Macaulay Seminar One at Brooklyn College

Coming into this class I thought talking about art would come easily, and after the first couple of classes I thought we were sort of done with the topic as a whole. But that was not true. The way we have attacked every angle of how we can view or experience art and still have only scratched the surface of it, has stimulated my mind in to viewing things differently. The solid line that I have mentally had for what is considered art has blurred, and as a result I have taken this mentality outside of the classroom, by noticing the little things that I would, before, dismiss quickly.

While waiting for a computer at the local library I noticed the mural that was painted above the computers. I’ve probably walked past that mural a hundred times? But never once have I taken the time to look at it in such great detail. It’s supposed to show the progression of America from when it was an agricultural society to an industrial society. I didn’t understand why they chose that to paint as the mural in the library, but then I thought maybe that’s when the viewer comes in, to find the connection. This thought process has now, as I’m typing, made me question: What is more important: creating a theme when it comes to art or finding it? Maybe the two of them come hand in hand?

This was especially an underlying question when curating for Snapshot NYC. What common theme can we find in the 400 photos that came from all the Macaulay students from all 5 boroughs? We decided on branches and roots to emphasize the common theme that everyone in this program is from this common seed and we eventually branch out to different parts of NYC that is important to us, whether it be a public space (photo of the skyline) or a private space (photo of the meal they had that day). All in all every photo, even though some weren’t taken in the best quality, meant something to the person who took it. And after being a part of Snapshot NYC I’ve learned to appreciate the process of finding that common theme everyone can connect to.

Last Wednesday I saw the opera Rigoletto, by Giuseppe Verdi, at the Met. The opera is an old one but there was an interesting twist:instead of being set in the medieval town of Mantua in Italy, it was set in the 70’s town of Las Vegas, complete with cocaine, strippers, mobsters, oil sheiks, and martinis. The setting was an interesting choice considering that the story is one of decadence in the court of a lecherous duke. But despite the best efforts of the designers and stage crew, it was to no avail. The music  and the singing kept on calling you back to Italy, so that you would have to continue to remind yourself that the characters were wearing trousers instead of hoses and pinstripe suits instead of doublets. In truth, you forgot that it was supposed to be Las Vegas.

I was not terribly impressed with Hvrastovsky’s singing (who played the titular role of Rigoletto, a cruel and derisive jester who has great love for his daughter Gilda) which was poor at first and gained some power throughout the second act, reached its peak with La Dona e Mobile (which is such a masterpiece of opera arias that I would be altogether dissapointed if he did not make some effort to perform it well) and then generally declined. To be honest the only male voice that I though really hit the mark as that of the singer who played Sparafucile. What really brought down the house was the singing of Sonya Yoncheva who played Gilda. Her singing is difficult to explain with words because of its great beauty and strength. She alone gave 110% and it was her singing that made this timeless opera worth seeing

I arrived at the Macaulay building alone, dropped off by my father. My parents are not very happy with me for understandable reasons, and quite frankly I was feeling depressed and hopeless as I walked into the Macaulay building. I had a negative mindset from the get go.

I walked around the building with preconceived thoughts that these pictures were bland and had no real artistic significance. Tons of pictures of the Hudson river and the New York Sky line, Time Square and other bustling centers of the city. You could tell the difference between the people who put a lot of effort into their pictures and those who just snapped a quick photo. Of course We were going to have the people posting pictures of their fancy meals, but you never see the shot of the meal they eat after that. Tons of clouds, everywhere. Thank you for the picture of the Brooklyn Bridge, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it!

Now that I’ve gotten my Scrooge-attitude out of the way, I then began to simmer down and ignore the situation that had been stressing me out. I noticed all the people around me, working diligently at their laptops, speaking with their group members, and conversing with friends. I hadn’t approached anyone since I entered the building. I saw Kyle from Macaulay at Brooklyn and talked to him for a minute. He’s a cool guy and talking to him calmed me down more. He was so caught up in a paper he had to write, you could tell it was stressing him out, but he was trying to stay positive.

At this moment, I started to think a little differently then how I was when I entered the snapshot event. At first, I was cynical and angry, ridiculing the whole event to myself and hating without reason. Although, Kyle reminded me of something that is quite obvious, and might seem silly to bring up. That point was that I’m not the only one going through stress right now. It’s coming close to finals, and everyone is starting to hanker down for the long, arduous period of studying. We all need an escape from these processes, and sometimes the presence of others is all you need.

