alexandra kim

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/alice-neel

“Alice Neel: People Come First is the first museum retrospective in New York of American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) in twenty years. This ambitious survey positions Neel as one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art, as demonstrated in the approximately one hundred paintings, drawings, and watercolors that will appear in The Met’s survey.“

“Vaughn Spann devotes his practice to abstraction and figuration as an investigation into space, time and memory. He locates subjects from deeply personal spaces as he reconciles with his body within and out of the studio.“

“Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Cristóbal Martínez, and Kade L. Twist. Postcommodity’s art functions as a shared Indigenous lens and voice to engage the assaultive manifestations of the global market and its supporting institutions, public perceptions, beliefs, and individual actions that comprise the ever-expanding, multinational, multiracial and multiethnic colonizing force that is defining the 21st Century through ever increasing velocities and complex forms of violence. Postcommodity works to forge new metaphors capable of rationalizing our shared experiences within this increasingly challenging contemporary environment; promote a constructive discourse that challenges the social, political and economic processes that are destabilizing communities and geographies; and connect Indigenous narratives of cultural self-determination with the broader public sphere.“

The Moon and The Yew Tree 

Sondra Perry is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, computer-based media, and performance to explore themes of race, identity, family history, and technology. She is especially concerned with topics of "blackness, black femininity, African American heritage". Perry recounts on being heavily influenced by her upbringing and family who did not live with much but allowed her to appreciate culture, family history, and her imagination in a way she could not have under different circumstances. She recalls her childhood as a defining period which sparked her creativity and desire to explore new ways to communicate her ideas. She describes her own work as manifesting paraspaces, a term used by science fiction authors to refer to spaces which exist parallel to reality. These realms are twilight zones which Perry strives to creates through her own visual language and create more room and representation for black people.

Wong Kar-Wai is a Hong Kong film director whose films are known for their “nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, and vivid cinematography involving bold, saturated colours”. Kar-Wai is a prominent figure in Hong Kong cinema and his unique style is recognizable in one of his most well known films, “In the Mood For Love”. The film took two years to complete and while watching the movie, I was surprised by the film’s pacing. Time seemed to flow both quickly and slowly: the camera prolonged some certain scenes but also flew through the two’s relationship. As a viewer, I felt myself get so lost in the plot and romance between the two people that I forgot the chronology and pacing the movie was flowing in. Instead, I was able to focus on being present in the film. Though I felt like an observer throughout the majority of the film, I was still swept up by the plotline and was completely immersed in the visually rich imagery.