http://www.columbiaspectator.com/authors/posts/25897 An authors posts... used for embedding en http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/30836 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/30836#comments Arts & Entertainment Art Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:53:45 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 30836 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/30650 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/30650#comments Arts & Entertainment The Sejny Chronicles Theater Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:39:13 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 30650 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/30334 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/30334#comments Arts & Entertainment Film Water Lilies Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:17:24 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 30334 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/29963 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/29963#comments Arts & Entertainment Ghosts Theater Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:35:13 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 29963 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/29401 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/29401#comments Arts & Entertainment The Crucible Theater Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:38:12 -0600 Agnieszka Sablinska 29401 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/29370 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/29370#comments Arts & Entertainment Art Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:01:40 -0600 Agnieszka Sablinska 29370 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27489 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27489#comments Art Art Guggenheim Museum Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:54:56 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 27489 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27076 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27076#comments Arts & Entertainment Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:33:58 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 27076 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54738 "Please be aware that this exhibition contains strong imagery and content," warns a sign outside the entrance to "The Disappeared" exhibit, on show at El Museo del Barrio until June 17. "The Disappeared" or "Los Desaparecidos" refers to those who were kidnapped, tortured, and killed by right-wing military dictatorships during the mid-to-late 20th century in Latin America. Given the deeply disturbing subject matter, it should come as no surprise that such an exhibit needs such a word of caution. The exhibit gathers the work of 14 contemporary Latin American artists from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Venezuela. All of these artists lived through military dictatorships in their countries. Most had relatives or friends who disappeared, and some of the artists even worked in resistance movements themselves. The artists' visual media vary from simple photographs to complex installations, but each piece is sure to have an intensely emotional impact on the viewer. Many of the artists have chosen to present images and names of the disappeared in their works. Antonio Frasconi's "In Memoriam" contains a painfully detailed description of torture surrounded by portraits of people who had presumably met the described fate. Marcel Brodsky, an Argentinean artist and human rights activist, annotated his eighth-grade class portrait to show which of his schoolmates had disappeared, been murdered, or forced into exile. A number of Argentinean artists collaborated to form "Identity," which contains hundreds of images of couples who submitted their photographs with hopes that their lost children may someday find them. This installation, which spans three rooms, overwhelms the viewer with the incomprehensible number of people affected by the military dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. While being confronted with these images, the museum director asks us "to question what role our own country played in supporting the Latin American governments which killed their own people as a matter of course." After World War Two, the United States provided economic and military support to military groups who overthrew democratically-elected left-wing leaders and replaced them with right-wing governments. These overtly or covertly U.S.-backed military dictatorships are responsible for many of the atrocities depicted in this exhibition. With this in mind, viewing the already distressing exhibit becomes all the more uncomfortable. Among the most disturbing works on show is Arturo Duclos' memorial to the thousands who lost their lives or disappeared during Chile's period of state violence. The memorial is a Chilean flag-constructed with human bones. On another wall, Fernando Traverso takes a very different approach to remembering the vanished. "Urban Intervention in the City of Rosario, Argentina" is composed of hundreds of photographs of spray-painted bicycles on the city walls. After reading the caption, Traverso's memorial is no less chilling: the first evidence of someone's disappearance was often finding their abandoned bicycle, which was the common method of transportation used by resistance workers. Rather than using faces of the disappeared, Traverso-who himself was part of the resistance movement against the Argentinean military dictatorship-has used abandoned personal possessions to produce an equally haunting depiction of loss. Possibly due to its impressive scope, the exhibit fails to inform the viewer of any historical details about the various military dictatorships. No detailed information is provided about the rise and fall of these regimes, let alone any adequate descriptions of the specific dictatorships themselves. El Museo del Barrio's mission is to raise public awareness and foster education about Latin American subjects through art. Unfortunately, this exhibit fails to meet the museum's praiseworthy goals. Expect to leave deeply moved, relatively uninformed, and very motivated to take a contemporary Latin American history class. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54738#comments Arts & Entertainment Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 54738 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54659 "The Redux series is comprised of 10 images photographed over the past two years of new suburban home construction in America," begins John Kirchner's statement about his latest work, on display at the Kim Foster Gallery until April 28. As banal as this subject may sound, Kirchner's portrayal of suburbia is sure to invoke a fury of emotions about the appearance of the greater American landscape. Whether you think of suburbia as a beautiful representation of the American ideal, or whether you have already been appalled by its monotony, Kirchner's newest series of photographs is a definite must-see among the innumerable gallery exhibits in Chelsea. Kirchner, born in Michigan in 1955, completed intensive studies of architecture both in America and abroad in Denmark and England. As a graduate of architecture studies, Kirchner's choice to study what he calls "the architect-less, culturally generic products" of American suburbia is particularly fascinating. Despite small variations in their facades, each McMansion is essentially the same single-family detached home, with a prominent garage flanked by faultlessly sculpted bushes, a lamppost, or a mailbox. Kirchner has painstakingly centered every house in the frame, emphasizing the sickly perfection of the suburban landscape. All of Kirchner's photographs are nearly identical in size and offer no hints as to their specific location, furthering the idea of incessant replication of the same house over and over again across the continent. Titling his photographs Redux I - Redux X, Kirchner has chosen to leave the suburbs nameless. Each of these houses could literally be located anywhere in America, with no attention paid to their surrounding environments and a complete absence of any architectural variation. Kirchner thus has successfully portrayed suburbia as a geographically unidentifiable location. Even the presence of a street sign in one of the photographs furthers this point-the street has not yet been named, and the generic green signpost remains blank. A few of Kirchner's photographs capture the McMansions as they are being built, revealing unpainted wooden paneling or bright blue plastic tarp. These houses are surrounded by construction bins and bits of machinery scattered on red dug-up dirt. It is with these images that Kirchner questions the relationship between these new suburban houses and the landscape around them. Everything in the surrounding environment has been completely destroyed, soon to be replaced by pavement and patches of transplanted grass. Kirchner shows how the American home buyer is obliterating the natural and replacing it with "a quasi-colonial, mindless phenotypic variant." By capturing the transition from open land to suburbia, Kirchner allows the viewer to see how commercialization of the American landscape has left the natural environment dead. Despite the fact that these houses are family homes, Kirchner presents them as completely devoid of life. No child has trampled upon the perfectly maintained grass, no toy has been carelessly left in the driveway. Even the trees in the front yard, no doubt transplanted from a different environment, look dead and unhealthy in their artificial surroundings. The freshly painted bright colors of some of the houses present a stark contrast with the ominous cloudy skies above them. Kirchner's choice of lighting and color contrasts presents an environment so artificial it is at first uncomfortable to look at, and then even disturbing. Kirchner himself describes the suburban home as being "repeated ad nauseam" across America, and indeed, it is not unlikely that the viewer will leave feeling nauseous from the landscape's absolute monotony. Living in New York City, it easy to forget how the American landscape really looks. Kirchner's photographs will not only serve to remind you but also leave you questioning the growing suburbanization of the greater American environment. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54659#comments Arts & Entertainment Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 Agnieszka Sablinska 54659 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com