Art with Dr. Jenny LaMonica instagram

🌊 In our first Non-European Art class I gave the students an opportunity to share if there were any works of art from non-European cultures that they were eager to learn about. Hokusai’s “Great Wave” came up. 🌊 One of the students mentioned having seen a version in pop culture featuring pugs. 🌊 Then I mentioned that Hokusai’s “Great Wave” is actually the basis for one of the only art historical emojis. 🌊 There are others, and we will discover them in this class... 🌊 Now I have a fun Non-European Art emoji assignment in the works! 🌊 #ART2410 #hokusai #greatwave #greatwaveofpugs #emojiarthistory

👯‍♀️ Molloy photography professor @ginaminielli and I went to the New York Historical Society (@nyhistory) and were we ever enLIGHTened by the many beautiful Tiffany lamps there?! 👯‍♀️ What piqued our interest most was that the majority of those that we found to be particularly stunning was designed by Clara Driscoll, one of the “Tiffany Girls.” Fascinating! Never had I heard of the *women* behind Tiffany’s glass masterpieces, much less the prolific Clara Driscoll. I must learn more about her. 👯‍♀️ Next we headed to see the exhibition “LIFE: Six Women Photographers” which brought us to the museum in the first place. It was terrific! I was especially taken by the life circumstances of young Lisa Larsen. Before her untimely death at age 34 to breast cancer, she had fled Nazi Germany only to find herself a decade later on assignment with LIFE photographing rather dangerous Soviet dictators while falling into the focus of their affections. What a talented, passionate, and courageous woman she was - dedicated to truth seeking and truth telling through the medium of photography. 👯‍♀️ On the way out we caught a stunning work by contemporary artist @nariward “We The People” created out of the shoelaces of museum visitors and other citizens of NYC pushed into perforations in the museum wall. How poignant to see the common medium of shoelaces, beautiful in their unusual diversity, creating a unified expression of “We The People.” To the extent it is possible we cease being individuals and come together as a collective, the shoelaces cease being string and come together as a masterpiece. Awe inspiring. 👯‍♀️ Finally, where do two art professors go for lunch? Cafe Frida (Kahlo) of course! I had a little (too much?) fun photo editing our selfie on the train ride home. 👯‍♀️ I’m grateful to teach with such joyful, knowledgeable, and passionate people such as Professor Minielli. I’m excited to see more of my colleagues and students again soon and delve into this world of beauty and meaning with much greater frequency! 👯‍♀️ #molloyart #fall2019 #herewecome2019

. 🎨 I have a pretty big smile in that photo. I'm standing between two "celebrities" in my field: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker of @smarthistory_official. 🎨 Their voices have narrated the many wonderful art history videos that I have shared with my students over the years. In this regard my students and I have come to feel that "Beth and Steven" were companions of sorts in each of those courses. 🎨 And we're not the only ones who likely feel that way - their videos got 42 million hits in 2018! (Smarthistory was the first humanities partner of Khan Academy.) 🎨 For those of you who don't know Smarthistory, go to smarthistory.org (stat!) and search for your favorite work of art. Watch the 4-6 minute video (there are nearly 1000). If there isn't a video about said work of art, there is likely an essay about it (because there are an additional 1000 of those all contributed by over 300 art historians). And if there isn't, let me know! 🎨 You'll quickly see what makes it so great: everything from the hushed conversation that makes the listener lean in, to Beth and Steven being in front of the actual object which in turn seemingly transports the viewer there, too. 🎨 Beth and Steven are incredibly scholarly but they are not afraid to voice their opinions, or swoon, and occasionally even speak of their distaste for an object. It is so engaging and empowering to witness such critical engagement with the arts. 🎨 I was fortunate to have been chosen to spend the past few days with them in a Mellon-funded Media Workshop, learning their philosophies and techniques, and applying them in making my own Smarthistory-style video. 🎨 I look forward to using this pedagogical tool more and more in the classroom and in bringing my own research to the public. And I look forward to contributing to the values that Smarthistory espouses: demonstrating the great value of art and the humanities, not just Anglo-European art, but the entire creative history of humankind, and getting this expertise into a place where it can be freely accessed by the public. 🎨 #smarthistory #smHEARThistory #sm🎨history #bethandsteven2020 #canistartthecampaign?

☂ Perfect umbrella for the rainy welcome banquet of @smarthistory_official media training. ☂ Can you name the artist whose bold red work is seemingly dangling overhead? ☂ #arthistorytrivia

🍯#art and #soul🍯

📷 When you look at your vacation photo and think it resembles a Stieglitz “Equivalent,” you know you teach “History of Photography.” 📷 #ilovewhatido #puddleonthehomestead #reflectingthesky #jacarandablossoms

💸 Look what I found on the side of an ATM. 💸 #obeygiant #shepardfairey #terminal5 #jfkinternationalairport #streetart #exitthroughthegiftshop

🏛This is what Independent Studies looks like @molloycollege! 🏛 Art history minor Kristen Lacey and I went to the Met on Friday to study the function of special collections as part of our Independent Studies on Museums. 🏛 Look at the big smiles on our faces leaving the virtually hidden away “Study Room for Drawings and Prints” where we got to look at special works from the archive by James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, Ad Reinhardt, Louise Bourgeois, even Picasso! 🏛 After fueling up with a latte and dessert we hit the Epic Abstract Expressionist show. (That’s us taking in a Rothko on a bench, the way his art is meant to be experienced: over time.) 🏛 It was a pretty perfect Friday! . (📸 credit of art in archive: Artspace and Pinterest — no photographs for public posting allowed in study room.)

🌴 My personal motto, in my writing, and even in teaching art history, is "beyond aesthetics." (Kind of radical for an art historian, I know.) 🌴 I hope that the pieces I write, and even the way I approach teaching art history, help others view life a little differently... and for the better. This article on Contemplative Photography is one of those pieces. (Link in bio.) 🌴#prayinginplace #contemplativephotography #molokai #coconutgrove #woundedness #healing #faith #theologicalaesthetics

. 🏢 On a break from @caa2018 I had the privilege of seeing the Bruce Nauman exhibition at the @themuseumofmodernart with my colleague Professor Don Hazlitt. He interacted with Naumann when he was at UC Davis. 🏢 The exhibition was titled “Disappearing Acts” and indeed the theme of fading existence seems to be the one constant in the otherwise incredibly diverse collection of his work on display. (The irony that a few of his neon works were in need of repair!) 🏢 I especially liked his black box with a model inside, and how very different it appeared from across the room compared to up-close. 🏢 We also got to see the Constantin Brancusi exhibit which was lovely. I forgot that he was briefly an apprentice of Rodin. It was fun seeing the various papers relating to “Brancusi vs. The United States (1928).” 🏢 I absolutely love that while most people tend to view Brancusi’s work as abstract, he fought back that his art evoked a greater fundamental reality than works of naturalistic rendering. He alluded to their subject matter in the titles he bestowed upon them. 🏢 The last image “Bird in Space,” was made famous by the above mentioned lawsuit. The US wanted to tax the import of the sculpture claiming that it wasn’t art (which had an exemption) but more likely a “domestic utensil or surgical good.” Brancusi’s art had national interest in his argument of how it was indeed art and expressed “birdness.” 🏢 My favorite excerpt from the trial comes from the art critic Frank Crowninshield. When asked what it was about the object that led him to believe it was a bird, he responded: “It has the suggestion of flight, it suggests grace, aspiration, vigour, coupled with speed in the spirit of strength, potency, beauty, just as a bird does.”