Blog Post #5

Is graffiti art? How is it different or similar to what we saw at the museums we have visited? What is its purpose, according to what we discussed way back in week 1? Based on the John Cotton Dana reading (use quotes), do you think Graffiti should be included in museums and why? (You can add a picture if you want). 200 word minimum, due by Tuesday 5/6 11:59pm.

Style Wars

Guggenheim museum review

Gabriela Caceres

Art and Society

4/19/14

Guggenheim Museum review

Once I entered the Guggenheim Museum I was instantly impressed by the interior of the building. Although I’ve visited the museum in my early childhood, I don’t accurately remember how curvaceous and well – proportioned the building was. The spiral structure was remarkable. From my perspective the structure made my experience there more enjoyable. As I was wandering throughout the museum, I felt like I was hiking up a hill considering the walkthrough ascends and is relatively high. Moving upwards in the museum, I observed different artworks and recognized a few artists that I’ve studied before such as Wassily Kandinsky and Claude Monet. Moreover, I was exposed to the Italian futurism exhibition, which was colorful and peculiar. Walking inside the Futuristic theatre, I paused to look at the flooring because it had an extraordinary geometric pattern. Russian artist Igor Stravinsky named the installation “Fireworks”. The shapes were formulated by white lights and scattered throughout the floor while you enter the theatre. Correspondingly, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was immense and it felt never-ending as well. But I had a great experience considering that it was my first time and that’s what made me interested.

Our class trip to the Guggenheim was essentially to focus on American artist Carrie Mae Weems exhibition. The exhibition mainly consisted of her photography, videos, audio recordings and written texts. It was difficult to choose from because quite a few of her artworks appealed to me. “Family pictures and Stories” was a montage of Weems’s own large family and there was caption below each photo. This montage was Weems’s first major body of work. The photos depicted her parents, her older sister, her brother and herself. She described the relationship they had with one another. Her older sister Alice took care of the entire family; she cooked, cleaned the house and took care of everybody. The father and brother had a tight relationship but they often would argue when they would drink and the argument would escalate into a physical fight that would upset her. This represents how African American families lived ages ago. One of Weems’s series, “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” (1995-96) displays four red tinted images of black slaves and a written text that flay racial and gender stereotypes on top of the image. The written texts show the different duties of the slaves. They were the field, yard, kitchen and house. The image of the black woman transmits the housewife stereotype and the kitchen is the main characteristic of a housewife ages ago. The men had different duties such as being in the field and in the yard. This particular series depicts the harsh lifestyle black slaves endured in the late 1980s. The “Ain’t Jokin” series (1987-1988) also depicts the racial stereotypes of African Americans. The “Blackman” holding the watermelon is a mainstream stereotype and the message of the image is easy to perceive and is quite obvious. In addition, the message is crystal clear and image

A brief film in the exhibition immediately appealed to me. It was part of a series named: “Constructing history: A requiem to Mark the Moment” (2008). Weems taught students from the Savannah College of Art and Design. The video present staged re-enactments of important historical moments. The assassinations of Ghandi, JFK, Martin Luther K. Jr and of millions of Jews for their religious beliefs. Weems believes that Obama stood on the ashes and the spirit of these individuals. Weems used appropriation in this particular video when she created the re-enactments of the significant historical moments. My impression of this exhibition was different and eye opening. I learned a great deal about Carrie Mae Weems’s life and her style of photography. I understood all the messages depicted in her images. 

In my perception, Weems used photography as her main medium because she’s trying to demonstrate a vivid message to the viewer related to racial and gender stereotypes. In photography she can be more conceptual and narrative. In photography she used informal examples for instance, the black slaves and the “Blackman with the watermelon”. It’s easy and comprehensible for Weems to expose all of the African American stereotypes.

