Visiting
the Whitney Museum of American Art’s exhibit “Rituals of Rented Island”, I got
to see “happenings” from history that made a big impact during the time it was
created and until today. As it only exists in documentation today, the artworks
displayed in the museum were able to give me an idea on the reasons why they
were made, which could have possibly came from political, social, and cultural
references.
One
of the artworks that caught my eye was Jack Smith’s Collage named Untitled and
was created in 1977. This was an interesting collage to me because of the
pictures that were cut up and were put to over lap each other. Pictures that
Jack Smith added to the collage were symbols of the Nazi sign, this refers back
to Hitler and the Holocaust. There is also a picture of a money bill near it. I
believe Jack Smith wanted to reveal the corruption that went on during these
times with greed, money, and simply hatred. I might have not attended the
original happening and been around the time where many Jewish people were
getting killed. But it didn’t change my understanding of the piece because the
knowledge I have based on the Holocaust.
Another
happening I chose was “Baby Ikki, 1978 and 2012” by Michael Smith. This was a
very interesting documentation as it showed a video of Michael Smith dressed up
in toddler attire, wearing a oversized diaper, undersized sunglasses, and
drinking from a baby bottle. As he was dressed as this, he crawled around the
sidewalks and streets of NYC. As I watched the video, below it there were
clothes similar to the toddler attire Michael Smith was wearing that day. This
gave me a better perspective of Michael Smith’s absurd personality. I believe
Michael’s intentions were to show people that it’s okay to be carefree and
weird. Not to care about what other people think. Expressing your creative
thoughts by going to a whole other level and creating this persona. He might
also wanted to get away from any problems he or the world was dealing with at
the time and nothing is a better way than causing a scene in the middle of
traffic and making strangers laugh.
The
last happening I chose was “Kipper Kids” where performance photographs and
video excerpts were shown. These two men would throw paint on each other naked
with distorted faces insides a ring filled with balloons. These men went above
and beyond to be creative and I believe they did this to distract themselves
and other people from political issues that were going on around that time.
Attending the original event, I would be able to take in the problems that were
going on around that time and their performance and be able to separate one
from the other and just think optomisticly of my surroundings.
Artist:
Jack Smith
Title: “Untitled 1977”
Title: “Untitled 1977”
Medium:
Collage
Year:
1977
Artist:
Michael Smith
Title:
"Baby Ikki 1978 and 2012"
Medium:
Changing station, baby bottle, sunglasses, video, color sound, 4:17mins.
Year: 1978-2012
Artist: Kipper Kids
Title: “Kipper Kids”
Medium: Performance, photographs, and
video excerpts
Year: 1972-2002