Category: Academic Blog

For the third blog post, I went to a workshop called “Small Talk: It’s a Big Deal!”. In this workshop, we learn how to interact with people for the first time. The workshop is about interacting for the first time, but somehow by coincidence, the people around me were four other people from the Freshmen Seminar. Even though the people there are the people I know, I got to learn new facts about them after this workshop.

In this workshop, we receive tips on how to interact with people for the first time. The presenter shows an example by going around the room and shaking hands with everyone in the room, looking directly in the eye when giving the handshake, a smile naturally when looking directly to the eye, and introduce self when smile naturally. We have also learned about the different kinds of sense of humor, such as how to separate plain sense of humor from potentially offensive sense of humor, but always remember your sense of humor. Before meeting for the first time, practice different ways of starting a conversation and make an extra effort to remember people’s name (we did an activity in which where write down people name if we share a common trait as them), and beware of open and closed body languages. When having a communication, demonstrate that you are listening by restating their comments in another way, ask a person’s name if you’ve forgotten, and show curiosity and sincere interest in finding out about others.

Overall I believe this workshop is very helpful to use not just in conversations, but also in interviews when searching for a job in the future.

 

        On Monday, October 9th, my friend and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is the largest museum in the U.S and it’s the second most visited museum in the world. It was my second time to visit the Met because it is gigantic, I don’t think one is able to view all millions of works for just one time visit. As you enter the museum, you place yourself into an ancient world.
There was a long line alongside the street waiting for the museum to open, and visitors are from all over the world. Luckily, we arrived at there early, so within few minutes, we got into the museum immediately. The first section we saw is the European paintings, there are thousands of paintings hang on the wall that make you dazzled. Although most of them are not that famous, you can still see that European life in ancient time is depicted through these paintings vividly. To appreciate an art is not to see its popularity, but to understand and learn the meanings and purposes of this particular piece. The second section we saw is the Asian Art department, which holds more than 35000 pieces, every Asian civilization is represented in the Met’s Asian department, and the pieces on display include every type of decorative art, from painting and printmaking to sculpture and metalworking. I was quite aggressive when I saw so many Chinese cultural relics, including Chinese calligraphy and painting, handcraft, sculpture… are displayed in America. I thought they stole them from China! But after a while, I realized that there is no stealing when we talk about a museum, museum carrier of art which bears the responsibility of protecting the arts, introducing the history, and spreading the cultures.
I highly recommend you to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is really comprehensive and it will be an amazing and educating place to go if you are in NY.

 

During the weekend, I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art located in Upper East side of NYC. The MET is one of the world’s largest and finest art museums. Its collection includes more than two million works of art spanning five thousand years of world culture, from prehistory to the present. There is a particular piece of art attracted me. A pottery from Tang Dynasty of ancient China.

“SHE”, a “Figure of a Seated Court Lady”, was made during the 8 century in China, however, due to the large amount of pottery arts were produced during that period of time, the artist who made this classic piece of art is unknown. It’s a very charming pottery figure at the Imperial Court of the Tang Dynasty, of a young lady, meant to be buried with the deceased to keep him or her company, and to entertain them. Things like this were made actually in fairly large quantity, however, at the same time they were finished individually. Each one of them may have an individual character. This tells us about a particular period of time, the so-called Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty when China had constant and frequent contact with the rest of the world. And she is sitting on a drum-shaped stool, imported from South Asia, over the seas. The little puppy that she has is very likely imported from Europe. China was a very cosmopolitan culture, an age when a woman sat on the throne and ruled this vast empire. It was also a time of fashion. The hairdos that she had is one of the thirty-some hairdos of the time. At that time, people had a different concept of beauty. Particularly during that period of time, being skinny was considered poorly fed, it represents lack of money of the family, so having a full body was a representation of wealthy or royal at that period of time. She has a very round full face and she has a full figure. She’s in a private moment, probably was holding a mirror, trying to put on some more makeup. Her little puppy is playing with her slipper. You can tell that she’s very conscious of her beauty. It really shows the real life, you can feel there’s the life force moving around.

