Vulnerability

Vulnerability

By: Elias Rafael Decena

April 19^th

I’m here at a crepe café in DUMBO sipping a cup of coffee. It’s freezing outside and I only brought a thin jacket with me for when I got out from home it’s quite a sunny day. I didn’t expect, didn’t even hear the weather forecast from the news. I tried to go out to finish my coffee on the park I went last time but I just can’t stand the cold; so I went back inside the café and waited for the weather to get at least a little bit warmer.

As I sip my coffee, I feel warmer as if I’m wearing a thick coat for the winter. And as I look outside I see people walking with their hands on the pockets of their jackets. Some of them wearing thicker jackets than the other; some, just had cotton t-shirts on, enduring the cold blows of the wind. I thought “they’re so vulnerable”

I attended the gallery opening of the Mighty Tanaka at 68 Jay Street, Brooklyn which showcases the solo show from Robbie Busch. The show is entitled CHICK-A-BOOM. It features mostly paintings of Robbie Busch who has an attraction to watching burlesque shows during his travels. His paintings, mostly of burlesque dancers, all have a similar characteristic on them; most of them were painted with the color blue, a mystery Ms. Savona Bailey-McClain didn’t miss to ask to curator and owner Mr. Alex Emmert. According to Mr. Emmert, the color blue has an importance to the artist (Busch) which no really knows. Though the color blue was ever-present in Busch’s variety of work, one can notice that his paintings almost take form like those of animations. The colors are alive, and the characters (burlesque dancers) seem to be animated, as if they have lives of their own.

At 6pm, a live burlesque show was showcased featuring RunAround Sue and the ladies of Sugar Shack Burlesque, maybe it’s for strengthening the meaning of the show, burlesque paintings=burlesque show, it all makes sense. But as I watched the ladies strip down to their underwear, I could only imagine the confidence they exude while showing their bodies almost naked to the people inside the gallery. As people inside the gallery clamor for more, I can the poise in the eyes of the ladies while they dance with the mellow music of seduction.

I finished my cup of coffee and went outside the café, it’s still freezing, but I have to check-out other galleries here at DUMBO. But thinking of the burlesque dancers exposing themselves to the public, I asked myself “What if I stripped-off here? Would it make a significant difference?” of course I answered myself “no”. Bold or not, I would still be feeling cold.

We are all “vulnerable” to everything; even death is possibly just a second away. Seeing Robbie Busch’s art at Mighty Tanaka, I imbibed the meaning of freedom and chance. We can always shred-off from ourselves the clothing of holding back to things we’ve always wanted to achieve and have. Bold as we are as human beings, we always have a choice to give ourselves a chance to show our true potentials within.

I walked back to the Mighty Tanaka gallery, to ponder more on the “boldness” of Busch’s art.