Art appreciation can be a deeply personal, transformative experience. The different themes embodied in the work might meet a visitor on a minutely relatable level, or the visitor might have some sort of transcendental realization. Regardless of the magnitude of the emotional response, the discussion of artwork—especially in a casual sense—tends to be superficial. When I’ve gone to various galleries and exhibitions with my friends, the depths of our conversations regarding the art has been limited to a discussion of aesthetics: “I like how the artist…” and “This piece reminds me of…” are phrases that dominate my conversations within such artistic spaces. Talking about our emotions is largely ignored, and we would rather show off our ability to analyze what the artist is trying to say. Some might argue that there is a time and a place for such deeply affecting discussions, yet this interpretation discounts the very real impact that art can have on our everyday lives. Especially regarding the relevant social and political themes of the Stamp Gallery’s current show, Black Maths, these conversations must happen beyond the scope of aesthetic analysis.

I’d like to share my personal reaction to Adam Holofcener’s sound installation, Upresting, as an example. After spending a considerable amount of time with this piece, my emotions have ranged from uncertainty to empowerment. I am uncertain because the sounds of protest do not loop in a predictable pattern, and because I cannot anticipate the chanting or the screaming or the silence, I experience a loss of control. I am at the mercy of the work, and that is personally terrifying. This fear subsided, however, when I discovered the interactive aspect of Upresting: the microphone. I learned that my voice is amplified in the simulated multitudes and that my contribution has an audible (if only fleeting) impact on the sound. My voice became powerful, yet I had to continue to speak lest my voice faded away into the crowd.

For me, experiencing Upresting has given me the opportunity to admit my fears and embrace my voice, yet this personal sentiment is not easily relatable to others. I try to take these emotions home and discuss with my roommates, but often my words are as scattered as my thoughts. People are afraid to engage in these conversations because they fear either their interpretations are wrong or that they won’t be able to present their emotions cohesively. That is not the point of discussion. The point of entering artistic discourse—especially on such a personal level—is to work out the jumble of thoughts and emotions into something more cohesive. The uncertainty we might feel after taking in an art piece isn’t to be avoided, but celebrated. So I urge to engage in the discussion in any manner you like: express yourself creatively, take time to sit and talk with friends, write a blog post.

If a work of art makes a statement that affects you, the least you could do is respond.

Written by Christopher Bugtong

When people typically think of an art gallery space, I would assume that they think of paintings, prints, sculptures, and the like. The rules are unspoken but evident: no touching, no flash photography, mindfulness of the space. A very present connection between the artist and the art piece is established, and by setting the aforementioned limitations, the exhibitors and curators reveal part of the artistic intent.

So what happens when the artwork and the experience becomes democratized, where the only boundary presented is your imagination? What happens when the visitors in the gallery are invited to not only touch the artwork, but to participate in the process? These are the questions presented to visitors as they experience Paradise Now. Over the past seven weeks, the Stamp Gallery has exhibited a show in which guests have reshaped the topography of the space, embraced the subversion of everyday life, and put themselves on display. Yet this show has meant so much more.

After activating multiple sessions of Paradise Now, I’ve seen a variety of different responses from our visitors. Some boldly push the limits of what they are allowed to do, others are paralyzed by confusion and uncertainty, and still others simply play and give themselves to the experience. Each person’s response is wholly different but equally valuable, giving them a self-understanding with which they are able to leave the space. These emotional and intellectual reactions are not traceable to a single object, but rather to the ethereal moment of experience. The visitors are invited to put themselves into the process, so the relationship is not simply art-informing-viewer, but instead self-informing-art-informing-self.

Despite my praise of the alternative Paradise Now format, I am not discounting the traditional gallery experience. By no means has the Stamp Gallery given up on exhibiting artwork in the conventional sense. Both types of exhibition engage their audiences differently, and both aim to confront the participant with some sort of thoughtful engagement. Some subjects that an art piece might reflect are love, social dissonance, artfulness, etc., but part of what Paradise Now reflects is the audience, and that aspect is the crux of why we were interested in curating this show. This exhibition has been a stark reminder to our University of Maryland viewership that art does not have to be transcendentally significant.

Art can be about you, too.

Written by Christopher Bugtong

Dearest Player,

Thank you for beginning your journey to becoming an unlocked player in the game of Paradise Now.

Paradise Now is a game of unequal circumstances and varying objectives that invites unlocked players to alter and redefine the game’s Score by participating in various rounds of the game. The Score is a series of directive actions that happen over each 60 minute round of the game. Unlocked players may alter the Score by navigating the space with their bodily movements, altering the various gaming mechanism at play, and by adding directive phrases to its structure. Although many players may be active in the game simultaneously, every player may choose to fill the role of player 1 or player 2 and respond accordingly to their set of directive actions in the Score throughout each round played. Each round of the game played throughout its occupation of Stamp Gallery in September & October of 2016 will be documented, archived and analyzed by our team, who will compose an accumulative Score. The accumulative Score will represent a collective of player movements found throughout the entirety of the game’s stay at the Stamp. Your participation is highly valued by our team and we hope you enjoy this round of the game.

