Museum Thursday

Since moving to DC have tried to visit a different museum or gallery every thursday.  This hasn’t been as consistent as I would have liked.  It started off with the best intentions but of course school always seemed to get in the way.  Yesterday, however I was able to pick it back up and headed over to the Textile Museum.  This museum is in a small space with a few small rooms of exhibition material.  Currently they are featuring an exhibition on Contemporary Japanese Fashion.  Featuring the works of Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, another exhibition Fabrics of Feathers and Steel: the innovation of Nuno runs alongside the fashion exhibit.

I don’t know about you but when I think of textiles in a museum,  I generally think of some sort of large tapestry of sorts.  As you can imagine I was intrigued about this new exhibit.  Don’t we tend to leave fashion on the runway.  this opens up a new way to look at fashion.

Here’s a brief rundown of the designers who are featured

Yohji Yamamoto- melding Western and Japenese concepts, his pieces are a-symmetrical yet retain a somewhat conservative look.  The clothes are clearly from the 80’s with pantsuits and heavy materials.  I appreciate them for what they are, but they are not my cup to tea

Issey Miyake- my favorite designer of the exhibition pieces.  He is known for his pleating, which is is evident in 80% of the pieces.  the pleating is intense, giving may garments a crinkly look.  The garments produce a sculpted look, truly an artist of the fashion world.  An interesting aspect of his garments is that they do not waste any fabric.  The epitome of green production.

Every piece of the fabric is used, an aspect that comes from traditional Japanese Kimono’s, where the fabric is never cut to fit the body, instead the fabric continues to be wrapped around the body until it has all been used.  He has also created a form of knit fabric that allows for all elements of a ensemble to be created, belt, purse, clothing, all of it comes from on piece of fabric and not even the tiniest scrap is wasted.

The final designer is Rei Kawakubo- she is by far the most “out there” designer of the trio.  Her pieces are not pretty in the conventional sense, and that is the point.  She does not create perfectly form fitting as she believes that there is no way to create a perfect human body.  She also makes the claim that something does not need to be pretty to be beautiful.  While I believe her pieces would be difficult to wear but I think in this case it is more about the concept than the clothing itself.

Alongside this is the innovation of Nuno exhibit is a 2 room show of fabrics.  hand-designed, creatively non-traditional fabrics.  It’s interesting to walk through and see the various ways that fabrics can be created.

Overall this is an great exhibit to to check out.  It’s not an all day event, which might be good for someone, you could probably even see it all during your lunch break.

Virtual and Alternative Art Spaces

We do everything online–communicate, socialize, shop, play– it was only a matter of time before galleries turned to the internet to show their exhibitions, and I’m not just talking about showing a few works as a preview but full fledged walk-through virtual tours.  This of course begs the question as yo whether or not art can truly be experienced without standing right in front of it.  The internet has created an environment in which connection becomes more an idea than a physical manifestation.  If we turn art galleries into virtual experiences rather than tangible experiences are we taking away from what makes art so powerful.

Places like The Louvre and The National Gallery of Art offer virtual tours of both past and present exhibitions.  The sites vary in their level of quality, but are interesting none the less.  As you “walk” through the rooms of a gallery you can click on various pieces and learn a little about them.  Which you of course you can do at the actual gallery as well.  It does make the viewing of art more convenient but is convenience really what we are looking for when it comes to art.  As I virtually toured these two sites I couldn’t help but feel disconnected from the art, which is not surprising.  Viewing art in person, whether it be visual or performance allows us to feel a connection that we lose in many other areas of our lives because of the fast paced virtual world that we live in.

There is of course upsides to these new modes of gallery touring.  For those who can’t make a trip to France to view the Louvre’s extensive collection, you can hop on the internet and see things you would not be able to normally.  It creates an environment of accessibility, as is the case of Art Lounge based in Lebanon.  This alternative art space as they call it functions on both the virtual and physical level.  They are housed within a warehouse in Beirut they also host an online art store, where you can view and purchase works of art online.  Created as a space to show contemporary art as well as foster artistic growth, interaction and communication.  On the accessibility front it is an amazing space, and in this case it seems that the use of virtual spaces is beneficial, allowing those who would not be exposed to art the avenue through which to explore.

I’m still not convinced that this new move towards virtual spaces is the best idea in the world, and I definitely do not thing that it should ever replace the galleries themselves, but it does offer an alternative way of viewing art as well as a vehicle for mass exposure to those who might not be able to visit the galleries in person.  Art is most powerful when we are right there with it.  We feel what the artist is feeling, and that just doesn’t translate to a low res digital image.