WEEMS

My impression for this exhibition was that I felt like it was over whelming. All the different locations she used for her photos and the meaning behind each photo is just amazing. For example she had a whole room of photos she took in Africa and the history of the location. One piece that really interested me is this one. The reason it interested me so much was because it showed a women in a area that looks like its going through extreme poverty and she honestly looks like she belongs there. In this exhibition like I said before she has a room of photographs of places in Africa and in society people usually think that Africa is poor, not interesting, and boring, but Weem's was able to find the beauty of places that you couldn't see with the naked eye. I believe that Weem's uses photography as main medium because with photography it seems more relateable and realistic than with painting and sculpture. For example if take a photo of a chair who know that that chair is somewhere in the world but if you paint a chair that chair can come from your imagination. I also think that Weem's uses photography to make a statement and help the audience create an aesthetic emotion. Weem's uses historical photographs by using head and profile shots of slaves and writing what their profession was for example there was a woman that was labeled “kitchen” which can make you assume that she worked at the kitchen. This experience compared to the met was better to me because I felt like this museum was more futuristic and was a form of art its self. Like the way it was built in a circular form and when you go inside its spiral to get to the top floor. What really caught my eye was that as you travel up the spiral you’re not just looking at plain walls you are looking at different and beautiful works of art. I remember I watched this movie called “When in Rome” and it took place at this museum and as I explored I noticed a painting that was in the movie I was just astonished that I saw something that was in a movie. Don’t get me wrong the met was beautiful but everybody has different opinions and mine is that the Guggenheim museum was more interesting to visit and experience.

Museum Essay #2

Ricardo Castro

Art

04/15/14

Essay #2

          Setting my first steps into the Guggenheim museum was phenomenal. The architecture of the inside is a spiral. Ascending in the museum exposes you to different types of art like sculptures and paintings. My impression of Carrie Mae Weems exhibition was deep and critical as an observer. The way she takes photos reveals so much emotion where each photo combines to make one story. Weems has many pieces that will leave you astonished at the messages that are in the images. One piece of work that interested me the most was the images of her in what it appeared to be her dining area. Each image depicted a different emotion, or action, yet it retained the same setting. In one image she is looking down at her boyfriend/husband who is sitting down at the table. He’s sitting there with his head down, reading the newspaper. She’s leaning against the wall, staring down at him, as if she resents him. This image stuck out to me the most, because I can sense the tension in the room.

          Weems challenged many stereotypes that are used against African Americans. In one of her images she shows an African American female holding a fried chicken drum stick. On the bottom of the image the captions read what is in the photo. For example “Girl with fried chicken”. Another image portrays an African American male holding a watermelon with what the picture is showing as captions. Both of these are stereotypes held against African Americans labeling them all to be known for liking fried chicken and watermelon. I strongly believe Weems uses images instead of paintings and sculptures, because an image can capture a moment perfectly. Sure, a painting can look real and portray strong emotions; however, a picture can capture every detail of emotion and expression in someone’s face. You are limited as a painter, sculptor, or drawer, especially if you don’t have excellent skills as one of those professions.

          She uses the slavery era to help express emotion in her images and to help send her message across to people. For instance an image of her shows an African American boy with a white baby girl touching the top of his head and his chin as if she was clamping his head. The image states, “Others said ‘only thing a niggah could do was shine my shoes’” (Guggenheim museum). Another image portrays an African American female on the bed naked with an awkward smile, that shows a fake content expression. The image states, “You became the playmate of the Patriarch”  (Guggenheim). There are a collection of images that portray different racial and stereotypes African Americans have faced and still face today such as these two impacting photos.

          This museum trip was different, because it was more compact. In the MET I felt like it was too big. I felt like a fly in a big room. It was like being thrown into central park. Unlike the Guggenheim museum where it spirals upward, so you are technically being guided to seeing pieces of artwork in a sequence. Overall I liked the MET, however the Guggenheim just had the structure to make your experience more enjoyable and easy.

