LIFE

PAGE 14

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2022

OLD GOLD & BLACK

Adam Coil, coilat21@wfu.edu Josie Scratchard, scraja20@wfu.edu Art piece captures intimacy and energy

Klimt's "The Kiss" inspired new art styles by referencing older works

ABBY KOMISKE Staff Writer

Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s “ e Kiss” — an oil painting on canvas with gold leaf, platinum and silver accents — depicts a man and woman in a world of gold. e couple is frozen in place, kneeling in a meadow of blue, yellow and green owers with a scattering of scarlet. e man wears a cloak covered in intricate, rectangular patterns of black, white and gold, and he is crowned with vines. e woman wears a dress of oral circles with bright shades of red, green, blue and gold; she has owers in her hair and gold chains wrapping her feet. eir bodies are brighter than the background as if the light of their embrace brightens their surroundings. He cradles the woman's face, kissing her cheek with his head turned away from the viewer. e woman's face is upturned, her eyes are closed as her arms surround him, centralizing her expression.

Painted in the early twentieth century, the work fully illustrates Klimt’s bold and luminescent golden period of creating. “ e Kiss” is considered his most famous work, but other notable pieces are “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer”, “Beethoven Frieze” or another shiny, intricate geometric piece wrapping of gures in metallic akes that could either be attributed to Klimt or an outgrowth of the ornamental Art Nouveau style. His creativity, expression and energy — which lies in the contrast between life and radiance — has inspired generations of artists by taking work from the past and creating new messages of love and eroticism using such a highly decorative style. ough not well received by religious and popular culture at the time, “ e Kiss” is particularly reminiscent of the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. is structure was constructed during the reign of Emperor Justinian I and holds many well-preserved Byzantine mosaics from hundreds of years ago. For reference, Byzantine art — primarily in the 6th century — utilized gold mosaics and natural light within churches to explore the glory of God and transform the worshiper. us, while Klimt’s work is not religious, his reference to divinity, beauty and splendor is apparent.

I love this piece. It is one of my all-time favorites, and yet I am still confused by it. And I’ll admit, I’m not the most-well versed artconnoisseur. I can recognize the big names and even bigger styles, but I love art museums, student galleries and online platforms because there are so many ideas that people express about love, life and more — all with varying degrees of popularity. Furthermore, communication can be so wide-ranging. You can look at Klimt’s piece and compare it to other pieces exemplifying the embrace of lovers in such contrasting expressions. Constantin Brancusi’s “ e Kiss”, a limestone statue in the pure, cubic form of a couple morphed together, is one such work.

An interesting aspect about art is that you can look at a painting — even knowing that someone like Klimt’s inspiration comes from Egyptian, Byzantine and Minoan in uences — and recognize other elements that add to its interest. For instance, the Art Nouveau attributes that were popular in 1900s Vienna and the impact of Japanese prints, illuminated manuscripts and the modernist style can be recognized in Klimt’s pieces I can see the gentle intimacy of two people alone in the world, the quietness of comfort, the conception of simultaneous delight, rapture and the weight of such a relationship. However, some also see abandonment or possible resignation in the woman’s face — which is possible with her unusual expression — but with her hand on his, I think it’s more about privacy. And, there are so many interpretations beyond this that merit consideration.

Klimt's "The Kiss" is a painting from the early 20th century.

Contact Abby Komiske at

Student shares the memories of her experience in France

SOFIA BAZANT

Staff Writer ree years ago today, I was a junior in high school living as a study abroad student in France. It was one of the most enriching experiences of my life.

It all began on Friday, Sept. 5, 2018, when I arrived in Paris for my study abroad orientation. I ate dinner in a hostel cafeteria with 300 other exchange students waiting to depart to our new French homes the following morning. Students from around the world sat dispersed among tables, connecting through broken French and bits of other languages. e air was palpable with nervous excitement as we all imagined the adventures that waited for us just around the corner.

Soon enough I was touring Le CateauCambrésis, a modest countryside town in Northeastern France, home to the Matisse museum.