With love,
The Paradise Now team

Ernst Haas once said, “The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.” A photo can be great in many ways: the lighting, the subject, the angle… However, a great photo always has limits, that there is only one of them, and it is always subject to the viewpoint of the photographer.

It is not until I saw Exposure#43 that I realized how subjective and limited photography can be. Exposure #43 by Barbara Probst presents viewers two photos of same scale but different content. The first part is black and white. A woman appears striding across the screen. The background is full of landscapes tightly packed against each other. Her hair flows in the wind and her face is blurry. The  composition of clear buildings and blurry figure suggests that our subject is in motion, just like how city life never slows down a second. On the other hand, the second part of the art exhibits a beautiful scenery: deep blue sky, tranquil waters, and boundless valley. At the center of the image, there is a group of people. It is hard to clearly see what they are doing because they are so small in the picture in comparison to the the mountains and pine trees, but one of them is holding a camera so it is assumed that they are taking photo shoots.

With the strong contrast, Probst investigates the potential range of impressions of a single time and place. The two photos are completely different from each other: one is black and white, one is in color; one setting is urban while the other is in nature; one gives viewers a fast-moving mood, and the other creates a peaceful moment that is impossible to interrupt. These two images were taken at the same time to record a single scene, but two or more cameras were used to record from multiple angles. It is very hard to pull these two parts together and think of them as one, and the juxtaposition made me think outside the photo, of not only what is presented in the image but also what is around the camera at that moment.

Observing the artwork by Probst made me think. Now whenever I see a photo, I always try to imagine what else is happening at that instant, what are other possible perspectives, what are the photographer’s intentions, and what are my hidden biases.

Yvette Yu

Barbara Probst, Exposure #43: Barmsee, Bavaria, 08.18.06, 4:02 p.m., 2006
2 parts, 44 x 66 inches each
Image © Barbara Probst, Courtesy Murray Guy, New York

I love all kinds of music. I have a playlist on Spotify in which I am creating a massive collection of the songs I like. The genres included in this playlist ranges from TINCUP’s bass -bumping electronic trap to Bon Iver’s calming folk music. While I am extremely proud of this ongoing playlist, for years I have been ridiculed for my diversified taste in music. Oftentimes, friends and even strangers will comment on my musical interests wondering why I listen to “white” music. This has always been a pet peeve of mine. Classifying a genre of music based on race just does not make sense to me. Music is created by people of different racial backgrounds for people of different racial backgrounds;musical preferences should not be assumed based on the color of one’s skin.

Jefferson Pinder addresses this issue in his work, Juke, a video installation that shows African Americans lip synching songs stereotypically classified as “white. The people featured in this artwork, including Pinder himself, lip sync songs performed by white musicians such as Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, David Bowie and Patti Smith. Through his artwork, Pinder hopes to address these racial issues, “in the most unfamiliar way.” Pinder hopes to start a discussion on whether or not music can be black or white and whether a song can be used to “provoke a conversation about race.” Pinder believes that the lyrics in all of these songs can be sentiments felt by African Americans and I believe they can be felt by anyone regardless of race.

Pinder’s work is only one of many aiming to banish stereotypes created by insinuating musical preference is based on race. While it may not be able to rid our society of these stereotypes on its own, Pinder succeeds in his efforts to start a conversation on why these stereotypes are created and what we can do to eliminate them.

Shay TyndallJefferson Pinder, Juke (still image detail), 2006. 10-channel digital video installation

On a small pedestal stand two even smaller statues– part of the newest additions to the Stamp Student Union’s permanent art collection — a Barbie-pink David eyes a slick and shadowy Perseus. Both in casual stances, weight shifted to one side, seeming to bear little burden under the objects they grasp, the two figures could be catching up at a cocktail party.

My immediate question inquires the depth that such a seemingly playful visual experience can deliver. In simpler words, why are these, what could be easily mistaken for toys, here? It’s an off-shoot of a much larger question every piece in any gallery, museum, or exhibition, entails about the significance of its featured work, and a question that contemporary galleries continually struggle to simultaneously answer and leave open.

But perhaps the better question is, why does one imagine this comical scene when viewing these replicas of one of Michelangelo’s greatest gifts to humankind, and Cellini’s illustration of a deeply harrowing moment in Greek mythology? What is the source of the humor seen here? Was it intentional, and if so, why?

