so I decided to analyze this piece and become one with it so that I can make sense of it all.
so I decided to analyze this piece and become one with it so that I can make sense of it all.
After reading chapter 4, “The Chicana/o Mural Environment”, I thought of all the murals I’ve seen and how I didn’t really pay attention to them. The author focuses on murals located in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. I smiled when I read this because I’ve seen at least one mural in each city. The reading talks about how each mural has meaning and most of the time the meaning will depend in the area that is located in. I’m from L.A county so I’ve been to East L.A. I’ve seen many murals there, but never really thought much of them. East L.A. is full of history, especially for the chicano community and it’s sad to say that people that don’t live there might not know much about the beautiful art that surrounds the area. Next time I go,…
While the Littlefield Memorial Fountain and the statue of Martin Luther King Jr.have both become the focal point of their respective locations, the impression they each leave on their viewers differs greatly. The Littlefield Fountain offers a symbolic experience, leaving the viewers deciphering the hidden meanings behind the mythological creatures and Latin inscriptions. However, the King statue takes a more literal, contemporary approach, enticing its admirers to reflect on the life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights Movement. The techniques employed by both of the sculptures give better insight as to why the observer has different experiences when reflecting upon each work.…
Public art conquers so much more than the simple task of making the street a little easier to look at. It involves those who created it, those who supplied the means to create it, and those whose lives it continues to impact. Wall paintings in particular take an important role in working for a greater good. Judith F. Baca, a Hispanic-American woman and artist- activist has contributed an unaccountable amount to the mural movement in Los Angeles. She has accomplished this by giving individuals the chance to create art and develop a sense of pride, she has taught younger generations a respect for their ethnic identity, and from the many walks of life that continue to view her work in everyday places she has encouraged social change.…
Have you ever had a painting that really spoke to you? When I visited the David Owsley Art Museum there was one painting in particular that stuck out to me, it was: Right Bird Left by Lee Krasner. Tis painting made me feel happy and gave me a lot of energy during the time I was at the museum. It caught the attention of my eye by using several different visual elements to depict an abstract representation art piece. Along with that it used principle of designs to help the visual elements play out and work in the painting so that things can be depicted to the human eye correctly. This piece might have looked like bird feathers but it used many different techniques to give me a bigger underlying meaning behind a such complex painting. This piece…
Kerry James Marshall’s Vignette#2 paintings have shown the black presence in daily life that is still very relevant in todays age. By creating an imagery which is based in conventional white romantic settings but with black lovers, he has highlighted the racist undertones that still exist today and shown how they have the right to do everything a white person can do. This is his way of standing against racism, and how love is found in all cultures and a happy couple who are so in love need not have any racist…
Black women have qualified as being brash women, cheap, and ghetto. The significance of being white in America means you are pure, guiltlessness, beautiful, and more privileges. Case in point, Trayvon Martin case reminds me a later form of the Emmett Till case. Trayvon and Emmett were both slaughtered in the south. The two murdered as a young kid. Martin and Till death were across the nation news. Relationships between the boys passing in respect to the South and its past and also who draws the limits that division us as an overall population. Emmet Till over his limits shrieking at a young white lady. Trayvon Martin crosses his limits passing a new neighborhood. Trayvon killed for being categorized as a thug for wearing a hoodie. Also, the principle of design for this artwork is contrast because light and dark values. The light helps us to characterize spatial connections. Specialists occupied with controlling light. Typical and manufactured light create different impacts on the encompassing environment altogether. These distinctions thus influence the way we see our…
With the closing of the “post-racial” America of the Obama years and the inauguration of the Trump presidency the untreated wounds of American society have attained new levels of visibility. The “dog-whistle” racism which forms the base of the New Jim Crow is rapidly crumbling, exposing a virulent white supremacy no longer able to legitimize itself behind the fiction of racial “colorblindness.” In such periods of social unrest the power of racial representation is critical. Beyond providing a snapshot of the prevailing attitudes and morality of the artistic culture, in their most subversive form such representations challenge dominant sectors of society to interrogate the myths they have constructed to oppress despised populations.…
The “Storm King Art Center” is an open air museum. The 500 acred park is filled with fields, hills landscapes, and sculptures, making it not only a park, but a museum. Just by looking at pictures and videos of the place I feel enhanced by the beauty of it. I don't know much about art, but i can still see the beauty of everything in the park, you dont have to be an expert to realize how amazing the work is. Although it is an hour away from the city, they say its like being in a whole 'nother country, and a perfect escape from the hustle of NYC. Rolling acres of beautiful fields, small forests and hills is what it is, then it is dotted with amazing modern sculptures and sculptures that are made of natural earth and stone. More than 100 different sculptures are sited in different parts of the park so perfectly, that you'd think that everything was ment to be there. Not only the sculptures are things to look at, but so is the area, where everything is placed, and what it's placed on, the whole thing is an art work, not just the sculptures.…
