Week 7

This week we looked at some work by Braisse who was a Hungarian photographer working in France. He is one of my favorite photographers because of his amazing photos of Paris. Looking at his photos of the Folies-Bergere and scenes from cafes and subways it's impossible not to know that they are taken in Paris. His photos have so much personality and character that make it easy to identify the location. In his pictures from Paris he takes on the role of a true Parisian and captures seemingly random moments. Nothing is posed, it's all real. His night shots are especially haunting because there is something alive about them. The viewer can almost feel the fog coming out of them. As soon as I started going through his photos I felt like I was back in Paris. He's just able to capture so much of that Paris-feeling that it amazes me. I really like his photo "Lovers in a Bistro" because of the way the two lovers are looking at each other. Paris is the "City of Romance" and when I visited Paris over the summer I saw so many couples that were in that same trance.

Week 6

This week we began looking at photography and the work of Cindy Sherman and Henri Cartier-Bresson. When I first saw that we were spending an entire section on photographs I didn't really understand why. After, turning on the TV realized how important photography is to visual culture. Flipping through magazines it's hard not to notice that 95% of the magazine is photographs. Almost all advertisements today contain photographs. We document our lives and important moments with pictures. If I look through my mom's photo albums I can see pictures of myself when I was first born and pictures of my little sister's first haircut. It's amazing to think all I have to do to relive memories from 15 years ago is open that album.

I was watching a French movie yesterday and at one point in the movie the main character said that when you take photographs you detach yourself from the situation. She complained that instead of enjoying a gondola ride with her boyfriend, he took pictures of her smiling the whole time. That made me ask myself, do photographs always capture real memories? My mom has a picture of me that she took before I went to a school dance and in the picture I'm smiling. I remember that when she took it I was actually really upset but I smiled for the picture. Is that a false memory? Now, I remember that I was really upset when the picture was taken but in 20 years I won't.

Week 5

Today, I saw a preview for a movie coming out called The Other Boleyn Girl. It's supposed to be about Anne and Mary Boleyn and their relationships with Henry VIII. One thing that really stuck out to me from the preview is the fact that Henry VIII is being played by the hunky Eric Bana. I have seen pictures of Henry VIII and I'm pretty sure he was a fat guy with red hair and pale skin. Eric Bana is extremely fit with dark hair and an olive complexion. This really took me back to our discussion about the gaze. In reading more about the movie I learned that Henry falls for both Mary and Anne Boleyn. He falls for Mary first but loses interest in her when she gets pregnant and loses her looks. Scarlett Johansson plays Mary Boleyn and Natalie Portman plays Anne Boleyn. In watching the preview I noticed that despite the fact that all of the characters are attractive, Portman and Johannson are the main receivers the gaze. Their goal in the movie is to catch the eye of the king but their goal on the screen is to catch the eye of the viewer. They're depicted as flawless and the camera seems to stare at them. Eric Bana is also very attractive but somehow his looks seem to have less importance. When he is being filmed the camera seems to move around much more as if it's responding to his personality. This reminded me of something I wrote in my notebook from class, "Women are and men do." It's obvious that all three of the actors were chosen for their roles with much thought given to their looks but there is much more stress given to the women's appearance than Bana's.

Week 4

This week we looked at some art by Michael Ray Charles who I find really interesting. He appropriates racist images to raise issues regarding race and we studied him in History of American Art too. He uses images like that of the mammy character and blows them up so that they are in the viewers face. He makes the figures look extremely gruesome and haunting which is one of the reasons his work has raised so much controversy. In one of his newest pieces "The Three Graces," he has three abstract sculptures standing together and they look like three members of the KKK.

We also talked about Marcel Duchamp who is one of my favorite artist. He was part of the Dada movement and created a lot of found art. One of his most famous pieces is "Fountain" and it is literally a toilet signed with R. Mutt 1917. There are certain pieces of art and certain art movements that have really raised the question, "what is art?" and I think "Fountain" is one of those pieces. I think the ability to create art that causes so much controversy is amazing.

Week 3

This week we talked a lot about modernism and what makes things modern. I think it's fancinating that people are beginning to find that modernism really emerged during Romanticism, when artists begin to look to the present for inspiration rather than to the past. We also looked at the art movement Dada, which is one of my favorite styles of art. I think Duchamp's Fountain is so interesting because nothing else like it had been done before.

We also looked at some Calvin Klien ads from the 90's. Normally I would think nothing of these ads but after listening to the class discuss them I was able to see them differently. People mentioned that they are making fun of the working class which I never would have noticed. After hearing this I went through some of my fashion magazines to see if I could find similar "trashy chic" ads. I found a couple but not too many.