I am very happy we read both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso sea. I believe it’s very essential to read both novels in order to actually see what is actually there and understand every character better to actually knowing the true intentions Of Rochester. Prior to reading Wide Sargasso Sea I made up my mind about Jane and Rochester finally living together in a way I was content and happy Jane finally felt empowered in a way due to Rochester’s disabilities at the end. But once reading Wide Sargasso Sea it is unveiled who Rochester was and in a way, it got me more upset about Jane’s decision. I was actually pleased that Bertha/Antoinette relieved herself from the impressment Rochester had put her in even though it was upsetting she had to kill herself for it.  I was even more happy that he ended up being disabled because of her actions, in a way prior to Jane coming back to him, he got a taste of what Bertha’s life was once he married her. She had a disabled life but once Jane returned to rescue him, he was disabled no more and made Jane the disabled one without her even knowing.

Cristian M. Solano

I loved reading this book, I thought it gave me a much better understanding of Jane Eyre. Even when it did not clear up confusion necessarily it still added layers to the story line which excited me and motivated me to read Sargasso Sea in order to draw upon more comparisons.  I loved reading the book for these connections, so I definitely enjoyed the comparative essays.

I thought it was really interesting comparing Antoinette(Bertha) with Jane because I already compared Jane with Bertha before this book, especially during the wedding vial passage. It seems that the women who involved with Rochester are doomed. Though when just reading Jane Eyre it doesn’t seem this way and the two women don’t seem to share similar situations, but upon further analysis they do. It seems that Jane and Rochester are lovers that are meant to be together, and even if he does feel comfortable to be with her because of her race, he does not marry her in the beginning because of status. With both women he does not choose them off of emotional connection or their person, but instead what value they will bring to his life. He is a woman oppressor.

Realizing this about him I was initially joyed by the irony of him having to be supported by women, finally dependent. But then I realized he was dependent all along! He is like the authoritarian incapable manager using his employees for capital and exploiting them even thought they are more capable then he is. Even as a blind cripple he is able to strip away the independence- and financial means to be independent again – from Jane that she struggled throughout the entire novel to acquire.

The piece that stood out most to me was “Ladybug” by Joan Mitchell painted in 1957. This painting was a fairly large one with colors splattered all over. It may have looked like a mess to some but this piece told a story to me. This piece is called the ladybug but does not resemble the insect at all. If you look closely at this painting it looks like small airplanes. Some on fire, crashing, taking off, landing. It seems like its explaining how life could’ve been during war for a woman, having to stay home and watch the sky look like “ladybugs” with all the aircrafts leaving and coming, attacking and defending. This painting gives a sense of sadness and helplessness. From it you can tell what it must have been like during a war. Wars aren’t pretty yet this painting depicting all the sadness from a war gives you sense of awe. The colors are a mixture of bright and dark and this painting doesn’t scream excitement or sadness. Instead it scream despair and depression. It is an amazing piece that can be translated into many different stories for everyone who views it.

This piece by Lee Bontecou was created in the mid-1900s truly fascinated me. It had me thinking of the past present and even the future. Looking at this piece, I started to reflect back on the country we live in. They say the President speaks behalf of the people but we did not pick Trump. So how can he speak behalf of us? This art makes me think of Trump as the black hole and our country as the structure going inside the black hole. The country has no idea what will happen to it because it is in the hands of people who are let us just say unpredictable.

The art also seemed like a tornado to me or something a similar kind. I felt like I was flying above and looking right down at it, looking at the eye and then how it becomes bigger and bigger as it comes towards me.

I will not lie when we looked at Picasso’s paintings in class; I had no clue what I was looking at. To be honest to me it was not even art but I understood what it was because we talked about it as a whole class. I enjoyed Bontecou’s art; perhaps I did not understand the point view of Bontecou’s. But I did enjoy how it made me think, unlike Picasso’s painting where I could not even think of much to figure it out. It was a very humbling experiencing because I knew before that art is something very powerful but I forgot how it feels when it touches your soul.

