Week 7: Danse Macabre

 

Danse Macabre, by Camille Saint-Saens:

“To get anyone to start imagining possibilities for themselves again, that is what we all

should be after.” -Shaun Leonardo

“Performance is the moment when the performer with his own idea step in his own mental

and physical construction in the front of the particular time.” -Marina Abramovic 

 

In this performance, I'm flowing my hands through powered charcoal as a piece of

Danse Macabre plays in the background. I started with the canvas being smooth and

organized until the chaotic movement of my fingers break the neatness of the canvas. 

Yoko Ono:

“Cut Piece, still remains as a precursor to a myriad of feminist and body-centered art pieces

and performances. Interestingly enough, this artwork also displays her deep influence of

Zen Buddhism, as Ono stated recently, when she was creating the controversial piece, she

was originally thinking of Buddha and how he gave everything up.”

    

After watching the video, it was incredibly brave of her to put herself in this position, especially

since some of the audience members were so inconsiderate of their intentions during the

performance.

“ Ono continues to honor Lennon’s memory and their joint commitment to world peace with a

number of different projects. The pioneering conceptual artist, musician, performer and activist,

is now 82 years old.”

I find it awfully inspiring how a woman at her age is still active in the art business and

doing other things in the process.

Shaun Leonardo interview:

“I don’t know what drove me to identify as an artist because it wasn’t within my familial

background—not that I know of anyway—and my only exposure to art, growing up in Queens,

were the moments here and there where we visited the Queens Museum and the Metropolitan

Museum.”

I feel the same way at times how the artists of the past rarely look like me and how we

look up to mostly white male artists.

“whenever I saw a master, codified “master,” at the Metropolitan Museum. Somehow, I [don’t]

recall ever being dissuaded [by the fact] that those “masters” were all dead white men. I found

myself seeing these “great artworks” and believing I could achieve that.”

Although I know those eras of art were different and the regulations of art were incredibly limited

I can’t help but feel like the era of art for other minorities has yet to be appreciated.

Ways of seeing:

“Men look at the action through the eyes of the male hero and women are obliged to do the same,

a form of compulsory gender manipulation.”

This almost brings me back to a film class I took where some researchers conducted a study of

women in film typically, most movies would have fewer female roles and if any, it would typically

consist of two women discussing a man.

“In 2013, the Oxford English Dictionary announced that its word of the year

was selfie, which it defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself,

typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social

media website.”

It’s so strange to see this old definition of the word “selfie” when everyone today in age already

who what the word means regardless of the definition. It's also mind-blowing that it has been

10 years since that word appeared.