Last Friday, for our English 2100 class, we visited the Whitney Museum. Professor Goodale, our English teacher, wanted us to pick a piece of art at the Whitney and make a critical analysis piece of it. We ascended the large elevator and arrived at the roof, taking a group picture as evidence of our visit. We dispersed to look at the various pieces of art at different levels of the museum and when I reached the 5th floor I came across a bright-yellow room with bright-yellow blacks inscribed with black lettering. On the plaques were various past and present insurrectionist and rebel groups. The Irish Republican Army was placed next to the Kurdish Peshmerga which was above the FARC. It also included lesser known militant groups such as the Maluku Sovereignty Front and the Rashaida Free Lions. It was interesting seeing the various different extremist, separatist, and revolutionary groups from the cold war to the present lumped together in a single room. I did not know the exact purpose of the room at first, believing this was merely for historical purposes. However the more I thought about it, the more I realized the creator of the room was attempting to connect the various armed groups together in a way. I found it odd that the creator would attempt to connect terrorist groups in the middle east with separatist movements in South America, groups of which are divided by whole continents. Yet it did make sense in a way, both groups using weapons and violence to achieve an ultimate goal even though the ends are wildly different. Whether or not the creator seems to be fully agreeing to a connection with these movements; or attempting to spin us a question, it gives us a little insight in the armed conflict ever present in the world today.
You are definitely gonna see this picture a lot.