Word Count: (534)

Guggenheim Post

When stepping foot in the Museum, l thought to myself what a rare shape of a museum then again the good experience. My impression of the exhibition was that she has a way of telling a story and you can feel in every photograph that there is some sort of struggle behind it all. The Carrie Mae Weems "From Here l Saw What Happened When l Cried" 1995,96. l had passed by an image that l did a double take not only because of its color intensity and of how the African America looks innocent and has been put through a lot, this chromogenic, contemporary image Carrie Mae Weems use called " SOME SAY YOU WERE THE SPITTING IMAGE OF EVIL", back then everyone considered these people to be bad because of there race. They were as Weems shows the spitting image of evil because they just saw bad in them just cause they were the color they were and they just used them as slaves. Carrie Mae Weems used these as her medium because photography can also show that there is art in front that can explain much more than a paint brush and a clay. This image to me impact me because of the saying, the spitting image of evil caught me cause all these people wanted to do was make a living for their own and they weren't treated well.

This image talked me cause people with color were considered them to be apart of crimes cause of what others seem to think they did because o there color. They had not lived a fair life because of all the hate they had on them. They could be the easy people to judge and the ones that others will say yes they did it and they think to themselves why would they even think that l did such a thing. African American can easily be chosen to be the one to have all the faults. When coming to the Guggenheim, l had different views on how they installed these different arts and how amazing each and every art has a story behind it even though others may not see it but we all have different feelings and emotions towards an image or painting we come across. This museum was different from the Met because there you have the Guggenheim with its different architect and how they set different installations going up into a circular angle.

Museum Review #2

The Carrie Mae Weems’ exhibition in the Guggenheim museum embodied her exuberant and combative nature, her personality and ideals trickled through every act of appropriation and social commentary. The exhibition as a whole was very impressive and explored an array of topics ranging from slavery to the facets of domestic relations and motherhood. “The Kitchen Table Series, 1990” was easily the most alluring part of her thirty years of photography and video for me. It seems as though she felt she had a responsibility to the women of her generation to release the restraints of the gender roles  and stereotypes she believed were forced on them, she took the concepts of motherhood, feminism, and monogamy and skewed them. Weems contorted these stereotypes to the point that it could be misinterpreted as forced, as though these weren't her natural inclinations as opposed to an obsessive and combative nature manifesting in one of many peculiar ways. However, that fact that a woman presenting with this opinionated of a personality can be misconstrued as obsessive and combative could be what she was trying to eliminate. She believed motherhood was forced upon women and very proudly admitted to having little to no conviction for motherhood because it took her away from her work. Weems did not remotely fit society’s mold of what a woman should be, she instead obliterated it, and in the remains she hoped to erect a movement and liberation for all women. Nonetheless, not many people, man or woman, would be comfortable with allowing their mate to “taste the exotic fruits produced in abundance by mother nature” as she so eloquently wrote it. I believe she employs photography as her main medium in place of painting or printing because the aesthetic interpretation is minimized and the focus shifts from the shallows of the work to the deeper meanings and essences. The depictions in “From Here I Saw What Happened and I  Cried, (1995-1996) would not have been as impactful if achieved by any other medium in my estimation because a photograph is as objective a medium can get. This allowed for her appropriation to take center stage and convey the true travesties of slavery as Weems casts a blood red veil over the pictures of her ancestors.  These men and women were chained, whipped, bloodied, bludgeoned, stripped of their history. Their lands were raped, pillaged, decimated. She allows the viewer to see how the once mighty have fallen with every picture and anecdote. Carrie Mae Weems did not believe in metaphor, she was as literal and forthright as can be. Her appropriated works mirrored her personality in their strength and command. This museum visit intrigued me much more than the trip to the Metropolitan and that very may well have been because when I left I felt as though I knew Carrie Mae Weems as a person. I felt as though we talked about the life and times over lunch, and we went dutch, of course. 

Museum Review

The title of this collection of chromogenic prints called "From Here I Saw What Happened And I Cried", 1995-96. Carrie Mae Weems gives attention to the history of African Americans. Each of he four red and black pictures I choose had one African American and a writing etched to the glass. Only when I focused my attention is when I understood the labeling in the individuals. They suddenly became an object not a person. The artist named them according to their occupation. The titles where "House", "Yard", "Field" and "Kitchen". Through her art, Carrie Mae Weems shows us the powerful meaning of racism towards the way African Americans were being treated.Of the four pictures, none of the individuals looks happy. It feels that they have been branded with different assignments that define who they are. I cant imagine being marked my whole life and not being able to speak out. Carrie Mae Weems is the mediator of those people that never had a chance for their voice to be heard, It is up to this day that we can see the truth through Weem's art. The suffering and challenges that African Americans had are being displayed in her photography, this way it gives a very strong impact to the viewer.

