Tang Museum

Posted by Jeff Bruneau

For our museum trip, we went to the Tang Museum at Skidmore College. I was surprised to see that the gallery was so wide open which I thought was funny because it seemed like they had more employees working there than pieces of art. The roller coaster bed was definitely the coolest piece of artwork they had there. I think that made quite the impression on everyone who visited it, including students from other groups I had talked to. The pictures they had in the upstairs gallery I didn’t really understand but their use of colors really left me with quite the psychedelic impression. The color scheme and how the colors were organized made me feel like I was on an acid trip. Above is one of the pictures I was able to sneak in. I wanted to get a picture but those people trailed our group…I did not like them!

Graffiti

Posted by Jeff Bruneau

I really enjoyed the video we watched about graffiti. Whenever I’m in the car and I pass by some graffiti on the highway I’m always wondering about when that object was drawn or that phrase was written. I like to think about its origins and the reason why it was up there. The video offered that glimpse/behind the scenes perspective which was pretty cool. For some of these artists, I like how they just draw what comes to them and even come back to write on the same train year after year. It gives their art a lot more meaning and I can appreciate that.

Sports Cards Collection

Posted By Jeff Bruneau

When we talked about collecting things in class I could not help but think about how I was really into collecting baseball, basketball, and football cards. I really tried to keep them in as best condition as possible. I kept them in binders with those plastic sleeves. I liked collecting baseball cards the best and I liked to trade them with my brother and my friends. I was always on top of the value of each card each year and I was constantly searching for that high value card. The combination of the value of each card, the care for them, and how they are organized is definitely art. Unfortunately, I think collecting sports cards and trading is dying out. That’s just the impression that I get.

Tang Museum

Posted by: Eric Schaible

As my roommates have already blogged, on Friday, we all went to the Tang Museum at Skidmore College. I would just like to point out a piece in Casey's blog that turned me off from the exhibit- the fact that the workers were so uptight the whole time that we were there. The picture above (and also posted by my roommates) shows my favorite piece at the gallery, yet we didn't even have time to completely enjoy it and try to analyze it. The fact that the workers were so overbearing did not help my desire to actually be at the gallery at the first place. I hope that something is done so that in the future, they will be more open to new guests and willing to help out people who are new to the art world.

Tang Museum (Skidmore College)

Posted By: Casey LaChapelle

Los Carpinteros

Since my roommates all had different schedules it was hard for us to figure out where to go for our museum project. We finally decided on taking a trip up to Skidmore in Saratoga. It was close, convenient and we were all able to attend.

The first thing that I noticed when I walked in was how open the museum was. There was a lot of exhibit space that wasn't used. Looking into one of the rooms before we headed upstairs was a roller coaster looking bed, before we moved on I thought that was going to be the most interesting piece in the place.

As we went upstairs, I couldn't help but feel like we were being watched and followed...and in fact we were, it made us feel really uncomfortable. As we were looking at the artwork, the guy that was working there was standing behind us, it made us feel really rushed and didn't allow for a very good experience. We quickly drifted through the upstairs portion and went back downstairs to get a closer look of the bed, once again a different worker was following us around. We decided to head out as we weren't even enjoying ourselves with these people on our backs the whole time.

While I was at the museum, the roller coaster looking bed was definitely the highlight. The picture above doesn't do it any justice, this thing was huge and looked very contemporary. The whole aspect of this exhibit was that the artist took everyday objects and turned them into fantastical objects.

Overall I would grade my art museum experience a C. Some of the stuff looked interesting, but it was as if we weren't allowed to look at our own pace and it became annoying.

Posted by John Pedlow

A few classes ago this image was brought up and it really caught my eye. Though I have seen on numerous occasions the image of the marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima and I watched on T.V as the firefighters raised the flag after 9/11 I never put the two together. However when looking at them side by side they seem incredibly similar. These were both historic events in America history and the fact that they each have a very similar picture is quite interesting. I am glad this image was brought up in class because otherwise I would never have put the two together and seen how eerily similar they are.

Dave Hickey Podcast

Posted by John Pedlow

During this podcast Dave Hickey touched on a couple of points that intrigued me. First that some people are getting into the art business for the wrong reasons such as money and secondly that art dealers are creating false values for art. To me if you enter the art world you should be doing it because you love art, the money should just be something that you get should your work be good enough. It is like sports to me, most athletes play sports because it is something that they love to do. The money that professionals get comes along because they happen to be the best in their business, but it is not the reason they start playing sports. The same should be true for artists, be an artist because you love art. The second point about art dealers really bothers me because it does not seem that they care about art what so ever. They are just in the business to get rich and end up driving up the prices of art for their benefit and not because the art is actually worth it. This is wrong and makes it so some people can not afford art that they like and museums, as was described in Mona Lisa's Curse, are unable to purchase art because of the astronomical prices. To me this is completely wrong and seems slimy.