Blog post #8

            Last week we visited quite a few different galleries in Chelsea and it was a wonderful experience. I never knew that Chelsea was the center of the New York art world. I saw a handful of stunning paintings, sculptures and installations from different artists. I thoroughly enjoyed the Studiolospective exhibition in the Flowers gallery by Patrick Hughes. The gallery is located on 529 120th street.  The exhibition consisted of optical illusion paintings and pop up works of art. At first it caused some dizziness and confusion but it was refreshing to view art that's unusual and different from other art that I'm familiar with. The painting that intrigued me straight away from the exhibit was the abstract pop up painting. Hughes incorporated a monster-looking creature with horns in the painting. I realized when I walk to the right, the monster starts walking towards you to the left. He also included paintings within the painting, which caused some confusion and kept me pensive about the meaning of the painting. Despite their being a monster within the painting, Hughes used a combination of cool and neutral colors which provoke a calm and soothing emotion. The lines in this particular painting are intricate and very precise which give it a neat and stunning appearance. Another artwork that captured my attention straight away was these large-scale sculptures that are part of the Pace gallery. The sculptures resembled trees and appeared to be formed of index cards and acrylic rods. This installation is currently located on 534 West 25th street and is created by the artist Tara Donovan. While viewing these sculptures, I kept thinking to myself how they installed it inside the gallery space and how long it took for Tara Donovan to create it. The variety of sizes that Tara Donovan chose to create it in, was confusing as well. Three sculptures were shorter than the rest of them and there was one in particular that stood out the most. 

Pacification in Rio

Gabriela Caceres

Art & Society

                 The pacification occurring in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas in Brazil is a risky event happening right now. The purpose of pacification is the Brazilian government’s attempt to remove the drug lords, armed drug traffickers and murderers from the slums to make it a safe place for Brazilian people. They’re also working on reducing crime rates before the world cup begins in June. Although it seems that the government is trying to replenish Rio, they’re using a controversial technique. If the Brazilian military catches you selling drugs in the favelas, or if they see you with a leader they’ll instantly kill you. I chose this particular event because I was recently watching a documentary on it and I have a lot of family and friends attending the world cup next month so it instantly concerned me. The corrupt part about this issue is that drug traffickers have been controlling favelas for years now and the government decided to deal with this ongoing problem recently. The government is spending so much money on new roads, the stadiums, clubs to attract tourists for the world cup but they’re barely helping the residents of the favelas, thus they feel neglected. The message of my drawing is to make people realize especially tourists visiting Brazil in June that drug traffickers are still controlling favelas and that pacification isn’t really effective and instead of the government focusing on spending money on buildings and on the world cup they should focus on doing that for the favelas. The location of this drawing would be in the entrance of the airport in Brazil or before entering the world cup stadium in Rio to capture peoples attention and to make them aware of what’s going on. 

My Museum

Gabriela Caceres

Art & Society

5/13/14

 Museum Essay

I entitled my museum “ The Freedom of Beliefs Museum”. The museum would be located in Midtown Manhattan close to Rockefeller center. I chose this location to lure people from all over the world considering all the famous attractions in the nearby area. Some famous attractions include Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Saks Fifth Avenue and the shopping area on Fifth Avenue. The museum particularly displays different galleries of powerful beliefs from major religious figures. Along with Atheists, Agnostics, celebrities, famous artists and selective college students. It’ll include photography, videos, paintings, statements and anything that makes them express and helps the visitors understand what they believe in. The museum is welcome to everyone and its mission is to enlighten people on different theories and to inspire them to not be afraid to disclose what they believe in.

One gallery would be exclusively for famous celebrities such as Daniel Radcliffe, Woody Allen and Seth Macfarlane etc. that declared themselves as Atheists. Their statements and quotes would be displayed in their gallery and explanations as to what made them atheists. Together with videos of them being questioned as to why they aren’t affiliated with religion.  A famous painting  “Crucifixion” by Pablo Picasso will also be included but in a separate gallery.  This abstract painting depicts what Picasso’s religious beliefs are. This painting is complex and creates some confusion thus making it difficult to fully understand what he is implying. In the top center of the painting you see a big cross in black and white. It stands out the most considering that the rest of the painting is very colorful.

Guernica is another one of Picasso’s famous paintings that holds strong religious content. This painting will be included in the museum as well. Guernica relates specifically to the Christian religion. The way Picasso illustrated the woman in the bottom right corner of this painting was essential because it depicts a Mary Magdalene figure. In my point of view, Guernica is trying to point people towards a new way of being human in the face of evil.

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Blog post #5

Despite graffiti being considered vandalism, it’s a form of expression so I believe it is art. When artists create graffiti they usually form it on private property, which is illegal. I think that’s the primary reason why people neglect graffiti and refuse to accept it as art. But if you do it on your own property or in your notebook, without bothering anyone than people will admire it and consider it to be art. A work of graffiti can convey a powerful message behind the artwork, and provoke different emotions. In my point of view, graffiti is definitely a peculiar style of art compared to what I viewed at the Guggenheim or the Met. But it just all depends where the artists decide to create it and if it moves the viewer emotionally in a specific way. In “The Gloom of the Museum” John Cotton Dana states, “a function of a public art museum is the making of life more interesting joyful and wholesome; and surely a museum cannot very well exercise that function unless it relates itself quite closely to the life it should be influencing.” If graffiti were to be included in museums, it would change the type of crowd visiting the museum and the atmosphere. It would make it more interesting and it’ll help expose people to urban culture and educate them to understand and appreciate graffiti for what it is.

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.