Author: NicoleNg

In evaluation of artistic blockbuster themes of summer 2012, the idea of “examining the visibility of queer bodies within mainstream culture,” as stated by the curators at the Brooklyn Museum, is one that resonated with me most closely. Not because of my personal sexual orientation, which becomes more and more grey despite my fairly defined personal orientation, as venues such as the Brooklyn Museum continue to put forth toward main stream culture, but because of the political and social climate defined in the past year.

On May 9, 2012 during an interview with ABC News, President Obama stated that he believes same sex couples “should be able to get married.” This was the first time that any Presidential candidate has publicly announced support for this topic.  Ironically, two years prior to this government endorsed idea, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., a government sponsored institution, was the “first major exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture” as stated by NPR. The exhibition titled “Hide/Seek” featured work by famous artists such as Warhol, Whitman, and Johns, and featured the highly controversial video by the late artist David Wojnarowicz, titled “A Fire in My Belly.”

Two years, six states, and one presidential endorsement later, the openness of questionable sexual orientation has manifested within and outside the art world.  From the eyes of a fairly irregular and untrained arts patron, I have personally stumbled into four different exhibits this summer featuring the questioning and publication of sexual orientation in a public light without the intention of doing so. These resonated with me so greatly because each touched on a different aspect of sexual orientation that opened the conversation to more than merely accepting homosexuality, but rather  showcasing many voices on a topic that has separated our culture despite every other way we are similar other than those we decide to love. They shed light onto the idea of open and less defined sexuality that spans more than personal preference, but what it means for the human race, emotional health, and perception of ideas in mainstream culture.

From highly provocative images of multi-partnered sexual relations at a gallery opening filled with dirty Brooklyn hipsters drinking PBR in Chelsea, to political justice exhibitions at the Whitney Museum on the upper east side showcasing a voice over of a protest for equal rights for homosexual citizens and the social stigmas that follow, to the depths of Brooklyn at the Raw/Cooked exhibit where Brooklyn based artist Ulrike Müller asked fellow female artists to define their interpretation of lesbianism through multiple mediums, to the discussion of redefining sexuality through early education at the New Museum in SoHo all show that sexualization in popular media probe further than what we see in Rent! or portraying homosexuality as a counterculture. Instead, these works showcase the shades of grey and redefine sexuality as something that should be more open for discussion and less of an avant-garde or counterculture dialogue.

By presenting 360 degree view of sexuality to the public, we can be defined less as gay, straight or lesbian. We can become reeducated on the ideas of the role, or lack of role, in the public eye, and become more accepting of everything different (or the same) from ourselves.

Do you remember the first time you saw them, really saw them?
and then things

broke.   Failed.   Needed system repair.  Can’t reboot where’s the startup menu?

And after all the mess there’s that one time you stopped stopping the emotion and it Flowed,
articulated it so well into something proudrealfullofemotion which Never. Happens.

Ever.

This time in Words, and for the moment you were Eliot, Auden, or Cummings
when usually they’re disguised under the pseudonym of INeverCaredAnyway.doc
Words that showed validation of the storm, the reality of the water and the fog and all the elements that felt too real and had to be real, otherwise the voyage was never worth it in the first place, even if you never reached Neverland.

Thought the words would be something to look back on, timeless if not to most others then at least in the anthology of the Self’s Greatest Works, proving that you were capable of not being devoid of all passion or skill.

And then everything went blue.
All the words drowned within the vast abyss of unrecoverable wasteland
Tossing and turning within the waves
The diamond is lost in the sea, the old lady said. The shipwreck lost everything. Jack isn’t coming back and Rose is left wondering if the China plates really shook.

Ultimately the code was broken, the stone wall fell and more ships sailed. Never

one quite like the Original, but that boat is still just a memory anyway.

Years past and she grew older, bought a replacement necklace but was never able to replicate the exact cut, shape, color of the diamond.

