Mike Kelley

Monica Vazquez

HUA 101

Professor Harmon

December 3, 2013

MoMA PS1: Mike Kelley

     In Mike Kelley’s art we see a variety of pieces that are out of the ordinary, some are very confusing and some disturbing. The piece that I chose is simple yet I found it very interesting. When you view the actually glass bottle it is big and dark. Inside we view what is depicted as a small city or town that is made of wax or something resembling this.

On the side the same glass bottle is being viewed from a frame, except when you move part of the image disappears. If you’re standing in the middle you can see the complete image but if you move away on either side a part of the image disappears. When Mike Kelley constructed this piece, maybe he was representing a point of view from his life. As vulnerable humans sometimes we choose to see certain things and ignore what hurts us or what we don’t want to see as real. When I saw this I thought about the times we constantly live in a state of mind where we only see what we want and pretend that the rest isn’t really there. We try to hide it, and if we do it long enough eventually we begin to believe it is really gone.

Roy Lichtenstein and Vincent Van Gogh

Monica Vazquez

HUA 101

Professor Harmon

November 22, 2013

MoMA Artwork

     Roy Lichtenstein was an American artist who was an abstract expressionist. In his painting Girl with Ball Lichtenstein uses pop art. He begins by recreating a picture that was used as an advertisement for the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and remakes it into a painting that makes it look like it is from a comic book. The original image is in black and white, but Roy Lichtenstein recreates this image and as he does this he intensifies the colors. He creates brighter yellows; the ball becomes bright red with white stripes. The woman he is creating seems to be creating more sex appeal than the girl from the original Pocono’s advertisement. Lichtenstein is able to recreate a completely new version of the original photograph, and in 1961 he is not only creating art but he is challenging what are seen as the “norms” of art during that time period.

     Post-Impressionist artist painted with intellect and their eye yet the also gave their artwork a lot of emotion. In Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh he uses complementary colors to create similar repetitive circular and round-looking patterns to create what seems to be a beautiful scenery when seen from a far. Post impressionism is shaped by impressionist artist, but unlike them, post-impressionist artist including Van Gogh likes to go beyond what they see. In Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh few colors are used, yet the variations of a single color gives the painting a sense of emotion when looking at the sweeping brushstrokes created in this painting. The thick brushstrokes all come together to create the imagine for a small village early morning just before sunrise.  Even though this art piece was created in 1889, all the emotion we get from viewing this painting remains the same.