A Cultural Icon November 17, 2024
Posted by judylobo in Zoo.Tags: art, Art exhibit, Barbie, Black Dolls, Icon, Ken, Museum of Art and Design, NYC, photography
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The Museum of Art and Design has once again delivered a fascinating, fun and informative exhibit. Barbie®: A Cultural Icon charts the 65-year history of Barbie and the doll’s global impact on fashion and popular culture through an expansive display of more than 250 vintage dolls, life-size fashion designs, advertisements, and other ephemera, along with exclusive video interviews with the doll’s designers. On two floors you can trace the evolution of Barbie from a child’s toy to a global icon, exploring the style trends, careers, and identities that Barbie has embodied and popularized since her debut in 1959. I was in High School when Barbie was created and was way past playing with dolls – after all, it was the ’60’s and we were doing other things. The opening section relays the Barbie origin story and presents all twenty-two original ensemble outfits, while subsequent areas consider the influence of the Space Age; the creation of Christie™, the first Black Barbie doll; the arrival of Ken™; and the creation of the Barbie Dreamhouse™. You will also see Barbie in the iconic fashions of the 1970s, including Groovy Style, beachwear, and disco-themed designs, while sections on the 1980s and 1990s present a selection of diverse Barbie dolls representing a range of ethnicities, body types, and careers, including a feature on the first Black Barbie. The exhibition culminates in the 2000s, spotlighting the continued diversification of characters within the Barbie universe and connecting them to contemporary fashion trends, perspectives, and identities. And yes, that is me, the Octogenarian Barbie at the top the page (you are never too old to be an Icon, right)?This exhibit is on thru March 16, 2025. 
Funk You Too! May 28, 2023
Posted by judylobo in Zoo.Tags: art, Funk You Too, Museum of Art and Design, NYC, Outsider art, photography, Pottery
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‘ Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture brings together 50 artworks from the 1960s to the present day that highlight clay as a compelling tool of critique and satire. In the exhibition, pieces by artists of the originating Funk Art generation are placed next to work by contemporary artists who are expanding on Funk’s legacy of humor, subversion, and expressive figuration. Funk ceramics first emerged on the West Coast in the 1960s, created by a group of artists who shared an anti-establishment viewpoint towards expectations of “good art.” While conscious of the irreverent attitude and aesthetics of their predecessors, the new generation of artists featured in Funk You Too! are examining the potential for humor in clay through a rainbow of perspectives. Carrying Funk into the future, these artists are tapping into the power of a good joke to address some of the most pressing social and political issues of our day’. The Museum of Arts and Design is one of my favorite places in NYC. There is always something unusual and interesting to see. This exhibit is on thru August 27th. Be aware that there is also a Taylor Swift exhibit at the Museum and it might be overflowing with ‘swifties.’
Razzle Dazzle October 16, 2022
Posted by judylobo in Zoo.Tags: art, Machine Dazzle, Museum of Art and Design, NYC, photography, Photography Workshop, queer maximalism
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I love the Museum of Art and Design. They always have fascinating and unique exhibits. If you are not sure what you will be wearing this coming Halloween I suggest you get some inspiration from this amazing exhibit. ‘Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle is the first solo exhibition dedicated to the genre-defying artist Matthew Flower, better known as Machine Dazzle. A provocateur commanding an expanding repertoire of stagecraft, design, performance, and music, Machine Dazzle is a virtuoso practitioner of queer maximalism’s aesthetic language of liberation. The exhibition brings together nearly 100 of the artist’s creations for stage, spectacles, and street theater, alongside a variety of environments, ephemera, material samples, photography, and video. The result is an explosive “queer maximalism” aesthetic that joyfully counters the prejudices of high culture regarding extravagance and the overly decorated and embraces these associations as queer for affirming hybridity over purity, rejecting cultural hierarchies, and valuing different kinds of bodies.
Last chance to sign up for next Sunday’s adult photo sessions at the Central Park Zoo. We are featuring my favorite – PUMPKINS! It is being held on October 23rd and you can sign up here. See you there! 
Who are you wearing? April 3, 2022
Posted by judylobo in Zoo.Tags: art, costumes, Fashion as art, Garmenting, Museum of Art and Design, NYC, photography
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I am not a fashionista. I pretty much wear the same thing everyday. That said – I do appreciate fashion as expression and as an art form. The Museum of Art and Design never fails to have thought provoking and unusual exhibitions and this is one of them. From their website – ‘The first global survey exhibition dedicated to the use of clothing as a medium of visual art, Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art examines work by thirty-five international contemporary artists. By making or altering clothing for expressive purposes, these artists create garments, sculpture, installation, and performance art that transform dress into a critical tool. Adopted globally as an artistic strategy, garmenting uses the language of fashion to challenge traditional divisions of form and function, cast a critical eye on the construction of gender, advance political activism, and address cultural difference’. If you have never been to this place I highly suggest you visit. It is at Columbus Circle and has grand views of Central Park and a wonderful restaurant on the top floor.
While at the Zoo 