Joseph Hussein

Professor Cherrington
HUMA-1100-301-Su19
Humanities
E-Portfolio
03 August 2019

This was my favorite assignment in the Humanities 1100 course. This was

a report on visiting the fine Arts Museum and writing a report on the experience.

Also reporting about a fine art exhibit or art that was captivating and moving. I

related the captivating piece to the course on the five terms we studied through the

semester: the freedom unit, the love and passion unit, nature unit, identity unit,

and finally the happiness unit. This class has mostly helped me understand what

makes individuals humans. I also have a greater appreciation and knowledge

about the things that make us humans and the things that bring us happiness in

life. I also have a greater appreciation for art and poems after this course. This

class has also helped me to respect individuals no matter the difference. After

studying and having discussions in class, I have come to the understanding we all

feel, view, and relate our experiences differently from everyone else. And how we

relate, express and feel that experience is the connection to humanity with the

units we studied. Mostly this class has made me make my own opinion about

anything I read and not take things at face value. It has made me research the

religion and not just believe things.

I decided to visit the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, this was my first time

visiting a fine arts museum. Growing up in a third-world country, visiting a

museum was not something that was done. The first time I visited a museum was

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when I was 12 or 13 years old. It was organized by my school and the school does

not have that in the curriculum plan.

We visited the Fiji Museum, which is an indigenous history museum. The

museum holds a collection of archaeological material dating back 3,700 years and

cultural objects representing both Fiji’s indigenous inhabitants and the other

communities that have settled in the island group over the past 200 years. I was so

impressed by the visit that when I was 15 or so, I went and visited one on my

own. I saved all the money I got for a month to go visit. I was fascinated with all

the archaeological displays, the canoe, the war club, the poetry and the history of

my ancestors that came in the British boats from India as slave workers to

colonize Fiji and work in the sugar cane farms. This experience has left a great

impression on me for archaeological history.

My second experience of visiting a museum was in New Zealand when I

visited the Te Papa Tongarewa (Wellington) museum. This was also an

archaeological fine arts museum related to the indigenous Maori history. I was so

interested in everything, except the fine arts part of the museum (or if there were

fine arts, I didn’t recognize it).

Visiting the Utah Museum of Fine Arts was my first time visiting only a

fine arts museum. I spent three hours looking at all the art work displayed at the

museum. At first, I didn’t like what I saw on the first floor and so I moved to the

second floor. I went through the second floor and liked a few displays. So, I took

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photos of them. Of the entire exhibition, there were only five pieces that I really

enjoyed. After three hours of looking at different parts of the museum, I drove

home and told myself that I would think about the five pieces I liked and choose

one and write my report on it.

As a considered the art I had seen, I started to notice what I liked and why

I liked them. At first, my thoughts of the fine arts museum was that I didn’t like

fine arts. I had no appreciation for any of the paintings in the European display on

the first floor, paintings were not my thing. They didn’t speak to me, or at least,

not the ones I saw at the museum. I thought about this. Did I not like paintings?

And I decided that wasn’t it -- I like paintings. I like some Fijian artist paintings

back home, so I like paintings. Just not the ones on display at the museum. This

thought led to the conclusion that the things I like, are things I am attached to.

I thought I liked the archaeological history art exhibits of Mexico and the

tombs from Egypt, but thinking more about it, I didn’t like it as much because I

was not attached to these exhibits. The first attachment I had, was in the south

Asian section. There were these portraits of Gods from India, made of wood and

Stone carvings. This connection was from my ancestors lineage, from India and

remembering seeing paintings and statues in Indian temples in Fiji. My second

fascination was in the Pacific art display of the wooden face carving. Living in

New Zealand, native Maori people had facial paintings of their faces and the

wood on display was of that. My third interest was of a real image of the Hoover

dam. This interest is from my field of study in civil engineering. I’m very

interested in great infrastructure and wonders of the industrial world.

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 Another piece I wanted to write about was a modern and contemporary

display of an old tire sculptor Chakaia Booker. And as I was pondering on this

and the final, I released I was drawn to the tire sculptor because my love for

recycling, reusing, and reducing pollution and saving the Earth.

The last piece I had no attachment to and it’s something I had not seen

growing up. And this was the reason I chose this to analyze. The Pigment Print

(photograph) by Andrew Patteson, created in 2012. The piece does not have a

title. The reason I chose this piece was that, in spite of not having any attachment

to this exhibit, this called out to me, I was inspired, amused, and captured by the

color, the rough surrounding, the modern framing and its uniqueness moved me.

I could relate this painting to most of the themes we have covered. The

one that stands out the most is identity. This art is left open to interpretation. The

sign does not have any panels to you could put up any thing you want as an

human identity, it’s old yet still usable, and it’s exposing the structure of the sign.

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 Photograph by Andrew Patteson

The pink paint on the sign is bold. It represents the old, the industrial, and

society with rough neighborhoods. Andrew Patteson set out to photograph 78th

South Street in Salt Lake. His purpose was to discover and get to know a little

better the road he drove on every day. This piece has a wide range of emotions

attached to it just as its open interpretation, to some it’s a the feeling of belonging

“that’s my neighborhood” to some it’s the feeling of old, to another “ I’m ready,

I’m still useful.” My first impression was well used and as I looked at it more, my

view changed with new interpretations. Because of its open interpretation, and no

title to the piece, this photograph is looking into humanity in many ways. It’s an

identity piece, it’s nature and industrialization, it’s freedom and enjoyment not

working. It’s home and livelihood. Although this piece is very native to Salt Lake

City, this could be for any country, group of people, and race. It’s open to the

individual’s interpretation.

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 Not all fine art is for me and from this visit to the fine art museum I have

come to the realization that my interest is attached to some part of my upbringing

and likes. I love seeing art made of recycling materials. A few of my favorite fine

art pieces are not in a museum, but a car repair shop I take my car to. They have

robots, tanks, spaceships all made from used car parts. Having visited the museum

and seeing the photograph of the sign, this has opened a new likeness for fine arts

for me. I’m moved by tangible things over fine paintings.

Fine art has a way of expressing human feelings through time. It’s a

representation of time, environment, feelings and emotions. It is the human

expression of the moment captured in time for generations to come. Some fine art

teaches us of history, others of reality, and some of destruction. Its evokes a wide

range of emotion to its viewers. The art captures humanity through out time.

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Unidentified artist, wood carving New
Zealand

Chakaia Booker, Discarded Memories

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 Unidentified artist, India

Carsten Meier, Glen Canyon Dam, topo/salt 2017

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