Unfortunately, I'm leaving this course on a sour note, for I'm turning in my blog a day late. I foolishly assumed the Reflection Blog would not be due until Wednesday at the earliest, as that is typically the earliest things were due, and didn't bother to check the actual due date until today. Considering I also turned in my very first blog a day late as well, perhaps it's fitting--I've gone full circle.
I expected this course to, for the most part, be about art history. This expectation was met, and I think it provided a good art history overview for me, as I had had little art history experience from the Renaissance onto Impressionism. I suppose I expected the art material explorations to be less at a beginner level, for I did not realize that so many non-majors took the course, but they were fun and challenging nonetheless. I wasn't expecting to learn about such a variety of perspectives in the artworld, such as curators and critics, so it was good to see others' points of view.
I don't think my definition of art has really changed, but I would say that my prejudices against some types of art may have lessened. I wouldn't have argued beforehand, for instance, that lowbrow art did not count as art, but I may have personally considered much of it "bad" art. From what we learned in the class/video, however, I can appreciate it a little bit more, even if it's not to my taste. I would still hold that art can be anything as long as at least one person considers it to be art, and that the "best" art typically elicits some kind of emotional response from the viewer, though it doesn't have to.
Originally, my favorite artist was Sue Coe. I would stay say that, message-wise, she is my favorite. Aesthetically, however, I would not call her artwork my favorite. For that, I might go with someone like Rene Magritte. His artworks, beautifully painted and cleverly tricking the eye, are what I enjoy looking at the most. The ideas behind his art, as well, are thought-provoking. Learning about any of the Surrealist artists is a fun and sometimes almost eerie experience. Seeing all of the artists through the textbook and videos reminds me that Coe might be promoting a viewpoint that I strongly agree with, but that does not necessarily mean her artwork is the strongest.
I would have said that I feel much more at ease taking an online course now, but here I am turning the very last assignment in late! For some reason, I still have a much harder time remembering when assignments are due. I guess it's because I'm so used to being reminded about assignments by physically attending classes, and that does not exist for this course. I liked how I could do assignments more on my own schedule, however, having them due by midnight rather than during the day, as this semester has been very busy. I wouldn't be opposed to taking another one, though it kind of seems like students try harder on assignments when the class is not online. I had a much easier time participating, I think, because I'm generally shy in person, and I'm able to write my ideas much more easily than I can say them out loud. Over all, the class was a fun experience, that not only taught me about art, but also made me slightly more computer-savvy!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Self Portrait Project
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| Paul Cezanne, Self-Portrait, Lithograph, ca. 1898-1900, 21x18" |
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| Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Monkey, 1938, Oil on Masonite, 16x12" |
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| Horace Pippin, Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas Board, 1941, 14x11" |
Cezanne's self portrait would be the closest in style to how I drew my own. His, like mine, looks very sketchy, and leaves a lot of negative space around the portrait. I like how information that is unnecessary for the print fades away or is omitted, so the viewer's eye rests on his aloof expression, his clothing, and the bit of his canvas that shows. Only the information that contributes to his personality or the message he wants to convey is left in.
Lastly, Pippin's self portrait is somewhat similar to Cezanne's, in that it shows the artist at work on a painting. He, unlike the other two, however, is not looking at the viewer. Instead, he is regarding his artwork. This seems unusual for most self-portraits. I like that he has a slightly satisfied look on his face, showing his enjoyment in what he does for a living. The painting is created in a "primitive" style, but conveys just as much about the artist as the other two.
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| Self-Portrait Photograph |
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| Self Portrait Drawing, Sepia Pens |
I wanted to represent myself as thoughtful, which is why I'm looking off as I am in the image. The messiness of the hair is pretty accurate, which I think says something of my personality that doesn't really care about such things. As for elements and principles, the composition is fairly balanced, with the heaviness of the dark ink in the lower right being balanced by the heaviness of the black white space in the upper left. There is a lot of value in the work, achieved by hatching and cross-hatching. The sketchy linework, that goes in various directions, creates a sense of movement.
