Day two was even more exciting than the first, I think. Going to the Chelsea galleries was awesome because there was such a wide selection of things to see. It was kind of a bummer that we only had two hours there but I still saw some great things. NYC has got to be the only place where you can walk by a store front and see an Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and Keith Harring. My favorite thing that I saw there was the RISD MFA Photo exhibition. I was especially taken by Andrew Wertz photos. I think that him and I have a similar eye for composition and it was encouraging to see work that relates to mine in a gallery in NYC. I didn’t take a good photo of his work so here is a link to his Flickr.
The Whitney Museum was great too. The piece there that resonated with me the most was an installation of four mannequins dressed as museum guards from four different museums by Fred Wilson. It addresses racial museum dynamics in regards to a large majority of the guards being African American and how they might be the only people of color in a museum. This really struck me because it was something that I had noticed and was wondering about and then I turned the corner and there was a piece addressing the very issue. I looked around and didn’t see any African American people beside the guards and it made it even that much more powerful.
-Beaudry Allen