Art is Life

Jeff Widener

Tank Man

1989

Terror of War

On November 23, 2013, T.O.P., a Korean music artist, debuted his music video DOOM DADA. Being 2015, it has about 14 million views. His success is contributed to being known as part of a band known as Big Bang, but now that the members are now have their own careers they are are talked talked for different things now. T.O.P.'s music video is a great example of press. This video is crazy to understand. Even a long time fan probably sat there confused beyond belief. People and fans thought that the music video was all over the road. If some would do research they would see that the artist was not high or thought it would be fun to mess around with his audience. There are some explanations that some people have come up whit and even T.O.P. talked about.    

Some of the "crazy" scenes of the music video: 

On September 23, 2013, Rhett and Link talked about different artworks that are controversial artworks. The Good Mythical Morning video is about 10 minutes of the two men trying to see why the artworks made a large impact in the world and understand why others paid so much. I loved that they talked about their own definitions of art before looking at the famous artworks. Then they start to discuss and debate some of these artworks:

  The Fountain by: Duchamp 

Concetto Spaziale, Attese by: Lucio Fontana

Untitled by: Cy Twombly

On September 1, 2013 G-Dragon uploaded his music video Coup D'etat. Since then, the music video has 12,868,661 views. This music video has many symbolic meanings:

 In the first scene above, we see Kwon Jiyong(GD) rising from the ruins. Ruins of what, you may ask?We shall find out later. A few more shots are juxtaposed, such as this pendulum above (second picture), which represents a time bomb.

  We then see a long-haired and scary G-dragon below singing under a pendulum, which tells us he is under time constraint, pressured by the ticking time bomb. He is calm through it all, as if he knows there is more to the bomb blasting. 

After a few interchanges of shots between G-dragon under a pendulum, and Kwon Jiyong rising from the ruins, we are led to watch this adorable young man.

 ....................................................skipped many symbols 

Now we see a Red Ninja, proudly raising red flags. The color of passion. The color of strength. Thecolor of courage. The color of Coup D' Etat. The color of G-dragon.

On Friday, October 31, 2014 MoMA PS1 held their annual Halloween Ball. The gallery was open during the ball. There at the party, a project from Bob and Roberta Smith was names "THROW YOUR ART AWAY." It is to encourage people to throw artwork in these dumpsters and MoMA will chose ones to hang up before discarding them. Another installation was  Zero Tolerance, by Klaus Biesenbach and Margaret Aldredge. This was one room with about 25 videos playing footage from protests during violent backlashes against those asking for the most basic of human dignities. In another room,  Yoko Ono's Give Peace a Chance chanted through the white walls. 

On October 24, 2014, Roads of Arabia opened at Asian Art Museum. Roads of Arabia features more than 200 objects, ranging from excavated stone tools to a 17th-century gilded doors that once graced the entrance to the Ka’ba. This exhibit connects Arabia to Iraq, Syria, Egypt, the Mediterranean through their remarkable cultural interactions. It offers a rare first glimpse into the Arabian Peninsula’s fascinating past.

The show runs until January, 18 2015. The ticket price, for the exhibit, is $10.00 to $15.00 (special days and promotions are free admission). The Asian Art Museum is on Facebook, YouTube, and has their own website.

  View of the exhibit

Below are some of the artifacts in the exhibit: Roads of Arabia.

Anthromorphic stele, 4000–3000 BCE. Saudi Arabia; Qaryat al-Kaafa site, El-Maakir city. Sandstone. Courtesy of National Museum of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, 998

Funerary Mask, 1st century CE. Saudi Arabia; Thaj, Tell al-Zayer. Gold. Courtesy of National Museum, Riyadh, ELS2012.8.231.