Government Bureau, 1956

Hi guys, I'm back again...

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Sorry I haven't been posting anything because I have been busy at school, extremely busy but now everything at school sorta cooled down now. So while I had regents break, I was given an assignment to go to look at art. I chose the MET. I do not go to art museums very often because when I was younger, I thought they were very boring but I did have fun when I was at the MET, maybe because I'm old enough to understand the historical background behind some of the images but yea or I had someone to discuss the art in depth with.

Okay moving on,
The piece I chose was
Government Bureau, 1956
by George Tooker, American, 1920-2011

Reaction to the Work

Where: Where is this artwork? What kinds of artwork were around this piece?
This painting was found in the Modern Art exhibit that focused particularly on the era of the Work and Industry so basically the time of Urbanization, Creation of Cities and Technological Advancement of the 1950s. When I was looking around at this part of the exhibit I found that many of the paintings and arts were not very bright and colorful but dark in color like that painting I had chosen. Nothing was bright and the main colors were black, brown, and dark shades of purple.
An example of another artwork I found at this exhibit was Tomorrow is Never by Kay Sage.

Tomorrow is Never by Kay Sage

What about this piece drew your attention? Does it remind you of something else?
This piece drew my attention because it reminded me of the times I followed by mom to fix her parking tickets and I saw the similar cubicles that government officials were sitting in. It was just surprising to see how tired the people in the cubicles looked. They had dark circles under their eyes and I laughed a little because it reminded me of myself since I began Junior Year. Also I was really amazed by how the pieces you could not see the people that the government officials were showing and yet it seemed like the people looked the same especially the man in the trenchcoat. He shows up twice. Also there is a lot of repetition of colors in the people's outfits. This piece looked sad and seemed the represent the negative aspect of things people would see every day. The people in the pictures are not seen and those that are seen convey a look of fatigue and depression.

What do you know about the artwork or artist?
To be quite honest I did not know much about the artist since I never really studied art before but I knew that George Tooker was an American Artist who was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1920. He would live up to be 90 years old and died in 2011 so his death was relatively recent.

What I found out after I went to the exhibit was that many of his works used egg tempura and he addressed issues of modern-day alienation with subtly eerie and often visually literal depictions of social withdrawal and isolation. In 2007, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Tooker's works are associated with the Magic realism and Social realism movements. [Wikipedia]

Terms:
Magic realism - a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.
Social realism - the realistic depiction in art of contemporary life, as a means of social or political comment.

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Okay, I'm done ~ Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is enjoying 2015!!
Ohhhhh wait!

To Ms. Lee (I know you will be reading this ouo)
Proof: This is a selfie with the ticket!! I did go to the MET.

Bye everyone! 

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P.S I do not own the gifs. They belong to their respective owners and I'm simply using it for noncommercial fun.