Phoenix's blog

http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=87801

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 027

Monday, December 9th, 2013

The Artist Barnes

Everybody in Philadelphia seems to have heard of the Barnes Foundation. It created quite a stir when it was moved, expressly against the wishes of its founder, from Lower Merion to Philadelphia, turning in the process from an educational institution to an art museum.

Albert Barnes had a specific vision for his art. He arranged it in his home, paintings, pieces of metalwork, furniture and more, according to design themes such as shape and color. He made his home into a school, a place to study art without what he considered the useless factoids of artist, date, and stylistic period, taking from art only what it presented to the viewer. He did not want it open to the public for more than a couple of days a week, nor used for parties, galas, and the like.

Due to corruption, personal grievances, and mismanagement of money, the Barnes is now open to the public every day, with spaces for events, and even pamphlets and audio tours that tell the visitor about the paintings. The only remaining vestige of Barnes’ original vision is the arrangement of the paintings. Curators of the Barnes insisted that they would stay true to Barnes’ displays, possibly in an attempt to please outraged protestors.

Why Barnes’ displays, and not his limitations on who viewed them, how, and where? Was the art arrangement so much more important than anything else?

What struck me most in reading the articles and watching the movie was the long history of corruption involved in the care of the Barnes museum. It was not a case of faithful following of Barnes' will up until the point where it was suddenly moved to Philadelphia out of a lack of funds, it was far more complicated than that. However, I find this would not be a useful piece of information for writing a paper. To write a paper on how the Barnes Foundation was cared for, I would need to essentially summarize the movie, and I do not remember all of the different people who were in charge of it. Most of the story of the actual school/museum does not affect my reading of the painting itself. Since I knew before going to the Barnes Foundation that Barnes intended for us to read the painting in terms of what else was on the same wall, I included this approach in my original reading. The only thing I find different is that I am even more struck by the sense that I am not supposed to be there, visiting the Barnes, than I was before. Barnes didn't want Bryn Mawr students to come to his collection, even when it was practically in our backyard. He didn't want us to be able to simply go in on any day. He especially didn't want us able to research any given painting and looking into its background, as was provided by the audio tours. However, I see no way I can use this to grow my paper.

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Red Blouses and Tulips

I am sitting on the floor in front of her. She looks mildly accusing; although she is being ladylike, she fixes you with her stare and her mouth is set. Her head is ever so slightly cocked.

She’s a William James Glackens painting, a white woman, middle to upper class, wearing a dress with a red skirt over ordinary sized hips and a multicolored, but predominantly red, bodice over comparatively massive bosoms. She wears dangly earrings, a red flowered hat, and makeup.

She sits—on what, the viewer can’t see. The floor or lower wall behind her is pink and flowered, and the upper wall is light pink or white. Yellow curtains above her head frame shapeless greenness. It could be a window showing a hill, or a green tinted window, or merely an expanse of green paint on the wall. A table with physically insufficient legs for standing holds a vase of four roses, in red, yellow, pink, and white. She rests her elbow on it, although by the laws of perspective it ought to be too tall for that. Her left sleeve is significantly darker than anything else in the painting. I am not sure why. The light appears to be essentially equal throughout the painting elsewhere.

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Flux Capacitor

My mother decided when directing A Christmas Carol that she was going to make it steampunk. Steampunk is essentially science fiction if it were written by Victorian-era people. Hallmarks include airships, things covered in gears, and unusual mechanics such as limbs. Since A Christmas Carol is set in Victorian times, my mother made Bob Marley an Industrial Revolution inventor and dressed her narrators in hats covered with gears, mechanical arms, aviator clothing, and more. She also gave the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present a time machine, and I was lucky enough to be cast as Present.

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Hopelessness

Eastern State Penitentiary is a crumbling heap of rock and iron. While, in its heyday, it was a marvel of prison technology, the methods are today understood to be cruel and inhumane. Cells were designed to cut off all interaction, except with the guard, who wore wool socks over their shoes so as to minimize the sound of their footfall, and with the preacher, who attempted to convert them to Protestantism. There was nothing to do except work, and if one attempted to communicate with other prisoners, he or she was punished.

