Gallery Response

Following up with the interactions my classmates and I had at the art exhibit I found my reaction to be far more lukewarm than I thought it would have been. Prior to entering the gallery I prepared myself to have an open mind for what I was about to see having an interest in art myself I can be somewhat bias to art that is more of my taste and my personal preference of what I find visually appealing. Due to this bias I find myself to have a tunnel vision looking for certain features or characteristics in a piece.
 When seeing the first collection by Ibou, at first glance I felt very neutral, I found the mixed media painting to be very interesting, his use of vivid colors and utilization of different fabrics made it the more visually appealing of the two collections. What really shifted my view from neutral to more positive is when Ibou started speaking of it. I enjoyed hearing about his background and the little stories he told of how things were in Africa. I found it very interesting to hear about the event he said where all the women gather together and it was just them and no men allowed. It's like the inverse of boys night and it was very interesting to hear about an inverse in a distant very different culture. From hearing all that Ibou had to say it made me very interested and I wish I could take a seat somewhere and listen to him tell stories and reminisce for even longer. Although I had the chance to meet and speak with him after class I did not take this chance as I feel very awkward introducing myself and I'd much prefer being just a face in the crowd listening. What prevented my opinion from growing even more positive my me not finding it to be activism. This is the part where I must become more bias because I think what defines activism becomes very subjective. It lacked what is activism to me. I find activism to be both strong and effective when it pisses people off. I think that you can go either two ways to be an activist, you can either change peoples opinions or you can inconvenience them. The second one not to be confused with being a public nuisance because that is much different. Honoring oneself culture in a mild way doesn't seem like activism. That is not to say that it is not a beautiful thing because I think its beautiful, it just seems to be two separate realms. 
When it came to the second exhibit this is where my feelings were heavily on the lukewarm side of the spectrum. To start off with my favorite part I really like the plantation documents that were part of the hair that was painted blue. I felt like that was very strong, it was reclaiming something while also looking pleasant and appealing. It was very eye catching but it became something that really makes you look a second time to notice that those are plantation documents. At that for a piece of art I found that to have the points of activism, it was reclaiming something in a shocking way. Here I use the word shock in a very positive light, but for the rest of this collection I found shock the be what made it weaker. I think this exhibit relied heavily on the shock that this is human hair you are viewing. The thing about shock is it grabs your attention for a good 5 seconds but then that is all. The rest of the exhibit was hair.