But she will never forget the first time wore that necklace, wrote those words, or really saw him.

Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929 in Nagano, Japan as the daughter to seedling merchants.  An admirer of the American Avant Garde, she wrote letters to Georgia O’Keefe across the pond, persistent to learn about the American art scene.  As a child she experienced hallucinations and nightmarish experiences that translated into morbid and highly complex surreal paintings, such as “Corpses” that features a snakelike shape in deep coloring.  As she aged and came into her own in America, Kusama challenged everything deemed to be normal and held happenings around the city where nude artists would parade around fountains painted in polka dots, such as in the “Body Festival” in Washington Square Park.

My first experience with Kusama came about in late 2008, when I entered the Gagosian Gallery for the first time and stepped inside “The Infinity Room.”  Little did I know at the time the impact that Kusama would hold over me.  This work is something that I wrote and thought about incessantly, and would remember for the rest of my life. This summer Kusama came to life for me at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

“In-fin-i-ty: unlimited extent of time, space, or quantity; boundlessness. As I entered the Infinity Room, the hustle and bustle of everything external became non-existent. I walked down the mirrored pathway alone into a dark and completely enclosed eight by eight foot room. The walls, ceiling, and platform on were made of mirrors, surrounded by a thin layer of water. As the security guard slowly closed the door, the last brink of light escaped, and I became inundated with vertigo.  It appeared as though there were candles surrounding from every which angle, and that I stood on nothing but a figment of my imagination.  The dim lights from the candles appeared to be everywhere, extending as far as I could possibly see – for infinity. I was suspended in time and space, somewhere far in the universe where no one could find me. For those few minutes, I had infinity in front of me.  I felt capable of doing anything that I wanted, able to move forward forever, to achieve anything that I wish.  I was there, fully breathing it in.”

(Excerpt of a personal essay , 2009)

Many of her works from child to adult featured these small polka dots, which she explains to represent the “Earth, moon, sun, and human beings…a single particle among billions. This is one of my important philosophies.”  This theory of one in a billion is also manifested through her Accumulation sculptures, where disturbing, phallic white tubes encase furniture, clothing, and massive fields of sea-weed like shapes.  She challenges the gender divide by sexualizing domestic objects and making the reader feel uncomfortable in the grotesqueness within familiar objects. Most recently, Kusama is known for her collaboration with designer Marc Jacobs for the Louis Vuitton collection.

What I love about Yayoi Kusama spans farther than an obsession with her grotesque, controversial, and strangely beautiful work that evokes a feeling of excitement and confusion upon view. It’s the story behind an Asian American artist who defies all stereotypes of being a quaint Asian female. She paraded her boldness regardless of what others thought of her and threw herself into a completely new environment despite her humble and

extremely conservative Japanese roots.  She felt no inferiority writing to Georgia O’Keefe, remains relevant to society without reprimanding its materialistic emphasis, yet remains true to herself by continuing to create art in the mental institution where she exiled herself to in 1975.   Yayoi Kusama intrigues me. She brings to life a side of risk, persistence, and craziness in her work that I live vicariously through, as I hope to find the Kusama in me.

It’s a drug. It may not be marijuana or ecstasy or moonrocks acid Robitussin heroin meth, but it is most definitely a drug. You can’t buy it on the street; you can’t put it in your pocket. You can’t eat, snort, smell, shoot, or smoke it. You can’t pass it in a circle or offer some to your friends. You can’t even touch it. But when it starts, there’s no stopping it. It’s the taste that gets you going. The want need desire to find more. But I couldn’t even tell you where to find it if I tried.

Walking down the streets, no one knows your secret. You think about it on your way to class, watching the slide change and change, lights flashing, numbers words and pictures constantly written, but this never stops the need for a fix. The thing itself is innocuous, enjoyable when consumed in moderation. That’s how it is for most, anyway. A healthy dosage can be enough to make you satisfied. Enough so that you don’t have to get out of your seat during class because the thought of sitting in class while you learn about price points and net present value isn’t too much for you to handle while thinking about it. Enough so that you don’t miss the punch line to the joke your friend tells you on the walk home, or that you don’t have to re-read that page another five times to understand that it’s just a housing contract.

