Newfound respect for Katy Perry

I like Katy Perry, but I kind of went...eh with her. As in, "Oh she has a new song..okay" and then I go off and do something more important. I listened to the song and I liked it. I wasn't crazy about it either. However, the video that accompanied this song made me like the song more. I didn't expect her to create a video like this really. For some reason, I just didn't think she was the type who would make a video that would...make me cry. Yes, I cried. I am a very emotion person and I only cry when I find something really beautiful. (I'm such a dork. Ah, well.)

When the man kissed the man he loves in the club...when the little boy with cancer was watching the woman give birth and his eyes were sparkling...my goodness. There is a lot of things I loved about this video. Her voice fit with the uplifting mood of her song. It echoes perfectly...along with the sparks of fireworks that appeared from everyone. The part with the magician getting mugged...ah..got me. She got me.

Hydrangea annabelle

These flowers surround my home in Jersey. My family loves these flowers and I do as well. It is a plant that survives beautifully during winter with it's brown leaves. During summer "eternal summer" is what it is called, its petals are a bright white. However, with Hydrangea, their petals differ depending on the soil it is in. The majority of the Hydrangeas around my house are white, but we do have some light violet and blue. This is a painting I made during my Surface Research class and the assignment was to take many photos of an object. Then we had to arrange it in a collage type manner and paint it. It is a 22x30 piece of paper and the medium is acrylic. I had fun creating this since the Hydrangea petals are small and in order to make them I had to do a fast curl. I'm really proud of this since I haven't been feeling so great lately. I feel way better now thanks to this.

This is the original Hydrangea flowers my mother put inside a pot inside. The flowers are dead by the way. When dying they turn green and then brown.

Vanessa Beecroft

Peep toe pumps, undergarments, snakeskin pantyhose and the au naturel are but, the thin surface of Vanessa Beecroft and her work. What she creates is both elaborate and extravagant, but that is the now for the Italian Performance Artist Vanessa Beecroft. This is the before. Born in Genoa, Italy, Vanessa Beecroft attended two near by art institutions. One of them was Civico Liceo Artistico Nicolo’ Barabino from 1983 to 1987 for ‘Architettura’ which translates to ‘Architecture’. The other was Accademia Ligustica Di Belle Arti from 1987-1988 for ‘Pittura’, which translates to ‘Painting’. Then during the year of 1988 to 1993 she attended a third art institution called Accademia Di Belle Arti Di Brera in city north of Genoa, Milan, Italy, for ‘Scenografia’, which translates to ‘The Art of Perspective’. Vanessa Beecroft is still performing to this day and her most recent work was in 2010. She has completed about 66 pieces of performance work.

It all started in 1993 where she officially embarked on her journey into the art world. Her first show was in Milan, Italy where she exhibited her diary, “Despair,” that she kept writing in everyday from 1987-1993. She felt that her diary was too distant and lacked, so she added thirty girls she pulled off the street for the exhibition opening. They were dressed in Vanessa Beecroft’s personal wardrobe. The thirty girls wore mostly red, yellow, pink and orange clothing accented with high-heeled shoes. They were told to walk around the gallery space around her book.

Her books contained her emotional impulses and anxiety on the food that she had to deal with everyday. An interesting fact about her diary was that its original use was intended for her to get help and get over her bulimic tendencies. During this exhibition she discovers her style that is somewhat cinematic where her work on stage is separate from the area containing the audience. She wants subtle and detached, so that the audience can reflect their own personality and impulses. In this work, the audience is not compelled to participate in her performance artwork, but to only be aware and participate emotionally.

Another important performance was a performance in 2007 called “Vb61 Still Death! Darfur. Still Deaf?” She first showed it in Venice, Italy. What she did in this work was that she painted thirty Sudanese women. However, the way they were arranged lying face down on the gigantic canvas made it look like they were dead. The paint used was red too. She made splatters and drips around the thirty naked Sudanese women. This performance represents the ongoing horrible massacres in Africa, particularly the genocide happening in the Darfur area of Sudan. The graphic nature represented in “Vb61” is also a statement about the public’s somewhat indifferent ways due to the spread of violence in the media.

