackers at night. I remember lighting firecrackers when I was in Bangladesh. On Diwali my brother and I used to get money from my grandparents and light them in our backyard. There used to be so many different types of them. However it is hard to do such a thing here in New York City. Instead we light different colored and sized candles in our house. Last weekend on Diwali my sister made a few patterns with the candles. When I turned of the lights, the light was remarkable to look at. These patterns could be seen differently in everyone’s eyes. It is amazing how a religious holiday can result in art.

Throughout my week, while doing several hobbies, I realized something.  This realization was apparently something that has been existant in my justified true beliefs.  As several of my homies and I headed toward the park, I consciously acquired retained knowledge of the first day of IDC class where we discussed how soccer can be seen as an art.  As my friends and I started playing, we played using deceptive tricks.  As I began to stare at the way the players moved with the ball, it almost looked as if the players were dancing with the ball.  The rhythmic movement of the feet was seen almost as if it was coordinated.  Whenever I got the ball, this notion was set upon me.  The ball was my girlfriend; as I moved my feet, she gently followed my step and danced with me throughout the field.  Soccer can be made fancy and rhythmic if you put a little effort to see it as an art.

When I came across the trailers for “American Gangster” while watching TV, I figured that it would be just another pointless action movie with no substantial plot. However after being persuaded to see it by Dan and Joanna, I was pleasantly surprised. I found this movie to be a work of art in that it depicted the intense, criminal culture of 1970′s Harlem. The film mainly tells the story of Frank Lucas, a self- made millionaire whose cocaine business reached the peak of its success in the 1970′s and also saw its downfall soon after. However, unlike most action/mobster films with repetitive fist fights and annoying gun shots, this film was perfectly planned and choreographed from beginning to end. It immerses the audience into the world of the drug trafficking, and it was extremely realistic because the majority took place in New York City. I was also very impressed by Denzel Washington’s portrayal of Lucas. At the end of the movie, I forgot who Denzel Washington was and was only able to think of him as a ruthless drug gangster. There was some intense visual imagery in the film which I felt was very effective in allowing the audience to see through the eyes of the people experiencing this crazy lifestyle. I definitely recommend this film to anyone who has not seen it yet.

For the past three weeks, I had the opportunity to work on Anton Chekhov’s critically acclaimed play “The Seagull” at Brooklyn College. Not as an actress however, but as a crewmember. I was assigned the job of the “sound operator”. This was totally unfamiliar territory to me, but over the course of three weeks I experienced the complex and often stressful job of the people who truly take care of bringing the authenticity of a play to life – the crew. As an audience, one gets to enjoy the captivating performances of the actors and take in the marvelous set, lights, sound, period costumes and props. These components, which at times we don’t give enough credit to, let one engage and find a connection to the circumstances of the play. What is going on behind the scenes however does not reflect the beauty of art and theater at all – it certainly posed a new challenge and experience to me. During shows, I sat on a headset in a small, dark sound booth, waiting for my stage manager to call the next cue. I realized that I didn’t perceive “The Seagull” as a beautiful play filled with great characters anymore, but it turned into a technical piece of text to which I didn’t have any emotional connection and merely dissected it into cues, breaks and “stand-by’s”. It was enriching as an actor to make this experience of being a crewmember. I believe it broadened my horizon to the extent that I now understand the complexity and huge undertaking of only one play – the people, technicalities and money that is involved; something that the audience and even actors mostly don’t pay much attention to.

Have you ever notice how much art is actually around us? There is no need to travel a gazillion times to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see art. We encounter art everyday just by attending Baruch. The Baruch Newman Vertical Campus houses numerous pieces of art. On every floor, you can find at least a couple of paintings or pictures. There are the chrome prints on the third floor; there are the black and white nature prints on the ninth floor; there are the series of “Produce Better, Live Better” ads on the tenth floor. Even the building itself can be considered artistic in its structure. The Vertical Campus is innovative in its organizations of stacked atria with expansive windows that allow so much daylight into the building. Photographs of the external building and internal setting are display all along the walls as you enter the Baruch Performing Arts Center. The BPAC acts as another way of providing the Baruch community with art as many plays and concert series are held there. If you don’t have the time or money to venture elsewhere to experience art, all you have to do is take a walk around the building during your breaks.

The six-year-old girl tucked her hair behind her ear with her right hand while holding the book down on her lap with her left. Softly but clearly, her young, immature voice chirped amidst the voices of loud grown-up gossip. “I do not like them in a box. I do not like them with a fox.” She clenched her little baby teeth slightly, and pronounced the x-sound as distinctly as the sound of a shoe crushing a crisp autumn leaf. “I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere.” She lifted the tones of the last words of those sentences, mistakenly reading them as if they ended in questions marks instead of periods. I opened my mouth to correct her, but decided that her mother would not like it if a stranger spoke to her. “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.” She turned the page with her small, delicate fingers, and continued to read. Her audience consisted of just her mother and me, a stranger sitting beside her on the train, listening to every word projected by her high-pitched voice that reminded me of the first time I read that book by Dr. Seuss.

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