On Thursday, May 11 th, I visited the “MoMA”. This was my first time heading to this museum. When I got inside, there were plenty of customer service attendants to help. Once I was guided along with taking a map, I started my exploration. But after visiting all the floors, I decided to stay on the 3rd floor, “MAKING WOMEN ARTIST AND POSTWAR ABSTRACTION SPACE ” because I was very impressed by women artworks. While I was walking in the room, I saw one art that really caught my eyes. The “Untitled” was Lee Bontecou’s steel and canvas sculptures which was created in 1961. Lee Bontecou was American, born 1931.

I choose this art because for me it one of the most beautiful art in the room. Almost everybody in the room was interested to it. People were taking pictures and videos. This gives me a lot of imagination about this art. I then asked myself what is so special about it? why most people are interested to it? The art wort has blacks holes. The black holes are huge, intangible. There is loads of layers that encircling the insight of the black holes. Next to the artwork there is an inscription to help people know the information about the artwork. Lee Bontecou description also helps me to see and imagine the real meaning of the artwork. She wrote “My concern is to build things that express our relation to this country – to other countries – to this world – to other worlds to glimpse some of the fear, hope, ugliness, beauty and mystery that exists in us all and which hangs over all the young people today”.

Overall, it was a fresh, exciting and knowledgeable experience for me. I went in with a different way to look at art and analyze it, whereas I would usually go to admire the beauty of the art.

Aminata Toure

After visiting The MOMA the painting that strucked me the most was Unfinished Conversations. Unfinished Conversations unites works by more than twelve artists, published nearly a decade and was recently obtained by The Museum of Modern Art. The specialists that make up this intergenerational determination address current tension and distress the world over and offer basic reflections on the present minute.

Unfinished Conversations incorporates works from John Akomfrah, Jonathas de Andrade, Anna Boghiguian, Andrea Bowers, Paul Chan, Simon Denny, Samuel Fosso, Iman Issa, Kim Beom, Erik van Lieshout, Cameron Rowland, Wolfgang Tillmans, Adrián Villar Rojas, Kara Walker, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

The title of this presentation is inspired by John Akomfrah’s three-channel video establishment The Unfinished Conversation, which is incorporated here and annals the life and work of the Jamaican-conceived British social scholar Stuart Hall. The presentation considers the entwining topics of social challenge, the impact of history on the arrangement of personality, and how workmanship compares truth and fiction. Together, these artists think back to conventions both inside and past the visual expressions to envision conceivable outcomes for an unverifiable future.

When I saw the artwork, I noticed that the room lighting was quite dim but the art piece was well lit up for the public to see. The lighting emphasizes the central figure in the middle of the artwork, mainly because he is the only figure that is wearing a bright color. The light is able to shine and bring out the bright color of the main figure. Due to the size of the artwork, spanning from the entire wall, it was able to attract many viewers. (This was when I realized that flash photography was not allowed; mental note for future visits.) Other than the people who were sitting on the benches near the artwork, I was pleasantly surprised to see many non-Asian viewers. When I went to visit the artwork, the majority of the viewers were non-Asians; I would have assumed that an Asian exhibit would attract more Asians rather than other ethnicities. I appreciated the general interest of Asian, specifically Chinese, art among non-Asians.

As mentioned before, the artist emphasizes the central figure with the bright red clothing. This figure is the only subject that is wearing bright red clothing; everyone else in the painting is wearing dark blue and small hints of red; the placement of the figure in red (in the mathematical center of the artwork) helps the viewer understand who the most important subject is. Many figures in the artwork are also facing towards and pointing to the figure in the middle. The number three is a reoccurring theme in this artwork, which further emphasizes the figure in red. Along with the main figure in the middle, the viewer is able to see two other figures on right and left of the main figure. The viewer is also able to point out the three flowerpots below the feet of the three figures, along with, three large sun like objects above their heads; with the middle figure having the largest sun like image.

Danny Lee

Agrarian Leader Zapata created in 1931 was painted by a Mexican painter Diego Rivera. This painting shows the slain revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata during 1879 to 1919 and the campesinos and the farm working followed him.

