Wangechi Mutu Selfie

Demon dog inspired by Wangechi Mutu

1.       “When culture becomes nothing more than a commodity, it must also become the star commodity of the spectacular society”.

Spectacular - beautiful in eye-catching way

Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu Inspired

Deformity

Old Mean Jenkins

Scary Salmeron

After looking at Wangechi Mutu work it inspired me to change the way I look. Just like the mini clip for Mutu being a deformed creature, I wanted to also do that to my face. In the images I deformed my face structure to make it look intense and a bit scary. I also did it in the dark to I could flow with the genre of the selfie. It is hard to try to do something scary in the day time. In the 1st image I wanted my face to look like a creature so it was around and it just made my lips bigger and face round. In the second image I wanted to look like an old mean person that is always grumpy. But besides being old and mean, he also has a dark scary scary that he is hiding from everyone.

#3

(3.)
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is ostensibly the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.

17) The first stage of the economy’s domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having — human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed. The present stage, in which social life has become completely occupied by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing — all “having” must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances. At the same time all individual reality has become social, in the sense that it is shaped by social forces and is directly dependent on them. Individual reality is allowed to appear only insofar as it is not actually real.

1.) The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.

1.) The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.

 

#12

"The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply."

Explanation: Appearances mean a lot to the world, and has always meant a lot. Whenever we see someone or something, we don’t know them, except the fact that they appear to be good and they are showing whatever is good about themselves. People tend to hide the “ugly” side of them to seem accepted. Even when they are not happy on the inside, they may show a smile on the outside.

"Though separated from what they produce, people nevertheless produce every detail of their world with ever-increasing power. They thus also find themselves increasingly separated from that world. The closer their life comes to being their own creation, the more they are excluded from that life"

Gray and Black that didnt work out

Exhibition Visit

I visited the gallery in the Art building on campus. This piece of artwork is by Asha Ganpat. It is called Grimoire, a handmade book with twelve illustrations and interactive access. There is a candle holder with "candles" made out of paper and ink.

'Muslim in America" by Aileen Bassis a unique artist book with transferred prints. It represents the struggles Muslim people in America have to go through on a daily basis. I believe in this piece the artist main focus was the identity of each individual that is Muslim. Because the images are black and white it is like you can create your own story within it. For the viewers by first looking at the piece you can probably think of a story that has nothing to do with being Muslim, but once you look at the title and the description you can then see its purpose.

"Is This My America" also by Aileen Bassis is a unique artist book with photos transfer prints and lithographs. At first look, you can tell that the inspiration behind it was the same as "Muslim in America" I think this art piece was self-explanatory. When I first saw it I said it is about the way society treats the planet. It also helped because the title is written in the piece. When you read the title you can also put the pieces together and say it is asking a simple question like, is this the country we live in? The piece makes you think about what can cause us to ask such a question and give it answers like pollution.

"No Way Out" by Ibou Ndoye is an ink drawing and collage on heavy kraft paper. When I first saw this piece I did not think it was a collage. When I think of drawn collages this was not what I pictured. You can come up with so many different perspectives for this piece but what I saw by reading the title was someone who is possibly stuck at a certain obstacle in life and just can not seem to find their way out. Even though I only visited the gallery at school it was still interesting pieces to look and to make up a story for it. There were a few similarities in some of them like I mentioned before but they all had their own unique touch to them.

Metropolitan Museum

    The gallery I visit was the Metropolitan Museum. It was my first time there, It was amazing even though by time I got there I only have like two minutes to look around because they were closing. So I took a picture of the first two times that caught my eyes. The first picture is a Fragmentary Colonial marble head of a youth. The culture of this sculpture is Greek. It was originally from a collection of the Pergamon Museum. The fragmentary marble head of a youth was representing Alexander the Great in other words “a young god”. The second picture is Fragments of a marble statue of the Diadoumenos. This statue represents a youth adorning his head with a band after winning in an athletic contest. The culture of this sculpture is Roman. The Greek sculptor Polykleitos of Argos was one of the most famous artists of the ancient world. He design his sculptures to attract attention to bodily proportions and stance. The figure's thorax and pelvis tilt in opposite directions, setting up rhythmic contrasts in the torso that create an impression of organic vitality. The position of the feet poised between standing and walking gives a sense of potential movement. This calculated pose, which is found in almost all works attributed to Polykleitos, became a standard formula used in Graeco-Roman and later Western European art.

The art gallery I attended was in the art building on campus.  It featured work from an artist named Aileen Bassis. From looking around at the art work, I got that the theme was immigrants in America.  In one of her art pieces there is a piece f paper that says "I asked immigrants what do you miss most about your homeland" the art work seemed to be a very clear representation of the question asked. It looks like a booklet and its titled "Muslim in America" and one of the pages that caught my attention the most was a page that had a picture of a baby, and it said "I teach them Arabic but they forget" and that really caught my attention. I happen to have some friends that aren't allowed to speak english at home, because their parents don't want them to lose touch of their homeland.  

Another piece she had on display was called "Is this my America?" It was a booklet that looks like there may be photos of immigrants in the background. The pages have questions on them that read "where is your America?" and "is this my America?" That caught my attention the most because in the society we live in today, we have a president that is trying to deport immigrants in America, which I do not agree with, because immigrants are what made America. 

The last piece of art that caught my attention was a piece by David Sandlln called "Pur-Ton-o-Fun". I liked that it was bright and something that could catch my attention. One of the pages says "Fool your Neighbors" and I thought that could be a representation of how everyone lives their everyday life. At the end of the day, everything is not what it seems. 

When it comes to these pieces and it relating to self, Aileen's work really comes to mind. It wasn’t stated, but maybe the work she has made about immigrants pertains to her own life, and how she has lived her life.  Maybe along with asking other people the questions, she has had to ask herself these questions as well.