Gallery Stroll

          For the gallery stroll experience I went to the UMOCA. I had mixed feelings about my experience. There were some things that just made me just feel like a contemporary artist just needs to do something weird or bizarre and that makes it exciting or avant garde. The first image inside the gallery was a show that was trying to reconstruct the mundane every day life. The artist made prints, sculptures and a stop motion animation. I may have been lost but I felt that nothing in the piece grounded me in the "daily mundane." It felt more like a psycho analysis on the human conscience to me. Which is why this piece just made me feel like some forms of contemporary art just seek this weird niche. The next photograph was from an exhibition that centered on the idea of recreating history with women in the picture. I like the piece because it seems more accessible for viewers and is easier to interact with. It made me want to find the women I recognized and to learn the story of those who I did not. 

          The last piece was by far my favorite. It was called "Singing in the Rain." I like this work not only because I felt mentally engaged but also because my husband even got into the work as well. In this piece the figure dressed in gold does a dance along a red carpet to the song singing in the rain in the middle of the dump. Alongside the singing figure, others look through garbage, picking out certain things that they find. The juxtaposition of this almost hollywood-esque figure with the setting and those rummaging through garbage created a really intriguing dialogue. It forces you to consider the consumption of our society. Do we, like the figure, dance along in our merry state without noticing the effect that we have, or the by-products of that lifestyle? The dancing figure felt so oblivious to the whole situation. So disconnected. It forces viewers to combine these two worlds in an uncomfortable way.