The following is a reflection written by Connie Gong ’25 earlier this summer. I’m spending a few weeks at home before my internship begins this summer. I’ve wanted to teach art classes at my old studio since I was in high school, and I felt like now was the perfect opportunity to do so. Initially Read more about Summer Art Experience: Teaching At An Art Studio – Connie Gong ’25[…]
2021 Report on the State of Living in Suburbia. That’s what I named my final project in VIS 213: Digital Photography. During a semester when the Princeton University Art Museum was closed and we couldn’t travel outside of Princeton to visit other museums or galleries, viewing and discussing my classmates’ photographs during our Wednesday Zoom Read more about 2021 Report on the State of Living in Suburbia by Lois Wu[…]
My first time entering a museum as the COVID-19 pandemic begins to pull back, opening up greater opportunities for experiencing normal life, was an interesting one. I returned home to Los Angeles, California and visited the Getty Villa Museum in the hills of the Pacific Palisades. The Getty Villa is a full-scale recreation and replica of a Roman country house populated with artifacts that have been excavated and collected from Italy such as statues and pottery. It is truly a marvelous experience to be there because visitors feel as if they have stepped from their world into one of the past.
My interest in analog photography, and a class I took last semester on German Media Theory segued into a desire to learn more about cultural tools to see, record, and document. Cyanotypes gave me a new lens through which to look at my immediate environment — to focus on color, contour, shape, and opacity and critically think about how I see and define shapes.
“In 2013 I was fortunate enough to visit the National Gallery of Art to view a special exhibition — “Diaghalev and the Ballet Russes: When Art Danced With Music.” It showcased the history, theatricality, and unparalleled artwork of the Ballet Russes, a Russian ballet company that performed in the mid 20th century, breaking all traditions of ballet and dance.” Anika Yardi ’21 reflects on her experience, “The more I went through the exhibition, the more I was able to draw parallels between my dance practice and the art I saw before me. I saw similarities between the colorful costumes, the mythological and ancient stories being played out on a stage, and even the sense of camaraderie that can only come from putting on a production…. This experience made me reconsider my notion of what constituted art, and ever since then I have viewed both the dances that I perform and the art that I love in a more golden light.”
“As I passed the renowned glass Pyramid and the crowds of tourists, I wondered if the experience of actually seeing world-famous works of art would live up to the anticipation. Nevertheless, the knowledge of standing in a labyrinth of art— the city’s largest museum, each work crafted from an artist’s own hands and a reflection of their heart and their respective places in society, was enough to remind me that there’s always something to learn for the willing viewer.”
Usually when going to an art museum, I expect to mill around the galleries looking at various paintings or wander down a few statue-filled corridors. However, my visit to Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibition in Seattle completely turned my idea of being immersed in art on its head. The long-term exhibition first opened at Seattle Read more about Color on a Cloudy Day – A Visit to Seattle’s Chihuly Garden and Glass Exhibition – Sienna Byrne ’23[…]