Samantha Plate

Play In The City

Mark Lord

12/09/2013

How Should We View Art?

            In my viewing of The Postman at The Barnes Foundation, I experienced two different ways in which to experience the painting. After writing my paper, learning more about the history, and participating in class discussion, I have begun to question those two techniques. More importantly, I began to question which method was better. Is the experience of viewing art, and learning, through feeling and emotional connection better than through analyzing the details?

My automatic reaction to The Postman led me to view the painting through feeling. I made an emotional connection with the painting and I let it speak to me. I did not try to think about certain things, nor did I try to become thoughtless. The thoughts that ran through my head contained a range of emotions and resulted in the urge to cry. I felt like I truly saw the real beauty in the painting, and without any outside influence. I was aware of the experience I was having in a way not unlike deep play. Surely this was the best possible way to view a piece of art, the best way to learn.

    Barnes foundation protects the “art”, the true art itself and the pure way we evaluate them. After reflecting on how we value the arts nowadays, I respect Barnes ideas more- the arts should not be hung on the wall of a museum individually but serve as the lessons that can educate and inspire people. Thus, Barnes is not a simple place collecting many priceless arts, but a brave knight who insists in purifying and simplifying the purpose of art and how we interact with it.

    Most of contemporary people show more respect to those paintings by famous artists. It’s easy to find many tourists in the museum with the headphones from audio tours inserted in their ears. They keep nodding their heads, just like agreeing with the authorities of evaluating arts. Following the step the tour suggested, they scan over the paintings carelessly but at same time, they act like the experts who grasp large amount of the knowledge of analyzing the arts. Just like the tourists visiting the Grand Canyon, these people, “instead of looking at it (Percy)”, they try to “come face to face with an authentic sight.... and that they see the sight and come away rewarded? (Percy)” In other words, it is increasingly evident that people view the arts which are supposed to be worthy.

Yesterday was pretty stressful! I left my rehearsal early in the afternoon (around 1:30 in order to catch the 1:50 Septa), and discovered about four inches of snow all around me--the most snow I've ever seen in my life. 

Once I got to the city, I went into Reading Terminal Market for about half an hour. Walking around the different boothes is always relaxing and lovely, and even though it was cold outside, the temperature was fine inside!

By far, though, the highlight of the market was the little train and town set up. In the middle of the market, there was a glass case, probably about 3 feet wide by 7 feet long (total estimate, but it was decently big). Inside of it, there was a small, and very detailed town! There were little trains that ran through the town, and a big group of people were standing all around the glass case, many of whom were small children, which was really sweet to see!  

Ellen Cohn

12/6/13

Barnes Reflection

Play in the City

Who is “Barnes?”

            Alfred C. Barnes was born in 1872 to two working class parents. He proceeded to build himself up in the world, and became a true renaissance man—meaning that he was educated in many fields and created a name for himself in many various areas. With all of the time we have spent in class studying his foundation, the movement of it, and his perspective on how it should be used, I began to think about how the actual person Barnes fit in. How did his personal life tie into his motives in creating the foundation, choosing the specific works he collected, choosing the location for the foundation, and limiting the audience.

            Barnes’ first success was in the medical field. At the age of twenty-seven, Barnes worked with a German chemist to develop a drug—Agyrol, which was marketed as a treatment for gonorrhea. During this time, Barnes showed a business-oriented mind, and the drug became an immediate success financially. By the time he was thirty-five, Barnes was a millionaire. He sold the business in 1929, a few short months before the stock market crash (which led to the Great Depression). He also conveniently timed his sale to happen before the discovery of antibiotics, which soon replaced Agyrol in the medical world.

There was so much anticipation in my head when I went to the Barnes Foundation. I had wanted to go for a while, since my mother had told me about it, and how it housed pieces by some of my favorite artists: Seurat, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cézanne, and much more. Impressionism was one of my favorite eras of art, and I was going to take advantage of this trip into Philadelphia.

My mother had informed me that there was a period where Albert C. Barnes wouldn’t let anyone into the foundation. Countless amounts of people had written requests to Barnes, asking to visit, but many had been rejected. My mother may have also mentioned there was some controversy with the foundation, but I think she touched too lightly upon the subject for me to completely register and remember the facts. Therefore, I had walked into the Barnes partially the way Walker Percy had intended us to: without a lot of prior knowledge.

However, I had built the museum up in my head a lot. I do this a lot with other things, too. Sometimes I’ll say that someone absolutely has to watch a movie or read a book, and that it’s probably the best movie or book in existence. When this happens, people are usually disappointed. While I did build the Barnes Foundation up a lot in my head, I was not disappointed at all. I feel as if the difference this time was that I didn’t know what paintings would be in the foundation, and that I didn’t know how the foundation would be set up.

