Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Statistics
We looked inside some of the posts by blckgurlnysemester-blog and here's what we found interesting.
Average Info
Notes Per Post
2K
Likes Per Post
1K
Reblog Per Post
1K
Reply Per Post
0
Time Between Posts
4 days
Number of Posts By Type
Photo
12
Text
5
Last Seen Tumblr Blogs
Fun Fact
Users from the US are the majority of Tumblr visitors.
Photo
Jen Davis, Untitled No. 39, New York, 2010.
81 notes
·
View notes
Text
10/20
Listening to Jen Davis speak gave me ideas and inspiration on portraiture. Although I was nervous to speak and ask questions she was very open and thoughtful. She made it seem as if she was only speaking to one person in the room. Whether you asked the question or not. My favorite was the fact she thought of Diane Arbus as influential in her time and it’s like, “HELLO! You’re our Diane Arbus”. It’s interesting to see artist that I look up to have similar idols in a sense. She looks at the work of Laura Letinsky, who I draw inspiration from when it comes to my still life work. I like the advice of accepting failure and experimenting as much as possible. Reminds me of Paul’s style of, “dabble in everything then when you finally find your nitch, stick to it.” It’s okay to change your mind, and it’s okay to fail.
Meeting Jen and Alison this semester really gave me a sense of how powerful women are. Although it would’ve been spectacular to meet Kara Walker, I think these two women hold just as much power. Their artwork inspires many and evokes emotions that I never thought I’d be able to express. Jen Davis’ exploration of self-portraiture raises the never-ending conversation about body image, self-love, and the use of the camera. Taking back the control and no longer letting it rule you. I used to be afraid of the camera. But most importantly I used to be afraid of myself, and meeting with Jen gave me the sense of knowing that I’m on the right track in my journey. Alison exposed me to the spiritual aspect of my work, that honestly, I wasn’t aware of. I knew that I was a powerful being but zoning in on it, meditating, and connecting myself to my art and a higher being was never something I thought about. I always thought of it as just my “happy place” but after that visit, I realized that the space that I make art is just as sacred as my place of worship because I am able to channel the gift that God has given me, and I’m able to create.
This day for me is the day I came to terms with myself as an artist. In the sense of confidence and knowing I’m doing the right thing by pursuing this career. I’ve had many times where I feel like I wasn’t really doing my best work or I wasn’t fully feeling who I was as a person and these artists reminded me that in order to be successful you have to accept the fact that you’re human. For me, that was the hardest part in my journey so far. Accepting that sometimes it takes a lot more than just an idea, it takes discipline and passion, especially when life gets hard. I just really appreciate this experience a lot more than I expressed and expected. I’m so overwhelmed with emotions because of the Jen Davis visit.
0 notes
Text
10/18
Isn’t it interesting how viewing photographs taken in a different place gives a whole new meaning to the world? I never realized how much I took the beauty of other places for granted. Not only other places, but culture. I really enjoy culture, learning about it and experiencing it. Being Caribbean gives me a sense of self, for example I am able to trace my history back and I’ve seen how the people of my country live and enjoy everyday life. Although, what I saw wasn’t what my parents grew up in, it was beautiful and inspiring. I wish I had my camera back then.
This brings me to the exhibit at the MET Breuer by Raghubir Singh. He beautifully depicts moments of the everyday life in India. To the viewer they seem like extraordinary moments, but with each photo it is a pretty traditional lifestyle scene. Singh’s main focus would be the color schemes and capturing the perfect moment. Similar to Henri Cartier-Bresson, Singh finds his perfect moment by taking multiple shots and through the editing process he finds the “one”. It’s the little moments that people would overlook, like catching a couple mid-swing in the air, or seeing an average little boy with the lighting hitting his face just right and captures a captivating photo. If you couldn’t tell by now, Singh’s exhibition at the MET really blew me away. The color palette he chose not only reflected India’s culture, but gave so much depth and life to his photographs. I never truly appreciated color photography until I saw this show. The vivid imagery, was never overloaded and always kept the viewer interested. My eyes would never just say in one place of the photograph, but also never missed a detail because of how well the composition was.
After completing our visit at the MET Breuer, we briefly saw an Ai WeiWei piece which of course spoke volumes about fences, New York City life, and penitentiaries. It was an interesting piece to me because of how much it reminded me of being in a prison. I personally don’t think people zoned in on that aspect of it, but I really felt like a caged bird. After spending some time with the Ai WeiWei, we found ourselves at MAD. Probably the most interesting museum space we’ve been in all year.