In all honesty, any humor that comes from how the pieces are positioned on their shared pedestal is likely beyond the artist’s intentions. The two statues were initially placed facing towards each other, so that Perseus holds out the decapitated head of Medusa towards David, by the gallery’s installation crew: a light-hearted reference to Medusa’s ability to turn humans to stone with just a gaze. However, I believe these included, certain pieces from the series present a whimsical air even when isolated.

My initial reasoning for the humorous thread to the two works is the size of the statues, perhaps a more startling deviation from the original works than the bold colors with which they’ve been coated. David stands at nearly seventeen feet in L’Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, and Perseus with the Head of Medusa stands at about ten and a half in the same city’s Piazza della Signoria. In The Stamp Gallery, they stand under twelve inches, closer resembling items from a tourist’s kitschy souvenir collection than great artistic and cultural icons of the classical Western era.

And yet, something small is not without beauty — miniature artwork is an emerging practice that offers scrutiny of the world with just as much conviction as its larger-scale contemporary counterparts. But even so, it seems that the Lovely Pink series does not offer its message through details, as smaller works often do, but in the opposite: a deliberate obscurity.

Much of Wafaa Bilal’s work as of late has seemed to play with the disconcerting experience of assumptions, by way of subtle images with a subsequent bite. The photographs that comprise his Ashes Series (one of which is also joining The Stamp’s permanent collection, and is currently on display in The Stamp Gallery) appear to merely capture structures of Iraq’s destroyed buildings; they are in actuality, shots of miniatures of buildings that Bilal created and destroyed himself, and then covered with a dusting of human ashes.

Similarly, the petite statues of Lovely Pink are not wrapped in plastic, acrylic, or any other cheaply traded material, as I and many others first derived from their synthetic color and texture. David and Perseus are shrouded in shrink wrap and crude oil: two Iraqi resources that have historically pushed competitive markets into imperialistic ones. And the effect is just that: a shrouding of details. Bilal’s Perseus does not hold the head of Medusa, he holds a deformed, dripping mass.

Ironically, these materials have great financial value, and yet, they strip the two classical works of art that they coat of their original cultural, artistic value.

Is this Bilal’s civilized form of vandalism? A lesson in the mechanism and art of destruction, like The Ashes Series may be? Or, does he offer commentary on the value systems that humans construct?

Like the touch of humor that David and Perseus present, these questions explore elements of Bilal’s work that I and any other viewer can only speculate upon. What is the overall visual effect of Bilal’s unusual, unexpectedly pointed, choice of materials to create the Lovely Pink? A cartoon-like, “puffed” appearance to the figures that demotes these objects to a lesser degree of power than we have attributed to them throughout history. The punch line of these pretty little mocks is a dark, maybe uncomfortable one. In more than just a physical sense, Bilal is practicing the act of belittling.

When contextualized, I have come to understand that Bilal’s message resonates deeper than simple material experimentation, or art history banter. These pieces come from an artist deeply affected by the destruction of more than just public and personal property by ISIS presence in Iraq. Throughout his career and within projects arguably more controversial than that presented in The Stamp Gallery, Bilal’s voice is one riddled with a sense of dark humor towards humanity, but, it is one of both unapologetic passion and conviction as well.

Perhaps, then, Bilal’s playful presentation of global criticism is the bite of Lovely Pink, and it’s anything but sugar-coated.

Grace DeWitt

Every Tuesday and Thursday I clock in for work and as a routine, walk past the iconic images of a king, queen, ace and jack in a medieval coat of arms . In addition to the immaculate 23.5 carat leaf gold layering, the prominent and untraditional black skin on these kings and queens speak volumes to self-worth and praise of the African-American identity. In today’s social media, I have witnessed constant reminders to the Black mind that we are royalty and our existence should never be looked at as anything less. Without say, this ideology applies for all races and ethnicities but in the art piece, “Game Changing” by Derrick Adams, I believe the artist explores what it means to be black royalty.

In this piece, Adams uses blue and reds hues, which in my opinion resonate with ruby red and sapphire gemstones. Ruby and sapphire are known as two of the four most precious stones in the world. Coincidentally, these highly beloved gemstones are found in abundance in the continent of Africa. Rubies are considered to be a symbol of power, royalty and vitality while sapphires represent destiny and clarity. These elements makes one wonder about all the triumphs and obstacles endured in the Black experience in order to reach this level of hierarchy. We are all familiar with triumphs such as Barack Obama becoming the first African-American president in the United States; and obstacles such as the ongoing police brutality experienced by African-Americans. But to say the least, with all our triumphs, we are still making progress on ladder of royalty.

Through my lens, “Game Changing” by Derrick Adams opens the portal to engaging conversation and various opinions about the Black experience in the past, present and the future.

Written by Fatoumatta Tunkara