Has anyone realized how powerful Macy’s Inc. is? It wasn’t until recently, when I wrote a six-page paper on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (I still don’t know how I got six pages out of that one), that I understood the power Macy’s has on the economic prosperity New York City. Granted, it’s been at it for a long time. However, just the Thanksgiving Day Parade alone shows how powerful it is; millions of people around the world tune in to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade every year. The message of the parade is to celebrate the history of America and blah, blah, blah… No one is being fooled; every one knows that the Parade exists to start the shopping season… I mean, the “holiday” season. So, what does this have to do with art?
Let’s use the example of the famous Macy’s holiday window displays. People from around the world visit New York City during the holiday season to see/visit the Rockefeller Tree, Times Square, and Macy’s in Herald Square, “the largest store in the world”. And this is where they’ll find Macy’s holiday lane and the renowned window displays that take approximately half a year to create and fully develop. In this article you learn the steps taken to create these intricately beautiful and “jolly” displays. They are meant to tell a story within six windows (this year it is, “Yes, Virginia…”). More than 7000 people pass by them a day, during the peak of the season! This form of artwork requires 14 paper artisans, 4 carpenters, 6 electricians, and the designers. If it weren’t for Macy’s these displays wouldn’t be as popular; if they weren’t in the famous Macy’s at Herald Square, this beautiful form of art wouldn’t be regarded with such high esteem. It’s interesting to see how a department can do so much for New York City and the artwork within it, even if it’s just holiday display.
You definitely have a point Caitie. As the expansion of mass media continues to control how we view our holidays, commercialization and art have been intertwined to fit many of the needs of major corporations. Art, more specifically balloon art is becoming a form of commodity capitalism. Macy’s Thanksgiving parade is merely using balloon art to make a profit during the upcoming holiday weeks. Nevertheless, Balloon art has also become a modern way of expressing ourselves. Jason Hackenwerth, an artist whose works are currently on display at the Guggenheim, is being celebrated for his use of thousands of balloons to tell an artistic story inspired by Prokofiev’s “Peter & the Wolf.” Balloon art is gaining speed in the art world, check it out!
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/pop-art-peter-the-wolf/?scp=2&sq=balloon&st=cse
While reading the first paragraph of this post, I couldn’t help but think of the 99% vs. the 1%, and about discussions I’ve had in this class and in my English class about this economic imbalance. My mom works at the famous Macy’s in Herald Square, and as a mere jewelry saleswoman, she is far down in a long tree of employees, CEO’s, directors, business associates, etc. Macy’s is an example of a company completely ruled by the 1%, but extends job opportunities to members of the “99%.” It brought me back to a point Professor Smaldone made in class once, that without the 99%, we wouldn’t have amazing places like the Metropolitan Museum or the MoMA. The same applies for Macy’s. If the 1% “joined the 99%,” as Yossi said in his post found here —>http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/smaldone2011/2011/11/21/2047/ would we still have Macy’s? Would we still have a grand parade attended by millions every Thanksgiving? This makes me agree that the 1% needs to exist in order to create these grandiose events.