This classic pottery of the Tang Dynasty, “SHE”  is a significant cultural heritage as an evidence that shows us the inspiration, combinations with different cultures, the exchanges between the ancient Chinese culture and the other cultures. It’s this exchange, not just materials, but also the different ideas, the different concepts. It also tells us about human nature, about this constant and eternal pursuit of beauty. The luster may go away as time goes by, but this pursuit will never fade.

  

The Met experience is fantastic because of the works of arts and cultural difference of different country surprise me every step I take. If the were one word that can describe my tension during the day, it would be a “child.” Everything in the museum seems interesting, and I wanted to visit every exhibit. Every time I walk into a new area, I would drag the person with me and tell them to look at these. The Asian exhibit reminds me of the ancient drama I used to watch when I was little. The European paintings show a comparison between the period where people drew more religious portrait related to religion and the time where people were more sacred and drew pictures of themselves. The armors and weapons area made me extremely excited because I just finished playing a video game that uses these armors and weapons as references. In the Egyptian sections, I expect that there would be mummies in the coffins, but all the coffins were empty.

This experience will assist me during my first semester in Baruch by making me absorb the information I gain every time I walk towards a new art piece. The experience will help me because I studied in a highly-diverse campus. My high school was also a very diverse environment, but the variety of race is not as much because the high school provides a zone program. In College, it’s no longer consist of a neighborhood; it’s consist of the whole world. International students, Transfer students, and students from different states in the U.S. Therefore I believe using the knowledge I gained while touring around the museum could help me to start a conversation or even understand a topic related to the descriptions I saw on the objects.

                  

On Monday of the October 9, I finally decided to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Although that it was rainy, inside of the building it was much better. The free pass with CUNY ID, actually helped me to move through an admission much faster and not standing for at least twenty minutes of waiting in a long line. Rather than looking at more modern art which is honestly really absurd, I decided to start exploring the works from the 1880s and going to more recent ones. There are plenty of avant-garde exhibitions in this museum that I did not understand and even got confused off. However, some painting took my attention especially “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh, “The Peak Project Hong Kong” by Zaha Hadid, and “Number 1” by Jackson Pollock. Well, most of them I mentioned really famous ones, attracted a majority of the visitors and tourists of different ages; furthermore, after seeing it by myself makes it more clear why it is. Doubtless, my favorite ones were sculpture exhibitions of my musical instruments and painting of Lullaby. I mean it is not an ordinary way of looking at the usual way you might imagine the music instruments, but looking at them from the perspective of rumors,   makes these sound sculptures, unique and special. Moreover, Lullaby an abstract way of looking at the music sheets and sounds produced through the score. To conclude, overall, I enjoyed spending the day looking at exhibitions in MoMA, that I heard and studied of back in high school. Although, I should add that I lacked understanding of modern arts, but would encourage everyone to visit this museum at least ones.

Hi!! Everyone, welcome to my first blog in Baruch college.

My blog is about my experience at museum of modern art as known as MOMA. MOMA is a famous museum in the New York so i am really excited to visit here and enjoy the great artist work. MOMA has a free ticket time at Friday after 4pm. If you have the time, please don’t missing out.

Me and my friend get the free ticket and enter the first floor, there is a huge lobby and we take the elevator to the second, there is a helicopter hang in the midair. It called Bell 47D1 helicopter which it designed and produced in 1945 and has been used for crop dusting.

In the other room, there are differents structures and artist works. On the table, there are many ipad and people can use it to create the 3D paint and the children can play the  puzzles. Many kids like to do the puzzle which it can help them to create their imagination. In addition, we saw a lot of ancient art and tools which it came from different age and different country. I admired the ancients can create those tools without the  advance technique.

When we go to upstairs and see many inconceivable paint. Actually i don’t understand what is the paint meaning, but the annotation is help me a lot, when i looking the artist work, i can image the background of the artist and reflect on it. This paint is weird, a human and a lot of colors, i see the annotation and i get it that is the paint meaning the history .

