건물주

잇 이 망ㅣ 자화상 앤드 마이 도그

This exhibition explores how contemporary artists challenge traditional systems of portraiture and representation by questioning who is visible, who is obscured, and who has historically been excluded from being fully seen. Through works addressing race, gender, colonialism, and bodily identity, the exhibition examines how identity is constructed, challenged, reclaimed, and embodied through art.

This exhibition shows how identity in Buddhist art is shown without representing the human self. Instead of presenting the Buddha as an individual, the Buddhist visual culture communicates spiritual identity through symbolism, gesture, material form, and many times through absence. Across sculpture and architecture from Southeast Asia, the Buddha is as a trace of enlightenment that exists in space, posture, and sacred form. This idea can be understood through representation working as symbolic presence rather than visibility. As Ananda Coomaraswamy says, “The Buddha is not represented as a man, but as an idea beyond man.” Because of this, Buddhist imagery shifts focus away from physical identity and more toward spiritual realization. This can be seen as where enlightenment can’t be contained in one human form. Instead, it is shown through things like the stupa, mudras (hand gestures), meditative bodies, or even the complete absence of the body. The exhibition starts with the Great Stupa at Sanchi, where the Buddha is not shown at all. Instead, the idea of presence is in architecture and the way the space is structured, suggesting enlightenment through movement and direction rather than a figure. It sets up absence as a form of representation, where meaning comes from structure and ritual rather than the human body. This idea continues in the Standing Buddha, where the body appears but is still not individualized. Posture and mudras show calmness and authority, showing identity through controlled presence rather than personal features. In the Seated Buddha from Ajanta, the body is focused on meditation. Identity is shown through stillness, where enlightenment is represented as inner calm instead of outward individuality. The Buddha Head from Gandhara goes further by removing the body completely and focusing only on the face or head, where expression and serenity become the main way identity is shown. It also reflects how Buddhist art changes across regions and influences. The exhibition ends with the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, where the body is laid out horizontally, showing the Buddha entering Nirvana. Overall, these works show that Buddhist art doesn’t rely on direct depiction of identity but instead builds meaning through symbolic absence and spiritual suggestion. Across the gallery, the Buddha becomes less of a person and more of a presence that exists beyond what you can physically see.

Mythological figures have long been figurative and made of marble. This mythology helps create stories and convey how ancient people depicted these stories of mortals, gods, and goddesses. Even though all of these sculptures are made by different people and have different stories, they do not fail to cast a majestic presence. All of these art works a lot with their nudity, which is not common with other eras of art. The calm humanistic portrayal of these gods could be explained from Malvina Hoffman’s quote “Sculpture is a parable in three dimensions, a symbol of a spiritual experience, and a means of conveying truth by concentrating its essence into visible form. ... It must be the reflection of the artist who creates it and of the era in which he lives, not an echo or a memory of other days and other ways.”. This exhibition starts with Praxiteles sculpture, Aphrodite of Knidos, fully nude and radiating the representation of beauty. Even while she gets ready for a ritual bath, the goddess stays in a majestic stance, while breaking gender norms set during that time. Then we look at Alexandros of Antioch’s sculpture, Venus de Milo. Although the sculpture’s limbs are missing, she still continues to have a sense of calmness and a majestic figure. The posture is a big factor that reveals this goddess’s tranquil aura. As the exhibition continues, Laocoön and His Sons by Agesandro, Athendoros, and Polydoros is the next work of art that really presents majesty even through hardship. This really explains how, even though the story is intense and is full of agony, the figures still stay majestic in their movements and stance. Not only is Laocoön shown as stately and majestic while protecting his family, but his sons are as well when fighting for their lives, while still being mortal. The importance of majesty in this exhibition continues with Timotheos’s sculpture, Leda and Zeus as a Swan. This is another piece of art that tells an interesting story while still displaying a calm and majestic feeling. The collision of manipulation with these feelings is unusual yet works great with the work. This concludes with Leochares’s sculpture depicting Apollo Belvedere. While again being fully nude, his majesty is shown a lot since he is of high status among both the gods and mortals. This statue is thought to illustrate Apollo slaying Python, which conflicts with the theme of calmness and majesty that he continues to give off in his stance. This majestic characteristic is clearly shown within all of these works of art in many different ways. This theme continues with the nudity, the colliding stories, and the movement and stances. Even though the majestic nature is more known with the gods and goddesses, these artists use it even with mortals. From Mortals to Gods in Ancient Art invites people to explore these themes shown in mythology and understand how these pieces of art combine together.

In this exhibit, Roots and Resonance: Identification and Black Expression, the artwork explores the concept of expression through abstraction and symbolism. The pieces touch base on how the black community has expressed their individuality and showcased their freedom/rights through all the hate in history. The artists all shared the centralized concept/idea that there is importance in expressing one's history and one's individual personalities/identity. Along with creating that strong sense of expression and identity, they place importance on the connection to their culture. Utilizing several different mediums, colors, and portrayals, their pieces are not shown through the concept of typical historical paintings of racism, but shown through bright colors connecting to their culture, spiritual conceptions on how the intended subjects felt, and abstract ideas that give the subject identity. According to a renowned curator who focuses on building exhibits with the same premise and importance, Thelma Golden states, “For me, it’s about considering the implications. It’s considering the implications of what this generation has to say about us. It’s considering what it means for these artists to be both out in the world as work travels but also in their communities, as people who are seeing and thinking about the issues that face us. It’s also about thinking about the creative spirit and nurturing it, and imagining, typically in urban America, about the nurturing of the spirit. Reimagining this cultural discourse in an international context.” -TED Talk, 2013. In this TED Talk, she talks about wanting to help young black artists create their narratives. She spent her career helping these artists showcase the concept of identification and individualism, and the importance of the black community and black/African American art. She puts importance on expressing one’s identity and culture through one's own narrative and art, which is the concept I wanted to portray in my exhibition. In the exhibit Roots and Resonance: Identification and Black Expression, I specifically ordered this assortment of paintings to slowly but intensely represent one’s individuality and how one’s sense of self and narrative can become confusing and jumbled. Starting with how one feels about themselves, even with misrepresentation and automatic judgment, a concept shown in the Chicken Thief created by Michael Armitage, to eventually ending with a piece that shows the split in someone’s narrative and life and how lost someone can feel in their identity/culture, shown in Seasons Change by Joyce Owens. The three works in the middle put gradual importance on one’s body image, expression through clothing, and one’s mind and thought processes. Showcasing the significance and give attention to the individual structures and stories of their subjects. All connect to the bigger idea of representing one’s individuality and culture despite the restrictions of skin color and stereotypes/hate from outside sources, and showing out-of-body experiences, metaphorical representations, and then abstract representations of one’s culture and self.