In most cases, you’re fine. It’s when you have the taste of that one type that sets you off. It’s different for everyone, which is what makes it so potent. Even if I tried to let you have a taste of mine, you wouldn’t understand. A drug so powerful that it changes your life. Ideals that you once held are now turned upside down inside out and thrown across the yard. The approach to your goals that you’ve stuck with forever are suddenly reevaluated. Then it becomes what you think, smell, taste, dance, carry with you everywhere and always because you can’t get enough. The all consuming nature can be tragically euphoric. Your whole world is changed. Colors brighter and darker at the same time, music playing to the beat of the influence. People staring because they don’t understand but it doesn’t even matter because what matters is that you have it.

It’s everywhere, in the air, water, sunlight, laughter and tears. It’s the drive from the tragedy you just witnessed, the inspiration for a life changing endeavor, the song that made you understand why they did that to you. It’s in everyone, but its finding that one spec out of a million that makes the change. It’s an unexplained desire to be consumed by it, and devote every waking moment you have to making sure that you have more of it ; live it ; breath it; taste smell and feel it between your fingers.

Have you found yours?

Digitally reliving the excitement of Fashion Week, from New York to London, Milan and to France, while remaining static in Ann Arbor, Michigan gives you a taste of fashion just big enough to make you salivate over the newest from Yves Saint Laurent while simultaneously face palming every time you see another Ugg-and- legging-Northface-rocking- Lily Pulitzer-planner using female on campus.  What’s worse, any attempt to ameliorate this disconnect by shopping at retailers such as Forever 21 and H&M only reinforces the idea of mass fashion production and an overall lack of creativity.  Try going to Saks Fifth Avenue or Bloomingdales and you either  pass out from sticker shock because the average price for most remotely unique items are about a gajillion dollars, or you suffer from a serious case of #firstworldproblems because the newest collection hasn’t even his retailers yet.

The Solution? Salvation Army, Spring 2013.

The Salvation Army is a treasure chest of strangely unique but wardrobe defining pieces that can be exclusively yours.  Multi-textural black leather pencil skirts, men’s ethnic garb turned into chicly loose tribal dresses, white wing tip kitten heels, and perfectly broken in jean shorts (jorts?), all on the budget of a few drinks at your local hipster coffee joint, are what make this a haven for the economically conscious style savvy. Yes, you will have to sift through the clothing and it may take time, but the reward of finding something so different from what anyone else can even attempt to buy is empowering.  The selection may not necessarily provide the same results as off-the-runway trends, but the overwhelming amount of extraordinarily strange clothing provides variety so large that it is so easy to incorporate and interpret a trend into what you find at the Salvation Army, at least in terms of color, silhouette, and pattern, while constructing it to be a part of your personal style.

The clothes themselves tell a story other than being pumped directly out a machine, which was programmed to create a very calculated piece of clothing that would satisfy the trendy needs of most consumers. Instead, you are left with a piece of clothing that had a life and a story with whoever donated the item.  Someone may have used that blouse to block the sun while travelling in Egypt, used that coat while they watched their daughter’s first soccer game, or done something really unsettling and dangerous in those shoes. As long as the pieces are washed thoroughly, the dirt and smell will leave, and what’s left is a piece that may have lived a life as long as you.

