Chelsea Piers

The trip to chelsea piers to see the free galleries was a trip I'll relive a few times with a few different people because I will for sure make my way down there more than a couple of times this summer. 

I walked into a chocolate factory and got free chocolate and didn't find out until the next day that it was merely a recreation and it was actually some what of an installation. I was confused by the three dimensional art, I mistook them for holographic images and walked passed them many times because the kid in me loved that the images seemed to follow me. It wasn't until I took a look under them and saw their architecture that the images stopped moving and I was disappointed in myself for ending the game.

We approached a series of installation that took an enormous amount of self control not to touch, I’m almost certain I could have outran the security but they have cameras in venues like that and my grandmother shouldn’t see her grandson on TV for destroying what initially looked like soda straws glued together. It was so large, and coincidentally, we got to see partitions of it being carried in after we left. 

My favorite visit by far was the gallery celebrating Juxtapoz Magazine. 

I enjoyed the gritty, urban inspired art very much and envisioned it in my own space when I had enough money to get one. 

This was among my favorites, the blue and yellow offset the monochromatic pinkness in the background. The value in the middle ground produced a shadow that didn't seem to fit the contours of the woman, as though someone were standing over her. Her legs are so defined and strong the pose almost seems sexualized, you can't help but wonder what brought about the look of content on her face. 

If I took anything away from Art & Society it was the realization that I enjoyed art passed a pedestrian level, I truly enjoyed looking at a painting and trying to share the mental space of the artist that created it. It almost makes me want to create myself, I may casually pick up a brush one day. Maybe not...who knows. But to even have had this spark that was believed to never have been there, I'm deeply grateful. 

Blog #5, 6? Idk

The literacy rate in America has not raised in a decade. The ability to read and write is paramount and surprisingly elusive to many Americans in an age when new information is steadily fed to the masses.  I have very deep roots in this issue because I love to write, I feel writing has a power to sway the soul if put together well. But how can we advance as people when proficiency in writing, reading, and essentially conveying ideals is become increasingly rare?

My painting would consist of two equal halves, the top half consisting of men, women, and children of all ages, creeds and colors trampling on books. Pencils askew and broken with blank sheets of paper tattered and thrown away. However, they would be upside down. The bottom half would consist of improvised men, women, and children of all ages, creeds, and colors reaching for the books Americans have laid to waste.

My message is simple and oft told. There are nations that truly understand the value of education and the options it brings. We take for granted the comfort of our situations, whatever they are. The housing projects in America would be heaven sent for the genocide ravaged countries of the Sudan. The books we discard for simpler iPhone pleasures and Facebook interactions are worth their weight in gold in other countries. We have to take back a sense of pride in bettering our minds because they are infinitely the most powerful weapons one can conceive.

My painting would be placed in the doorway of every public school in America to be seen by all the minds still capable of molding, hopefully it lights a spark in the leader that will light a fire in their generation.

Museum Essay .. "The Bruised Muse"

The bruised muse would be my gift to the world and redefine the perception of how one goes about creating art. The mission is for the museum to act as a gallery as well as be the place of creativity by having artists come create and immortalize in any way they see fit. Installations, paintings, choreography, drugs, alcohol, fits of rage and the clarity of epiphany all in one focused environment for the benefit of artist and viewer.

 As opposed to having it above ground to be admired and fawned over, I’d put it underground in a space similar to Port Authority or any large subway line. In today’s psyche built of “out of sight out of mind”, to get to the bruised muse you’d have to truly be inspired by the art you create or be inspired by the art someone has created. So, in effect it should only attract the rawest and most passionate members of society. 

The only commonality my audience would have would be that of an extreme, almost palpable passion, be it for art or anything else. Usually passionate people gravitate to one another and latch on, my audience would be those that understand what it is to truly be engrossed by something and allowing it to have the whole of your being. I hope to bring together a group of people that had never had anyone understand them and create a community that embraces their intensity to the extent that it allows them to experience what it feels like to be light hearted. We will be one another’s bruised muses; bruised by the misconceptions of everyone, and the muses to those that do. 

Basquiat as well as the graffiti I see everyday on the walls and pavement interest me, but William Powhida's work has been somewhat of an inspiration in the way he puts his thumbs to the nose of the high and mighty art society, an exhibition of his work as well as having him create on the spot would be accessible at all times if I had the power to bring that to life. The rebellion in his art embodies the spirit that I'd hope to bring with my museum, I imagine it'd emanate across the galleries and inspire others the way it inspires me.

I believe, if anything The Bruised Muse would embody what it is to have a soul that never ceases to flame or even die down it's embers, nor does it temper the chilliness of your spirit if that is the quality it possesses. It embraces all extremes and irrationalities and completely does away with every dull quality of living. The end result, would be relief. I want my museum to save as well as inspire, and to comfort as well as break barriers. In short, the end result is freedom.