My host parents welcomed me to the quiet center of their traditional red-brick village, while my two and three-year-old host sisters spoke excitedly over one another. My bedroom window overlooked an abandoned bed-and-breakfast with chipped pearl shutters, among the closely-packed buildings that evoked a city. Little did I know, these people would become my second family and the house my second home.

My year abroad exposed me to a level of independence I had never experienced — my host parents encouraged me to be proactive and responsible on my own accord.

On my rst day of school — less than 48 hours after my arrival in France — I walked up the stairs by the iron gates of my school with no instructions other than to go to the front desk. After about four words, the woman at the desk exclaimed that I was “l’américaine” and sent me o with a classmate. I embraced this independence every day by exploring my town on my own and working hard in my classes.

I completely immersed myself completely in the language and culture. Everyone seemed to want to help me improve my French — during my rst week, the baker at the local boulangerie said “une” with a smile when I ordered “un baguette”; my host family sparked intellectual conversations that would broaden my knowledge and language skills; we discussed our days at dinner and conversed about topics ranging from politics to pop culture.

I carefully documented all memories and relationships from the year through photos and routine journal entries that I still possess. ey are lled with photos of each vibrant sunset, from my house on the hill to photos of croissants I got for less than a euro during my 15-minute school breaks and everything in between. My photos were a way of slowing down and appreciating the little things in life.

My classmates became my best friends. I spent every class period with the same twenty students who shared a specialization for the baccalaureat, a French college entrance exam. At the end of the year, my friends made me a scrapbook of photos with goodbye notes that I keep in my room as a reminder of the beautiful relationships and memories that I’ll always cherish.

I also created my own elaborate photo album for my host family as a goodbye gift. Inside, I glued hundreds of photos from our activities, such as cooking new recipes together, playing board games in the house and traveling around France.

Re ecting on this time brings me unparalleled joy because I am unbelievably thankful for the experiences and relationships that brought me such an excitingly tumultuous year of memories.

While I would need far more than a few short paragraphs to describe all that I gained in my time abroad, I feel that no amount of words could truly do justice to all that gained that year.

I hope that I will soon return to the people that made my junior year so wonderful and to the country that made it all happen.

Exploring the musical career of MGMT

Follow psychedelic pop group MGMT's journey in the music industry

MARYAM KHANUM Opinion Editor

Most people recognize the band MGMT from three iconic singles: “Kids”, “Time to Pretend” and “Electric Feel". While each of these songs was undoubtedly unique in their era and played a major role in creating the brand of psychedelic indie pop we are so familiar with today, these songs were never what MGMT set out to create. And yet, they still struck gold with the release of the initial album. “Oracular Spectacular” is MGMT’s highest-grossing album of all time, selling 17,000 copies per week at its peak and two million in total. However, it almost represented gentrification of the individualistic, absurdist music that brought the band together in the first place.

MGMT’s story is about two college students — Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden — both studying at Wesleyan University. They connected over a mutual love for absurdist music and a mutual disdain for what they saw as the pop industry machine. Their band’s original name, “The Management”, was a nod towards their contempt for the way the pop music industry was run and the people behind the machine. In fact, their first two songs “Kids” and “Time to Pretend” were written as a satire on modern pop and were performed at college parties around campus as a joke alongside a 45-minute long cover of the Ghostbusters theme song. However, the traction these songs gained around campus encouraged the pair to release their first ever EP, “Time To Pretend”. MGMT was never intended to be a lasting arrangement and definitely would not have been if its EP hadn’t been picked up by Columbia Records, with whom the boys recorded “Oracular Spectacular”.

The rest was history. “Oracular Spectacular” became a massive success, with the three singles as its highest-grossing crown jewels. They were reimagined to contain even more of a pop-music feel for the studio debut. For example, the tempo in “Time To Pretend” was raised to match ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”. MGMT began to represent the kind of sound Andrew and Ben had made fun of and lost the feel of the psychedelic music they set out to create. The three singles heavily overshadowed the rest of their album, including tracks that were more representative of their true neopsychedelic style. The duo is now associated with parodies, and they had almost become the subject of this initial caricature.

