Monday, May 7, 2007

My website assignment

This is my website.
I tried to make a website about beauty culture in Hong Kong. Of coz all of the information are not real. However, I hope people can know more and aware of the trend of pursueing unnatural beauty.

The spring semester is going to end very soon, so as my life at SMC. I really enjoy my semester working with all of you. I am so grateful to be here. Although I stayed here for 4 months only, I got a lot and I learned a lot from every single one of you! Thanks and have a nice summer!

Art/ Cultural event (5)

14th March, 2007: Chelsea Museum of Art.

I remember I walked a long way before I got to the Museum. It was a small museum located between different Galleries. Differ from the ‘big’ museum I’ve been before, Chelsea Museum of Art is unique and ‘powerful’.
I was attracted by the theme of the exhibition: ‘Dangerous Beauty’.



Except the 3rd floor, all the Art works are closely related to the theme. Here are some of the art works that impressed me:


This is a pretty painting that brought out an idea that nowadays girls are becoming identical. Girls want to be slim and have ‘perfect’ body shape. Furthermore, plastic surgery also drive more and more girls to pursue artificial beauty.

These are wonderful pictures processed by using Photoshop, further illustrated the artificial beauty.





When talk about unnatural beauty, Barbie must not be excluded. Some people accused Barbie as the origin of encouraging the twisted idea of beauty.



I have a strong feeling to photos taken by Lauren Greenfield. The way she catches images and the emotional feeling involved in the pictures are so strong. I am interested in her work, therefore, I went to her personal website to know more about her.


After that, I figured out what I wanted to do with my website assignment.
Please check out Lauren Greenfield's personal website when you have time. it is really interesting.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Art/ Cultural event (4)

14th March 2007: Metropolitan Museum of Arts

During the trip to New York in spring break, I went to 4 museums. I was so impressed by the art works. Most importantly, I can feel the way people appreciate art and respect art in US, in NYC.

Metropolitan Museum of Arts is the most famous museum in Manhanttan (I guess). It is so huge that one day is not enough for walking around. I had very strong feeling about the displayed items. Since I didn’t have time, I just walked around theme exhibition, Egypt, the Asian historical arts, and the western painting sections.

The effort and time people put in investigation is appreciated. Thousands and thousands of ancient Egypt accessories, drawing, letters, sculptures, and mummies were kept in good condition. Here are some pictures I took in the exhibition.









When I was walking in the Chinese historical section, my heart felt pain. I have never seen such a big collection of Chinese ancient ‘evidence’. On one hand, I feel bad because American took our national properties and show them in their own country proudly. On another hand, the pain was mainly from shame. Chinese people are so unaware of our past. While foreigners treated the little pieces as treasures, Chinese treated them as trash.




The Western painting section was my favorite. I used to learn painting when I was younger. I haven’t picked my paint and brushes for years. The paintings are really amazing and perfect.



I hope some day; we can also have a great museum like this in our country. A museum collects all kinds of art work in the past and present.

Site Map and draft of my web site







Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Art/ Cultural event (3)


7th March, 2007
Art Lecture: Candidate of Faculty member— Chris Coleman


Frankly, I like this lecture very much. Not only because of the interesting ideas behind the works of the artist; I gave credits to the artist’s good presentation skill.

Before becoming an artist, Chris Coleman was a Mechanical Engineer. I guess his former occupation did affect the choice of art works he makes. Before we listen to any information from him, he used a video clip as an introduction of his presentation.

It was a 3-minutes video clip shooting a chimney keeps producing and take-in the smoke it produces. The video have no narrative, no words, no information about the idea of this art works. Instead, there was breathing sound kept repeating in 3 minutes.

Some people may find that irritating. Honestly, I was bored by the video and wonder what message he wants to give before his explanation. The artist explained, we are actually breathing with the factory everyday, especially in city. The sky may look clear and clean, but the pollutants are actually collaborated in the air. Everyone of us should be condemned of pollution, because we buy the products and seldom aware of the pollution problem.
I appreciate his idea of putting environmental-friendly in art work; yet, the idea was hard to get without the artist’s explanation.

Another interesting work of Chris Coleman was the animation.
The animation he made was actually composed of the images we can see from airplane brochure. He brought out the fear and terror, safety and hazard ideas. He tried to use the same language to bring every daily event in a piece.

More of his art works could be found on his web site.