Category — Visual Art

There were many photographs in the gallery that were very powerful and meaningful. However, the one photograph that immediately caught my attention is the “A black protest is chalked on wall outside the Johannesburg city hall by resentful Native.” 

In this picture there is a white man with his back turned to a wall that says “God is Black.” These words are handwritten in white chalk and boxed in. The wall seems to be in the center of the town as there are many buildings surrounding the wall. No one seems to be disturbed by these words or seems to take any notice of it.  There are many people out on the streets but no one seems to take notice of the wall. However, the people out on the streets all seem to be white, educated, wealthy upperclassmen that have no concern for the black minority. The man with his back to the wall seems to be headed somewhere a he is carrying what seems like a piece of paper in his had. He is right foot is forward as if he is walking away from the wall. Furthermore, the man’s attention is somewhere else as he seems to be looking into the distance opposite of the wall. The man is well dressed and seems to be very young. On the other hand, the wall may be old as it is slightly chipped and worn down. The wall on which the words are written on look somewhat like a tombstone.

The picture depicts the disregard for the blacks during the time period. The statement on the wall is such a bold statement and yet no one seems to paying attention to it. The man having his back turned to the wall is s a symbol of how the blacks were treated with disrespect.  The voices of the blacks were ignored and were not heard and therefore they suffered discrimination. The way the man is walking away from the wall could represent him walking away from justice.

Hey guys, I chose the “A mother mourns the death of her United Democratic Front-supporting son” painting to write about at the ICP. Here is my description:

There is a woman with her entire body covered by a cloth. She is next to a striped sofa where there is nothing but a piece of clothing. Next to the sofa is a small chest-like object also covered with a cloth that has a kind of flower design. Next to that is a chest with three drawers. The drawer on the far right (in the corner) is slightly open. On the chest is: a can with a picture of a man, multiple chains with white beads, a broken mirror, and two other structures. On the wall is nothing except four pictures: three on the back wall, one on the right. The far left has the crucifixion of Jesus. The next has a woman praying and a man next to her. The one after that has a dead naked man with three women surrounding him. The last picture on the right has a woman, with cloth covering her hair, holding a child. The wall is mostly white with a dark shade above the chest and in between the chest and sofa. There are a couple of black marks and cracks on the wall.

That was just what I observed from the painting (without making any assumptions or inferences). After looking at all the details, I assumed that many of the pictures hanging on the wall were of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. It was obvious from the emptiness of the room that the woman’s family was very poor. There was not a lot of furniture and many of the objects that were present were either keepsakes or were there for religious purposes. Also, the fact that she is praying so close to the sofa and chest shows that the room is very small. It is not only lacking in furniture, but is also very cramped. It’s also interesting how the woman is entirely covered while praying – no portion of her body can be seen.

The photo I chose to analyze was one of the Soweto Uprising. It was taken by South African photographer Peter Magobane on June 16, 1976.

There is a dirt road. Litter made up of crumpled pieces of paper lies on either side of it. In the center of the road lies a solitary crushed soda can. On the sides of the road grass grows out of control. It’s clear thats it is unkept. The grass is dotted with the litter that was previously mentioned and with a large metal can.

In the foreground of the image there are four male figures in the center of the road. The man on the left has clenched fists. He seems to be advancing in the direction of the cameraman. He wears pants and a shirt with what seems to be a suit jacket. His face seems to be contorted with rage, likely this anger is directed at  his oppressors.

The second male seems more boyish. He wears pants and a shirt. He is armed with a trashcan lid in one hand, and a large stone in the other. There is a cloth wrapped around his the bottom part of his face, making it look like he is wearing a half balaclava.

The third male is slightly behind the two. He’s wearing a shirt and pants. He is slightly hunched over. He is cringing as though something might hit him at any moment. He is holding an open wooden crate and is raising it slightly, as if to block something.

The forth man has his back to us, but is looking in the direction of the camera. He is wearing pants anda suit jacket. Judging by the way he’s standing, it looks as though he’s running away from something.

The background of the picture is blurry. There are more figures in it, but they al have their backs to us. It’s unclear whether or not they are trying to get away from what the four men in the foreground are looking at.

Trip to see Luz at La Mama

Overall I really enjoyed Luz. I think it was great that the author chose to center the play around violence against women. I think its something that’s not discussed enough, especially in theater. I liked how the playwright Catherine Filloux was able to weave this theme into the narrative and have it connect such diverse characters. It speaks to the fact the violence against women is everywhere and transcends economic and country lines.