Man Ray at the Phillips

Man Ray

Yesterday my day was free so I decided to head on over to The Phillips Collection. They are currently hosting a special exhibition Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens.  The collection is a combination of African artifacts and the photography inspired by these pieces.  The purpose of this show is to illustrate the influence that the photography had on the understanding of African “art.”  Why the quotations, these artifacts have not always bee seen as art pieces.  They are functional, spiritual vessels for ritual in most cases.  As westerners we tend to label anything that looks more than ordinary as art.  I am not saying that I don’t do the same thing, but it is important to realize that in the minds of the cultures that create these statues or trinkets, they are not art as we define it.  That being said we can leave the western/non-western definition behind for the remainder of this post.

The exhibit takes you through the documentary photo, to that of the surrealists, and then into the world of fashion.  Fashion?? That’s was exactly my thoughts.  The initial photographs are useful in that they provided a medium from which the western world could see what all this african art was all about.  simple pictures of various spiritual statues.  Accessibility was the key for this collection of photographs.  I have no problem with this.  Where things start to get a little interesting is with the surrealist photographs.  Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur.

The image that caught my eye in this context was of two individuals with traditional african masks, in suits sitting on a couch.  To me this brings up the issue of cultural preservation.  I wonder under what circumstances these masks were acquired and then utilized in this non-traditional fashion.  Did the artist understand the significance of these pieces when posing these individuals, or did he simply see african masks on white business men as expressing some sort of contradiction.  What are the cultural implication of using functional art in this way??

The final room of the exhibition is dedicated to the way in which african clothing was translated into the world of high fashion.  It argues that this was yet another way for the western world to be exposed to the world of Africa.  It shows a series of Man Ray’s muse Kiki in a variety of African headress.  These photographs take the pieces out of their cultural context, and in so doing begs the question whether they provide a true understanding of the pieces themselves, but perhaps that was not the intention.

Overall the exhibition itself is an excellent collection of the photography of the time and a very comprehensive one at that.  It does bring up a lot of questions about motivations of the time, circumstances in which the works were created, and of course the cultural implications of these.  The best exhibitions always leave you asking questions and that is what I love about art.  Yes it’s nice to look at, and sometimes its great to just get lost in a painting, but when you walk out of a museum, or gallery and your mind is racing with questions and ideas– those are the moments when the arts reach us the most.

Study Study Study my life away

Humberto Calzada

Emilio Falero

Currently research for a paper on the use of art to form and express identity within translocal and transnational communities. It’s a group paper, which is always an experience, but my contribution to the project is dealing with Cuban exile art. What I find interesting is that this particular displaced community has had a unique experience in the way in which they have retained their culture. Mostly relocated to Miami, rather than acting as a homogenous community, which is usually the norm for displaced peoples, the Cubans represent all aspect of society. This provides a mini-cultural environment through which artists can tap into their cultural traditions. While ultimately it is based within the context of American culture, it has created an interesting case study on diasporic communities and their ability to maintain national identity.

Art and Culture

This probably should have been my first post, but I have been doing a little shifting around of blog spaces which has led me to transplant some old blogs onto this new site.  The whole point of this blog is to explore the intersection of the arts and culture.  For those of us not immersed within the world of art everyday the definition of culture might be synonymous with art.  When we talk about being cultured many times the arts are what is being referred to.  As an anthropologist my definition of culture is a little different (but this is simply because I spend 4 years of undergrad studying the foundations and applications of what culture means).  I recently attended a conference on Public and Cultural Diplomacy in which the definition of culture seemed to be directly linked to the arts and art initiatives.  For the purposes of this blog I will define culture as a system of learned and shared beliefs, values, institutions, and practices among a community of individuals.  There are hundreds of definitions for culture, but this is the simplest for our purposes.

What I hope to accomplish with this blog is the create an forum for discourse on the issues facing the arts, culture, diplomacy, and policy.  Sometimes the post will be well researched studies on current or past issues, other times they will simply be my thoughts on issues, specific art pieces, and many more topics, of that I am sure.

I  hope that those who follow will participate in discussions whether you agree with me or not.   Mainly I hope to use this as a space for my own exploration of the topics facing the field today.

 

Thank You All

Marginalized Communities and the Arts

One particularly interesting study conducted Ephrat Huss, who teaches art therapy and art-based research at the University of Israel.  In this study women of the recently settled Bedouin tribe created art in order to express the feelings of isolation and discontent they feel about their new lifestyle.  The process of creating this art allowed these women to not only express what their feelings but to also realize solutions to their current situations.

While the art that was conducted remained with these women ( it was not used in a public context) it seems that this form of art could initiate movements of social change within communities by bringing awareness to these problems.  Art allows us to critically examine the social realities we experience, it brings awareness to injustices and inequities within society.  This, of course, is not a new concept, art is constantly used within social movements.

What if we implemented this practice in marginalized communities around the world?  Would it help in the success of social movements or would it simply be pushed to the side as unimportant.  Art can be an effective tool for educating people about the disparities in the world.