Category — Visual Art

When going into the ICP, I immediately knew which exhibition I wanted to visit the most: “Bazaar: A Decade of Style.” I am not a fashion-junkie but there has always been something about fashion photography that has intrigued me. Fashion photography, for me, is inescapable. As soon as you see it, it takes hold of your senses and you stand there entranced. Fashion photography, unlike other types of photography, is meant not only to elicit an emotional reaction out of you but also to spur you to use your credit card and buy whatever shoe, necklace, coat, dress, or accessory is being advertised. For me personally, however, I feel like photos like those exhibited in Harper’s Bazaar are also meant to show a deeper meaning than just to get consumers to buy the products. One of the prime examples I saw of this in the exhibition was the photograph of two women, walking side by side on a road.

The photo itself is quite simple. The basic focus is of two women, clad in attention-grabbing clothes, walking down a deserted road in what appears to be a desert. Both women are dressed in bold, bright colors—there is no mistaking them. Their clothes are very structural and features very geometric lines.   Looking at the road, there are two arrows pointing to the required direction of travel (in the photo, the arrows are pointing upwards). The women, however, are walking in the opposite direction. The photo features bright colors of orange, pink, blue and yellow. Contrasting with this is the deep black of the road. The focal point is the two women, in particular their clothes (this is a fashion photograph, after all). Both women are wearing sunglasses, making their eyes impossible for the viewer to see. Both are also outfitted in extreme high heels.

The reason this photograph was so attention-grabbing among the rest was the underlying message I extracted from it. The women are flouting the social conventions by walking on the street and not caring about any cars that may come their way. They are openly ignoring the direction rule by walking in the opposite direction. They may be construed as ignorant of the consequences (like a car approaching), but I think it makes them fearless. The clothes they are wearing are definitely not the norm but why should they care? This photo shows me female empowerment. Looking at these women make me want to be like them—just as innovative,  devil-may-care, and fabulous.

Now I wouldn’t say I’m constantly flipping through high end fashion magazines looking for the latest trend, but up until our trip to the ICP, I was pretty sure that I knew all the major ones. And I was sure that the Harpur’s Bazaar was some sort of festival they held in NYC every year. I was pleasantly surprised when I went into the Harper’s Bazaar gallery and saw walls filled with photos that looked like they came out of a fashion magazine.

I really enjoyed looking at this gallery because there was such a wide range of photographs. On one end there was a huge lip covered with bright red lipstick while on the other end  I saw Naomi Campbell fearlessly on top of an alligator. It was also pretty funny to see the spread of Ellen Degeneres wearing Donna Karen. I actually stood there for a couple of minutes making sure that it was Ellen Denegeneres that I was looking at because she was wearing clothing so different from her style today. I really got a sense of how fashion and even the celebrities and designers have changed so much over the years.

The photograph that really caught my attention was of Kate Winslet photographed by Peter Lindbergh (August 2009). At first glance, it looks like a very elegant stance with Manhattan as a backdrop. She is wearing a very classy, silky white dress that looks like it is fluttering with a subtle wind.  However, her body is leaning from what looks likes the metal wiring at the back of a billboard. She looks like she is  a couple of stories high which is proven by the backdrop of the tall skyscrapers. She effortlessly extends her arms out as if she’s not afraid of anything. Now how many woman are willing to a couple of stories high and lean from a billboard? (Certainly not me!) Lindbergh takes a dramatic approach to catch Winslet’s classy, effortless and bold beauty.

I’m a sucker for pretty things.  While I wouldn’t describe myself as girly,  Loving pictures of girly things is something I’ll never escape.  I saw the picture, the picture, in the fashion exhibit.  It’s black and white, and it’s subject is a woman.

She’s clothed in flowy and sheer tunic of sorts that molds to her frame, not hiding the shape of her.  Her feet are clad in half-slippers, only covering the upper-portion of her foot, which are structured to curl up at the toes whimsically, reminiscent of the movement of her dress and body.