I liked how the author used dream/past sequences to reveal certain plot points. I think it was an interesting choice that highlighted the facts revealed during those particular sequences and helped aid in characterization. I also liked how the lighting and music changes helped emphasize the shit in tone during this scenes.

My only complaint with Luz would be the integration of the tangent story line featuring the other members of the law firm and the environment activist. While I enjoyed these sequences and the occasional comedy relief they brought to otherwise serious subject matter, I feel as though I missed their larger relevance to the story.

Like countless other photos in the ICP, the photo I chose was startlingly intense and disturbing; taken in black-and-white, almost as if to highlight the tension between the black majority and the white minority under apartheid, the photo depicts a corpse covered by a fragment of newspaper that ironically reads, “This I believe by a South African–What Would You Die For?” The black man’s face is concealed which might indicate how his identity has been lost to a cause that thousands of others have died for. On a smiliar note, the man’s body is limp and lifeless–this implies that the man is a martyr, sacrificed at the altar of racism. At the center of the newspaper lies an image of a rather sinister-looking white man. Perhaps this image represents the human, or inhuman, face of the eugenicist, white-supremacist male who desired the black man’s destruction. The ad on the right side of the newspaper further emphasizes this idea because it is advertising a medicine that supposedly catalyzes the “end of nervous tension.” I inferred that on metaphorical grounds, the “end of nervous tension,” or the end of apartheid, may be brought about by spilling the blood of innocents, white and black alike.

Here is a description of a photograph that I noticed at ICP. This photo particularly stuck out amongst the many because of the prominence of the man in the photo. Many of the photos had numerous people in it. This one is of  one man- full of emotion and very powerful. The description I detailed here is a my try at jotting down everything that I saw (not felt) in the photograph (the way I understood Prof Ugoretz’s explanation of the assignment).Try picturing the photograph before you view the picture I found of it online (and let me know if my description was adequate/detailed enough and enabled you to “picture the photograph” or not).

Photo by Margaret Bourke White, American (1904-1971)

Photo of  Native Carpenter Philip Mbhele wearing “We Don’t Want Passes” tag (1950)

The photograph is black and white. The background is a sky. A man takes up most of the foreground of the photograph. The sky is full of clouds- dark gray clouds- ominous/ rain cumulus clouds. Lighter gray clouds are seen above the man’s left shoulder.The man is black. He has a furrowed brow and is looking skyward. His mouth is wide open: yelling something or crying out. He is missing one of his from teeth. A tear is at the outer corner of his right eye. He has a bald head. He has large ears that protrude outwards. He has a small mustache. A shadow is cast on the lower part of his chin (where his chin meets his neck). He takes up the whole front of the photograph and appears to be close to the camera lens (or zoomed in on); he overbears the picture.
His eyes are serious and full of emotion. His eyes meet above his nose in a two wrinkles. He is leaning slightly backwards into the background. The inner right side of his mouth is bright and the left side is shadowed.
He is positioned as coming in from the left side of the photograph and comes until just about an inch of the bottom right of the photo. He has thick eyebrows, large eyes, and his flared nostrils and open mouth face the camera. He has a cleft in the center of his chin. His lips are cracked, especially in the lower lip’s center. There is a shadow over the right side of his head an he is leaning down toward his right shoulder.
He is wearing a light colored button down with the top button open and the edges if the collar aren’t ironed/curl upward. Over that is a cable knit sweater of a dark color, covering the shirt (except for a tiny bit below the top button) and the collar is above the sweater. Over that he is wearing a heavy, wool jacket: plaid pattern, medium color with darker grid lines. The light is on the right side of the jacket. The jacket has a folded lapel. One button hole is seen, opened. The photograph goes until his high waist. It seems like the jacket is buttoned below that.
On the left side of his lapel, there is a tag. It is dog eared at its corners. It reads “we don’t want passes.” The background is pure white, with light gray letters. The letters are capitalized, serif font. The first line reads, “WE DON’T WANT.” Then, on a second line, in a bolder, heavier and darker font- strong serif, very heavy bold/thick- it says “PASSES.” The tag is pinned to his jacket. Two pieces of the metal peek through to the front side of the tag: in center of two lines, once below the D and once below the T (of don’t, smaller piece). The left bottom corner is the most turned up.
The entire right arm and shoulder is seen, straight jacket, stiff padded shoulder. On his left side , only his shoulder and through his upper arm is seen. There is no background on the left side of the photograph; the man enters the photo from this side. The photograph has a slight tear on its side, opposite his right ear, and a second tear, by his left lower shoulder.