MAD, Museum of Art and Design, created an exhibition where space, sound, and art come together to make a masterpiece. It ranged from sculpture being created to accompany sound in a specific way, a guitar made out wall space, and a playground that with sensitive areas that would play sound. It was nice to take a break from generic art. The most special place at MAD was the audio wear. It was jewelry that could be worn, but also gave off sound. The shapes and designs were so beautiful. The pieces reminded me a lot of what Solange would wear during a performance, but also as a hip statement piece. I really wanted to wear them and add to my own collection. I wish I saw more art like that.
2 notes
·
View notes
Photo
an Onge youth National Geographic July 1975 Raghubir Singh
462 notes
·
View notes
Text
10/13
Today made me realize that not every artist I’m going to like, and not every artwork I’m going to understand no matter how hard I try to comprehend. Apparently, there comes a time where artists, more specifically painters get fed up with making generic paintings.. Joe Fyfe, this is your tape. (In the words of Thirteen Reasons Why, if you didn’t get that reference).
I’ll start out by addressing the fact that this man started out as an art critic, and that he’s a well-traveled, well-read, and most of all well-opinionated. It’s safe to say the older you get the less you give a crap about what people think or how your words might hurt them. I don’t want to say he disregards feelings, but you definitely can’t be a sensitive being around this guy. Being in his studio, I saw the privilege, I saw the hard work he had put in to earn whatever space he’s living or working in. It was nice, and a typical studio set up.
I guess I should speak about his art. My impression truthfully was this artist is influenced by Rauschenberg and the idea of collaboration, because Joe really just added pieces of found objects in a random country and put it together and added maybe a crayon marking or two and called it art. Truthfully, that’s not my type of art. I don’t feel like it’s really that thought provoking and it makes me feel like anything can be art as long as there are people out there that see how you see, but even for Joe it’s not about other people. It’s really about him and how he feels like expressing himself. That’s really cool, but that’s where privilege comes in, because regardless of what he makes his name and his legacy will create enough hype for the check to be cleared and him to have money. All in all, I feel like it really is art being made by an older white male who has nothing else to do with his time but make “Art”. I sound so negative but it’s just not doing anything for me. I don’t see how this gets to a bigger picture, or a bigger audience and yes these aren’t his intentions but give me SOMETHING other than just “I found cheap plane tickets and I thought travelling would be a great idea”. That in itself sounds like such a privilege thing to say, especially when he went on to speak about how much the American dollar stretched in the other countries. This visit wasn’t my favorite, but gladly the next studio visit cheered me up completely.
Alison Hall, a beautiful genuine soul. Although I was briefly familiar with her work. I think this is the perfect instance of where meeting the artist in their studio pushes the strength of their work to another level. Hearing how artist get in their creative space in order to make their works of art is beyond inspiring. The fact that Alison is spiritual in her practice, and a bit ritualistic speaks to me because not only do I have a bond with my work but I too meditate in the dark room while I’m processing my rolls of film. The rhythmic motion of creating a lithoprint, woodblock cut out, etc. also sends me in a meditative state. I just felt like the art she’s creating is truly bigger than herself and speaks volumes to not only spiritually awaken people but those who aren’t even fully aware of a connection so deep. Such simplicity and delicacy evokes so much emotion and life. I fell in love with the art. It was a great way to end the day.
0 notes
Photo
Paul Anthony Smith, 2015 *artist in his studio
174 notes
·
View notes
Text
10/11
I think as an artist it’s important to have your own space, a place where you’re able to get away and think/create. Am I bougie if I want that space to be big and full of light? My dream studio would resemble the movies. Clean wooden floors, white walls, and the beautiful view of the city. I wouldn’t call myself bougie, but I would say that it’s wishful thinking. Visiting Paul Anthony Smith’s studio greatly humbled me and my impression of what an artists’ studio should look like.
Upon meeting Paul, I’m reminded of home. Not only does his art remind me of the islands, but his presence and the way he speaks. It was an amazing visit. I was able to learn so much about him, in this small space that although it wasn’t air conditioned because like myself AC is too cold and is never able to produce a comfortable medium. I truly think enjoying windows over central air is definitely an island thing. Overall, I felt like I connected with Paul because of our rich heritage. Even though Haiti and Jamaica aren’t the same island, it’s still the Caribbean and it’s clear that there are a lot of overlapping moments.