She was able to have exhibitions around the world like France, England, Japan, America and other places. For instance, her piece called “Vb7” was shown at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in Long Island City, New York. She is very popular and name brands like Louis Vuitton, Prada and Tom Ford. She married to a Sociologist named Greg Durkin and she has two sons. Her performances are existential encounters between models and the audience. She has a fond of using a large amount of people in her work and they are usually naked. However, they aren’t always naked. Sometimes they can have only shoes on or only shirts on or they can have a wig. What she dresses her models in varies. She calls her hired models her “army” and she is positioned as their commander and they follow her set rules, which represents political, historical and or social aspects.

Vanessa Beecroft has received a lot of attention and has caused some controversy. People say her work is just voyeurism and nothing more. One unknown skeptical art critique was quoted saying her work is a “Hooters for intellectuals.” However in her defense, Leonardo Dicaprio said her work was “dope” in 1994 and a prominent art historian said that her work was “the best thing since Gilbert and George performed ‘The Singing Sculpture’ at Sonnabend Gallery.” It is Feminism vs. Exploitation. The feminism view is that Beecroft is showing the beautiful entity that cannot be touched and evokes the need for something to happen within the male and female audience. The Exploitation view sees how she makes her models stand in one place in high heels for three hours.

More controversy arises when she goes to Sudan and tries to adopt malnourished Sudanese twin babies. She wished to use them in her work and she did creating a “Virgin Mary” type scene with her breastfeeding the twins. It was called “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins.” That enraged many people and a lot of people saw the photo as derogatory.

She received a similar reaction when she created a “Last Supper” type scene with her work “Vb65.” On a twelve-meter table for three hours, twenty-four African immigrant men, some dressed and some half dressed, ate a chicken dinner slowly without cutlery. Of course, the work she made was to represent something else and she did not think people would take it in a negative way. She wished to express the way people see the African race as savage. For the photo with her and the Sudanese twin babies she wanted to tell people to help those in need like the malnourished twins.

Vanessa Beecroft was quoted saying something along the context that she feels freer to perform in Italy. That is where she performed the “Vb65” piece in 2009. It was like somehow she knew, she had a gut feeling, that society would probably attack her like when she created “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins” around the same time she made “Vb61 Still Death! Darfur. Still Deaf?”

I can understand her feeling and why she would perform in her comfortable zone in Italy. The way Vanessa Beecroft expresses herself in her creative works is that she creates and then steps back from her work. She wants her audience to create and interpret for themselves like a true performance artist. A performance artist doesn’t hand out the facts plain as day on a silver platter. They go about their own concept in a roundabout way symbolically. Vanessa Beecroft wants to create an intimate feeling between her models in her own fantasy world and the audience who watches them during the three hours of their exhibition. Their vulnerability and unapproachable aura, I bet makes the audience understand what she wants them to see. I believe this. I believe she does not want people just to see, “Oh, they are naked and wearing shoes.” I think her work takes time to understand and can be understood more in person. 

from here (poetry)

"from here"

leaves and hats tumble on the pavement

swept up by the howl of wind,

loud whispers reach the ears of ghosts who are too preoccupied to mind,

trees shake to mother's rhythm and

shower travelers with their blessings while embracing the folded hands of those still.

and
from here

memories dissolve on the surface of tongues.

minty, sweet, then bland.

eventful, then...

why am I here?

I do not know why

or remember

obnoxious blaring thump-thump beats through tiny cracks and missing windows, 

sneakers who converse together in another world,

waiting for numbered metal to roll closer to merge with the horde,

nor the wad of gum on the bench they are sitting in

and

from here

sitting, they stay.

Forgotten, but we will meet again.

-Yanni Rabor

A poem I wrote.

Dr. Dioscoro S. Rabor

It is kind of creep by how someone basically...stalked by family, but my Grandfather is an important man to the environment in the Philippines. He is the "Father of Philippine Wildlife" or " Father of Philippine Conservation." He was a world renown scientist (Ornithologist and a Mammalogist) and a professor at Silliman University at Dumaguete City. Then he transferred to the Mindanao State University. Then in the mid 70s he went to the University of the Philippines at Los Banos, Laguna. One thing I am sad about is being born in this generation. All of my older siblings were able to talk with my Grandfather and me...being the youngest among the first 11 grandchildren...was unable to meet him. Well, I was able to meet him, but he was old already and he wasn't well.

