Author: Rachel

Great news everyone, after a significant dry period with no new releases, witty, snarky, and very British Lily Allen is back with a new single. Her gritty and often scathing lyrics put to catchy pop tunes have always been my needed break from the trash circulating on top 10 radio. I don’t need to hear another love song, party song, or song about starting from nothing – that’s all been done. Finally we have been blessed with something topical. In “Hard Out Here” Lily Allen satirizes the absurd and highly sexualized music videos of artists like Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus, even the title of the song puns on Three 6 Mafia’s “Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” Every lyric oozes with either sharp sarcasm or harsh realism while her video is the compilation of the elements found in the vast majority of music videos out today: half naked girls, a fancy car, champagne flying, and booty shaking. The sad part is, a lot of people truly don’t get it and think she’s just another money seeking sell out. Well, I beg to differ. Lily Allen is a breath of fresh air and her song is a needed wake up call to mass media. The frightening decline in strong female role models in pop culture and the constant glorification of the male conquest makes me question when things are going to change. Every single day the media teaches us how we’re supposed to act. It teaches us to judge each other based on unrealistic expectations and to hate ourselves as we are. Some call Lily Allen a bitch, some call her just like everyone else, but I call her spot on. So far she’s the only one I’ve seen put her dissatisfaction with the pop culture into such blunt terms. If the video makes you uncomfortable, it’s doing its job because what you’re looking at is all of the same elements that we’ve seen a thousand times before.

This whole project reminds me of the artist Manet. Classical and neoclassical painters had been painting reclining female nudes for centuries and these types of paintings went on to win contests and be purchased by some of the most affluent aristocrats in Paris (often including royalty). But when Manet came out with his Olympia in 1863, everyone was appalled. Unlike the classical nudes, which often came with a mythological background story and portrayed a perfected female form, Olympia was just a little too close to the reality of Paris’ erotic subculture of prostitution and brothels.

In the same way that Manet takes an unquestioned form of art and with a touch of realism makes it into a statement about society, Lily Allen uses the obscenities of pop culture to call attention to the absurdity of the way in which we let the media run rampant. I definitely encourage everyone to watch the new video and I sincerely hope that the combination of the lyrics and the highly sexualized images can at least get you thinking about some of these prominent issues of racial and sexual exploitation in the media.

Lily Allen Hard Out Here Preach.

For those less tuned into the pop scene check out Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (the balloon scene is in direct response to this) to get a feel for the material she is satirizing.

This painting was brought to my attention recently after reading the poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden. Upon first seeing the painting, I had no idea how it could possibly relate to this poem about the every day normalcy that occurs right around a tragedy. Simply, the lush landscape and rich colors took my breath away. The fact that I had to search the picture for the pair of legs flailing in the right hand corner in order to see that anything was wrong here was quite a wake up call and also essentially the point of Auden’s poem.

Before I get into the implications of the poem and the painting, allow me to refresh your memory of the story of the painting’s protagonist. Icarus and his father were imprisoned by the King of Crete and could not escape by land or sea so the father of Icarus built a pair of wings out of wax and feathers for the two of them to escape. He cautioned his son to stay a safe distance from the sun, as the wax could easily melt, but after they had escaped Icarus’ love for flying took him closer and closer to the sun until his wings melted and he fell into the water and drowned.

So, here is Auden’s poem:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

To very briefly examine this poem stylistically we can see that it deviates from any formal structure or rhyme scheme. It uses formal language, but also intersperses the verse with very informal words such as “doggy.” His sudden interlude of “for instance” sets the reader in an entirely different genre of writing, as if he is switching to an argument in prose. When I first read it, I was sure this was an insert from the anthology and  no longer part of the poem. Categorizing the death as a “failure,” plays down the tragedy of the drowning in contrast with the leisure of the ploughman.  To all of these other figures in the painting, the sight and sound of the death is just a blip on the radar; they have more important things to worry about.

