There is nothing like observing beautiful work on a lovely day, surrounded by fellow students who share a passion for art. On Thursday, October 12, all intermediate studio art classes spent the day in New York City exploring the Chelsea gallery district. The classes, along with art teachers Mark Green and Greg Cice, viewed a whopping total of 15 galleries throughout the day, and had the opportunity to analyze and reflect on each of the unique artistic styles.
To kick off the day, students began their trip at the David Zwirner Gallery. Here, they observed the art created by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, a Nigerian artist. This gallery was particularly engaging to many on the trip who remembered Crosby as a Community Time guest speaker on zoom last year. During her talk, Crosby described the meaning behind her work as well as her artistic process, so it was extremely compelling for students to see her art in person.
On top of the beautiful stories behind her work, her style was also strikingly interesting. She used both paint and collages to combine her culture with her love of art. Her work reflects her unique background, as she was born in Nigeria and moved to the United States as a teenager. The multitude of media used in her work represents the many components that make up her complex identity.
“I really liked her art because it was mixed media, so we saw newspapers and magazines as well as paint. The style was very pretty and unique,” said Sophomore Kareena Parasnis, an Intermediate Studio Art student.
Another extremely impressive gallery that students visited was the Philippe Labaune Gallery. This gallery contained illustrations belonging to the New Yorker, a popular magazine. Students got a behind-the-scenes look at the process of Peter de Seves’ cartoon work, the man who created popular illustrations such as Finding Nemo and Ratatouille. Students got to see how cartoonists’ work progressed from simple sketches to complex cartoons. This gallery was one of the students’ highlights of the day, as it was extremely interesting to observe cartoons that we all know and love.
“I thought it was really interesting to see the creative process going from loose sketches to the published New Yorker cover,” said Sophomore Fiona Pedraza, an Intermediate Studio Art student. To make the experience even better, gallery dealer Philippe Labaune gave the students a personal tour of his gallery while describing how different animations and cartoons came to life.
Lastly, another notable gallery was the Lisson Gallery, containing art that was both contemporary and interactive. The floor of the gallery was coated in sand, giving an additional piece of character to the gallery’s environment. On top of the sand lay many pieces of an octopus sculpture, surrounded by paintings related to the sea. The combination of a three-dimensional animal, real sand, and realistic paintings gave this gallery an extremely unique feel compared to the others.
Mr. Green and Mr. Cice organized and advised the trip to give students examples of wonderful art and to open people’s eyes to the freedom that comes with creating.
“We wanted to expose art students to contemporary art based on artists’ choice of theme, in order to inspire our students leading up to advanced placement art in the not-so-distant future,” said Mr. Green.
The trip was a major success, and in the afternoon all students returned back to Hackley having gathered new perspectives on hundreds of art pieces.
“I really enjoyed observing all the different types of art, as we saw many mixed mediums instead of just one category of art like abstract, realistic, mixed media, cartoons, and more,” said Kareena. Observing artists’ processes and styles was an extremely rewarding experience for everyone on the trip.