ESP was a marvel of technology. It had a revolutionary heating and plumbing system not present even in the White House at that time. Thick walls prevented prisoners from speaking to one another, for ESP was not intended to be an ordinary prison. Rather than just house criminals, it would isolate them, induce self-contemplation, and lead to repentance. ESP was a pioneer in the pursuit of reforming prisoners through isolation. Its creators believed that prisoners in solitude would come to terms with their crime, repent of their sins and go on to live more wholesome lives. The design of ESP forced prisoners to spend time examining their own hearts, and, ideally, to pray for forgiveness. It provided prisoners ample time and silence to think over their wrongdoings.

Eastern is a relic, a decrepit pile of rocks and metal. While in its heyday it was the height of prison technology, it was, in many ways, utterly inhumane. [Cells] smaller than they should have been, particularly for housing two people, and designed to cut off interaction with others- that is torture. Eastern State is a lens into the past, showing the beginning intentions of incarceration in the US and how they changed. It’s an inspiring and illuminating pioneer in reforming the prisons although it failed.

 Eastern State was a prison unlike any other, where the methods were so damaging to the human spirit, and was so radical that the fascination that came with the prison was far greater than the suffering. Eastern State is not successful. Treating prisoners so cruelly with isolation will only drive them madder. ESP was a place you wouldn’t want to end up in lest you enjoyed the company of your own criminal soul and the judging eye of god.  Prison reform in Eastern State was one of the cruelest and severe. Prisoner’s lack of communication and isolation did not aid in improvement but rather inspired rebellion. Eastern state was a cold, somewhat menacing, but still contemplative, cell, separated from everything. 

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Smith Meets Kierkegaard: Existentialism in NW

            Chapter number 138 in the section titled Host, in NW by Zadie Smith, is titled with a long URL. The URL, when typed into the web address bar of a browser, is merely a Google search on Søren Kierkegaard. The chapter itself is not about Kierkegaard at all. It is short, only 60 words:

Such a moment has a peculiar character. It is brief and temporal indeed, like every moment; it is transient as all moments are; it is past, like every moment in the next moment. And yet it is decisive, and filled with the eternal. Such a moment ought to have a distinctive name; let us call it the Fullness of Time. 303

What exactly this moment is, is somewhat unclear. The preceding chapter talks about the difference between a moment and an instant, but does not mention any particular type of moment that Smith might be describing now. If ‘Such a moment’ is all moments as opposed to instants, then it might describe the “special awareness” that beauty invokes in Natalie. “The fullness of time,” on the other hand, is rather easier to understand and to relate to the title: it references a Bible verse, Galatians 4:4.5, describing the timing of God sending Jesus to Earth.

I plan to keep my lens of existentialism and deepen it by finding more resources on Kierkegaard and using them to lengthen my paper.

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Smith Meets Kirkegaard: Existentialism in NW

            Chapter number 138 in the section titled Host, in NW by Zadie Smith, is titled with a long URL. The URL, when typed into the web address bar of a browser, is merely a Google search on Søren Kierkegaard. The chapter itself is not about Kierkegaard at all. It is short, only 60 words:

Such a moment has a peculiar character. It is brief and temporal indeed, like every moment; it is transient as all moments are; it is past, like every moment in the next moment. And yet it is decisive, and filled with the eternal. Such a moment ought to have a distinctive name; let us call it the Fullness of Time. 303

What exactly this moment is, is somewhat unclear. The preceding chapter talks about the difference between a moment and an instant, but does not mention any particular type of moment that Smith might be describing now. If ‘Such a moment’ is all moments as opposed to instants, then it might describe the “special awareness” that beauty invokes in Natalie. “The fullness of time,” on the other hand, is rather easier to understand and to relate to the title: it’s a Bible verse, Galatians 4:4.5, describing the timing of God sending Jesus to Earth.