The contrast between the scene of suffering and the proximity of a routine untouched by this scene rings all too true to modern society. I seem to get an update to my phone every 15 minutes from BBC or CNN reporting the most recent tragedy, but like the ship I continue sailing on with whatever I’m doing. Soldiers killed – put in laundry. Woman missing – make a sandwich. Government shutdown – study for my history midterm. When I put it this way, my inaction is almost more horrifying than the scene of suffering itself. But what am I supposed to do? How can I help the victims of a cruel world from my cozy Ann Arbor home? Trust me, I’d give anything to bring justice and peace to the world, but in our times of inaction, all we can really do is reject the ploughman attitude and tune in to the sights and sounds around us, no matter how unpleasant they may be. Awareness is the first step in change and even Auden was attuned to this in 1938.

This is why we’re in school, this is why we read the news, so that one day we can give back to the world that doesn’t seem to be able to keep its head on straight. So take some time to turn away from your Facebook News Feed and turn on the news so that someday you can be the one to pull Icarus out of the water before he drowns.

Last winter, as I walked back to the train station in Chicago to head home after a long day, I had a little bit of time to kill. Almost all of the shops had shut down for the night, all except for one brightly lit gallery. There walls were covered with a variety of striking modern sculpture-style pieces, but as I made my way across the room my eyes fell on a huge classically painted oil painting of a young nude woman by the water. I honestly can’t conjure up the exact scene, but I will never forget that moment in time because that was my first art awakening. I was so excited, the art bug had finally bit me and I felt something I had never felt before, almost like I was finally a member of a secret club. The artist sort of chuckled at my gushing over the painting, telling me that it was just a copy of another artist’s work. He also told me that paintings like these were quickly going out of style and would be going for very cheap by the next year; what people wanted were the abstract compilations on the walls. Not me. I wanted that painting. I couldn’t remember the name he told me, but for several weeks after that night I scoured the internet to see if I could somehow crack the code of Google Images and unlock once more the treasure trove that this painting had revealed to me. No such luck. But my awakening that night has inspired me to soak in as much of the art around me as I possibly can.

After that day, I didn’t really feel that sort of connection to a painting again until this semester. Sitting in my art history class, my teacher began to talk about La Grande Odalisque by French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1814.

We learned that Ingres and many of his contemporaries began to explore a new way of painting, abandoning linear accuracy for compositional beauty. This means that he sought to make the most aesthetically pleasing representation of a body in space and sometimes abandoning the realistic proportions of the body. He sought to attain a higher form of purity than the traditional anatomical accuracy of the Greeks and early neoclassical artists. Well, he gets an A+ in my eyes because I could study the intricacies of this painting for hours. There’s something so lush and exotic about the entire piece that pulls me in and almost makes me forget entirely about the fact that there’s no way her back could really be that long. The rich blues and golds of the tapestry create in me such a feeling of extravagance and luxury; despite the fact that the model is undeniably European, her elegant cohesion as a figure in the space of the frame makes her an integral part of this scene of exotic leisure.

Just to put Ingres into context, his painting Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne of 1806 also exemplifies this sense of compositional harmony and lush texture. Napoleon’s right arm is noticeably longer than normal, but it works as a part of the piece as a whole. His robes are also extremely detailed, it is almost as if you could reach out and feel how soft that white fur is around his neck.

Words are often inadequate to convey art’s ability wake you up out of the dull monotony of daily life, especially in these times of mass media when little to nothing has the power to shock. But through my two awakenings, I’ve come to find that a piece of art possesses the unmatchable power to unlock the treasure trove of meaning that already lies within the viewer.

If I’m an expert on one thing, it’s cereal. I never tire of the endless varieties of a refreshing bowl of cereal. Raised on Kix and Honey Smacks, my horizons rapidly expanded as my taste buds ventured into the slightly more mature world of Special K and Apple Jacks. Whether breakfast, lunch, dinner, or often desert, cereal seems to find its way into at least one of my meals every day. Despite the great tastes, my favorite part of the cereal experience is and always has been the box. Every morning as a kid I would scrutinize the box from front to back and even the sides.

