Collections #2

I have become increasingly interested in the idea of Art Therapy. I am taking an Art Therapy class this semester and it seems to be crossing over into all aspects of my life.
This week in class, among the slush and snow that has been taking over much of the city streets, we sat in our seventh floor classroom and composed drawings. The drawings were to be a response to how we felt after we had discussed our moods with the group in class. After reflecting with my group, and declaring that I had had a wonderful day, I tried to make a response mirroring my feelings. I chose the colors grey, black, and red to work with. Then because I felt as if these colors were a little too cynical, I chose a teal. The teal, in all its swimming pool vivaciousness ended up being the most off putting part of my entire response piece.
I am most comfortable with the colors grey and black. It is becoming clear that Art Therapy is much less about others analysis of your art, and much more about how you feel before, while, and after you are creating it. It becomes about your point of view.
This feeling of exploration within art is not an unfamiliar one, but seemed to reach a high point as I walked through the Tino Sehgal piece at The Guggenheim, last week. The exhibition took on a life of its own, as it guided you through an individual journey. The exhibition consisted of people or as they were referred to "tanslators" of Toni Seghal's vision. There was no artwork placed on the walls of the Guggenheim and these translators were the living, and breathing exhibition. As we entered the first spiral, we were approached by a child, who we soon realized was part of the art piece, and as they guided us up the museum, they began to ask question about progress. As soon as they felt we had answered their questions sufficiently, the next translator would swiftly intercept us, asking us more questions and provoking us further. It became clear that as we made our own progress up the spirals, the translators became older, and thus the theme of life cycle was realized.
We became the exhibition itself, and in a fleeting moment we recreated what the exhibitions expectations and boundaries had been before we arrived. The exhibition loosely reflects the idea of the life cycle, but just like my grey and black charcoal drawing suited me better, the idea of life is only a suggestion as you walk up Frank Lloyd Wrights architectural spirals.
This idea of perception and therapy is reflected in much of society. Yesterday, my roommate's mirror, which was hung haphazardly on the wall fell. The news struck me and I immediately wondered who would be punished with the seven years bad luck. However, Monica, my roommate cleaned up the broken glass and kept the particularly fractured pieces for an art project. The pieces of broken mirror presented her with a fresh idea, like Sehgal's exhibition presents us with a new interpretation every time we walk through it, in essence, creating it anew. The same happens in my Art Therapy class, as we discuss different methods of therapy. Our perceptions of creation change. As we draw, we are no longer pressed to draw literal representations of figures, rather, shapes take their place. Creation is allowed to become more simplistic because we are no longer worried about form and content. We are slowly breaking down the barriers of what we knew, and replacing them with what we have learned. Our modes of expression are different. In this way, collections are also pieced together as barriers are broken down, creating more room to play with concept and creation within a collection.

Elevator Debacle Brings Community Together

New York- Ultimately fostering a sense of community among those students affected, an elevator in the 20th street dorms with a history of problems recently caused several students to be trapped inside.
Many are protective of the community being fostered at 20th street, so much so that when asked to comment on the elevator problem, Ashley, a resident adviser in the building declined to comment because the problem to her is minute and inconsequential among the many positive activities being encouraged among the students. However, according to the students, it seems that the elevator, with its quirks and troubles may have united the community over minor inconveniences.
Talking with Hayley Theisen, an office assistant at the residence hall, as well as one of the students stuck in the elevator, it became clear that bitterness about being jammed for an hour in a metal box is about the farthest emotion she feels. Theisen explained that several staff and students stood on the other side of the elevator to keep her company for nearly an hour while the problem was being fixed. She said, “It was sweet in an unfortunate kind of way."
When asked if she was traumatized by the event, Theisen was honest in saying that, “I did not take the elevator for about 4 weeks, but I don’t have nightmares!” Theisen’s only musing about better procedure materialized when asked if she was debriefed after the event, “I was told nothing,” she said, “I know the maintenance crew and I knew they wouldn’t let me die, but it may have been different if I didn’t work here.” Theisen noted that, the building does a good job of keeping the students informed and aware of fire precautions and risks, but the elevator seems to be an issue much more shrouded in mystery.
The maintenance crew, though generally forthcoming, is not allowed to speak about the technical issues in the elevator. Upon calling the company ThyssenKrupp, The elevator troubles began to become a bit clearer while talking with a supervisor of the Manhattan branch, Dan, who withheld his last name, he read through the call sheet information saying, "I can’t tell you a lot, but from what I have here, it looks like all the incidents are happening at night, which means something.”
Dan suggested, that this problem could either be triggered by a change in power in the building or, a more likely theory that the doors are being held open too often, causing the sensor mechanism to weaken. Dan’s final prognosis of the elevator debacle came down to mechanics, “It’s a machine, sometimes one piece is disrupted and it takes a while to figure out what is wrong”.
Michael Corbett, the 20th street Residence Hall Director commented, “The complaints have been minimal, thankfully”. He is secure in his opinion that the staff and security of 20th street is made up of responsible people, and whenever there is a problem, everybody reacts promptly and correctly. Corbett says, “The elevator is not without problems, but when there is an issue everyone is aware and alert”. When questioned about the fact that there is a Facebook group from 2006, titled F**k The 20th Street Elevator, he acknowledges its presence on the web, and says, “at least there are only seven members, and no one has joined since 2007!”
Sarah Westervelt, a member of the 2006 group says, “I think its just a bad elevator. I don’t think anyone tampered with it on purpose. People did get trapped in there. It used to have problems all the time, I can't believe the elevator at 20th street is still acting up.”
The situation can be realized through the support from residents. The students of 20th street are overwhelmingly supportive as of late and understand the issues with the elevator to be only a minor obstacle in their day-to-day lives. Freshman Aaron Sprat says that he, “Hardly ever takes the elevator, and I know the people who do, it doesn't hurt to get in some exercise.” And Amanda Clark, a sophomore at Lang says, “It's inconvenient, certainly, but they're always fixed pretty promptly. I feel like an elevator breaking down isn’t terribly uncommon. I would think that maybe the checkups on the elevator should be more routine, considering they've stalled several times already this semester."