Her body leans forward, almost in a fall.  Yet her arms are extended behind her, with fingers gracefully outstretched but without straining.  One of her legs pushes her off the ground, propelling her forward, foot on tip-toe.  The other leg is bent and drawn up almost to her chest.  The way her head pitches itself forward is quite striking, putting her profile in sharp relief against the white background.  Her whole position screams grace, despite the seeming awkwardness of being caught between moves of either falling jumping, or dancing or flying, In fact, it’s quite jarring.  One might even think that it doesn’t look graceful at all.  But I think the secret lies her musculature- she’s not an emaciated super-model.  She’s a real human with real movement, movement that’s jarring at times but not posed, and shows itself to be utterly human.

Her beauty is natural, and freckled, and jarring, and always moving forward.

Thinking about talking about photography more today, I couldn’t stop thinking about this song.

Lyrics | Ringo Starr – Photograph lyrics

Hey Guys!

I know this has been a long time coming, but I needed to gather my thoughts and I felt that I needed to let my thoughts settle.

While first walking into the memorial, I felt excited. It was an interesting feeling because memorials are usually somber and beautiful, not fun and adventurous. That feeling was probably due to the fact that it was my first memorial visited. Nevertheless, as I went inside, I found that I felt guilty. I felt an overwhelming sense of disrespect, stemming from myself. I realized that it was because I was talking, laughing, and joking, something that these victims could not do with their families and friends. From that moment till the end, I tried to only speak when necessary, and no more.

While wandering around, I took note of the people walking around, specifically the people who seemed to be relatives and/or friends of the victims. I felt a powerful sense of anguish and pain, and my heart wanted me to reach out to these people, and to console them to the best of my ability. I walked around, watching these people in sorrow and thanking G-d that it didn’t happen to a relative or friend of mine. And, as if I didn’t feel their pain enough, I took note of two very painful yet powerful actions that happened onsite. The first one was a man who stood next to two of the names (from the same group of firefighters) and tried to clean them as best he could. This really struck me deeply as I could not bring myself to truly absorb this till later. That man loved those two people with all his heart, and they probably loved him back. And yet, they were struck by this shameless act of terrorism and lost for lives for a meaningless cause. Their agenda might have been completed, but we still stand strong. They might fight for one cause, but our freedom is what gives us the strength to fight on against them. The second action was the placing of a rose in the name of Douglas D. Ketcham, as depicted in the photo shown below. That act spoke books to me. It told me that even though he dies, his family, friends, and all who love him still live on.

As shown on their website, the memorial is made to be extremely sustainable. That means that the memorial is caught in a cycle of renewing the resources within it. We see from the memorial an amazing and (hopefully) intentional lesson. With life comes death. With death comes more life. It is an endless circle. And even though those victims died, we live on, and so does their spirit. We will never forget 9/11.

Joey Kabariti

Hey Guys!

The public art that I captured is the Verrazano Bridge. I made this choice because I remembered how majestic it looked as we were passing underneath it while on vacation this past January (I took the video on a cruise ship, while both leaving and entering back into New York, hence the daybreak (leaving), and the dawn (returning) videos).

There is, however, another reason for my choice. I looked at the bridge, and it didn’t just resemble a bridge to me. It looked more like a symbol, something that wasn’t just useful, but beautiful. It had more than just a functional use; it had a sentimental value as well.

To me, the Verrazano Bridge represents what New York represents. New York may be diverse, but they are all united, for better or for worse. This theme is corroborated by the 9/11 attacks. We got hurt badly, not only physically, but mentally. Because we are all united, we act as one individual, and it is that which makes the bridge so amazing. It represents the unity between the separate boroughs, which consist of slightly different cultures. But they all care for each other because they are connected; they are connected by the bridges that surround them.

What do you think about it?

Joey Kabariti

UPDATE: Sorry about the videos. I had uploaded them with the post, but it didn’t post them. They were the reason I took so long to post.

