Montclair museum trip

Samantha Da Rocha

3/20/19

Montclair museum assignment

(my mother, Cindy Sherman, Me, My brother)

My trip to the Montclair Art Museum was filled with some very eye-catching and interesting

pieces. The museum focus was constructing identity, which basically means in simple terms,

 “What makes you, you?, is it your nationality, your skin color, religion, what makes your identity

truly unique for you. You can construct identity in many ways, but a lot of it involves pre-set parts of someone’s life such as place of birth or education background. Self-identity also might not have anything to do with how you view yourself but mainly to do with how others view you. Self-identity put many of us in a different group, which can help bond us together as a society. 

The first art piece that caught my eye was “Lenny, Minneapolis, 2002” by the photographer, Alec Soth. Soth focuses on portraits of people who may not be in everyone’s radar. He travels around the United States, looking for the “loners and dreamers” that help make up this country. The man he photographed in this photo is named Lenny, and he is from Minneapolis. Lenny is a construction working with a relatively underground side hustle, he is an erotic masseur. He took up this side job because since he is a construction worker, during the winter months, it can be very difficult to keep find and keep down a job, so doing something that being an erotic masseur can help keep him grounded. Lanny had recently lost his son in an accident, the only thing he wants out of life right now is to continue to look like himself, even years from now.

The second piece I’m focusing on is “Portrait of Sarah Coates Levy, 1808”, this piece was done by Thomas Sully. This is a portrait of Sarah Coates Levy, has a lot of romanticism, in the painting. The touches of the white empire waist dress and the white vail add hints of purity. The red fabric draped on her is very detailed, and spears to be some kind of silk maybe. The book in her hand is similar to what is in the husband’s portraits hand as well. Looking up more description of the painting, the doll-like expression on her face is brought into play quite a lot. Her eyes seen glassy with a very string gaze. She is hunched out a bit, which makes her appear much smaller then she is. This piece caught my attention because of how delicate she looked in the painting. You can really see the detail that Thomas Sully put into the work and how he tried to give his best impression of this romantic style of art.

The third piece I want to cover is “Bernabe Mendez (Spiderman), 2007” by Dulce Pinzon, this piece caught my attention mainly because I had no idea what I was looking at, at first. The photographer wanted to show everyday people doing “superhuman acts”. He was inspired by superheroes and how people look up to them, he chose the underdogs of certain communities to show the importance of what they were doing. In this painting, he focuses on the superhero Spiderman, one of Spiderman’s talents in the ability to climb up walls like a spider does. Bernabe Mendez is the man who is in the Spiderman costume in the photograph. He works as a professional window washer, he sends about 500$ a month to support his family in Mexico. The Photographer was trying to nail home what an average superhero looks like.

For my fourth painting, I want to talk about “One could still dream to devise an optimistic antidote against the defeatist and cynical claims of the return to order, 2008” by Wardell Milan. The complexity of the names matches the detail and work put into the photo itself. This photo has many small man-made details such as tiny photo frames with family portraits in it and walls were a house once stood. When you first look at it you would think it is heavily edited because of the detail but it is all practical effects. Looking at the image it looks as if it all based on the depth of field. maybe the houses in the very background are real but the closer to the camera you get is when the fake props and fake cars show up. I thought this piece was interesting because of the amount of detail put into it and the illusion that comes with the photo naturally.

The last photo I'm going to focus one is called " Box II," (2001) by Larry Kagan. This picture admittedly doesn't have much to do with self-identity but I feel it says a lot of me as a person. I saw this art piece while I was leaving the museum and I was greatly impressed by the abstractness of it. I had seen photos of these of pieces of art but never one in person, so I was pretty excitied to see one.