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Most people studying in Van Pelt's Moelis Family Reading Room never really notice the huge mural on the wall, tossing it a sideways glance without reading the placard posted beside it. But the huge felted wool mural, entitled Field of Transformation, stands nineteen feet wide and sixty feet tall, commanding the entire space.
Science and art are often considered to be two separate domains. Even though the fields actually have a lot of similarities between them in the ways they approach visual analysis, it’s rare to see them overlap at the professional level. It was in this lack of crossover that Dr. Greg Dunn and Dr. Brian Edwards saw an opportunity to create an artistic representation of science itself.
When I was little, I would reread the Harry Potter series over and over again, its words conjuring images of the epic battles between Harry and Voldemort. But ever since the film adaptations appeared on HBO, I found myself curling up with my favorite characters in a different medium. Maybe it’s because watching it on TV is more passive. There’s no flipping of pages or scanning the lines; my eyes would fix on the same screen over the two hours. Or maybe it’s because having Harry on screen meant that I didn’t have to lug the heavy book–boxed set around in my backpack. Regardless, the outcome has been that I’ve read and seen the Sorcerer’s Stone countless times, leaving me looking for other ways to revisit my favorite characters. This semester, my screenwriting class provided an answer: read the screenplays.
A photo today is hardly reflective of our world, but rather a display of our ideals. Profile pictures are the best photos of us, not what we look like on a day–to–day basis. Snap stories (or now Instagram stories because of the terrible new update) tell the stories of our best days, not the days we spend hours pouring over missed readings within the confines of Van Pelt. There’s a missing ingenuity in these captured images, an ingenuity that Isabel Zapata (C ’19) reclaims through her photography.
Far too often, overviews of art history focus on male artists. This is not to say that those artists aren’t deserving; they are. But despite having the same level of influence, why are the female artists of these same time periods so often left overlooked?
In higher education, potential visual arts and graphic design majors have three choices: 1) Attend an art school, 2) Attend a large university with a visual arts department, or 3) Attend a university with an art school. It’s a Goldilocks situation: soft, medium, or hard art. The decision comes down to choosing between one of pure art or one that mixes the fine and liberal arts. But what distinguishes studying art in a college setting from pursuing an art degree at an art institute? Why do we even fathom taking art classes somewhere where art is eclipsed?
Jazz plays over the Kelly Writers House stereo system, while a small crowd gathers waiting for slam poet Gabriel Ramirez. A group of students imitate popular slam poses. One girl stands with her palms upturned, “summoning the poem."
If the Royal Shakespeare Company is the Top 40 of Spotify playlists, then the African American Arts Alliance, also known as "4A," at Penn is the indie alternative playlist. Maybe that's not the best analogy—or even a good one at that—but I make this comparison to show what 4A is all about: showcasing voices outside the mainstream.
The relationship between art and academia is oftentimes uneasy. University–based art teaching is comparable to scientific research, where craft and technique are subordinate to formal analysis and critical theory. But art doesn’t have to be intellectualized or institutionalized. At Penn, students like Jenn, Hadeel, and Faith all do art on their own time, allowing it to permeate their lives. This is the kind of engagement the arts program in the college houses aims to support: to imbue the arts into daily life.
One of the most important mantras in art is that the images on the screen aren’t enough. To really understand a piece of art, you have to experience it in person. The torsion of Bernini’s St. Peter’s Baldachin demands a three–dimensional viewing. The light and shadow of Picasso’s cardboard guitars bring the abstract shapes together to form the whole instrument. Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors has a memento mori that can only be fully seen when the viewer stands at an extreme angle relative to the painting’s surface. But what happens when the art student can no longer afford admission to the art museum?
Designers reinvent black for every generation. In the jazz age, it was Coco Chanel’s little black dress. Though millennials have done away with such rigidity, designers still return to classic black as a point of inspiration.
Art installations at Penn tend to be ephemeral. Installed one day, taken down the next week, if not the next day. Or at least this is largely the case in the Fine Arts undergraduate program, such as in Helen Nie’s exhibit challenging the conventions of OCR, Jason Barr and Linda Lin’s reimagination of Benjamin Franklin as a woman, and Jake Welde and Izzy Korostoff’s gingerbread replica of the Fisher Fine Arts Library. But for graduate students, the story is a little different. With access to local galleries in Philadelphia, graduate students in the arts have the opportunities to curate, install, and showcase their work in exhibitions.
On St. Patrick’s Day, an Irish performance featuring champion step–dancer Samantha Harvey, 2013’s Traditional Singer of the Year Séamus Begley, and Irish band Téada will come to Annenberg.
Barbie dolls are so much more than plastic toys—they always have been. For decades, they were one of the many standards that society used to define what a physically beautiful woman should look like. With blonde hair, blue eyes, and an impossibly small waist, the dolls have exacerbated problems of body image, self–esteem, and self–worth . While Mattel, the company responsible for making the Barbie dolls, has started to make dolls representing women of different backgrounds and ethnicities, the toy representations of women are still far from accurate.
Watching Call Me By Your Name, I was captivated, not by its lurid, nostalgic romance, but by that feeling of déjà vu that I could not shake off. Maybe it’s because queer cinema and literature has risen in mainstream prominence and acceptance (about time!), with Moonlight winning Best Picture in the 89th Academy Awards and CMBYN, Best Adapted Screenplay in the 90th Academy Awards. In these narratives are shared themes and connections—of sexuality, of fruit, and of foreignness, hence the déjà vu.
Think: When was the last time you read a book for fun? Was there ever even a last time? In the midst of spring break, the threat of midterms and problem sets is (hopefully) gone, so what better chance to catch up (or pick up for the first time) on your reading than now by the beach in Cancun? Here are Street’s best picks for Spring Break.
Of the many clubs on campus, few serve simply as an outlet for us, let alone a creative outlet. There are of course the typical consulting and finance clubs that seem to have insurmountable barriers of entry. On the other end of the spectrum there are the performing arts groups who spend days and nights together to work on shows. In between are the vast array of other clubs, many of which emanate preprofessional vibes regardless of whether or not they are preprofessional in nature.
For anyone familiar with Penn Housing, it’s easy to say that the housing facilities aren’t exactly prime. Rooms are small, buildings are infested with vermin and their offspring, and when nothing is leaking, there’s an elevator broken somewhere. Regardless, what makes up for the somewhat lackluster interior is its facade. I’m referring to, of course, the Quad.
To read the written word is one thing: it allows one to understand the self, to connect with others, and even to fantasize in an imagined world. But to hear the written the word—that’s a completely separate thing. That’s exactly what “LIVE at the Writers House” does. Occuring six times a year, LIVE at the Writers House airs a “one–hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken–word art, along with one musical guest from the Writers House onto the airwaves at WXPN.”
Telling my friends to read more poetry is always an uphill battle. Thanks to murky metaphysical poems like Donne’s “The Flea” and convoluted comparisons of symbolism, poetry has been pushed aside as too difficult to understand. I get it. Sometimes, it does require a lot more patience and effort that goes against everything the efficiency–oriented mind of a Penn student knows. But that’s exactly what I love about it.
Solutions by The State News