As for his artwork, it’s clear to me that family, texture, and physicality is important to him. There’s also a sense of blockage between the photograph and the viewer, because of his use of fences, beading, and optical illusions. Reminds me a lot of Chris Ofili’s work in his “Paradise Lost” collection. Although Paul is getting at something different than Ofili, which was loss of innocence and desire, he’s using the beading and fences as a way to break up the plane and the haziness of memory. Throughout the visit I realized how much I needed to act upon my ideas and stop being hesitant because I’ll lose a really great potential art piece.
The most important information/advice I received from Paul was the conversation about location and the idea of what home is. Paul has a strong connection to home even though he is a very long way from Florida and most of all Jamaica. The concept of home is explored by him using old photographs from his family photo album, adding a new concept of space through beadwork, coloring, layering in Photoshop, and may other manipulation methods. He’s taking an old idea and constantly revamping it, by seeing an old photo through a different light.
As for me, I think inspiration can be drawn from Paul into my work by pushing my own personal boundaries. I’ve never combined my photography and printmaking before, nor have I ever purposefully manipulated my photos to alter their appearance completely. It’s eye opening to speak to artist’s but it’s even more useful to speak to them within their space. It’s like you get the real authentic version of them. Paul definitely made me appreciate home more, and the fact that I’m able to make my art personal and relatable just like his art work did for me.
0 notes
Photo
A short one please!
Iran do Espírito Santo is one of the most interesting contemporary artists in Brasil. Often working on an ambitious scale, he wryly subverts the Minimalist tradition through his abstracted sculptures of familiar everyday objects.
-Post by Hugo Lavín
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
9/29 - CHELSEA DAY TWO
Our last day in Chelsea. My favorite and most memorable truthfully. We first went to see Iran Do Espirito Santo, who created sculptures of screws standing up right and almost ready to be stepped on if they were smaller. He then created drawings that were site specific to the gallery because they mimicked the architecture of the building but in a subtle way, that I think went over most people's head. I think my favorite part of his gallery would have to be the illusion aspect that was in the room of the screws. At first the lights were off because we are early birds and clearly, we deserve to get the worm. (Go us!) The light being turned off created a focus on not the screws but the walls themselves because the illusion seemed to be movement of light rather than it looking like a continuation of a room ahead. Maybe I understand the way walls look differently, but I didn’t know that it was supposed to look like a hallway, I just thought, “wow he’s making the walls move.” Which in itself should’ve told me that there had to be more to it. After spending what seemed like eternity in that gallery we were able to come back upstairs and see the exhibit in a different light, literally. The lights were turned on and the illusion Santos created was more bluntly in your face, and honestly, I wish it wasn’t. I lost interest once I realized the walls weren’t moving, but in losing that interest I was able to pay attention to the curving and sharpness of the screws. It made me want to stay far away from them but also, I wanted to touch them. It was this battle of when your mother tells you the pot is hot but you’re still super curious to see what she’s cooking anyway. I felt that way when it came to Santo’s screw show.
Not only were we reviewing Santo’s show we were blessed to have a guide who wrote critics of all the galleries visited from last time we were in Chelsea but also the shows we saw today. We were prompted to read Wolin’s reviews so that we understood his opinion and how he saw things through his own eyes, because he’s been looking at art for years and we don’t have the same experience. It was interesting hearing his opinions in person, but I found myself adapting his thought process and he was swaying me to agree with how he saw things. I personally wasn’t sure if that was his intentions and if it said more about me as an artist/student than it did about him. I guess it reminded me a lot of how in elementary school it was most about regurgitating whatever your teacher had said to you the day before a test in order to get that A. I felt like I was losing my own ideas and was too caught up in his. So that part of having a tour guide wasn’t enjoyable.
Throughout all the galleries we had visited, my favorite would have to be the Kara Walker show. This woman time and time again has never left me any disappointments. She clearly doesn’t want a seat at the white man’s table because SHE IS THE TABLE. She is clearly ready to hand it to everyone and anyone who doesn’t see their privilege, who doesn’t see racism, or who doesn’t see sexism. But she gives it to them in a box wrapped with satire, sadness, and uncomfortableness. But in even more powerful way she’s not just speaking to those who are a part of the isms, but she’s also saying “Why aren’t you doing enough” to those who seem to already “get it”. Walker has an agenda, and that agenda is to focus on her work and to get a message, that’s bigger than herself, out there. Sadly, people are too focused on her that they’re missing their chance to change. They’re too focused on the angry Black woman narrative that they aren’t taking time to appreciate her work, which is why I think she always takes the satire root because at the end of the day why would any of these white people take this Black woman serious?
1 note
·
View note