If you can’t see the text: The Ad Board says – “Art Is Everywhere”
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Before Photoshop (for those curious)
Lynda Zycherman, MoMa’s sculpture conservator, is preparing the newest addition to the museum’s collections. Some might brush this news of as of nothing out of the ordinary, but that’s no where near the case. This new “Picasso Sculpture” portrays some of the most, “breathtaking inventiveness in bronze, wood, clay, plaster, sheet metal and stones through six decades” according to Roberta Smith in her Article, “Drinking in the Beauty of Picasso’s Sculptures at MoMa.”
In this Article, Zycherman seems to have a deep appreciation of what the conservators do. She mentions that part of their jobs is to do investigative work on the art pieces, discovering new knowledge about them that could be disclosed to the public. Zycherman goes on to describe the intimacy of this work, and just how much goes into discovering new things; even comparing it to “CSI” work.
Something that surprised me was that Zycherman mentioned that “much of our nonverbal response to art is really to the artist’s use of materials.” I’ve never actually thought of art that way but now I’m realizing its more of a subconscious reaction. These subliminal thoughts affect the way we think about art pieces, even when we think we are looking at the artwork with an open mind; so many things can be overlooked.
“Glass of Absinthe” is my personal favorite out of the collection of Picasso pieces. Its meaning is so abstract that Is up to the person to figure it out for themselves. The sculpture features a broken glass of alcohol with a flat/bent spoon sitting on its rim. On this spoon lays a mysterious sugar cube. At first sight the upper part of this piece’s color and texture fools most to believe that it is made out of exposed unpainted bronze. But as Zycherman refutes, it was painted with a brown paint and sand mixture.
So the next time you look at a sculpture, look twice about what its made off so you don’t overlook the beauty of the sculpture.
It was intriguing to read about how modern art was influenced by black culture right after the civil war. Sometimes we don’t even think about what helped make things the way they are today. It’s really great the after many African-Americans overcame the struggles of slavery they were able to incorporate their traditions and culture into works of art that they could share with everyone.
Being someone who rarely attends dance related events, I entered this exploration of modern dance with basically a clean sheet. I initially started with the video of Kyle Abraham’s dance show because I prefer to experience things visually first. I was in awe of how fluid and sequential the whole performance was, with all the dancers in sync as if they were one person. It was incredible to watch the dancers preform these abstract movements with such flexibly and dexterity. But the best part of the entire performance is that the meaning and motivation behind the dancer’s movements are left entirely up to the audience to interrupt. This unparalleled freedom in interpretation gives modern dance a unique feature that one can’t get with other forms of artwork. 
After watching the video, I was interested in further understanding Abraham’s mission in creating these performances, so I delved into the article about him. I learned that Abraham was attempting to “create an evocative interdisciplinary body of work.” It seems as if he wants to meld together multiple art fields to create a master piece. I was truly baffled by how he was able to narrate stories through his .
Turandot Libretto was definitely a pleasant change to my typical reading material. The Opera, written by Giacomo Puccini and finished after his death by Franco Alfano, takes a very familiar road in it’s tragic story telling. It tells a story of a troubled princesses named Turandot. She swore to avenge her ancestor’s rape by refusing to let any man take her, and sentence anyone who tried to death. There was an ultimatum though; if a man tried to marry the princess, he would have to correctly answer three of her tricky riddles. Unexpectedly, an exiled prince charming comes out of the blue, ready and eager to accept the challenge. Although receiving several warnings of the dangers lurking around these riddles, Prince Calaf was determined to answer them and take the princess’s hand in marriage.
As expected, the prince answered the unanswerable and baffled Turandot, but plot twist the Princess begs to void the marriage. Calaf then challenged her to a question of his won, if she found out his name before dawn, he would live no more. This leads to a series of events where the prince’s slave commits suicide in an attempt to save his identity from being discover. This Is a major area in the play where the theme of love could be seen. The slaves love for the prince was so strong that she was willing to give her life from him to be able to live with another woman. I just have no words for that, its appalling.
The things people do for love is unexplainable. The Opera shows that love could be very dangerous but at the same time it could save us. I completely agree with this perceptive of love because it better portrays reality. Love could mislead us into doing unthinkable things and potentially ruining up our whole lives over people that could care less about us. But at the same time its what gives us motivation and meaning in life to go on and look ahead for a brighter tomorrow. I feel like the Opera did a very good job at incorporating this dynamic view of love.
After watching the videos of the music and opera singers I was able to better underst
and the emotions. The way Birgit Nilsson’s voice resonated in my head was beautiful. You could almost feel what she’s feeling and be one with her. I believe that actually hearing music and signing while watching the play will give us a completely different aura.
Just when I thought literature couldn’t possibly get any more depressing or darker, I got caught off guard. This extremely controversial work of art is titled Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind. First published in Germany in around the 1890’s, this play shocked many people and received criticism for all it’s controversial topics and was even banned in many places for a while.
This play touched many topics that seemed radical at the time; such as suicide, rape, sexuality, and censorship. I believe that Wedekind wrote this play to expose some major aspects of society that needed reform, but would never get it without exposure. At the time of this play it was considered very taboo to bring these issues up, so he was one of the few brave people to call for change.