When I visited the MOMA, few paint attract me but  Agrarian Leader Zapata attracted me the most. At first I look at this paint I thought their was a war going on. However, in-depth knowledge I find out Rivera portrayed Zapata as a leader of the peasant movement leader, on the paint Rivera draw  the bodies of ranchers lay on his feet. I think Rivera is a creative and legendary man, according to his biographer, Mariano Rivera’s mouth in his later years, he use his own past experiences I think  which have been his own legend. In this mural, I think he wanted to represent Zapata as a sympathy toiling masses of the revolutionary leader. As a good rider, Zapata often claim to be “cowboy”, dressed in fine clothes, tight riding pants silvery bright decoration. But in this paint Zapata dressed very simplicity it positioning does not fully comply with Zapata idea of “cowboy.” For me the way Zapata dress it is a little unexpected of what I think during this painting. It only use two color to shows the clothes of the people on the painting: white Zapata and his farm working, and brown the bodies of ranchers. Zapata he is a Mexican bourgeois revolutionary leader, but during this picture his simplicity white clothe let me feel ironic I think it is belong to the civilians.

Walking down the aisles of the Museum of Modern Arts (MoMA), and looking for a piece made by an artist outside America/Europe origin, was not a simple task as Ilya thought it would be. Neither Michelle, the security guard, on the fourth floor, nor did the information center on the fifth floor, could tell Ilya where can he find a piece created by a non-European/American artist. Minutes turned to hours and Ilya was lost, such a famous museum, yet there is not even one non-European/American, “NONSENSE!” It seems like Dr. Hussey sent us here on purpose to show that even today, in 2017, the outsiders(non-American/non-European artists) do not get a spot-light in the mainstream. However, Ilya didn’t give up and kept walking around in circles until he entered gallery number 11 on the fifth floor. “Urika! I found it,” he said. Although there was the famous portrait of, “Fulang-Chang and I” by Frida Kahlo, Ilya’s attention was drawn by another piece, called “Ethnography” by David Alfaro Siqueiros who was a Mexican painter. The drawing was drawn in 1939 and was given as a gift by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.

In “Ethnography” the sadness of the colors and wintry background give a sense of melancholy. Siqueiros chooses to put a mysterious mask on a dark skinned person, the person is wearing traditional white clothes. The clothes have white texture with stripes on them, which seems to be clothes of significant importance, church clothes, or clothes of a lord, yet the cltohes are dirty. Moreover, the person on the painting is wearing a mask, and its sad facial expression may represent the dissatisfaction of the person, a slave from the previous 18th-19th century.The person is also wearing a sombrero, a symbol of the Mexican nation. since the piece’s name is “Ethnography”  the assumption is that this is how the western world see the indigenous, the other, the hipster. They see them as sad people, a person without personality, just a mask, with no facial expression, a slave. Although the person is wearing festive clothes, the mask’s facial expression is revealing that it is not at all a celebration, but horor. In addition, the character is  playing with its hands, like he is anxious or nervous. The background of the picture is dark and rainy. The clouds at times look as pillars of smoke, smoke from a bloody war, smoke of a fire that nothing is left but the person in the picture in his white festive clothes filled with soot.

– Ilya Ratner

The title of the artwork that caught my eye during my visit to the MoMA was entitled “Accumulation of Nets (No. 7)” and it was created in 1962 by Yayoi Kusama who is a Japanese artist. This piece is a part of MoMA’s exhibit entitled “Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction” which focuses on the works of woman artists from the end of WWII to the beginning of the feminist movement. This particular piece caught my eye because the composition of it seemed so intriguing to me. Even though the piece is composed of several prints, it appears to have varying textures when you look at it from afar. When I looked up how Kusama created this piece, I actually found out that she first would make a painting and the photograph it, and then cut up the black and white prints and put them into a grid layout. I think this style of painting and photography is pretty unique and helps create a new medium for the viewers to see the artwork. The work is very multidimensional and I like how it is in the monochrome color scheme because it really brings each of the differing patterns to light. Every single square in this artwork has its own unique pattern and to me it resembles a quilt of some sort. Each of these individual pieces which are a part of this artwork have their own distinctive story. By combining all of these differing patterns together, Kusama was able to create a collection of these individual stories.