The Museum: Affecting and Being Affected by Society flubs

Living in New York, I have become increasingly aware of the issues of gentrification, the stance people take on gentrification, and my own participation in this phenomenon, one museum takes note and reacts with a witty exhibition.
The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts has taken notice of the gentrification, and aims to make a commentary on its absurdities through an exhibition showcasing gentrification's affects. Often, the communities at large are quite vocal about their views of the mess gentrification has caused and are speaking out to that end. I find it refreshing that a museum has chosen to make its voice heard among the crowds of debates and lectures. Surely the more awareness people can circulate about the causes and affects of gentrification, the easier we can fix the problems.

When a Collection is Musuemized

Anyone can collect, but there is a clear line that is crossed once a collection reaches grand proportions, the decision is made to display, thus a museum is born.
With the right amount of funding, and an idea to sell and attract the masses, a museum can be started out of anything. The Mutter Museum is dedicated to medical anomalies. This museum is melded with science to better educate doctors, but once its collection grew, the museum was founded. Another example, is the Museum of Sex, is positioning its prominence on the scale of museums, as it takes a collection or theme, and markets it to the public. Some Museums are dedicated to the history and preservation of a specific and select group of artists, while others are born out of the collectors fascination with only one subject matter.
I was reading recently and came across a rather unusual Banana Club Museum, which goes to show that if there is enough being collected, someone will try to market it, sensationalizing it. But, as the article reads, not everyone is going to be willing to back outrageous collections. The difference between the Museum of Sex and The Banana Club Museum is marketing and accessibility. The Banana Club Museum will not encounter as many curious viewers. Also, from a curation standpoint, the collection is stagnant, there is only so much one can do with a Banana Collection.

Collectors and Their Collections

I recently spent some time walking through a flea market in Chelsea. My urge is to pick up every old picture, every lost relic of the year before and make it my own. This led me to think about the collector's need to collect and display or organize things according to their own satisfaction.
The compulsion to collect crosses over into many aspects of society. The best example I could think of was the museum and the way an audience views what a collector thinks is important. Also, a key part of museums and their collections is what they choose not to display and what they choose to downplay. The concept that most interests me when thinking and engaging in discussions of the museum as alive or dead, as a hallowed place we go to visit stagnant art, or an invigorating environment is the collection and the collected. The collectors of things, art or relics and why these things are so important. Why is one painting valued over another? Is it price or age, and if this is real art, does it matter? The questions posed create a conflict between the institution and the art itself that is being displayed.
With the opening of the Highline, that runs along 10th avenue, the shell of an industrial institution, turned art piece and a reflection of its past has become a part of Chelsea. The Highline is just one example throughout this city of the ways people collect, display, and re-use.
My impulse is to pick up every rusty screw no longer serving its purpose in a door jam. Every wheel bearing no longer aiding the rotation and weight of an Escalade parked nearby aids my collection. My urge to collect is born of a need to salvage and display. This is my collection. My collection is a collection of things, of the industrial that is no longer in business. But is that what a museums collection is? Is a museums collection based on the art that has become of no use to anyone, so it is displayed very carefully as to preserve its dignity? I often think that my desire to collect the unused stems from my origins in Buffalo, New York, a once booming steel town, Buffalo’s steel and grain mills stand empty, but imposingly on our waterfront. My earliest memories of driving by them recall a sense that they were and still are very great, but that they are done being used for their original purpose. I was asking the same of museums. It seems as if they may be a shell of their original form and purpose, rejecting their old visions and ideology, as institutions providing accessibility and knowledge to the public by earnest needs. Instead, they turn to sensationalism and business.
In my mind, the purpose of a museum is to make the viewers feel something through art. If they cannot feel anything, the institution of the museum is no longer affective. When I walk into a museum, I feel its history. What does the collection mean to those viewers who are experiencing the museum without knowledge of its history. When I work at the Rubin Museum of Art, it is mesmerizing to me the ease with which people are attracted to these religious and historical relics of the Himalayas. I have always been drawn to them because I knew there was a story behind each symbol, position and framing of the art. The wall text does not do the art justice in the least, and the only way the general viewer is able to access this information is through a tour or if you have outside knowledge. the public’s access to museums, the openness of the collection is sometimes blocked by the exclusiveness. The insider mentality that sometimes comes across when one steps across the museum threshold is a barrier that needs to be broken down. We are beginning to see this exclusive nature demolished, however, too often no experience can be had because nothing is provided to the viewer.
Is the collection of the museum and its institutions and politics something that is realized over time? So it is not immediately available? I think that museums should be a conveyance for people to have experiences with art. The exclusion of pieces or people within a collection is to the detriment of the viewer, and ultimately the museum as alive. Because if there is no experience with a living thing, no tangible relationship, the living thing will die.