Category — Visual Art

The photograph that really struck me was The Jewess by Lewis Hine. I think what first struck me was the name-“Jewess” being an archaic word for a female Jew. What I found interesting about the photo was the fact that she is not looking directly into the camera, or at the viewer. She is looking slightly off to the side as though she does not really care whether or not her picture is taken and seems to be concerned about something else. I think that this also an example of how the subject of the picture can b centered and the photo can still be a very good one. I noticed that while she covers her hair out of modesty, she does not do it completely like some of the Sicilian and Slavic women did. I also noticed how the light falls on the subject. Half of her body is covered by light while the rest is in the dark. I think that in black-and-white photographs use of light is even more important because it adds to the myriad of possible colors that you could use. Overall I really enjoyed the picture because of its simplicity.

“Mom, I’m OK!” is something I’ve said countless times in my eighteen years of existence. It’s a phrase that requires little thought and automatically comes out of my mouth. I’ve never given it much thought until yesterday, when I first saw the photograph “Mom We’re OK” on our trip to the ICP.

I didn’t think much of the picture when I first laid eyes on it. All I noticed was eight horizontal, alternating layers of black and white rows with a bunch of skinnier, vertical rows at the center. The picture bored me. I thought it was meant to be some fancy geometric picture, and that’s when I noticed three blue words, “Mom we’re OK,” on one of the white rows. After further analysis of the picture, things finally made sense to me. I realized that I was looking at the side of a beat up building. The white rows were balconies, and the dark rows were the windows of the building I was looking at. The three strange words on the side of the building appeared to be spray painted on a while ago- some of the paint appeared to be dripping down and fading.

At that moment, the image’s strength struck me. I could hardly fathom why someone would write that on the side of a building. I tried to come up with a story to go with the photograph, but everything I thought of was too emotionally taxing. I chose to write about this picture because I think it’s a good microcosm for what good art should be for everyone.

Good art should make people inquire about the circumstances under which it was created. It should make people question, study, and create interpretations of their own.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to the ICP. I especially liked the exhibits on the first floor. Some of the pictures, like the one of a woman smoking crack and the one of a man on a gurney smoking a cigarette, were so obscure that I couldn’t possibly imagine them happening in real life! I also enjoyed the exhibits on the bottom floor. Something about seeing men at work made me feel connected to America and understand that true heroes are the people that work hard every day to make better the lives of other people. Because the two floors were so different, I learned that there are many ways people can express themselves. I can’t wait to see more throughout the semester!

To be quite honest, I wasn’t particularly interested in going to the International Center of Photography. I didn’t really see the point in going to a museum simply to look at pictures. I acknowledge the fact that photography is an art form, and a very intricate one at that, but I feel that there are only so many ways one can look at a photograph. A “non-photographer,” such as myself, can appreciate and notice the photograph’s lighting, blurriness, depth, and colors but that is about as far as the appreciation may go. I do enjoy looking at pictures, but these pictures usually involve things that are relevant to me and are done in a very casual setting. With all do respect, the only point I see in having a photography museum is to acknowledge the talents of the many gifted photographers in the museum, who deserve as much respect and appreciation as any other artist. There is no doubt in my mind that the photographs in the museum were excellent, but I would rather appreciate them without having to go to a museum to do so. I do not wish to invalidate the existence of photography museums. They are just not an attraction that I see as valuable for myself.
One photograph that I particularly enjoyed was Nick’s Pizza by Zoe Strauss. I thought this photograph was absolutely incredible. At first glance, it looks like something one would see on a computer screen as part of a video game. When I saw the title, however, I was amazed to discover that this photograph depicted the walls and ceiling of a pizzeria. The picture is so up-close and so good that it almost doesn’t look real. The colors are so deep and sharp, and the fact that the corner of a restaurant can look so unique and interesting is absolutely amazing.

I’ve never been to a photography museum before so I was excited to go to the ICP today.

The museum was, I guess, just what I expected it to look like- pictures everywhere with a little description card next to it. However, as I got to look at the pictures on the first floor, I really just wanted to get out of there. Some pictures were rather disturbing to look at and I couldn’t understand the photographers purpose for taking the photographs and displaying them in a museum. Then I went downstairs, hoping that the pictures would be easier to look at. the first thing that I noticed was that all the pictures on the lower level were in black and white and most were taken in the early 1900s. As I looked around the lower level, I began to see many differences between the two floors. The top, very colorful and bright, and the bottom, very dull and in black and white. There was one similarity, however, both photographs on the floors seem to have portrayed some sort of struggle depicted in them. The top floor – struggles with one’s body (i.e. infected body piercings, amputations, deformities) and the bottom floor- social struggles (i.e. poverty and intensive labor). That was pretty interesting to notice.

As I was looking at the black and white photos, one photo stood out to me. It was because of the Hebrew writing in the picture. It was a picture take in 1912 called “Blind beggar and poor children.” It was a picture of a fee market type area with one guy, the blind man, holding up a sign that read “Help the blind man” and directly under it it said the same phrase, but in Hebrew letters (with English pronunciation.) It took me a while to understand that the Hebrew letters didn’t actually spell out Hebrew words, but English words written in Hebrew letters. I tried looking at the background of the picture to see if there was anything else outstanding in the picture and I noticed three little Jewish-looking boys looking at the blind man. The picture was really interesting because it made me question what was going on at the time that the picture was taken. Where was it taken and what kind of town was the picture taken in that the blind man felt the need to translate his phrase to Hebrew- and then again not even to full Hebrew? The picture just made me think a lot , and I stood there looking at the picture from all different angles for a while.

All in all, besides for the few disturbing photos, the museum was really great and portrayed a nice timeline of history and the present day.

I found a lot of amazing photographs at ICP. There was so much raw human emotion showed in many photographs, but one that really caught my eye was a Lewis Hine photograph called “Dying Consumptive in a Tenement Entirely Below Street Level.” I spent a long time looking at this photograph. The title gives a lot more meaning to the photograph himself, because you wouldn’t know that this man was dying, or that the tenement was below street level if Hine had not given us this information.

I found this picture so captivating because of its darkness with small highlights of light, such as the window above his head and the candle on the small table beside him. The expression on his face is mysterious. He looks exhausted, clearly because he is very sick, but he also looks like his mind is not really there–that he’s being taken somewhere else and we as the viewers can only wonder what’s going on in his mind. There is so much I wonder about this man and his life–what his job is, if he has a family, where exactly he lives…this picture says nothing about these things but also says so much. He looks like his life is filled with darkness, because the photo feels so glum and dirty. Knowing the awful conditions of tenement buildings during this time just adds to the struggles of this man’s life.

I think this photo really compelled me mostly because of its title. If it had been called “Man in Tenement,” I may have looked past it without a second thought. But to know that he may have died the day after this was taken is really chilling and gives it a much stronger impact. Just knowing these details about the photo makes it much more meaningful and real. I felt really sad for this man, even though he is obviously not alive today. The fact that it’s a photograph, and not a painting, makes it feel eternal.