I would like to explore Marcel Wanders's idea of the crochet chair. It takes out so many materials that it normally would to create a chair- no more waste of wood or wadding or even springs. The fabric was going to cover the chair anyway. Maybe instead of always studying how to recycle we should also be focusing on how to simply just cut out most the materials we use as well
This museum reminded me of the Fric Museum in New York City. Which is an incredible mansion right next to central park. Mr. Fric collected art and organized it in a very interesting manner. It is appealing to see different objects people have accumulated over the years and how they have organized them. Although it is striking a a strange kind of beautiful, yet I do not consider it a work of art. Since Sir John Soane's old house has been made into a museum his objects have now become classified as artifacts. The way in which we display objects also determines what society considers them. If some of the taxidermy objects were displayed at The Telling Tales exhibition at the V&A some may consider it a piece of art. But it one were to put it on their desk in their office or hung it on a wall it would be an object they owned. But when you put it behind glass it becomes more official, an artifact. It is funny too to see how peoples' mentalities change towards the objects. I am sure Soane's students who went into his home while he was teaching them, we not scared or intimidated to walk over to a shelf and pick out a book. But now since it has been classified as a museum, we are scared when we walk in to touch things in what used to be someones home. Since it is now a museum I do not consider it to be a piece of art but more of a tangible documentation of something. Sir John Soane was an architect and built his library not for own joy but for the benefit of his students. It is referred to as "an academy of architecture."
I did not like this exhibition at all. I just found it boring. Although my friend loved it, and all the kids there were having a blast as well, for the point of the exhibition was to interact with it and it would regergitate your actions/sounds but they would be morphed through the technology. The only part I liked were the lights in the exhibition that lit up as you walked by them. It set such an incredible mood like something out of Avatar. I thought the rest of the exhibition would be like this but there really wasn't an fluidity throughout and there wasn't really a set mood like there was in The Telling Tales exhibition. Even though that exhibition displayed many different artists work it flowed and had a story behind it that the Decode exhibition was lacking.
When I first saw the Blythe House Archive building I thought I had the wrong address, for what I should in front of looked like a prison. Even the way we had to enter the building made me feel this way even more. It was amazing to learn that this resource was at our fingertips. If however I would ever want to use this source though, I have to have something very specific in mind. For you have to tell them a company's name rather than a time period. They were extremely informative. For there were charts that would tell you which were the best sellers during that time. It actually brought me back to my former education at FIT, a lot of the course was focused around hand painting, patterns in repeat, which I always knew as outdated but I didn't realize how outdated it was until I went to the Blythe House. There were these images that I feel in love with by a German photographer named Elsbeth Juda. The series of photographs I saw were for a magazine called The Ambassador, a British Export magazine. If I go back to the Blythe House I would love to see if they had the actual Ambassador magazines there. But Elsbeth Juda, took a model around with her to different textile mills and took many different shoots with her. Another company that was inspiring to me was a French forecasting company that had incredible fabrics for apparel. The women who worked there seemed very kind and passionate and knowledgeable. I am shocked that they allow students to use these facilities. Even if I never find a time to use the Blythe House it was very inspiring for me. Especially to see how old school everything was. How everything was hand painted and illustrated.
It is hard to decide at the Chris Ofili exhibition whether the subject or medium was more shocking, for the medium consisted of Elephant dung and the subject although its surface was quite sexual, exaggerated and even stereotypical, it was in fact much more complex. Some of the questions I would like to explore are, when does expressing identity become representing racism? Why does he want to stereotype his own culture/ethnicity? And, do these works represent a black Male's identity in the 20Th century? At first you have to decide whether this is a celebration of the black community or something else. Some of the stereotypes Ofili is documenting are that society views the black community as being primitive and overly sexual- hence the elephant dung. What Ofili is expressing are not his own views and interpretations about his culture but societies. His work is a caricature of the way people categorize black people, which is racism. And seeing all of these pieces in a room is overwhelming and offensive- and the mentality is so wrong. He made a very primitive looking head out of the elephant feces and stuck teeth into it, which he named "The Doll Head Made Out of Shit." As if black girls play with dolls head made out of shit. He depicts the Holy Virgin in one of the images, who is black (which even in modern day is rare and controversial) and has elephant dung breasts and there are coll aged images surrounding her of other women holding apart their genitals. The way he paints her is how people used to represent black people while slavery and segregation were and are occurring with huge red lips, a wide nose and big white eyes. It is like he is shoving fertility down our throats but in a overly sexual, none maternal way. He then moves on to depict black males in society's view. "Two Doo VooDoo"- In the States in New Orleans there is this myth about voodoo magic in the black culture. Typically in films people go to a black woman's home that has a curtain made out of sea shells and animal skulls lying around and she can do dark magic/ good as well. But in Disney's latest movie, The Princess and The Frog, this film depicts that stereotype of black religion and mystery and dark magic. Another title that depicted a black male was "Pimpin' ain't easy," the man had a huge penis in it. When slavery ended in the States but segregation continued, whites would frequently lynch blacks and sometimes afterward they would castrate them. These are stereotypes yes, that black men have huge penises, but maybe these pieces are depicting fears as well. This is more than just categorizing, it is showing how maybe white people don't understand, and rather than trying to understand they simply just stereotype. It is more than stereotyping though- it is racism. The titles remind me of those old radio stations hosted by suave black men. These pieces do not represent any form of a black male in the 20th century, but it is funny because they do remind me of characters from films. Like in the film, "Norbert" there are two pimps who have on the crazy clothing. And like I said the old radio stations depicted in films. I watched an interview with Chris Ofili and he stated that he studied American gangster rap, and films as well that depicted pimps and black prostitution. The exhibition then moves on to show more fears but this time from a black woman's perspective. The other paintings, the men and women in them usually had Afros, but in this piece "Foxy Roxy" has straight blonde hair and blue eyes, like she is trying to look more white and less black. And in the piece "No Woman, No Cry," he has an image of Stephen Lawrence in his mother's tears. He was brutally killed. It then takes a turn which I didn't expect. The next rooms really goes deeper into this idea/fear and shows the torture and daily fear of being black. Of being chased by dogs and killed because of the color of your skin. There is no more elephant dung on these images, for they are no longer representing someone else's mindset, but the artist's mind set. In this interview he gives, he talks about "black life" in the 70s and 80s. He starts out talking about Snoop Dog and the "disgusting" things he rapped about but how it was cool and people wanted to be apart of it, "Pimpin' Ain't Easy," but then starts discussing "No Woman, No Cry." Even the colors are drastically different. They are no longer bright and fun but dark.
"Somehow through the exploration of race we can get to a new place a new form of understanding. Somehow we can maybe even eploit the misunderstandings."
