The “Ocean Of Images” exhibit in the photography gallery on the third floor of the MoMa was another place we visited in order to gain inspiration for our upcoming project on self portraiture, and consolidate the concept in our mind so that we would have a firm understanding in our minds about how we personally defined self portraiture and therefore what elements would need to be a part of our project. Since we are using photography as medium to create self portraits, the photography gallery was great place to visit to understand how other artists tackled the subject.
One of my favourite pieces was a “A Poem by Repetition by Aram Saroyan” by Natalie Czech. The work consisted of a large chunk of text from an interview, I think, that had been typed in bold, only in very rare select parts, to form a poem,accompanied by 3 black and white silhouette photographs. It was almost as if the interview was one layer of the self portrait, the poem the next, and the images embedded in the text the third. It was thus in layers that I understood his portrait, however I don’t know if that was how the artist intended it.
The next art work I really liked was the one showing devastating imagery brought to us by Leiko Shiga, in response to the Tsunami in japan. To be honest, I have never come across a photograph that has affected me that the series of pictures by this artist did. This series had a raw power that instantly made me want to burst into tears. The pictures that had been photoshopped were raw and called out to basic human emotions. They were exceedingly difficult to look at and presented situations, that would be shameful to be gawked at as art, had they been real. For instance one very expressive haunting image, showed a man with a tree trunk through his body in a final embrace with a woman. Had this been a real situation, it would have been one of utmost horror, bloodcurdling panic and terror, which resonates with the instant aftermath of the Tsunami. Had the picture been real, it would have been shameful, of the people who survived, to encroach upon or look on at the sight of a final intimate moment between a couple, before death did them apart. And so I think it played with the themes of gaze, turmoil, and our perception of terrible incidents across the word, that we are not directly touched by. I think it as a fantastic idea to place these images in a completely dark room, so that they could shine brightly and create an illusion of intimate and isolated observation,so as to make the viewers feel like they alone were a part of the scene in the picture.
Another work I really enjoyed was Mishka Henner’s Astronomical one that played with the concepts of space, duration, movement, and colour, and picked the perfect one, to convey the idea of the vast expanse of space, and make its enormity more comprehensible to the human mind. This was done by creating a black book with black pages, bearing minuscule white dots to denote stars and planets. Flipping through the several consecutive empty black pages, one by one, slowly at a specified time in search of a white dot, accompanied by an instruction that presents a scale, informing us exactly how long, one flip of a page denotes, helps us establish a clearer understanding of an otherwise unfathomable concept.
The artwork that kept me transfixed and mesmerized however, was the first one we noticed as soon as we walked in. It was a short film playing in a loop, that portrayed a trans woman in a way hat expressed all elements of her being, beyond her gender identity. The video depicted her as beautiful. playful, flirty, composed, confident, sensual, elegant, graceful, rational, analytical, warm, understanding, cold, critical, unflinchingly rigid,uncomfortable, nervous, perturbed, proud, vulnerable, and open to negotiation, standing behind a pedestal before a microphone, indicating her power to express herself. In real life transgender people are not allowed to be all sides of themselves. The video is almost hypnotizing because coupled with a great music choice, it shows us exactly what is an impossible fantasy in he reality of today’s contemporary society.
Other works I really enjoyed were Anouk Kruithof’s Subconscious Travelling.
