In “Is Race Reflected By Your Outfit?” Pamela Paul talks about a study done by researchers from Tufts, Stanford and the UC Irvine. Participants were asked to determine the race of different people in pictures. Some were well-dressed, pictured wearing business suits, and some were poorly-dressed, pictured wearing a janitor’s outfit, and all were within 13 shades of skin tone color. The question at hand here is the title of the article, “Is race reflected by your outfit?”

According to the study, “Yes, race is reflected by your outfit”. The researchers used mouse-tracking analysis where they measured the speed and position of the mouse when a participant used it. Whenever a white man was shown wearing a suit, the participant immediately the “white” button but when the same man was shown wearing a janitor’s outfit, the participant hesitated to click “white” and even hovered over the “black” button.

I think it is outrageous that people think this way and associate people of darker shades with lower-ranked jobs. Most people think that way though, and this experiment brings to light what people are secretly thinking but don’t say out loud. This study is interesting because even though the researchers aren’t actually reading the participant’s mind, the mouse-tracking analysis shows the thought process of these people.

Paul mentions how most of the participants were “overwhelmingly white” but hardly any African-Americans or Hispanics agreed to participate. In this experiment, there is a big emphasis on race and how different races are viewed in society, which is a touchy subject, but even though Paul is not a reviewer, she keeps a objective tone in this article. If i were the one writing this article, I don’t think I’d be able to keep the objective tone Paul has.

Art is eclectic, with artists getting ideas anywhere from within their own home to another continent. The dance “Toot Is Loot”, a collaboration between Jennifer Lacey and Wally Cardona, is just that. I think it would be interesting to see a dance show that has not just one theme, but many themes involved because it keeps the show captivating.

In Brian Seibert’s review, “With the Help of Unusual Outsiders, Find Love in Strange Objects”, he gives us a good idea of what to expect from such an eclectic piece. He starts off with some background information about both how this dance came to be and about the choreographers, which is always an interesting read. He knows this particular story is interesting and unusual so he does a good job of grabbing the reader’s attention. He goes on to inform the reader about how Lacey and Cardona each added a piece of themselves into the dance, keeping it unique and original. Even though this review is heavy on the background of the choreographers, it really allowed me to understand why Seibert feels the way he does about this dance.

Seibert covers everything from the dancers’ performances to the musical score of the dance. His review is holistic, and doesn’t spend too much time explaining to us just one aspect (such as the plot of the dance) of “Toot Is Loot”. He is also very honest with the reader in his review, telling us that the ending was confusing for him.

I feel this was a successful review because it told me most of what I needed to know about this dance. The tidbits of information about the background of this dance kept me intrigued and Seibert is not biased.

Broadway at Night, taken by Alvin Langdon Coburn in 1910

The Met is one of my all-time favorite art museums and they have a couple of cool exhibitions there right now. One that stuck out to me was the Night Vision: Photography After Dark, which is there until September 18th. Whenever we take photos at night, it comes out too bright because of the flash, or too dark because of no flash, or too weirdly colored because of the night mode. It’d like to see how these established photographers tackled that challenge.

One of the featured photographers, Alfred Stieglitz, is considered to be one of the first photographers to photograph at night. This exhibition features night photos from the late 1890’s to now. It’d be cool to see this timeline of photos and compare them to see how the camera has evolved.

A piece of artwork can sometimes be difficult to interpret and to understand what the artist was truly trying to get through to the viewer. A review helps gives a new insight to the artwork, allowing the viewer to appreciate the art in a different light.

When you view the pieces of artwork in “The Art of Dissent in 17th-Century China: Masterpieces of Ming Loyalist Art from the Chih Lo Lou Collection”, you feel a sense of serenity about them. The paintings are so gentle looking; you would not expect any turmoil to be happening behind the scenes. In Holland Cotter’s review of The Art of Dissent in 17th-Century China: Masterpieces of Ming Loyalist Art from the Chih Lo Lou Collection, he gives us historical information about the time period of when the painting was created. These serene paintings and poems do anything but echo the events of the 17th century in China. The Manchus were invading and the Chinese were forced to choose between the old regime or the new regime. Many artists stayed loyal to the old regime, committing suicide and dying with the old regime, or starving themselves as a mean of peaceful protest. Suddenly, the fine lines of the Chinese artwork don’t seem serene anymore.

When the paintings are obvious to what the artist was trying to get through, the reviews help to confirm what you were thinking. In Karen Rosenberg’s review of Ingres at the Morgan, she explains each of the expressions on the person being painted’s face. The portrait of Guillaume Guillon-Lethière shows that he is a confident man and very well off by the clothes he wears in the portrait. Rosenberg’s historical information about Guillon-Lethière confirms our interpretation of this artwork.