The elephant stomping around is that the Salvation Army is a strong Christian entity and is notoriously against anything related to homosexuality.  The organization claims to not discriminate anyone it serves, although it will not hire anyone that is homosexual.  It provides a resource to families internationally that are constrained to an extremely low price point, and are inflexible in their budget.   The organization also provides food and shelter for those in need. Although the organization has formally apologized on behalf of Maj. Andrew Craibe of the Salvation Army who stated that homosexuals “deserve to die,” the choice to boycott an organization that also provides great resources to the community is a decision that has to be made on an individual level.  Strong social views against sexual discrimination, such as my own, may be reason enough to not buy into what the Salvation Army does. However it is also important to realize that it’s likely that the values of many organizations may not align with our own. Whether it is in terms of religion or environmental policy, outsourcing jobs or sexual orientation, the likelihood that one’s beliefs are completely in line with an organization’s is rare. In the case of this organization, at least there are strong benefits to the other pillars of charity that they do believe in.

Shopping, or “thrifting” as most trend seeking individuals would call it, at the Salvation Army also provides environmental benefits by decreasing the demand for market-driven fashion trends at the mass retail level.   The clothing is reused and therefore serves a relatively environmentally friendly alternative to shopping at retailers who use new energy to create these products.

The decision to remain loyal to Forever, designer pieces, political views, or the Salvation Army is up to you.  However, the resource to truly unique pieces, and the excitement of finding something so uniquely your own, is unparallel.

In light of a seminar presented by my business school’s namesake, Stephen M. Ross, I was inundated with paranoia upon hearing about Mr.Ross’ Hudson Yards Development, a new real estate venture along Manhattan’s west side from 28^th to 43^rd street west of 8^th avenue.  With the growing popularity of the Highline, rumors of retail giants moving in, and the Hudson Yards Development, there will undoubtedly be a much needed surge to the consumer economy as tourists move in and spending increases.  But what does this mean for the residents, cultural integrity, and artistic haven that these neighborhoods once hosted? Is this an inevitable change that must take place in order to progress and improve the economy? Or is there an alternative that can dually increase spending while maintain cultural integrity?

Mr. Ross is the founder and Chairman of The Related Companies, a real estate investment firm.  He has developed a portfolio of real estate ventures in metropolitan cities nationwide, such as New York City, Las Vegas, and several others in California. He has grown his company by investing in transformative properties, such as the Time Warner Center on the Upper West Side of New York City, as well as affordable living housing throughout the city.

In 2005 the city rezoned the area from west Chelsea to herald square to convert current manufacturing space to residential and commercial developments and named it the Hudson Yards Development. The Hudson Yards area will have the capacity for approximately 26 million square feet of new office development, 20,000 units of housing, 2 million square feet of retail, and 3 million square feet of hotel space, says the Hudson Yards Development Corporation.   With the luxury brand Coach leading the pack and incepting construction of the first building in the Hudson Yards Project, retail giants such as Sephora plan to move in and draw in shoppers, tourists, and new residents alike. Local boutiques will have to compete with mass producing low mark up companies that move in.  Even now, the art spaces are strained to compete with restaurants, retailers, and luxury brand boutiques.

Even since 2009 the commercial effects of the Highline have challenged  West Chelsea’s establishments and integrity.   The restaurants became increasingly trendy and decreasingly delicious; the people migrate from uptown to counterfeit “bohemian” lofts; and slowly, the art increasingly high profile, decreasingly raw and native.  And while Mr. Ross explained in his presentation to the students of the Ross School of Business that he and his partners keep cultural integrity in mind, such as making the “Jazz at Lincoln Center” the highlight of the Time Warner Development, phrases such as “New York’s Next Great Neighborhood” on the company’s web page indicate a more transformational pursuit.

What I fear most is that the Hudson Yards  turns the area into an amusement park of sorts, as Jeremiah Moss discusses in the New York Times article “Disney World on the Hudson,” losing all integrity for the raw gritty New York feeling that tourists hate, and New Yorkers love. Native artists have noticeably begun to flee the West Side for lower-profile neighborhoods tucked away from media hounds and tourists.  And while Chelsea can already be deemed a commercialized, yuppie area, any remnants of authenticity that I know it to possess may be stripped away even further. What will become of the neighbors that envelope the Hudson Yards Development?  More importantly, what will happen to the art that spawned there?