My most favorite paint is the starry night , it painted by Vincent V an Gogh. This paint shows a highly exaggerated deformation and the starry night. The huge and curly cloud is near the big yellow moon. When i see a while, my mood become depressed . This is why this paint can be most famous paint in the world.

MOMA is a amazing museum, i will visit again!

During the weekend I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my friend John, we chose this museum because of its location, it is near central park. Originally we decide to visit the central park after we are done with our tour in the museum, but we decided to go home because it was getting late after we were done with our tour. The museum is separate to different zones or areas and one of my favorite part of the museum is the Asian Art because I learned a lot about Asian history not only china but different parts such as Japan, India, and etc. And i liked the arms and armor because i see these all cool armors in different time periods, and one of my favorite armor was the one during the Edo period, but i don’t have a picture because of some reason, but overall that armor is the best out of all these different armor because of its style and how it looks from the outside and i can imagine the person using this armor during war time because during the Edo period it was a time when people fight for land and war happens often during this time period.

In one of the exhibits i found this scary looking Indian god sitting there, it looks real and it made me think like the statue was looking at me because of the light, it was dark and the light level was pretty low making it feel like it is piercing through eye and looking at you with his/her sight. And the name of this statue was Seated Four-Armed Vishnu, it was created in the Pandya dynasty during the second half of the 8th century to the early 9th century. This tour that I had was a great experience that I have enjoyed with my new friend John, and it was an interesting journey because the last time i have been to this museum was with my fellow classmates during my middle school year and now when i visit it again it has a different feeling compared to the last time i visited.

   

I went to The Museum at FIT(Fashion Institute of Technology) last Friday.The Museum at FIT is best known for its innovative and award winning special exhibitions.It is really a cool place.The designer use the ideas of aviary,physical forces,and The science of attraction to design the fashion collections.For example,Feathers are the defining features of birds,affording them an alluring sense of mystery and beauty.Their expressive and kinetic qualities have captured the human imagination for millennia.Fashion designers have exploited these qualities to create garments.Maria Mitchell,the first female astronomer in the US. said that science is”Discoveries about the universe fascinate humankind.They take hold in our culture,where they are celebrated ,revered,and even feared.And they find expression not only in textbooks ,but in our art and,of course,our clothing and textiles.”

       Some collections are gorgeous and with special meaning of them.I am interested in fashion,that is a good way to check out the styling and history.The museum is free and incredible exhibits.Amazing work from some of the worlds most famous designers.It is a small place but it spend me 40 minutes to read the introduction and really into fashion.And I learned that the designers idea from the natural,history even the science.That makes me give up the dream of a fashion designer because it is so complex.And I really want to have that beautiful dress.

Since all student go to museums for free, I could not miss this great opportunity. During my visits to various museums I have seen many different exhibitions, some of which were shocking, while others were definitely pleasant to my taste. And this time I’ve decided to visit Whitney Museum, where I’ve been a few times before. The most memorable exhibition I have seen was the placement of red cubes on the balcony. And the reason why I like it so much is that each next cube becomes more and more transparent. Plus, these cubes really stand out on the pictures. The new exhibition of beach and straw fences that they have displayed, reminded me of my home country. I have used to go to vacations, where beaches would have very similar structure. There my nostalgia devoured me completely. What was also fun to see is that they had a pool table right near the beach. What an interesting decision!

What I liked there is that on the upper floors they have vast array of different pictures. And I found some of my favorite painters like J. Pollock and E. Hopper. I was wandering around and found so many great artists that inspired me and in some cases made me change my ideas on art.

Even though Whitney museum does have a variety of pleasant and light presentations, it is also very scary and alarming place. Bitten and bloody parts of human body are displayed near the main staircase, empty dark rooms with disturbing content, and the whole atmosphere seems very heavy even though the space is light and spacious.

Despite this, I really enjoyed my experience at Whitney museum and will definitely visit it again in the future.