On the last two chapters Dagmawi Woubshet writes about two paintings that break the silence surrounding HIV/AIDS enforcing AIDS awareness. First Woubshet writes about Keith Haring, an American artist and HIV/AIDS activist and his vision of the history of racism. Haring’s painting of Michael Stewart, a young black graffiti artist killed by the police for writing graffiti in the subway in New York represents a protest towards the history of racism lived by black a black American artist. Woubshet mentions “Haring’s painting often incorporate AIDS into a vision of history perennially under siege, replete with catastrophes, a tragic sense of history he shares with African American artists” (85). The painting is a protest blaming Stewart’s tragic death to racism, but he also blames Stewart’s death and AIDS deaths to the…
I felt a connection through these images. It illustrated the immense courage and strength one needs to have to gain self-respect and dignity, especially in the torrents of hate and segregation. It is easier to obey what is told, but ultimately by not accepting oneself, it become a self-defeating action. It is in this way anybody can relate to the message, even if times and ideals have changed. There is always hate in the world and its how we deal with this hate that defines us as people. Do we accept injustice or do we fight for equality and all that is right? We all enter the ring at some point.…
Thomas, The Shadow World, (1978) examined the effects the Black Arts Movement had on Black artists and the intensified awareness of Black culture and politics on the community. The Black Arts Movement compelled its artists to produce art within the context of the community’s needs (Thomas, 1978). The artists of the time became the spokesmen for the people and convinced them to go back to their roots which strengthened their racial pride. In addition, this influenced people to become politically aware of their nation, which gravitated them towards accepting Black Nationalism. While the short lived Black Arts Movement prompted the Black community to become one, The Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School was instrumental in the success of the movement, because it roused people’s to acknowledge their self-worth as Black individuals in a white-dominated…
I feel so close to the wanted project, as someone who lives in NYC and as an African-American woman who fears for her younger brother. In this project, he brought people to come describe people that they have only met briefly to a polician artist. Some of the people clearly didn’t know the race of people. A woman in the video said that the person she was describing was “ light dark”. In addition, she could not tell the person`s race , which I do admit could be confusing. I believe that this experiment shows how little information know about the people that they are describing. Later, the drawings were put on a poster with information from the police records of why people were stopped. Some of the reasons included ridiculous things like standing in front of a building. I feel like this project shows the reality of the stop and frisk policy in new York city and how it affects minorities in new York city. The project also shows the criminalization of young male in color. After the making of the poster, the artist went to grocery stores and asked to put up the flyer. He also said that at first he was met with resistance from the store owners. However, after explaining to them what the posters were, they accepted and even became spokespersons for the project and its message. I love how political this work is and how it leads to a community…
The picture to me is not only a beautiful capture of a real life moment, but rather an evocative and provocative statement for a bright future for all women, especially black. Yet some concerns won’t be answered, one issue is that Peyton is a white woman creating this painting, so I wonder if Michelle Obama is simply another celebrity to her. Revising the above named paintings from the exhibitions, I believe that this painting is more than just a painting of another celebrity. All three paintings, along with other celebrity paintings, are more portraits like and more staged. In “Michelle and Sasha” the composition is more complex, more attention is paid to the background and surrounding, while in the other paintings it seems less attention has been paid to what the background evokes, the situation is clearly not staged. However Peyton sees Michelle Obama as a character, she still can’t be a symbol for all women/black women. She is coming from a very different background and has socially a very different standing than most black women or any woman does. She is married to the President of the United States, which alone gives her powerful position, but also her background and career cannot be compared with many. She grew up on the South Side of Chicago and earned degrees from both Princeton University and Harvard Law School, she also worked in a highly prestigious law firm. That being said raises the question for whom, she can be a role model; how does that affect women that won’t have the chance to take a similar path? In my opinion Michelle Obama is a very kind, caring, and politically active woman who is fighting a battle for others and their chances, but does this painting really reassure and encourage many black women or is it more an…
The third gallery had a Book of the Dead, divided into three chapters. There was a large crowd around this exhibit, so once again I moved on. The next gallery I came to dismayed me also. No large sculptures caught my eye, and it seemed that I was doomed to fail this project. In frantic distress, I stopped by every single piece, willing some feeling or some logic to take hold of me and compel me to write about it. However, I came up with nothing, everything seemed tedious and normal, and there was nothing unique and special.…
Solitude — the state of seclusion — in the modern world differs from solitude in the Romanticism era. Romanticism is a point in time within the 19th century, most known for its literature written about sadness, loss, and heartbreak. The article “The End of Solitude,” written by William Deresiewicz, addresses how solitude no longer exists today due to the access of technology. He believes the newer generations do not have moments of solitude because of their constant need for visibility, or referred to now as attention. Contrary to Deresiewicz’s claim, present-day solitude does exist.…