Category — Blurbs

There are two museums that people assume every native New Yorker has visited at some point in his or her life: the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a resident of New York for 18 years, Friday marked my first visit to the Met; and the experience was one that I would not soon forget.  It took the better part of my day, but the time I spent there was still not enough to explore even a fraction of what the Museum had to offer.  Yet ironically, after having explored as little as I did, it would still be impossible to fit a simple list of just the names of all the exhibits I saw into a mere paragraph.   The art came from many broad categories and featured art about different topics and countries from around the world.  There were pieces from such topics as religion, culture and landscape and such places as Africa, Asia, Babylon, Italy and America⎯to name a few.  The “New York, N.⎯Why?” exhibit really stood out amongst the rest.  The photographs in this exhibit felt warm and took me to the era that the pictures were taken in.  From my visit to the Met I can assure you of at least one thing; it has such a colossal amount of artwork in its collections that any visitor to the museum is sure to find at least one of the exhibits to be to his or her liking.

The newly renovated Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) blew my mind away. This is definitely by far my favorite museum in New York City. Its current exhibit, Second Lives–remixing the ordinary, is full of art pieces that are nowhere near ordinary. The exhibit occupies two of its upper floors and both floors amaze me with very creative and innovative designs. Some of the most notable pieces include “Spoons” by Jill Townsky and “My Back Pages” by Paul Vilinski. All of these artworks contain deep meanings that the artists intended to portray to the viewers through their creations. For example, “Spoons” are made of plastic spoons and rubber bands that are assembled together to create a massive pyramid. Although impressive, it flaws in its instability because the elasticity of the rubber bands diminishes over time, which will cause the whole structure to eventually collapse even if only one rubber band snap. The artist wanted to portray the message of “the actual ‘moment’ of the process can never exist retrospectively; it leaves only a ‘trace’ of its action” through this fascinating piece of art. My favorite piece in the museum is “My Back Pages” which is displayed over an entire wall.  It consists of vintage vinyl records, record player, wire, and recover covers. The vinyl records and record covers are cut into shapes of butterflies and are displayed as if they were flying out of the record player. This is not only a beautiful piece of artwork but it also “releases the meaning of album, collection, and songs into the world.”

The museum left me such a good impression not only because of its captivating art pieces but because of the brief description of each artwork. Although it undoubtedly limits our imagination by telling us the artworks’ intended meanings, nevertheless, it allows me to feel closer to the artwork and understand it in at deeper level. The museum successfully imprinted the objective of the exhibit in my mind and for this reason, I will most gladly visit it again for another pleasurable experience. 

One of the best kept secrets of Baruch are the art galleries that the school has. I had recently gone to the “Recasting the Figure in Photography” show at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery. Though the room itself was unadorned, the photos on display provided great insight into the art of photography and its evolution as an art-form. From the black and white “Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer Wife” that exemplified the troubles of the Great Depression to a modern photograph of a furry monster hiding behind tall sharp stalks of grass. One particularly memorable photograph was one of a child soldier who had been abducted into the army. The soldier was a young girl whose chest had been branded “RUF” standing for Revolutionary United Front; she was essentially a sex slave to the generals of this army. The exhibit was definitely worth investing an afternoon to, and I consider it an experience in terms of exposure to the evolution of photography and also connecting at a human level.

The Sidney Mishkin Gallery is located at 135 East 22 Street and currently features “Independent Visions/Feminist Perspectives” and I would recommend everyone just take some time out and check the gallery out (It’s literally about 2 minutes away from the VC building!).

Okay, so maybe November 22nd’s YouTube Live premiere isn’t exactly an in-person event — but I sure was looking forward to it like it was. YouTube Live brought together famous musical acts (Katy Perry, Joe Satriani), a few amateur musicians who gained near-celebrity status on the popular video community (S.Korean guitarist Funtwo), popular comedy segments (including the loved-hated Charlie the Unicorn), and tons of other random famous bits (Will It Blend, Chad Vader) — all in just a lackluster 90 minutes. While Katy Perry gave a fantastic opening to the event, it quickly turned into a mind-numbing assault of “the best of YouTube”. Without any specific focus, the event turned into a mish-mosh of mediocre randomness, and about halfway I was tempted to just log on to Good Ol’ Regular YouTube to find videos that I actually like. The only thing that kept me going was the lure of “YouTube + Live + International = A Chance to See International [YouTube] Celebrities Live!!” — which never happened, either, because there was only a San Francisco (read: American) and a Tokyo event (which lied; it wasn’t even live, despite the title, “Youtube Live“) Overall, the YouTube managed to turn an amazing idea into another boring ol’ American internet TV experience, when with a little more money, a little more direction, and a little more actual international live performances could have made the experience so much more worth it.

The “Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art draws viewers into a world of bight, yellow stars set against dark, blue skies. Van Gogh’s goal was to portray the bright light effects with different color combinations. He does this very effectively in his paintings of nature and outdoor night scenes. His artwork successfully conveys such strong feelings of tranquility. One painting portrays ambiguous structures that may represent buildings in the background with lights illuminating a calm sea, while another piece contains colorful swirls to represent the clouds and stars. It appears that Van Gogh experiments more with color variety to portray details of the evening sky and night scenes rather than focus on the greater details of earthly life, such as the houses and buildings. The fact that he does not paint all objects in sharp details adds to the effect of peace and reality during the nighttime. Not everything can be seen clearly during the night; the houses and buildings may look like nothing but specks compared to the bright glares of the stars and lights.