It was very shocking to me to see just how blunt this play presents all the issues. From the begging of the play where Welda’s mother refuses to educate her on where children come from, to Mortiz’s horrific suicide when he is overwhelmed with school and his sexuality. The event that moved me the most was Welda’s tragic and unnecessary death due to her abortion pills. If only her mother hadn’t avoided her questions and left Welda ignorant of sex, this could have been easily avoided.
This play helps show why sex ed is such an important class to teach. It just doesn’t work to leave kids oblivious to their sexualities because they will figure it out on their own either way. Educating kids on these topics helps avoid tragedies that could potentially ruin many teenagers lives.
I can’t wait to see this play performed and to see if any parts are censored.
Original Portrait of Madame X
Variation #1
Variation #2
Variation #3
When one develops an urge to enrich himself/herself with the knowledge of another culture what would be their main source of information? Many would turn to google or on a rare occasion even to the library, and to be honest I would’ve done the exact same thing. New York Times journalist Holland Cotter, however, has more creative and innovative idea on how to learn more about a culture’s history in his article, “Review: ‘Kongo: Power and Majesty’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
Cotter believes that art is the key to learning the truth of a cultures history. He uses the new Kongo exhibit in the MET as an example. He mentioned how the people of the Kongo region didn’t take records of their history or important events for most of their early generations. Due to this, westerners never really understood their cultures and what they have truly been through. Cotter goes on to say that this is not the case, the people of Kongo have always been keeping records of important events in their cultures, just not in the traditional way of paper and pen.
The Kongo people have recorded important events of their pasts with the help of art. They used sculptures, paintings, engravings, masks, religious objects, and ceramics to record their history. I was fascinated by their clever and unique artworks that had so much to say about their cultures. I completely agree with Cotter and feel that artwork is a great tool to record one’s history.
This tusk carving is a great example of how the Kongo people used art to record their history. This carving depicts Kongo’s relations with European countries. At the beginning of the tusk, it seems as if everyone is happy with their relations and there is a mutual respect between them. The second visible level depicts upper class Europeans making shady deals with some Kongo people. With the help of these deals, Portugal, France, and mainly Britain began enslaving the people of Kongo. They managed to chain up a third of the Kongo population by 1850. As one could see this small tusk artwork told us so much about the people of Kongo.
There are other great examples of the Kongo artworks that depict their culture if you’re interested. I believe that this is a much better and more enjoyable way to present one’s cultural history than the way of a classic textbook.
Pablo Picasso once said, “Painting is a blind man’s profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.” The essay “Every Portrait Tells a Lie” by Debra Brehmer in a way supports this quote. The article brought up many good points that I haven’t even stopped to think about before. One of these points was that an artist manipulates the reality he is drawing when creating an artwork to reflect what he/she wants to see. Brehmer went up to bring up her family portrait that her father took when she was little. The photo portrayed Brehmer and her brother, and they both seemed very happy and excited to be together on Christmas eve. But as Debra goes on to say, that is not the case at all.
In reality they aren’t the happy family that is portrayed in the portrait. Brehmer hated her brother who was always mean and wanted nothing to do with him, especially taking a picture with him and pretending to be happy. Her father was “attempting to create an idealized imagine” that’s show not who they really are but who they want to be. That’s the main problem with portraits, they never show the “full picture.”
Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife by John Singer Sargent (1885). Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photography by Dwight PrimianoThis new train of thought got me thinking about John Singer Sargent’s painting of Robert Louis and his wife. I began question myself what this painting was really trying to tell the audience. Did Singer really alter the image to show what he perceived about Robert Louis and his wife. In the picture they seem very distant from each other, as if they have gotten into an argument or have grown apart. I guess we’ll never know.
I learned much about a renowned American artist by the name of John Singer Sargent. Although he was born in Italy, his family was originally from New England and along with his mother they returned in 1876. Hitherto unfamiliar to me,Singer Sargent accomplished many great things throughout his life. Some of these things included beautiful paintings consisting of portraits, murals, and water paintings. He did a remarkable job at diversifying his work of arts with numerous different cultures. This could attributed to his many travels throughout Europe including cities in Spain, London, and even Paris.
Reading about the life of Singer Sargent has taught that painting isn’t as simple as it seems. I requires years of learning, practice, and apprenticing. In addition to that you need to travel around the world to learn from past generations of art to gather ideas and the need knowledge to create new pieces. He dedicated his whole life to art and that is something to be admired.
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is favorite painting of Singer Sargent’s. I love it for many reasons but mainly because of its simplicity. At a quick glance, one might be fooled that there’s not much to this picture, yet it’s so elegant and sophisticated. Further analyzing this picture you could see that there’s much more meaning to this picture than just four sisters in a room. Just by the way they are drawn you could predict their personalities, the way they treat each other, and the way they live their lives. Nothing like a painting that holds the potential to tell you more than words could.
Hey guys, my name is Borys as the title indicated and we are going to be classmates for a couple months or so, or maybe for a while depending on if we keep our blocks. Anyways, a little about myself, I commute here daily from Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn and currently reside with my parents, but hopefully that’ll change sometime in the near future.
Originally I’m from Uman, a little town located near the capital of Ukraine. I visit my family there every summer and always stay up to date with Ukrainian news incase any of you are interested. Not only do i travel to Ukraine every summer, over the years from there i have visited France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Israel. I personally really enjoy traveling across Europe and viewing the different but beautiful landscapes and cultures.
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