Blog #5

Graffiti is as much a work of art as anything hanging in any museum around the world; an idea conceived and achieved by an expressionist on the walls with spray paint to society's dismay. I don't see very much difference between the spray can of a graffiti artist and the brush of a painter, nor do I see very much distinction in their respective mediums. What I see is an artist and their intent, their creations, all conveyed in unique and equal manners. Had graffiti not originate in an urban setting it would have been much more widely accepted and appreciated by the masses. One may say it lacks substance but one of graffiti's purposes is to immortalize or commerate. Often times when someone is taken before their time graffiti is sprayed onto a wall in memory of a fallen friend or family member, usually in their likeness. Graffiti should absolutely be included in museums because it presents an alternate to oil painting, "a craft that doesn't appeal to the average man" (Dana). In an urban setting you're more likely to come across graffiti on a bridge or on a building than an oil painting. If the art authorities truly held graffiti in contempt commercializing it would likely take the purity out of the art and effectively reduce the likelihood of it surviving any longer than it has. However in order to do that they'd have to acknowledge it as art and their pride casts a shadow too broad and dark to ever do so. In the midst of the fuss of erecting a museum to intertwine the cultures of the man for the public curators "become lost in working out their idea of a museum and forget their public" (Dana).

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. 

"City Lights", by Kiante Evans. "Momentous Occasions", by Kiante Evans. Accidental Art.

This originally was a picture of my bathroom floor, a mundane assemblage of geometric squares and ugly blue, red, and yellow tiles.I took to instagram to immortalize my bathroom floor for all to marvel at and thought, maybe I should filter this, so I filtered. I filtered twice, three, four, five, six times. What was once my floor dead floor was resuscitated and basked in it’s own ambiguity. A few glances and one might see the city lights, or a neon sign for a sketchy shop you tend to come across at 4 in the morning drunk wandering the streets with your friends. The value rushes in and out, curving around some squares, fading them. Some more than others, others like the square in the middle remain clean and sober and free from all obstructions. 2040 Bruckner Blvd.  Bathroom floors.

It's more than likely you've seen a star in the sky, unless you're blind, in which case if you live in New York you aren't missing much anyway. But to see a star return home, gather all it's essences and book the trip to visit it's maker, I doubt you've come across that until now. The orange nebula in the background emanating it's glow interact with the incandescant lights of the dying star and create a stanch blending of value. The diagonal lines of the gathering essences seem to be approaching the middle of the foreground that houses the gas giant about to implode. Abstract. A broken TV. 2040 Bruckner Blvd. 

Museum Review#1

Naturalistic representations in painting and art as a whole are, as Emile Zola contends, but “a corner of nature seen through a temperament.” An artists rendering of nature is subject to the many limitations of man and his perspective, therefore any representation of nature is not an accurate representation of the natural world but how one receives and interprets the natural world. This is painstakingly evident in Vincent van Gogh’s “Cypresses” and Henri Rousseau’s “The Repast of the Lion”. Both contain naturalistic representations, but are asserted in strikingly different styles.

Vincent van Gogh’s “Cypresses” was completed in 1899 using oil paint on canvas and stands 36.75 x 29.125 inches. “Cypresses” lacks warm color, van Gogh instead chose to utilize multiple shades of green and blue that give the painting a sense of serenity, as if it were a late spring afternoon. The paint is visibly applied very thickly, the viewer can see the differences in texture throughout the canvas. The mountain in the background sits under billowing, grey clouds and a crescent sun, providing a basis for perspective and in turn gives the scene depth. The tree is likely a great distance from the mountain, possibly on the apex of a hill. “Cypresses” is a naturalistic representational, but lacks an attempt at imitating the intricacies of nature.

“The Repast of the Lion” painted by Henri Rousseau was completed in 1907 with oil on canvas and it’s dimensions are 44.75 x 63 inches. “The Repast of the Lion” is a representational painting containing much value, shadows come across the growth as the sun has almost completed it’s descent into the horizon. The flowers accentuate a predominantly green forest with warm oranges, deep blues, and pure whites. The lion and his repast lay in the center of the canvas in all it’s savagery. The blood lines it’s mouth as it engulfs it’s prey as the fall of the night shade prepares its entrance. The sky is a cool blue wrapped around a white light source that could be a sun or moon. Rousseau’s interpretation of nature tries, to some degree, faithfully represent nature as seen in real life. 

The manner in which “The Repast of the Lion” contrasts “Cypresses” is emblematic of the unique perception of each artist. Both represent scenes in nature but the styles of van Gogh and Rousseau violently clash. van Gogh’s brush strokes are deliberate and swirling, as if his intention was to inform the viewer of the limitations of a two dimensional canvas as opposed to Rousseau who employs a much more precision based style that attempts to give the viewer a three dimensional perspective. “The Repast of the Lion” shows the barbaric side of nature, the lion engulfing his repast in the thick of the growth in anonymity. This is the part of nature man tends to forget, the ferocious and unforgiving reality that violence occurs in the seemingly sublime and serene wilderness as well as the human inhabited cities and towns. “Cypresses” comes across as having being created with very little detail, almost lackadaisical in it’s depictions of a curving cypress surrounded by grass and mountain sides. It lacks any elements that would give it a three dimensional consciousness, which then begs the questioning of van Gogh’s intentions when painting “Cypresses”. He may have been attempting to recreate how nature makes him feel, rather than recreating nature itself. 

Vincent van Gogh’s “Cypresses” and Henri Rousseau’s “The Repast of the Lion” offer several interpretations of the the infinity of nature, and succeed in capturing an infinitesimal of what nature is in reality. Each scene although similar in idea, differ in their rendering, and in doing so display the potency and freedom of painting and art as a whole.