For some reason a cereal box always seemed to contain some of the most interesting and captivating information around, not to mention the games on the back. I wish I could say I’ve grown out of this, but to this day I can’t eat a bowl of cereal without the box in front of me. And why is that? Possibly because cereal boxes are some of the most colorful and artistic things on the shelves at the grocery store. I always get so excited when I turn my cart down this aisle with the perfect lines of boxes and fluorescent colors nearly bounding off the shelves into my cart. The rainbow cereal itself and the gigantic rabbit on the front of the Trix box practically guarantee a plethora of games on the back just waiting for me to partake. Toucan Sam and his rainbow beak offer to take me on a tropical adventure in the Froot Loop world. Sometimes I spend half an hour  trying to pick the perfect cereals for a given week.

They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but a cereal box truly is a work of art that turns me from an ad-skeptic (for let us not forget that the cereal box is not exempt from the influence of the advertising world) to a hungry consumer, ready to get through the maze, find all of the hidden items, or solve whatever riddle awaits me on the back of the box. Cereal box designers have a way of captivating my attention and bringing to life what could be just another dry and boring breakfast food in a box despite the fact that I’m probably too old to be eating Trix (they are for kids).

Maybe I’m wrong, thinking this is art, but when I look at this picture of a cereal aisle, it reminds me a lot of photographer Andreas Gursky’s photography.

Gursky has a wide body of work, but this photograph of a 99 cent store captures, in a way, the essence of my love for cereal. It’s so vibrant and colorful, while also maintaining a strict linear order. Something about it just really strikes me, it provides a sense of wildness in the midst of conformity. Art doesn’t have to be complex, it can be as simple as the color red. I like to try to see the art in every day life and there really is art everywhere you look; if you’re like me, this includes the back of a cereal box.

People have a lot to say about tattoos. They’re ugly, they’re trashy, they’re awesome, they’re addictive, and so on. Regardless of the critiques, tattoo art has rapidly become one of the most consumed and mass displayed art forms of the 21^st century.  Is body art considered art at all? If so it is certainly thought of on the lowbrow spectrum. However, things are changing. Where before you’d be lucky to get a job with a tattoo, it is now much more socially acceptable, and honestly, thank goodness. I’ve seen some of the most artistic amazing tattoos at concerts, coffee shops, and just surfing the web. Tattoos are an amazing form of self-expression and individuality. It’s also a great employment opportunity for so many talented artists. Art has become so easy to access; I can buy a Van Gough Starry Night exact replica poster online for $20. Artists are passionate and talented, but there’s not a whole lot of ways for them to make steady income in society these days. I personally have yet to get a tattoo, but I’m excited to make a choice about how I want to look and represent myself with color and art. Here are some incredible tattoos that I’ve found in my exploration.

The day I saw this one was the day I was sure I wanted to get a tattoo. The detail of the scene is just unbelievable, it looks like a place I’d want to go and it’s all just ink. Even skeptics really can’t deny how artistic this is.

What’s even better than tattoo art? Tattooed art. It’s incredible that someone could totally replicate Picasso’s Guernica in this way on something as small and round as an arm. An arm is nothing like a flat canvas, but the amazing attention to detail takes what could have been a disaster into something incredible.

This one is surprisingly one of my favorites. I used to think there was nothing worse than a tattoo of a girl, or any person for that matter. I just couldn’t see why anyone would want to get someone else’s face permanently tattooed on their body. That was how I felt until I saw this. I think it’s the combination of the fact that it’s on a girl’s arm instead of a guy’s and that it’s so extravagant that I fell in love with this tattoo.

As with any art, you like what you like and you don’t what you don’t, but an open mind about tattoos in this modern world can be really eye opening into a unique branch of art, culture, and creativity. I give major credit to all of the artists who created these and many other brilliant works of tattoo art.