Photo found on art.com (original image from LIFE archives)

There were two pictures that caught my eye during our visit to the ICP last week.Unfortunately, I was unable to find them when I looked for them online. The first picture is that of schoolchildren kneeling with their arms outstretched to the sky. At first glance I thought the children were praying, but after reading the caption on the picture, I learned that they were doing gymnastics. This realization bothered me because whoever took the picture had ill intentions, I felt. He or she took a picture of white children in Johannesburg in a prayerful position, trying to make it appear that they are religious and faithful, when in reality they were simply doing gymnastics. It made me wonder if I had been fooled in the past by the media putting a picture that is not exactly what it seems, and leaving people to make their own interpretation of what is put in front of them.
The next picture that interested me is titled “Whites Only Bus Stop”. It depicts three white women at a bus stop in Johannesburg in 1983 looking around them fearfully, as if they are expecting trouble from others around them, maybe blacks. They are clutching their bags, showing that they don’t trust the people around them. I found this picture very powerful.
Luz was a beautiful play. I truly felt for all the women in the play, and I thought the producer did an excellent job of making the audience feel mistreated, although it is unlikely anyone in the audience had gone through anything like these women had. The scene in which Luz screams at the attorney who won’t look at her is honestly the most powerful scene I’ve ever witnessed in any play, television show, or movie. In fact if I had to sum up the entire production in one word, it would be just that: powerful.

“What are you looking at?”

At the ICP, there were many photos that were interesting, but this photo by Gideon Mendel stood out to me the most. Perhaps it’s because the man in the middle is staring directly at me and makes me directly involved in the photo. The label next to the photo said: “Trade unionist Moses Mayekiso is violently arrested while leading a protest march during wage negotiations in Johannesburg.” The officer’s cold stare at the camera is just priceless. To me, his look conveys the message that what is happening is none of my business; he does not want me to get involved. When I look at him, I imagine this officer saying, “I dare you to do something. See what happens.” The marks, perhaps scars, on his face add on to his serious stare. When someone has scars, you tend to think the person has been through a lot and is tough. In his right hand, he seems to be holding a club that he is using to detain Moses Mayekiso. Near his rear pocket is a gun. Normally, you wouldn’t want to mess with someone wearing a police uniform. However, this looks like a man that you wouldn’t want to mess with, regardless of what he is wearing. The addition of the police uniform just makes him scarier.

Moses Mayekiso’s facial expression also conveys a lot. Although he is being violently detained, he does not look like he is suffering too much. Instead, Mayekiso looks resilient; he is fighting against this police officer’s authority. In a way, I feel like Mayekiso’s expression is encouraging viewers to retaliate. On his shirt is a sticker that has a fist and says “Worker Power,” which adds on to Mayekiso’s expression of encouragement because it shows how together, the workers may win this fight.

Therefore, an interesting contrast exists between the two subjects of this photo. On the one hand, the police officer’s cold expression is telling us to go away; on the other hand, Mayekiso is inviting us to join the fight and retaliate against the police. It is as if they are trying to win over the viewer and make him accept their message. The police officer is trying to win through intimidation and strength, while Mayekiso is trying to win through resiliency. These two are not only fighting physically, but also through their messages.

My favorite photo of the moment is “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper.” This photo is of a group of construction workers sitting nonchalantly on a beam thousands of feet up in the air, eating lunch in 1932. I first saw this photograph at the wax museum. What struck me about the photo is the big beam slashing across the frame while the tiny buildings run in a vertical direction. The men in the photo seem unconcerned for their safety, and that is fascinating to me because I grew up in a generation where every product that reaches the masses has been tested for safety and everyone worries about safety.

This photo was really emotionally stirring because it vividly illutrates the tragedy of the Sudanese famine in 1994. I saw it at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and I was utterly overwhelmed because of the form and helplessness of the child. The vulture in the back of the photo is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. Kevin Carter, the man who photographed this photo, committed suicide three months later due to depression. I think that that is very telling.

Grab a Snickers!