From then on, I didn’t look at the photos the same way as I had before. Instead, I thought about what that person was doing on the day they took that photo, and what they were feeling. Maybe they were having one of the most horrible days ever when they took that picture of the man creating gigantic bubbles. Maybe the man sitting on the subway that the student took a picture of reminds them of their uncle that they love, but who is a lost man. Maybe that letter to Banksy really made that student laugh, and brightened their day for at least a little while.

In the end, I walked out of the Macaulay building feeling much better then when I had entered. The photos had reminded me of the insignificance of the small things I had been worrying about, and at the end of the day everything will work itself out. We all live on this planet together, through happiness and hardship. Just sometimes we need to remind ourselves we’re not the only ones.

Often times, when I attend an arts event, such as those part of the Macaulay Seminar, I rarely feel the art for arts purpose. I know that statement doesn’t make any sense, so I’m gonna try and explain. When I am required to attend an arts event, I never seem to enjoy myself. I always feel as if they are a hassle, an annoyance. After many of these events, I started to dislike the arts, which scared me when I came to that realization.

I wanted to figure out whether I truly disliked art, or rather, I disliked being forced to see, hear, or feel art. I truly appreciate art; I have since my senior year of high school, when I was exposed to a lot of it. Therefore, I decided to head down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, just myself, to decide whether I still had an affinity towards the art world. I decided to go by myself, because I didn’t want any distractions. I didn’t want to discuss pieces of art and try to explain what I saw, because I felt as if the purpose of art is to feel it and enjoy it, not justify that feeling to others.

My favorite section at the Met was the Greek and Roman statues. These statues have always fascinated me; I don’t know why. I liked how they were amazingly realistic, and embodied the power, the gentleness, and wrath, and evil, of man, and woman. All these emotions, carved into stone, made them so relatable, as if I knew these people in my own life. It was an amazing, powerful, an overwhelming feeling. I spent the next hour just walking around and around that section, looking at all the statues, admiring the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, and just the feelings that I created in me.

I then head down to the American sculptures, which were all recreations of historical and mythological figures done by sculptors in the 1800s. Here, I wasn’t as blown away as I once was. Perhaps this was because I felt that these artists were mere copycats, doing something that had already been done before. Their works weren’t as grand or as powerful as the works of old were, at least to me. These newer pieces of work were far to polished, and almost perfect, as opposed to those I had seen before. The ancient Greek works truly depicted the human body, with curves, and muscular tones, and posture, all of which gave them a sense of life; not so with the American ones. There was no realism in them. They looked, essentially fake to me, a terrible attempt at reviving at olden days.

Looking at these two sections for hours on end at day, I felt satisfaction. I had truly enjoyed myself. Studying the human body encased in stone, I felt a sense of….I don’t know, something, that I cannot fully describe, or yet understand. There was power in those works, a power that I never really got from anything else I’ve seen so far. I’m still trying to understand what I saw, and felt when I saw the sculptures. Maybe it was the fact that they were three dimensional pieces, giving them a sense of realness. Perhaps it was the poses each statue struck, or the emotions I felt from each one, that stuck with me. I don’t know.

Before beginning the play, I was aware that we were going to see it read aloud. Therefore, I read the play while, in my mind, each character took on a different voice to have a better picture of what I would see in a few day’s time. I had never been to a reading of a play, and it surprised me that this play was set in a part of New York City that was very familiar to me, located only a short distance from my neighborhood. While reading the play, I was able to understand all of the jokes, comments and stereotypes described about Brooklyn. In reality, the play was unlike anything I had read before.

The play is, in a way, shocking and definitely has the ability to provoke a response. I found our discussion in class to have brought up many questions that I had previously not given a thought to, which were then answered by Stephen Garcia, the writer of the play at the end of the reading.

I had not expected the reading to be so powerful. Somehow, when I found out that we were attending a reading of the play, the word “reading” downplayed my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised. The actors’ facial expressions, emotion-filled voices, and gestures allowed the members of the audience to become immersed in the play and thoroughly forget where they were located at the time. I enjoyed following the progression of the play live more-so than I did while reading it at home, because even though there was no setting created and the actors were simply reading the play, it came alive before your very eyes. I did not, in any way, expect a grown man to portray Little Joe, an eight-year-old innocent young boy, so well. Furthermore, I didn’t expect any of the actors to depict their respectable characters so well because, once the question and answer portion of the night began, it seemed as if you were broken away from  a dream and these weren’t the characters in front of you, but simply the adults or students who had played them. You were suddenly taken out of the trance.

The plot was very unique in my eyes and the actors were able to provoke reactions from the audience that Mr. Garcia had intended while writing the play. I definitely enjoyed the reading and will definitely keep my eyes open for similar events throughout the city in the future.