I did enjoy working on this project, though it didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked. With pen, you can't erase your mistakes very easily, which is usually a quality I like, but I was bothered by how I made my head too long, which I think makes the drawing look a lot less like me than it could. I always have fun working on self portraits, but I have a lot of trouble judging how much the final image actually looks like me--it's easier to tell when I am drawing someone else's portrait. Now, while I am assessing my work, I sort of wish there was a little bit of a background in my portrait, like is present in the self portrait examples. A background could give a little more information about me, but I also like that I'm surrounded by empty space as I simply consider things. I'm mostly satisfied with it, but with more time I would like to work on it more, or perhaps redo it.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Exhibition Critique
I had previously and briefly looked over most of the submitted projects, but I studied more closely the powerpoints of Andi Andrzejewski, Eleanor Eshenour, and Jessica Noble. Eshenour, who seemed to make good choices when it came to artworks to exhibit, did not really give any sort of explanation for them, so I did not want to critique her work, with such a vital element missing. Noble's powerpoint did have explanations in it, but (and I am not sure if this was just my computer acting funny) all of the text boxes were jumbled together so that they were difficult to read.
Therefore, I ended up going with Andi's presentation, Art High and Low, which had an interesting concept and structure. It showed that Andi paid attention and learned something from the video we were assigned to watch, and applied it to the exhibition project. When creating my own project, I did not consider placing more than one artwork in a slide, and then comparing and contrasting them, which was a good idea, since the theme was about the supposed differences between high and low art.
When writing the critique paper, I had a difficult time keeping my paper in the order of the "Steps of Art Criticism," which I wasn't sure if we were supposed to be doing anyway or not. Elements of later steps kept cropping up when I was talking about earlier steps, so I hope that's okay. It's not rigidly structured, but more fluid, I suppose. I also wasn't quite sure how the article was supposed to sound. Was it supposed to actually seem like a critique written in a newspaper, or something less formal that that?
I feel a little uncomfortable critiquing fellow students' work, because I feel like being critical towards a peer comes across as more offensive than a teacher being critical. I don't know if anyone will be able to see what I said, but I tried to state my opinions without coming across as too harsh. I did, however, enjoy looking at the work that everyone had done.
I am very curious about what people said (if anyone critiqued mine) about my presentation. I'd like to read what they wrote, if possible. I'm worried that I didn't present my concept in as clear a way as I should have. It would be nice if we got more feedback on the projects we do for this class, such as more required comments on the blogs.
I would give my finished article a 9/10, unless I am misunderstanding how exactly it was supposed to be written. I tried to be thoughtful when writing about Andi's work, and do it justice. For the most part, I enjoyed this project. I did have trouble coming up with twenty-five artworks that seemed to relate to my theme (which sounds ridiculous--there must be hundreds or thousands that would work), but I hope I justified them well in my explanations. I think this is one project that I could benefit greatly from from student and teacher feedback.
leanor
Therefore, I ended up going with Andi's presentation, Art High and Low, which had an interesting concept and structure. It showed that Andi paid attention and learned something from the video we were assigned to watch, and applied it to the exhibition project. When creating my own project, I did not consider placing more than one artwork in a slide, and then comparing and contrasting them, which was a good idea, since the theme was about the supposed differences between high and low art.
When writing the critique paper, I had a difficult time keeping my paper in the order of the "Steps of Art Criticism," which I wasn't sure if we were supposed to be doing anyway or not. Elements of later steps kept cropping up when I was talking about earlier steps, so I hope that's okay. It's not rigidly structured, but more fluid, I suppose. I also wasn't quite sure how the article was supposed to sound. Was it supposed to actually seem like a critique written in a newspaper, or something less formal that that?
I feel a little uncomfortable critiquing fellow students' work, because I feel like being critical towards a peer comes across as more offensive than a teacher being critical. I don't know if anyone will be able to see what I said, but I tried to state my opinions without coming across as too harsh. I did, however, enjoy looking at the work that everyone had done.
I am very curious about what people said (if anyone critiqued mine) about my presentation. I'd like to read what they wrote, if possible. I'm worried that I didn't present my concept in as clear a way as I should have. It would be nice if we got more feedback on the projects we do for this class, such as more required comments on the blogs.
