I went with a group of people to first fridays this May. One of the big attraction of this first friday was the MayDay Parade which started at Gallery 5 and went down
Broad Street for a couple of blocks. The parade was called "MayDay! Workers of the World Unite." One of our friends was in the band that led the parade called the No BS! Brass Band. 
I thought there band did a good job and the poeple in the parade seemed very excited to be a part of it. One of our classmates, Zack Concepcion was in the parade as well (showed in the picture to the left holding the workers unite sign). The parade was entertaining with the papermache hands and float. In addition to the parade, there was a guy who was playing the drums and the bass at the same time. He is at every first fridays I have been to this semester. He is extremely talented and highly entertaining.
The main galleries that we looked at were the Gradstudent and Senior Photography shows. I 
was slighly disappionted in both. Though I enjoyed some of the pieces in both, I expected the more from both. The gradstudent show seemed more like a senior show and the senior show looked more like the work that my grade is producing now. There were exceptions tho. The Gradstudent show did a good job at mounting and presentation in there show. I enjoyed the images with dirt in them (shown to the left). I liked the idea of putting such a dirty thing in a clean enviroment and making it playful with dirt lines. 
In addition, in the show, I liked childrens photographs and the long panoramic shot. The childrens photographs were taken by Jessica Stambach. I think the thing I liked the most about her photographs was the composition and chose to not show the children's face. The colors were vibrent and imboded the spirit of a child in my opinion. The panaramic photography was playful and interesting with the same furniture repeated in the shot and the girl climbing. It had a playful element because the girl seemed as if she was trying to avoid touching the ground. The colors in the piece was subdued.
I think that this was one of the better first fridays I have been to since I started attending VCU.
I would love to hear a little more about the dirt shots? What do you think it was all about? What did you think about the room next door with all the burlap on the floor?
ReplyDeleteWhat would have made both the senior show and the grad show better? Is it the content/subject matters, technique or a synthesis of the two...or something else?