The Arts-ier Part of DC

Going to George Washington University wasn’t the only thing I did in DC! Even though GWU took up a good 3 hours I went and had lunch with my dad at Oyamel a nice Mexican restaurant. However, the menu went completely beyond the typical taco, burrito and quesadilla which was a nice change. After stuffing myself with a “Torta de camarones a la parilla” (Grilled shrimp sandwich) I went exploring!

Now most of you should remember Dr. Newton my old chemistry teacher. Well she and I have been e-mailing back and forth this summer because there was an error on my transcript from her class that we were trying to get fixed. She told me though to make sure I go and see an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in DC and so I did.

I hadn’t been to the Gallery since…about the 6^th grade I think and to be honest my mind was blown. From the paintings to sculptures to technological art I was constantly amazed by how brilliant and talented these artists must be to create such great masterpieces of art! I use to wonder why people would stare at paintings for such a long time until I found myself staring at this piece by Jackson Pollock (American) for a good 5 minutes!

I started off in the West Wing with the more traditional and well known pieces of art such as The Thinker by Auguste Rodin and Four Dancers by Edgar Degas

Then I went to the East Wing through this cool underground little walk-way with lots of dazzling white lights that appeared to be moving even though they were really just turning on and off constantly.

The East Wing was certainly a lot more modern and cooler (that’s where the Pollock painting above was found!). There was this modern one exhibit by Nam June Paik, A Korean-American artist, that seriously blew my mind. Apparently he experimented with technology and using it in his art or as the art. So they had this big cavernous room upstairs that was completely dark with the exception of one candle. There was a video recorder though of said candle and there were about 15 projectors that displayed that candle on the wall in different ways (upside down, really big, really small, different colors, etc). The effect was VERY cool. 

Nam June Paik also had this other piece which was kind of creepy and I didn’t take a picture for of some reason (But I found one online!). It was a little see-through silk robe that was put on a wooden stick and there was a TV behind the robe that you could sort of see and the TV was just playing the same images of little girls playing with a red ball and then a splash of random red colors and then back to the little girls playing with the ball…very weird.

Other paintings and 3-D art I liked are pictured below:

UYL,

Andre