I would give my finished article a 9/10, unless I am misunderstanding how exactly it was supposed to be written. I tried to be thoughtful when writing about Andi's work, and do it justice. For the most part, I enjoyed this project. I did have trouble coming up with twenty-five artworks that seemed to relate to my theme (which sounds ridiculous--there must be hundreds or thousands that would work), but I hope I justified them well in my explanations. I think this is one project that I could benefit greatly from from student and teacher feedback.
leanor
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Criticism Videos
The first video, Greenberg on Art Criticism: An Interview by T.J. Clark, focuses on the legendary art critic Clement Greenberg, in an interview that took place in 1981. According to him, art criticism is much more difficult than other kinds of criticism, for other kinds, like music, are much more formalist-based. He believed that it was important for critics to refute any preconceptions they may have, for "good" art can come from anywhere. He, for instance, is not "for" abstract art, but he has to accept that the best art is coming from abstract art. He talks about how he struggled for a long time with the notion of "art for art's sake." It's interesting how the interviewer, T.J. Clark, seems to argue that the things that Greenberg is talking about now contradict what he typically writes in his writing. Greenberg argues that modern art has not proved itself, and it does not need to. It's enough that some modern artists have proven themselves. Based on what Greenberg was saying, the difference of opinion between the two stemmed from the age difference, as Greenberg kept referring to Clark and those like him as "you young ones." In the forties, Greenberg's art criticism had been much more similar to Clark's tastes, but since then Greenberg has grown and no longer places history in as important a position.
In Greenberg on Pollock: An Interview by T.J. Clark, we see the two discussing together again. Greenberg talks about his relationship with Jackson Pollock, and how he witnessed his artworks' evolution into the splatter/drip paintings. Clark describes Pollock as Dyonisian, but Greenberg disagrees, at least at the ending of Pollocks's life. Most artists, he believes, get quieter toward the end. He also says how important it is no not prescribe. Pollock was self-aware enough to know that he could not create masterpieces while using a brush. Greenberg believes that the paintings that "fail" are the ones that feel like effort, though he is quick to say the mark of a failed painting is by no means one where the effort involved is palpable. He discusses how those he considered the "best" artists felt isolation, where as now (1981)artists have become celebrities. They had yearned for fame. He also comments on death being "an overrated literary idea," romanticized by some, but scoffed at by him. In the end, he calls Jackson full of it, like everyone else, for becoming enchanted by the idea of a romantic death as well.
An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance focuses on the artists that are accounted for in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists. The video emphasizes how it's important to understand the context of artworks. One cannot simply compare Giotto and Michelangelo and declare Michelangelo the better artist, for if not for the innovations of Giotto, Michelangelo and other artists would not have had them to build off of. Giotto, for instance, gave paintings life through using perspective and using real people as models. While his buildings may not look realistic, he was one of the first to use buildings to convey depth. Ghiberti built off of Giotto with his sculpted panels that paid attention to the human form. Through "guilds," skilled people come together to improve themselves and teach apprentices their trades. This is how they are able to build off of each other. Masaccio made the leap from portrayng the physical to portraying the emotional as well, such as in his painting where grief-stricken Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden. Later artists introduced new ideas such as Greek mythological subjectmatter and structured composition.
The Critics: Stories from the Inside Pages focuses on critics from many different fields, and how they benefit society. It showed short clips first of movie critics, then music critics, then television, then book critics, emphasizing that their goals and similar across the different fields. The purpose of mass media critics is to stop and make people think about what it is they are listening to/watching/reading. They often create the prism through which the media arts are then seen. Through their writing, people are more likely to not just absent mindedly consume media without thinking about it, and they may direct consumers to things they are more likely to enjoy. Criticism is also an art form in itself, that people read/watch/listen to for its entertainment value. One of the loftier goals of critics is to have an impact on whatever field they're criticizing. If enough critics feel a certain way, they can have an influence. Or, they can "discover" new artists, who go on to fame. This is particularly true with book critics, which have a more difficult time being "discovered" on their own with the general public.
Of course, critics, and especially effective critics, have to have a love for the media that they are criticizing. They typically have somewhat obscure artists they love, that they enjoy spreading the word about. Some critics also have to where the hat of the reporter, where they interview people or write a piece on a new trend. This might blur the line between the objectivity of the reporter and the subjectivity of the critic. This can make the relationship between the artist and the critic uneasy, a critic may need to interview an artist that they gave a negative review for.
There is a difference between the critic and the reviewer. The former assumes the reader has already seen the subject of the criticism, while the latter assumes that the review is introducing the reader to the subject of the review for the first time. For the critic, knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are elements that often come into play in their writing. They must have a deep, wide knowledge that they apply to individual artists/artworks. It is important for them to write in an engaging manner for whoever their audience is, and to recognize the social connections that exist in whatever is being critiqued. Unfortunately, much criticism has been "dumbed down" and has become much more like reviewing. Well written, thoughtful criticism takes up too much time and too much space. With less research time, there is the danger of the critic allowing his/her preconceived ideas to dismiss things that might have more merit than they assume. The internet has become a place for them to flex their critical muscles without a lot of the obstacles that exist on tv, newspapers, or magazines.
