Art

Day 11 Theme: Art - (This is the first of the student led days. Art day was by Max and Katrina)

Have you ever glanced over at a light or a clock and either the light goes out or the clock stops moving. Right as you look at it? And then if you keep staring at it, if you think about the light or movement that used to be, the easier it is to convince yourself that it never existed at all. That you're crazy for thinking it was different a few moments ago. The coincidence that an event like that should occur right as you choose to look at it. It's magical.

Today as we were in the Whitney museum I watched footage of a bomb explosion, and it was the so beautiful. It was serene. I can't remember if there was music or silence, or if the clip was in slow motion. But I wrote down in my notes "Even death is pretty". I think it's like the light or the clock. Even someone's last breath can be beautiful. One second they're alive, their body is pumping blood and breathing and then it just stops. And it doesn't come back. It stops and almost convinces you that it wasn't just full of life a few moments before. It's the absolute of death. It's silencing. It smothers the life that was just there, just for a second. Even death is pretty. Even death is art.

There was one exhibit, a room with four giant walls playing four different scenes. There was carpet in between the four walls with oranges on it. The screens had random videos. One was a girl that was orange she was so tan, playing with bouncy balls and drinking juice. One had half naked men playing a strange version of beer pong, one had a man building a brick wall with peanut butter as the cement and men playing with sock puppets behind the wall, and the last was a woman sitting by a bowl of grapes smoking a cigarette and getting her hair done. On the other side of the walls was neon lights and colorful linoleum. It's like everything on the screens was pointless, at first. But maybe the point was all about excess. There was just too much of this world where everything is focused on looks and pleasure and nothing matters. There are a few chairs around the room in between the screens. I probably spent at least half an hour sitting there. The scene just goes on, with barely any movement, the same thing over and over, but there's words that will play at the bottom of every screen. There's this really deep commentary played in yellow text, it gets you thinking about things that are completely different than what you're watching. Sometimes the commentary disappears and you're left pondering what was just brought up while watching a bunch of nonsense. That's what was hilarious to me. People walking by the exhibit would step in when there were no words playing and see four people sitting, staring intently, with furrowed brows, and then quickly walk away thinking the spectators were crazy, or were reading too much into it. It's an amazing irony. You can walk in for just a few seconds and find it absurd and ridiculous that everyone is just staring and thinking. A contradiction. The artist created art in video and lights, art in the message displayed in words, and art in the interaction happening in the gallery. One of the last things I read before leaving was "You can't scrutinize everything. Why can't you just enjoy life". I'm not going to try to explain the things the commentary said about God and life or the possible relation to the videos, I don't want to read too much into it. That's the thing I love about art. You can take it or leave it. Think about it for one second or for the rest of your life. It's up to you as the viewer how it creates an impact.

I came across this sculpture that is a candle. It used to be a man and it burns every day the museum is open. I love how this art is constantly changing. It's never fixed always fleeting. His head had fallen off and what was left of it is on the floor.

Here's some more art I saw: A sculpture out on one of the balconies, an incredibly life like sculpture of a woman and dog (which kinda freaked me out because at first I thought it was a person sitting in the chair), neon lights from the four videos exhibit, and a light fixture hanging in the stairwell.

We ended the day on art by going to Four Freedoms park. We rode the subway over the water which, was terrifying (because I was afraid we were going to fall to our deaths) but also really beautiful. We ended up at Four Freedoms park, which has an old small pox hospital fenced off, an incredible view of the city across the water, rows of trees and a lot of smooth concrete. Lately I've been thinking about the idea of being an artist. I think instead of telling people I draw or paint or take pictures, I should just say I'm an artist. That way it's up to myself what that means. I can make art just by hanging string around my room, or by dancing in public, or by smiling at strangers. Art is what you define it as. Art is first and foremost between you and God. Creating to me is just a reflection of what was already created. I think original ideas don't actually exist. Creating is just manipulating what others have already done or what nature has done. In some ways I do live for art. I live to make things. To be inspired and express that inspiration in some way. I think art leaves me more fulfilled than a lot of other things I do to spend my time. That's something I hope to do a lot more of back at home. To keep making art. I often have ideas of things to make but I never make them. There's something about bringing to life an idea that's totally worth the time and effort it takes.