The Dia: Beacon

The Dia was really great a lot of great artist were in this museum such as Andy Warhol, Walter De Maria, Fred Sandback, Robert Smithson, On Kawara, Donald Judd, and many more.

Donald Judd’s piece I believe is called “wall” really blew me away. It a really simple piece but it really made me think hard on why I think the way that I do. Where do my preconceptions come from? This piece threw off my equilibrium. When I noticed the wall I wondered, whats going to be at the bottom; is it going to scare me? Will it be good? Will it interest me? I wonder if there is a alligator down there? And the closer I got the more I wondered what was behind the wall. Then next thing I know I can see over the wall and its just a slope from the top edge of the wall to the corner meeting the wall and floor. This conceptual piece works for me because it works with the viewers imagination as well as the viewers interactions with the piece. Easily anyone can miss this piece and just walk right by it.

And just for kicks and entertainment our tour guide said “aah”’s and “eeh”’s through out the tour 155 times YES I did keep count after the first 5 min when I realized that he would be doing it a lot through out the tour, and he also said “Blah blah blah” 12 times when he was assuming that we all knew what he was talking about.

The Met & The Guggenheim

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is HUGE.

We started with a guided tour it went by really quick but definitely did not get to see enough. After the tour we had about two hours to roam around the museum.

I found The Jasper Johns: Gray exhibition to be very interesting. At first I was not so impressed the first images I saw was the False Start right next to Jubilee I automatically thought that the rest of the exhibit would be a color images then duplicated with black and white hues. OH but I was so wrong. Johns uses a series of objects, letters, numbers or words. He has the same image made in different mediums. He uses pastels, charcoal, powdered graphite, lithography, ink, and collage. He made his own paint with hot wax and pigment. With his wax paint each stroke is then permanently set because it dries quickly. After taking Lithography course last term I found great appreciation for his lithographs one of his lithos was made with 11 stones, that's insane. I enjoyed the esthetic of the ink on plastic images they looked as if they were still wet and runny, this had a rushed feel for it, as if it is still not finished. I enjoyed this exhibit very much.

4 Years ago today I was in Egypt it was great to see the Egyptian exhibition in remembrance of the amazing time i had there with my brother.
I definitely did not have enough time to see the whole museum.






The Guggenheim is TIGHT.
Cia Guo- Qiangs exhibit I Want To Believe is so astounding
I had no clue what to expect. Right when I first walked in I was so impressed by all the bright colors from the cars hanging in the center of the building. As time passed and the more and more I looked at the centerpiece, the more I didn’t like it. It reminded me of something that would be in a mall, I did not like that there was a “normal” car at the bottom and top. I would of liked the bottom car to be destroyed or maybe not even there.
This piece did evoke that split second feeling when adrenaline rush hits, the split second when you decide to fight or flight, that sudden urge when you get a split heat rush from your stomach to your head. That is what the flashing lights reminded me of.
To go along with my fight of flight theme, I noticed that the tigers were fighting or defending them selves before getting hit with all the arrows, and the wolves were running away. I really enjoyed Cia’s work

check ins

I checked out from the hotel and Matt drove me to the loftstel we got lost but we found our way around. I said my goodbyes and I was off to check in and meet up with my classmates. The hostel has an amazing view of the city. We went to dinner at a Thai restaurant called Sea, it was a dance club turned into a restaurant. I’m really excited for tomorrow to start our adventures.

two days before....

new york New York NEW YORK!!!!

I cant believe im here,


I arrived at 9am Thursday morning my friend Matt was a hour late picking me up, He was stuck in traffic. I come into most situations not having much to any expectations, because that way I’m not ever disappointed, it works wonders for me.

Matt got me a room at the Marriott to stay at for two nights its was awesome I thought I was just going to crash at his place.
Flying the red eye isn’t as good as I thought it would be, I could not sleep at all, I was able to take a nap once I got in to my hotel room, Matt had to go to work so I just relaxed enjoyed some cable television and got my energy back. Later that night we met up with his friends at a bar, they were all really nice they all talked to me made me feel comfortable and even one of them gave me a Long Island Out Back Pin it was my first souvenir. Matt and I sang karaoke to Sublimes, Wrong way and we did terrible. But all in all I had a good time and had a lot of fun meeting all of Matt’s friends and checking out what Long Island is like .

I was able to sleep in the next day. We got some really good breakfast sandwiches. So the plan for today was to go into the city “Manhattan” we took the 6:05pm train, it took about 40min to get there, we then Taxied to Time Square. It was amazing everything I imagined I cant wait to go back. We dined at The Planet Hollywood Café had a drink and bite to eat, we then waited for his friend Larry at Penn Station we got some beers browned bagged them and sat on the floor hung out bum style it was fun people watching. We got tired of waiting and headed to the Meat Packing District and went to a really fancy bar called Lotus I was definitely under dressed, but it was a neat experience the bar was so dark even the bathrooms were dark it was really classy. We had a drink and met up with Larry. We cabbed it to a bar called Off The Wagon this bar was really fun played good music a lot of 80’s-90’s hits. We then got the 2:30am train back to Long Island. This definitely was a good 1st night out in the city I got a slight taste of the night life and now I cant wait to go to my hostel tomorrow meet up with my classmates and get ready for a awesome week of art Art ART!!!