The Colonial Encounter: Views of Non-Western Art and Culture is about the way to NOT go about exhibiting work. At the 1900 World's Fair, western ethnocentrism portrayed art from what they considered "savage peoples" whom they had colonized. The Dahome exhibit featured a tower of sacrifice, portraying the people as barbaric and in need of civilizing by the French. Algeria, which had long been colonized, emphasized the exoticism and tourist appeal that the western world felt toward it. Their exhibit was meant to advertise Algerian settlements. Arabicity became defined by sexual bellydancing. Studies of facial features were meant to emphasize the inferiority of non-western races. Unfortunately, the 1900 World's Fair and exhibitions since then are created to fit prejudices that the western world already holds.
Lastly, Jackson Pollock: Michael Fried and T.J. Clark in Conversation brings us back to the beginning, with Clark discussing Pollock again. Clark believed that avant garde's importance came from its historical role, whereas Fried believed its importance came from being completely independent of its history. They agree there is a dispersing of energy that is very optical rather than tactile. While the two critics/scholars approach the painting in different ways, their conversation shows how the individual person brings their own personal baggage to their interpretation of a painting. One is struck by the fragility of Pollock's Lavender Mist, but the paint-membrane is more energetic than the other. In front of Autumn Rhythm, the two continue their conversation, discussing Pollock's painting in relation to abstract art. The two debate over whether the painting was intended to express certain ideas while Pollock was painting, or if he never explicitly thought at such things while creating.
The videos, particularly The Critics: Stories from the Inside Pages, mostly related to art criticism and what we need to think about and look out for while becoming critics ourselves. The Critics literally went into what one needed to do to become a "good" critic, while others simply showed art critics at work, so we could see what sort of discourse they took part in, which was the case for the first two and last videos. The Colonial Encounter was a video that showed the mistakes and prejudices that art critics and exhibitors have fallen into in the past. It demonstrated how caution and respect for other cultures is very important when critiquing and exhibiting their art. The Italian Renaissance video showed how important learning historical context was for the critic, for artists did not develop in a vacuum, so nor should critics. All of the videos would be helpful when trying one's own hand at becoming a critic, but The Critics will probably prove to be the most helpful to us, as it went into detail about how to go about writing criticism, even if it did not discuss fine artists at all.
As most of the videos focused on different topics related to art criticism, most felt quite useful. Unfortunately, the quiet volume and the dry material made the first two and last videos hard to watch, and therefore hard to glean from. While Greenberg is a fascinating person to read about and listen to, it was difficult for me, even with the volume up all the way, to understand what he and Clark were saying. Still, it was good for us to hear what professional, critical discourse and debates looks like. It almost makes me wish we could have more of a debate in the class, over instant messaging or something like that.
In Greenberg on Pollock: An Interview by T.J. Clark, we see the two discussing together again. Greenberg talks about his relationship with Jackson Pollock, and how he witnessed his artworks' evolution into the splatter/drip paintings. Clark describes Pollock as Dyonisian, but Greenberg disagrees, at least at the ending of Pollocks's life. Most artists, he believes, get quieter toward the end. He also says how important it is no not prescribe. Pollock was self-aware enough to know that he could not create masterpieces while using a brush. Greenberg believes that the paintings that "fail" are the ones that feel like effort, though he is quick to say the mark of a failed painting is by no means one where the effort involved is palpable. He discusses how those he considered the "best" artists felt isolation, where as now (1981)artists have become celebrities. They had yearned for fame. He also comments on death being "an overrated literary idea," romanticized by some, but scoffed at by him. In the end, he calls Jackson full of it, like everyone else, for becoming enchanted by the idea of a romantic death as well.