Photography in this situation gives meaning to the truth and cry of people that were never heard. This photograph is part of the collection. It is very easy to understand what is happening here, the scars in the African Americans back displays hatred. We can see the face of truly awful violence and malice. Truly, you can understand what they felt, a picture always tells a story. My impression of this exhibition was the way the title grabbed me and then my feelings about her work continued from that point. “From Here I saw what Happened and I Cried”, this title touched my heart that I felt deep compassion of the human beings that were in those pictures. The pain that followed was unplanned, I realized that these individuals did suffer back then and it wouldn't matter to anyone, until now. The experience I obtained by coming to the Guggenheim Museum was completely different from the Metropolitan. I achieved my goal on looking at idealized works of art and perfect sculptures in the Metropolitan. However in the Guggenheim I enjoyed looking at all the interesting photographs, abstract art and sculptures. It really is like walking into different worlds.

Museum Essay Post #2 Guggenheim Visit

                At first glance, Carrie Mae Weems' exhibition, "Three Decades of Photography and Video", appeared bland colorless and unappealing. I honestly believed that the exhibition lacked attention grabbing qualitys. As I gazed at these works of art, I slowly began to understand their purpose. As I read and pondered the writings placed next to these works of art my opinion rapidly shifted. I realized that these were simple images that provoke contemplation on ignored stereotypes. With these images, Weems challenges and exposes existing stereotypes of both gender and race.

    It the series,"Ain't Jokin", Weems confronts viewers with common stereotypes. In the series, Weems presents an image titled, "Black Man Holding Watermelon". This image simply and bluntly displays a black man standing up straight holding a watermelon. Weems also presents an image titled, "Black Woman with Chicken". This image simply shows a black woman holding a piece of fried chicken. These two images clearly shed light on the common black stereotypes that black people love watermelon and fried chicken. Although Weems displays these images in a somewhat humorous manner, these images provoke contemplation on these two offensive African-American stereotypes.

In Carrie Mae Weems' video, "Afro Chic", woman all different ages, skin tones, shapes and sizes strut down a runway showing off their exaggerated afros and fashionable clothing. What struck me about this video was its similarities in hair styles and attire with the movie "Austin Power's Goldmember". In this video, Weems directly tackles the preconceived notion that models must be thin, fair skinned, and ideally beautiful. Weems shows that these afro wearing women are not only beautiful, but they can also model. "Afro Chic", displays an image of Angela Davis and an image of Huey Newton. The significance of the first image is that Angela Davis in known for her infamous afro hairdo and for her role in the creation of the concept that "black is beautiful". The significance of the second image is that Huey Newton was a cofounder of the black panthers. These confident afro wearing women are accompanied by Marvin Gaye’s popular song, “Sanctified Lady”. These two images drawn direct parallels to the ideas that black is beautiful Weems tackle.

                This visit to the Solomon Guggenheim Museum was a lot more informative and educational, than my visit to the Metropolitan Museum. The Guggenheim displayed a controlled number of artworks with historical meaning, while the Met was a bit overwhelming with the number of artworks. Overall I enjoyed both museums. I enjoyed the different colors and varieties of styles at the Metropolitan, and I enjoyed the historical context presented at the Guggenheim.