Disillusioned with their own image, Andrew and Ben headed back into the studio to create a new anthology that would exhibit their true style. They made their second studio album, “Congratulations”, and traveled further in this direction with their third studio album, “MGMT”, released in 2013. Each of these featured a display of the more psychedelic, dark-synth pop style Andrew and Ben had always wanted to pursue. Critics described it as “weird” and “awkward”, and it didn’t come anywhere near the success “Oracular Spectacular” had.

Despite the underwhelming reception received by these two albums, I personally loved the new direction the duo decided to take. The group combined a number of musical elements that just barely work with one another in order to create a sound that somehow works. However, the lack of success these albums saw was disheartening, and MGMT went on a hiatus for almost four years following the release.

After their hiatus, they began to work on their most recent album, “Little Dark Age” (LDA), in the spring of 2016. This was unlike anything they’d made before — its creation over the course of 2016 and 2017 coincided with major political shifts, including the election of former President Donald Trump which inspired the album. LDA not only represented MGMT's attempts to marry their authentic, unconventional sound with the kaleidoscopic pop motif that made them so popular — it also symbolized their return to centering performance art in their craft. It has something for everyone, with tracks like “Me and Michael” that appeal to the audience expecting more of an 80s dance-pop vibe or songs like “Days That Got Away” geared towards the audience with a preference for absurdism.

LDA was hugely successful. It peaked at #35 on Billboard 200 and passed 100 million streams on Spotify. Many critics saw it as a return to the same style as “Oracular Spectacular”, others saw it as dramatically different from anything MGMT had released before. Having just passed its four-year anniversary, it is still unclear as to whether LDA really was the band's final album. However, as an album, it represents the growth experienced by MGMT as artists and their struggle to find their niche in the music industry.

Contact Maryam Khanum at khanmg20@wfu.edu

Students discuss recent events in music

A combination of events in the music industry leave much to be analyzed

ADAM COIL & BRODY LEO

Life Editor & Contributing Writer

A lot has happened this week in the music world, so we thought it might be a good idea to take a pause and re ect on everything that transpired.

Kanye's social media presence

Brody:

Kanye West’s long period of social media silence after his failed presidential campaign showed that there truly was something missing from my life. I turned on Instagram post noti cations for West, at most, exciting an occasional Sunday Service or a cryptic album promotion. Now, I get more noti cations from Kanye’s Instagram than anyone else, though that might just be a testament to how dry my phone is.

Regardless of this fact, any new post from West never fails to liven up my day. Whether he’s posting a poorly cropped picture of Pete Davidson (a.k.a "Skete"), putting a teenager’s hate comment on blast or talking about “God’s plan” to reunite him with Kim Kardashian, there is something new to enjoy every day. In all seriousness, though, I hope he does gure out his breakup with Kardashian. Right now, this feels like the world’s largest divorce, and all of us are just the kids stuck in the middle trying to gure it all out.

Adam:

While I understand that West’s social media antics can be amusing, the situation of Kanye is, at best, a matter of ignorance and, at worst, deliberate abuse of power. West is easily one of the most in uential artists of this generation — with a ginormous following — which means that it is his responsibility to evaluate the repercussions of his actions. Of course, spontaneity is something that has helped to propel West’s career, but now he needs to realize just how bad this could get.

Like Kardashian said in a text that West later reposted (and then deleted) to his Instagram, someone could get seriously hurt from all of this. e situation feels somewhat reminiscent of the January 6th capitol insurrection — larger-than-life gures weaponizing their base to attack an entity they feel has wronged them. As someone who has been something of a pioneer in the discourse surrounding mental health, it feels exceptionally irresponsible for West to act this way. e message he’s sending to his impressionable base is that being belligerent and erratic is okay so long as you use your mental health struggles as an excuse. Or so long as you're famous.