An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance focuses on the artists that are accounted for in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists. The video emphasizes how it's important to understand the context of artworks. One cannot simply compare Giotto and Michelangelo and declare Michelangelo the better artist, for if not for the innovations of Giotto, Michelangelo and other artists would not have had them to build off of. Giotto, for instance, gave paintings life through using perspective and using real people as models. While his buildings may not look realistic, he was one of the first to use buildings to convey depth. Ghiberti built off of Giotto with his sculpted panels that paid attention to the human form. Through "guilds," skilled people come together to improve themselves and teach apprentices their trades. This is how they are able to build off of each other. Masaccio made the leap from portrayng the physical to portraying the emotional as well, such as in his painting where grief-stricken Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden. Later artists introduced new ideas such as Greek mythological subjectmatter and structured composition.
The Critics: Stories from the Inside Pages focuses on critics from many different fields, and how they benefit society. It showed short clips first of movie critics, then music critics, then television, then book critics, emphasizing that their goals and similar across the different fields. The purpose of mass media critics is to stop and make people think about what it is they are listening to/watching/reading. They often create the prism through which the media arts are then seen. Through their writing, people are more likely to not just absent mindedly consume media without thinking about it, and they may direct consumers to things they are more likely to enjoy. Criticism is also an art form in itself, that people read/watch/listen to for its entertainment value. One of the loftier goals of critics is to have an impact on whatever field they're criticizing. If enough critics feel a certain way, they can have an influence. Or, they can "discover" new artists, who go on to fame. This is particularly true with book critics, which have a more difficult time being "discovered" on their own with the general public.
Of course, critics, and especially effective critics, have to have a love for the media that they are criticizing. They typically have somewhat obscure artists they love, that they enjoy spreading the word about. Some critics also have to where the hat of the reporter, where they interview people or write a piece on a new trend. This might blur the line between the objectivity of the reporter and the subjectivity of the critic. This can make the relationship between the artist and the critic uneasy, a critic may need to interview an artist that they gave a negative review for.
There is a difference between the critic and the reviewer. The former assumes the reader has already seen the subject of the criticism, while the latter assumes that the review is introducing the reader to the subject of the review for the first time. For the critic, knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are elements that often come into play in their writing. They must have a deep, wide knowledge that they apply to individual artists/artworks. It is important for them to write in an engaging manner for whoever their audience is, and to recognize the social connections that exist in whatever is being critiqued. Unfortunately, much criticism has been "dumbed down" and has become much more like reviewing. Well written, thoughtful criticism takes up too much time and too much space. With less research time, there is the danger of the critic allowing his/her preconceived ideas to dismiss things that might have more merit than they assume. The internet has become a place for them to flex their critical muscles without a lot of the obstacles that exist on tv, newspapers, or magazines.
The Colonial Encounter: Views of Non-Western Art and Culture is about the way to NOT go about exhibiting work. At the 1900 World's Fair, western ethnocentrism portrayed art from what they considered "savage peoples" whom they had colonized. The Dahome exhibit featured a tower of sacrifice, portraying the people as barbaric and in need of civilizing by the French. Algeria, which had long been colonized, emphasized the exoticism and tourist appeal that the western world felt toward it. Their exhibit was meant to advertise Algerian settlements. Arabicity became defined by sexual bellydancing. Studies of facial features were meant to emphasize the inferiority of non-western races. Unfortunately, the 1900 World's Fair and exhibitions since then are created to fit prejudices that the western world already holds.
Lastly, Jackson Pollock: Michael Fried and T.J. Clark in Conversation brings us back to the beginning, with Clark discussing Pollock again. Clark believed that avant garde's importance came from its historical role, whereas Fried believed its importance came from being completely independent of its history. They agree there is a dispersing of energy that is very optical rather than tactile. While the two critics/scholars approach the painting in different ways, their conversation shows how the individual person brings their own personal baggage to their interpretation of a painting. One is struck by the fragility of Pollock's Lavender Mist, but the paint-membrane is more energetic than the other. In front of Autumn Rhythm, the two continue their conversation, discussing Pollock's painting in relation to abstract art. The two debate over whether the painting was intended to express certain ideas while Pollock was painting, or if he never explicitly thought at such things while creating.
The videos, particularly The Critics: Stories from the Inside Pages, mostly related to art criticism and what we need to think about and look out for while becoming critics ourselves. The Critics literally went into what one needed to do to become a "good" critic, while others simply showed art critics at work, so we could see what sort of discourse they took part in, which was the case for the first two and last videos. The Colonial Encounter was a video that showed the mistakes and prejudices that art critics and exhibitors have fallen into in the past. It demonstrated how caution and respect for other cultures is very important when critiquing and exhibiting their art. The Italian Renaissance video showed how important learning historical context was for the critic, for artists did not develop in a vacuum, so nor should critics. All of the videos would be helpful when trying one's own hand at becoming a critic, but The Critics will probably prove to be the most helpful to us, as it went into detail about how to go about writing criticism, even if it did not discuss fine artists at all.