Carrie Mae Weems exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum was a moving work of art. Her images captured her or others in different scenarios. Carrie Mae Weems image “Slow Fade To Black” was one of the pieces that caught my eye. As I walked into the room the image called for ones eye. As I stared at it, the image began to trick my eye. I caught myself blinking a couple times to refocus my eyes on the image. As I stared at the image I heard two people saying the could no longer at it because it was hurting their eyes. I, on the other hand, was unable to walk away from the image because I found it so mesmerizing. I related to these pictures because whenever I aim my camera to take a photo I first have to focus my lens on what I am shooting or else my subject will come out blurry. Looking at this photo reminded me of the times when I accidentally shot my subject too early and that would result in me having a blurry photo, Carrie Mae Weems purpose was to make her subject blurry. She did this to show how famous black performers, specifically women, would fade into the background when new talent would come out. I believe she created these works to illustrate how women can be easily forgotten and almost as if they are blurred to the back of ones memory of who they use to be. 
Another one of her works that was interesting to me was her project, “The Louisiana Project”. She managed to capture herself in the essence of what Louisiana was once known as, one of the states that held most of the slaves and plantations. During this project Carrie Mae Weems dressed herself in an old long dress, a dress that held a lot of similarities between what women would wear during the slave period. She managed to capture herself away from the camera facing her object, almost as she were a ghost visiting the places that once cost her her sanity. One of the places in which she photographs herself in front of is an old plantation house. You can se her sitting down on the grass looking directly towards the house. It is almost as if she is too tired to even stand anymore. I find it interesting that the house in the photograph resembles the house in the Academy Award winning movie, 12 Years A Slave. 

While the structure of the Guggenheim was exquisite, I found the Metropolitan Museum far more interesting. The MET was definitely much bigger then the Guggenheim and it held more art work. The MET showed different types of artworks from different periods and from different parts of the world. While the Guggenheim did have artwork from different periods, I felt that they mostly only held modern art. And one thing I did not like about the Guggenheim is that you were not able to take pictures!!!! I understand the museum wants to project the artist and make sure their work does not get copied, but like you said professor, we live in a period where we use our phones for almost everything, a simple picture can’t hurt. 

Museum Essay #2

BLACK WOMAN WITH CHICKEN

You Became A Scientific Profile 

My initial impression of the exhibition was astonishment; as I realized Carrie Mae Weems has done a ton of work! There are so many series that Weems has done and they are all beautifully captioned. I also noticed that Weems is extremely poetic, the way she captions these appropriated photos is impactful, I found myself reading drawn to many of the photos, you can’t simply glance at her work. I understand that some of her works are appropriated; there is a personal spin that Weems must add in order to allow for this appropriation to be possible, one personal stamp I noticed was the monochromatic tint added to a series of photos titled From here I saw what happened and I cried. I felt this series of photos examined African Americans as the object in the photos, especially since Weems clearly captioned it as so. Weems approached the idea of “justifying racism” in this series.  This series also seemed to be challenging existing stereotypes of gender and race. We as a class got a preview of this series during class, learning that these photos were appropriated from Peabody Museum Harvard University. When looking at these photos, you can understand the subject matter immediately, where Weems uses these photos to question the original intentions of white photographers - and how these photos represent ownership in some way. Another personal stamp is Weems wording, it is flawless and almost seems like it should have been part of the original photo since it seems to capture the intentions of the photographers quite well, and that's what she says basically, these painting seem possessive of the "black folk" that why not just state it as such.

This woman has two floors dedicated to her work. And although the Guggenheim is a small museum, the walls are flooded with her work. Ain’t Jokin’ series is the first set of pictures I responded too. I thought they were extremely funny, that's probably a bad reaction, but the way she addressed these African American stereotypes was humorous and blunt. This series probably interested me the most because even though almost all of  her works addressed the topic of racism, this series spoke to the modern part of the world. In that I mean to the generation of teenagers or even adults that still use these stereotypes because they believe it is somewhat true. I honestly notice stereotypes like the picture above still thrown around these days. I saw the idea of “race” also challenged in the series titled Color People, where Weems investigated the beauty found in the range of skin colors, these photos are extremely beautiful, Weems also trademarked the idea of “colorism” in this series because of the subject matter; the idea of social values assigned to skin color. Also by adding monochromatic square panels to these photos.

Our visit to the Guggenheim had a more personal feel rather than to the MET and that is due to the size of the Guggenheim Museum. Although I enjoyed our visit to the Metropolitan, there was so much work to ever truly appreciate every single piece. Even though we were privileged enough to have of all these works available, there is no way of seeing all of them in one visit. In the Guggenheim we were able to visit every gallery and enjoy them because of the limited amount of work. However both museums thrive in their own way and are nonetheless enjoyable.