Week IV

 

Griff

King Constance

Danielle Scott’s exhibition, “Kinfolk,” caught my attention right away because I love learning and having visuals of American history in person. As soon as I looked at these pieces you were able to feel the emotions that were connected to these pieces. In these pieces you can see the wood framing around them were all burnt trying to give a more historic aura to the pieces. What caught my attention right away was how in the back of these pieces they were names on brown pieces of paper of emancipated slaves. I have always enjoyed going to museums and looking at pieces, but this was my first gallery. I was able to see A piece of history up close and in person. Danielle Scott also provided a interactive gallery where she had books that had stories from slaves that you could read; which were very interesting I made it personal. By these books she provided pieces of cotton so that we could feel the texture, which is what slaves would pick for hours of the day. She did a great job showing the hardships, cruelty, and emotions in her pieces.

 

The first piece that caught my attention was “Griff,” which has a cross and aluminum noose. This piece caught my attention because in religion Christ was crucified on assumptions of making threats against the temple. In the 19^th century white mobs would lynch black men and women based on accusations of crimes and most of them were lynch solely for violation social customs. White people had this ideology that there was superior so if they felt that there were disrespected by a colored man/women they felt that they had to pay their dues with death. The aluminum noose represents how this history can never be undone or forgotten. The pain that they endured at the hands of white mobs will be told and felt throughout generations. At the bottom of the cross you can see many hands reaching up to the cross and some rope entangled into their hands. This most likely shows how they would try to hold the rope in hopes of being strong enough of not being lynched to death; trying to prevent their outcome. In this piece you feel the cruelty that they had to endure and its upsetting. 

 

 

The second piece that caught my attention was “King Constance.” Here we see a woman with her son and a baby, with two figures standing behind it. In my opinion the two standing figures with the names of emancipated people are the ancestors of the two boys and I am assuming their mother, watching over them. The baby is covered in gold because he is the golden baby, he is the reason their family in the return will like a great life. This was my favorite piece from the gallery because I saw myself. I am the youngest of three and my mom has worked very hard to provide for her. My siblings do have great jobs that they are able to live comfortably with. Yet I see myself as the golden baby because I am going to be the one that breaks from the ideal 9-5 and become an entrepreneur. I have many ideas so that eventually none of us will have to work for anyone else, but instead for ourselves. The two figures represent all my ancestors because they had all their own farms and had to work hard for years. I would be the first person in my family to be an entrepreneur and to have multiple passive incomes.

 

 

 

 

Cindy Sherman

 

“With Photoshop anything goes, and I don’t want to make easy crazy characters just because I can. I think there are some artists who are fine without any boundaries. It somehow frees them. But I really need certain limitations to know how far I can go and work within that.

 

With photoshop you can alter basically everything. So I feel that some people should not compare themselves to other because photoshop has no limitations and you can make yourself look like someone you’re not. 

 

“I think it has made me realize that we’ve all chosen who we are in terms of how we want the world to see us,”

 

In society today especially in social media people choose to show you what they want too. They can paint you this picture that they are living their best life, are very successful, and are at their happiest; but most of the time those are the same people who aren’t at their happiest and still have a lot of figures out. That’s why when it comes to social media you can’t compare your life to others; social media is all about perception and you’ll never really know the truth unless you know someone personally.

 

 

Nina Simone

 

“An artist has one duty and that is to tell the times”

 

With every picture or art piece an artist creates it tell a store and its our jobs as the view to indulge and find the deeper meaning instead of what we see on the surface.