What would a jagged mountain of color have to do with New York? It’s sort of like asking, “what does art have to do with New York?” As a foreigner looking in, the wild, unbridled energy of New York is something that is very unique. Go to Paris, Florence, Vienna, Munich, San Juan, DC, and you will never find the sort of ambience that is in New York, and every New Yorker knows it. They know it, love it, or hate it. No matter what, it plays an integral part of their lives and its absence is often felt, even to the most subtle degree. Art, like NY, is an accessible source of innumerable amounts of innovative ideas, aesthetic intents; a figurative fountain that shots out techicolour cranial explosions of creativity. The raw energy  just does not stay still, it is in a constant vibrato, a constant vibration; like an ADHD kid on cocaine and Ritalin, it is agitated by its own inner energy that is just forcing its way out, pushing its way through the psych to the canvas, to the sax, to the lips.

Laying in soft slumber, a slobbering child of the subconscious, Art invades electronic pathways, finding its way of escape from the claustrophobic entrapments of the human mind.  It does not scream from free enclosure, but rather wraps itself around such prison and makes it its own. The possessed is now the possessor and the mind is left to Art’s discretion. The rudimentary tasks are now put to flow into grand rivers of subconscience awareness that form even grander waterfalls into the active conscience to further explore and become small streams that end in the ocean of reality. What one sees as art is not what art is but rather art’s diluted, emasculated form. For true art one must not look in the pages of a book, the composition of a portrait, or the melody of a song but must stare at the colours of words, the sounds of brush strokes; true art is synesthesia. Art hides though, it doesn’t want to be found, for being found would make it lose its meaning as silence would be lost due to sound. It is scared of company and jealous of competition. Art is true to itself and is not one to suffer for any less. It is the most demand of slave drivers, directing its hordes into creative supernovas. Still the world is yet ready for such exstatic explosions, limitation and restriction must be held; for the benefit of mankind, art is held bound by the chains of reason and expression.

I was struck at the 9/11 Memorial by how many American flags are displayed around the memorial–hung from buildings, from cranes, on flag poles. It seems very innocuous, very natural to display flags around a memorial, particularly a national memorial, and a testament to the national tradgedy and ensuing resilliance. To me, though, it is also art. It’s the person who hung the flag’s display of expression and there’s also an inherent beauty, on a certain level, in the flags and their meaning.

Below is a series of three photos that I took during my time in Italy. Their sequence is supposed to mimic a man being pressured by both of life’s pleasures artesanal beer and an artesanal fruit tiramisu.

For me both, brewing and cooking has played a major role in my life that has yet to be further developed due to external forces, here in NY, school and law.

The artistry behind a well made meal and that behind that of a well made brew, for me, require the same skill as painting a Van Gogh, writing a Ulysses, filming a Rojo Amanecer.

Hi everyone, I believe that even the effect of simple physics can be very beautiful. Camera obscura is Latin for ‘dark room’. It is given its name because the beauty that emerges takes place in a very dark room with a tiny hole that allows a very small beam of light to enter the room. Then, this camera obscura goes under a huge wonderful transformation, similarly to how a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly,but except almost immediately. In full color and movement, you will see the outside world exactly as it is but upside down! This phenomenon is explained by light traveling in a straight line and some of the light reflecting through the small hole in thin material such as a curtain but the light particles do not scatter; instead, they cross and reform as an upside down image on a flat surface which is the walls held parallel to the hole. It is amazing how the law of optics can make something already aesthetically pleasing into something even more beautiful and magical.

The process of creating a camera obscura and the end result is shown and explained in BBC’s documentary called “Genius of Photography”. I highly recommend watching the entire video to the end- you won’t be disappointed! 🙂

http://youtu.be/RuJ_Jd6Qgyo

This is the classic demonstration of what camera obscura is. It is just like an old-fashioned pinhole camera. Take a notice at the lightbulb or...lightbulbs?

Can you believe what you see here used to be just a regular extremely dark room? You don't even need to look directly outside to see how the outside world looks like!