Anyway, he makes me want to do my best and succeed since he was a very educational and strict man. My entire family and my Grandfather are my biggest influences in all that I do really. When I feel down, I remember by family. Enough said.

I am happy someone uploaded his picture online. :D

Strangers. Performance art project and a stop motion too.

I wonder what strangers will think of a stranger's photo. My photo.

I wonder this when I pass my notebook and pen to my friend as she enters her classroom. I leave with my face hidden under a hood. They do not know. No, no they do not know me. And yet, I am allowing them to write as me. They will write about me and try to embody my mind. The good, the bad and anything else they want can happen to me.

The plot, the situation at hand...everything is in strangers hands.

I wonder if I look nice and friendly. I wonder if I look weird. I wonder if I look weak. Strong. Stupid. Intelligent.

I could rob a bank with their words and it would be so.

I am excited though. I am excited about the whole situation I placed myself in. This is the first step of my Performance art project. Today is the starting day. I will place myself at the mercy of an unknown group of people. I hope it goes well.

On another topic: Here is a stop motion animation group assignment of mine. First time, so it is not perfect. I still enjoyed it though even though it got annoying. The stupid thing wouldn't stay on the wall and behave.

One hectic convention (loved it)

Perfect.

The guy who posed here chose the perfect costume to wear that day.

Ghost...I really miss playing video games with my cousins. They were the ones who got me hooked on Call of Duty and I thank them for it. They also dislike how I can kill them from freakishly long distances.

No one knows who this man is, but I do. I will keep it that way since "they" might be watching. "They" as in the people who start liking a show and then ruin it by doing something embarrassing that hurts my pride.

I don't know who this guy is supposed to be. He was passing people cards though.

Ah, two singing synthesizer applications. How lovely.

Sakura and...crap, I forgot his name. It starts with an S. I never finished this anime, but I plan to...someday when the workload lightens.

Aw, Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Mars. I wonder if people still remember this show from back in the day. It used to play all the time on Cartoon Network.

The show was called Sailor Moon. It is one old anime, but not as old as Astro Boy or Voltez V. My older cousins used to watch it in the Philippines when they were very young.

A character from another show I like.

And more characters.

and more...

Yea, him too even though I never got into the show because, it is over 400 episodes. I don't think I will ever reach it even if I tried.

I wish I knew what he was.

Oh, Tim Burton, I will forever love your work. :D

I only know one of them from a show I watch. The one on the right...Medusa.

And the Toki Doki creator was there, but you had to get a ticket in order to see him.

Wish I knew what this man was, but I bet he was hot. It was very hot in the convention and with hundreds of body heat destroying the cool air, the environment was perfect.

They look familiar, but I can't recognize them. I am frustrated.

HULK.

Naruto pajama person, Akatsuki and Fullmetal Alchemist people.

Uh...I don't know who he is, but he looked interesting.

He was really tall...and I didn't know who he was. The artist gallery behind him was lovely. Many artists by name were listed and we tried to see everyone (and of course their art pieces).

Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. I will always love that movie.

Ah, they look familiar again, but nothing is clicking. They looked cool though. Those are dolls, not kids. I was scared when I saw them for a second because, they were carrying their kid oddly. I was fearful they might fall...however, they were dolls. People did bring their kids though. I felt bad for them since they might be uncomfortable due to the thousands of people there.

NE-YO was there! I was so shocked. He had a tendency of looking down. It was also difficult to see him through the cameras and such.

He has a comic! Whoever drew him captured him well. I wonder who the artist is. I shall look into it soon.

My friend who went with me to the convention ran and snapped this as fast as she could. Ne-Yo was trying to avoid the crowd. While this happened I was in line for our lunch. Expensive lunch...they are money grubbing.

The guy looks so familiar...

On an ending note.