Black Country, New Road's sophomore LP Adam:

ere is a lot to love about Black Country, New Road’s recent album, “Ants From Up ere”. As someone who wasn’t really into their debut LP, “For the rst time”, I must admit that I was initially apathetic to this release until the consistent praise from various in uencers in the music community pushed me to listen closer and reevaluate. Something that has really grown on me after a third and fourth listen is how much Isaac Wood brings to the project with his vocals. His voice is dynamic, poignant and easy to empathize with — you can especially feel the strain of his voice in the chorus of “Chaos Space Marine” when he sings, “So I’m leaving this body / And I’m never coming home again, yeah.” Black Country, New Road’s lyrical talent is on full display on tracks such as “Basketball Shoes” and “Concorde”, where the sporadic, passionate verses remind me of Will Toledo and Alex G. “Ants From Up ere” is perplexing and impressive because it allows itself to be loose and upbeat while simultaneously capturing the anxiety and despair of failing relationships and the instability of becoming an adult.

Brody:

Adam will eat up anything that has a high score from Anthony Fantano, so I was a little more skeptical here. I did give it a fair listen, though, and I completely understand the hype. Black Country, New Road has an amazing ability to borrow e ective elements of mainstream alternative rock while also o ering a fair deal of unique experimentation. e group’s melodies are catchy and colorful but far from shallow. Beneath each infectious dominant chord progression, there are intricate sublayers of acoustic strings, horns and percussion. Because of this, it’s both an enjoyable rst listen and a project to which you just want to keep coming back.

Super Bowl halftime show

Brody:

A stage shared by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, 50 Cent and Kendrick freaking Lamar?! Seriously, for someone who grew up on those artists, there was nothing more for which I could ask. First of all, I absolutely loved the setlist — seamlessly mixed by Dre — which jumped from East Coast to West Coast, old school to new school.

Of course, I’m disappointed that Lamar didn’t get more airtime and that he didn't nish his performance by announcing a new album — there is no one more starved for new Lamar than me. But honestly, after this long without seeing Lamar, I can’t be too upset. I loved that he started his performance o with the “m.A.A.d. city” intro, and the impressive camera work on “Alright” made the performance look more like a music video than a halftime show.

I really was hoping that West would come out of the stands and deliver some sort of 2009 VMAs type stunt, but alas.

Adam:

I have two questions: what was Eminem doing there? at was a mood killer, to be honest. Aso, why didn’t Anderson .Paak get in on the action? I will admit he did look pretty cool on the drums, though.

THE HOT LIST

"TOP 10 ACC TEAMS THAT I HATE" BY ESSEX THAYER

1 . 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Duke

Clemson

Notre Dame

North Carolina

NC State

Florida State

Pitt

Louisville

Miami

QUYNH VU

LIFE THROUGH THE LENS

As a visual artist and person of color, I often joke about the stereotype that is BIPOC artists who only create heavily politicized art that depicts an angry, anti-West attitude. That stereotype depicts ours as the kind of radical, ultra-leftist art that criminalizes whiteness and victimizes the BIPOC identity by hitting on certain themes such as imperialism, westernization, colonization and more.

I believe that I can safely say that many artists of color face the fear of being categorized as this kind of artist. Unfortunately, BIPOC artists are given the involuntary responsibility of representation. To exist as an artist of color in a Western-centric art world, there is an implicit obligation to create politicized work about identity in order to be legitimized and noticed. Our work, no matter what it is, often becomes diminished to a representation of our identity that is superficially interpreted based on white experiences and white logic. Our attempts to present ourselves as complex individuals are thus prohibited by this reductive logic.

The 2008 book “White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology” is a collection of essays that address white logic — specifically in the fields of social science. The essays elaborate on how social scientists’ adherence to white common-sense influences how certain data and issues are studied, framed and analyzed. As a result, the research presented comes from a restricted understanding of the true complexities of racial matters. The book calls for a total overhaul of current social research practices and more of an effort towards a more multicultural approach.

Though this book speaks for practices within social sciences only, it is heavily applicable to the art world as well. Art history is organized from a Western-centric perspective. Total self-expression through abstract painting was invented in the United States by Jackson Pollock. Black artists are ambassadors for the Civil Rights Movement. Aboriginal artists physically manifest the height of spirituality onto the canvas. Whiteness has always been the dominant culture and art will continue to be interpreted by its limited perspective.