Mainstream feminist dialogues, including our own Serendipian dialogue, are exclusionary. Alternative exclusionary dialogues often form within marginalized communities, addressing gender-based discrimination and other experience-based conversations that present uniquely in certain groups. Marginal groups can protect themselves from the lack of inclusion within dominant dialogues. Feminism is often defined as community based and inclusive as possible, but advocating for the protection of multiple groups, especially those who are marginalized by dominant dialogues and existing power structures, necessities inaccessibility of conversation.

Dialogue within marginalized groups is inherently exclusionary. It allows individuals within a group to build on the foundations of shared experience to build community (instead of trying to make descriptions of those experiences accessible to the dominant group). The barriers keeping nonmembers out of the discussion form a protection that creates a safe space. The barriers that protect the conversation within marginalized groups from the violence of the dominant group are formed from an enforced silence of the marginalized group toward those outside of it. Access is limited to the few in languages of identity that the oppressors do not understand, by intentionally obfuscating language in code, and by referencing experience that outsiders do not have access to.

Unbinding Feminist Intentions

As a young black woman in America, I have had my fair share of troubles with accepting feminism. Author bell hooks, in ‘Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics’, defines feminism as an all-encompassing ‘movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression (hooks, p.1).” However, as I have previously understood it, through social discourse and mass media portrayals, feminism arose from a reaction of well-to-do white women to the oppressive patriarchal system that confined them to the household. So, as a result, these women sought and gained equality in the working world of their well-to-do counterparts.

According to hooks, however, feminists initially concerned themselves with women’s liberation from the oppressive, sexist, and violent domination of the patriarchy. However, it became polarized by a division between reformist thinkers, who wanted to alter the existing system to include more rights for women, and revolutionary thinkers, who wanted to overthrow the system and terminate the patriarchy entirely.

The intimate gesture of touch can convey caring and concern or, just as easily, dominance and disrespect. Micro-level interactions, be they handshakes or long-term relationships, affect and sustain macro-level institutions of dominance. Despite the fact that body integrity is vital to one's sense of autonomy, kyriarchal systems have a history of appropriating bodies, and continue to do so as a way of systematically securing supremacy. In her essay, “Violence, Mourning, Politics,” theorist Judith Butler makes a call to reclaim the body in an effort to combat kyriarchal establishments. She asserts that violence, from blatant genocide to interpersonal cruelty, reinforces itself through a process of making the recipient “unreal”. This violence, and it is violence regardless of form, is not limited to women, or even humans for that matter. The perpetrators, however, excuse their actions by deeming their victims as unworthy, to the point that “the very bodies for which (the victims of violence) struggle are not quite ever only (their) own.” (26) Through this process, Butler maintains that when “the violence is done against those who are unreal, then, from the perspective of violence, it fails to injure or negate those lives since those lives are already negated.” (33) These arguments are the framework for her theories on derealization, or the act of stripping someone or something of its individual worth in order to grant oneself impunity and to justify acts of cruelty in order to preserve power.

After several changes of plans, I planned to go to see the Dream Garden in the curtis center and Washington Square around there, and also go to the "free" "PECO Family Jams: Recycled CD Ornaments" in the Magic Garden to make small ornaments today. My schedul was tight because my work ended at 12:30. Because the train got delayed, I decided to only go to the Magic Garden. It was apparent that I was the only one who showed up at the event. Even though the event was still on, I realized it was "free" with admission. So I left for the Dream Garden instead. On my way, I had this feeling that it might be closed and I forgot to check. And unfortunately, the security guard in the Curtis center told me it was closed for today.

Originally, I planned to see the mural arts in the city, but it is so hard for me to walk a lot in the snows. I know there are some mural arts along the Broad street and I choose a way I nerver walked before. It is a surprise that truning around the corner, there it is! I never imagine that the new way is even easier and faster. It was so cold that I bought a pair of gloves on the way. I stared the mural art near the Macy's for about 3 minutes and I can't focus, so I escaped into Macy's. Luckily, I saw the light show in Macy's. I can feel the enthusiasm people show to Christmas, but to be honest, I am not attracted to it but I still feel happy. I recognized that on the way to Anne's house, I just rushed across the street and just passed by some mural arts. I felt sorry to those mural arts that people just pass by them and it seems that they are not important. Also, because of the gloves, I can't type on my phones. And since I don't have internet on my Iphone and the map on Blackberry is not good, I check the information on blackberry and navigate the way on iphone; at the same time, I need to carry my camera and protect it from the snow! So I took off my gloves manytimes and catch two phones, one camera, and even one cup which has a leaking cap and rushed in a snow day!