Art Show Review: Dan Kwong Visit

Dan Kwong Is a very interesting live performance based artist that utilizes film, effects and other mechanisms to give an interesting performance while on stage. When I went to the meeting with him I got to hear a bit about his artistic philosophy. He said that he believes that there is a part of us that marvels at being the center of attention, that we believe that we have something to tell the world, and that's where performance comes from. He said that experiences where we are judged or shut down can hinder this ability. He also said that he believes that the "Mad Artist" stereotype is a misconception an that artists such as Van Gough created in spite of their mindsets not because of them. I thought he was very insightful. He then asked the spoken word artists to come up and share their pieces to receive professional critique. They had very good pieces and they all were quite entertaining to hear. I thought that Chanel Miller was a very good spoken word artist. Her pieces touched on insecurity and inability to fit in being of mixed asian american heritage. I thought that the analogies that she used were very relative and compelling. Dan kept trying to make me go up on stage, but I had no performance pieces to tell him about so I shared some of the projects that I had been working on in Art 7A and the others asked me questions about them. It was a great experience and I am very grateful to have gotten the opportunity.