Final Draft of Gallery Exhibition Essay

Final Draft of Gallery Exhibition Essay:

    Artwork can have multiple messages that some may see while others may see something completely different. The artist themselves can incorporate some politic issues or opinions that they believe it, or think should be spoken about. An example of a problem that an artist can make an artwork about is the consumer rate, LGBTQ+, BLM, etc. But along with that same piece of artwork, while people look at it, the interpretation can be something totally different. The messages one receives from art can make for fascinating conversations with others and rattles the brain.

    Nancy Buchanan is an artist who is based in Los Angeles, California and was born on August 30,1946. In the 1970s, she was an important central role in the feminist art movement that took place in LA. Some work that she has done were in installation, performance, and video art, which is what she is really known for. Since she was known for her video art and performances, she incorporated some politics into it along with her personal stuff. While time managing with her artwork, she taught some courses that were video art, drawing and performance at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After that, she teamed up with Cal Art students to lead workshops that make videos with other students in schools and community centers. Buchanan’s teaching experience has taken het o new places even outside of the United States, like when she traveled to Korea in the summer to continue teaching workshops about Video Arts. In the book, This is what I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew, states, “In that moment, I began to understand how intimately art and activism could work together to produce a collective voice and shared community” (50). In the book, Drew made a page on her blog that was a safe place for people to heal and mourn people who were a victim of racism. The safe place that she created made her come to with the thought of how or it can be used in political ways and to protest whatever the issue was at that moment.

    An artwork of hers, 50 Shades of Cake, were to bring about how rapid the consumer rate is in the world. Over the years, people have taken more than needed for them and their family to eat and wasted even more without thinking about the people who can’t afford food at all. A quote by John Berger in Ways of Seeing, states, “This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer- even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.” Cake can be seen as a privilege since most people only get it for celebrations like birthdays and weddings. When families buy cake or even sweets in general just to have a nice representation on their kitchen table when people walk in like how the Kardashians do it, it’s an obvious sign that they are more financially stable and don’t care for spending money on things that don’t matter. Also, when it comes to wedding cakes, couples would spend a great amount of money on a 3–10-layer tier cake that’s decorated wildly, just for only a layer or two to be consumed while the rest of the layers are just going to waste.

    But another way to interpret it is seeing how the cakes are either black, white, or grey and some have multiple layers to them but it’s hard to see the actual beauty within them since it’s covered in something so pretty. Due to the outer area of the cake is decorated in something so pretty and innocent like flowers, it is very distracting from what can be underneath all of that. In the book, Ways of Seeing by John Berger, states, “Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion” (148). This can relate to people who get all dressed in nice clothes and makeup and look put together, but underneath they can have a bad personality and is someone who people don’t want to be around. An outside appearance can make someone envy them since they would want to look like them whether it’s their height, hair, body type, or clothes. Nancy’s artwork draws attention to people by making them think about how we tend to judge people based off their appearances and not think about how our assumption can affect their social life.

    Artwork has a funny way of connecting people and helping them see from another point of view. Art has hidden messages whether it’s about politics, feelings in general or just letting emotions out on a canvas. Nancy Buchanan used her artwork 50 Shades of Cake to make people think how much they are consuming every day and how we judge people without knowing them.