As most of the videos focused on different topics related to art criticism, most felt quite useful. Unfortunately, the quiet volume and the dry material made the first two and last videos hard to watch, and therefore hard to glean from. While Greenberg is a fascinating person to read about and listen to, it was difficult for me, even with the volume up all the way, to understand what he and Clark were saying. Still, it was good for us to hear what professional, critical discourse and debates looks like. It almost makes me wish we could have more of a debate in the class, over instant messaging or something like that.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Interspecies Understandings Powerpoint Exhibit
Creating this exhibit was a little harder than I was expecting. I divided up my exhibit into four parts, beginning with a human-animal relationship where humans attempt to dominate and exact war on animals, then a relationship where humans simply use animals for their own gain, then where humans care for animals as pets, and finally a more equal relationship where humans actually see themselves in animals.
I had the most trouble trying to figure out how to relate all of my chosen artworks together through the elements and principles of design. I hope that we didn't have to do that too much, because my artworks vary quite a bit, though I tried to make them flow together and place similar ones next to each other. They definitely have a lot more in common through theme than elements and principles of design.
When choosing the artworks, I seemed to work background. The last part of my exhibit were the artworks I chose first, because that was the part I was interested in the most, and what I was already the most familiar with. I hope that my theme doesn't come off as too crazy sounding, or offensive to anybody. I just find it interesting how human-animal relationships have evolved over the years--not that it's been completely linear. I wanted to include cave paintings in my powerpoint, which would show how long humans have been having meaningful relationships with animals, but then I realized that this would probably not make sense, as I would not be able to drag cave paintings into a real, physical exhibit.
My artworks went from being by mostly men to being by mostly women. I'm sure there are more examples out there of men relating to animals on a profound level, but I was having difficulty finding any. Also, I was interested in exploring the unique connection women have with animals through the experiences they both share. For my powerpoint, I gave the slides a fur-textured background, invoking the idea of animals. I almost switched the styles between my four sections, but then thought that maybe it was better to keep them unified. I chose a font for the titles that was both a little fancy and a little loose looking, which was meant to represent the unification and merging of human and animal worlds. I hope people enjoy it, or let me know how to improve it!
I had the most trouble trying to figure out how to relate all of my chosen artworks together through the elements and principles of design. I hope that we didn't have to do that too much, because my artworks vary quite a bit, though I tried to make them flow together and place similar ones next to each other. They definitely have a lot more in common through theme than elements and principles of design.
When choosing the artworks, I seemed to work background. The last part of my exhibit were the artworks I chose first, because that was the part I was interested in the most, and what I was already the most familiar with. I hope that my theme doesn't come off as too crazy sounding, or offensive to anybody. I just find it interesting how human-animal relationships have evolved over the years--not that it's been completely linear. I wanted to include cave paintings in my powerpoint, which would show how long humans have been having meaningful relationships with animals, but then I realized that this would probably not make sense, as I would not be able to drag cave paintings into a real, physical exhibit.
My artworks went from being by mostly men to being by mostly women. I'm sure there are more examples out there of men relating to animals on a profound level, but I was having difficulty finding any. Also, I was interested in exploring the unique connection women have with animals through the experiences they both share. For my powerpoint, I gave the slides a fur-textured background, invoking the idea of animals. I almost switched the styles between my four sections, but then thought that maybe it was better to keep them unified. I chose a font for the titles that was both a little fancy and a little loose looking, which was meant to represent the unification and merging of human and animal worlds. I hope people enjoy it, or let me know how to improve it!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Exhibition Videos
The first video, The Lowdown on Lowbrow: West Coast Pop Art, explores what is known to some as "lowbrow" art. Art of this genre is often rather crass, crude, and draws from pop culture. It was a reaction against "highbrow" art, which was more exclusionary. Some say it reaches out to the masses more than esoteric highbrow art, because it draws from art that is a part of their lives, such as pinups or comics. Lowbrow art could still deal with heavy issues, however, such as McCarthyism during the Cold War and consumerism. According to one curator, the movement began in the early 1980s with Robert Wiliams's heady paintings. Ed Roth's 1960s rock posters, using bright colors and psychedelic imagery, would be huge inspiration for Lowbrow art. From the 60s until fairly recently, museums did not want to show Lowbrow art. Now, however, museums are clamoring to display R. Crumb's work.