The New York-based artist, Jayson Musson, addresses this issue in a satirical comedic video he filmed entitled “How To Be a Successful Black Artist”. In this nearly 9-minute-long video, he embodies his fictional persona, Hennessy Youngman and gives his Black audience a list of actions they could take in order to be successful in the art world. In the video, he lists things such

as building and maintaining an angry exterior by watching violent footage of racist acts, exotifying/othering yourself, inventing pseudo-scholarly terms such as “post-Black” and relying on slavery for content.

If I want to escape this fear of categorization so badly, then why do I keep focusing on diasporic content? There is a reason why so many artists continue to create work that consequently lands them in this category. Being a person of color in the West is too complex not to talk about. It is a kind of existence that naturally produces confusing and exhausting questions about identity. It is not a means of dwelling on the negatives of the past but an attempt to understand how and why my identity is largely shaped by the consequences of both historical and contemporary globalism.

I often say that this is the type of content that “white people eat up.” Their exposure to this type of work is a means for them to soothe their white guilt and prove their wokeness. It’s the kind of work that sells.

I usually feel guilty when I create a work that is not political. It feels almost shameful when I create a piece where the goal is solely to explore mark-making or the nature of a particular medium. If I cannot justify a work using politics and theory, then it is not worth creating or displaying. At the same time, I feel proud when a work has nothing to do with politics of identity, saying to myself, “Hey, I can be like white people too.” Ironically, creating unpolitical work about nothing at all feels like a rebellion against dominant white culture. Simultaneously, I again feel guilty when creating work that does tackle these issues of identity. It results in feeling like a sell-out and that my work is too predictable. It creates a crisis of self-fetishization and self-exploitation.

All of these feelings are a result of letting white opinions determine validity. Our identities as BIPOC in the West are complex, but it is a matter of trying to convince white people of that.

I was asked by one of the Life editors in an email to write an article about my work. In the email, the first article for “Life Through the Lens” was linked. Admittedly, I was disappointed to discover that this particular article dealt with the frustrations of being a person of color in a predominately white environment. This topic was consistently reflected upon throughout other articles for the column. I felt that the opportunity to write this article was yet another way that I have been viewed as an angry representative of the Asian American identity.

While writing this article, I was confused about who I was writing for. I am not much of a writer; hence why I make images. So, I attempted to answer my question by understanding who I make art for. The large majority of my work does critically investigate the Vietnamese-American diaspora by reckoning with transnationalism, the residual effects of French imperialism, and the general existence of Asian-Americans in the West. Investigating these topics helps to provide insight into my diasporic experiences. It works as an attempt to form a concrete idea of who Quynh Vu is. My work is specific to my individual self only. If I am representing a particular group of people, then that is an unintentional side effect.

Photo courtesy of Quynh Vu Quynh Vu, “Portrait of Childhood Friend Who I Don’t Talk to Anymore” (2022)

Photo courtesy of Quynh Vu

It felt almost redundant to write about my work as if my work is something that I make primarily for myself. Maybe this is just an elaborate journal entry full of organized venting. However, I am considering the possibility that it may serve as a statement defending my work for white people or even for the editor himself.

Truthfully, every artist’s work pertains to their identity. As people, everything we do is a symbol of our identity. How we choose to dress, eat, walk and wipe our butt. But as people of color, our bodies are already so politicized that everything we create and do automatically has preconceived meanings shaped by white logic. So, we must stop relying on these white perceptions to be the default of how our art and ourselves will be received.

For my upcoming solo show in the spring of 2022, I will focus on the two largest components of my childhood, which are dry-cleaning and Catholicism. I spent nearly every day of my childhood alongside my parents in their dry-cleaning business. The only day that I wasn’t there was on Sundays when the business closed, and we went as a family to attend mass at the nearby Roman Catholic church. Through my work, I will attempt to sacralize dry cleaning objects and address the invisibility of bluecollared labor.

Photo courtesy of Quynh Vu Quynh Vu, “Laugh Now Cry Later” (2021)