Even now, gallery curators look down their nose at most Lowbrow art. While Pop Art like Andy Warhol is sought out, Lowbrow artists believe curators are trained at universities to have certain opinions of what can and can't be Fine Art. Within Lowbrow art, however, there is little exclusion. Women, for instance, have become very prominent in the movement, believing they are better qualified to be painting women. The internet has allowed the movement to reach many people, and the artists are typically present at the showings so the audience can see and interact with them. With the 1970s came punk rock, and many people were first introduced to Lowbrow art with record covers. This medium reached a much wider audience than placing the art in a gallery. Many artists served as their own gallery curators, creating their own shows. The curator Billy Shire, however, saw Lowbrow art as Fine art, and opened up his gallery to them. Now known as "Pop Surrealism" in many cultures, Lowbrow art is finally being sought out in Fine Art galleries, even in New York.
Displaying Modern Art: The Tate Approach, is about how the Tate Modern museum changed how art is presented in galleries. The early twentieth century, with MoMA, set the standard for displaying art up until the Tate approach. Different art movements would be separated into different areas, each seeming to be a reaction of the one that came before it. By the 1970s, young artists were challenging this sort of distinction. Art could no longer just be hung on white walls. It was no longer just white male artists, but also females of many different ethnicities. At Tate, the art is separated into four sections, each divided thematically: landscape/matter/environment, still life/object/real life, history/memory/society, and the nude/action/body. This allows artworks from very different time periods and contexts to be displayed together. Claude Monet's Waterlilies, for instance, is in the same room as the British artist Richard Long's wall drawing, which was made much later, for the opening of Tate Modern. Placing them together makes one have to think about the potential parallels that exist between them.
Some people, however, believe that this makes the artworks harder to see individually. Monet's painting, for instance, was never supposed to be seen in relation to Long's work, so it takes away from it. Abstract expressionist paintings, which were placed in the landscape section, are now limited to only being perceived as landscapes, when really they could be anything. Without things being divided chronologically, it's harder for people unfamiliar with art movements to understand how art has progressed. Still, the self-contained rooms are very carefully thought out by the curators, one room holding a very different mood from the next. Very abstract artworks, such as Piet Mondrian's might be hard to classify by these four themes. His work is placed in historical art, but only those with art history knowledge would be able to understand this. Still, the planning can also be seen as Populist, for everyone can appreciate what landscapes, history, still lives, and nudes are, at least at their conventional level. People learn to think about artwork's connections rather than simple chronological art history. Like tv, the Tate Modern has displayed its artwork in a manner that is more fun and less work for the viewer, with artwork jumping to different styles and movements in the same way that one might flip through channels.
Bones of Conention: Native American Archaeology is about the ethics involved in collecting, studying, and displaying artifacts of culture. Many Native Americans are demanding that the bones of their ancestors, which are studied at museums, be returned to them. The historians and curators, however, believe that this would be akin to burning books, for it would be a loss of knowledge. In many states beginning in the 1970s, laws were passed that protected Native American remains. Sometimes, such as in California, the laws are so excessive that archaeology becomes quite difficult, and one archaeologist even quit and ran a bar instead. Unfortunately, the studying of human remains was given a black eye early on by Samuel Morton, who concluded after studying skulls that Caucasians were the most intelligent, while Native Americans were third. Suzan Harjo fights to return the skeletal remains of Native American ancestors, for she believes these people deserve to remain buried just like anybody else. By 1995, the bones have to return to the tribes that they were originally from, which one scientist believes is actually unfortunate for Native Americans, for they will now know less about their own history.
Many Native Americans, such as Lebeau, believe that they have always lived in the Americas. It does not matter to them if scientists study how they migrated to America, for they do not believe this to be the case, which is their right. Some scientists are measuring skulls in order to determine which tribe they are from, so they can be returned, but some Native Americans accused them of doing work similar to Nazis. Archaeologists may believe they are helping Native Americans by determining which tribes the skulls belong to, but to many this appears arrogant, for it should not be up to scientists to determine who's related to who.
In Nebraska, the Native Americans have actually worked with scientists and historians, asking them to study skeletons in order to learn more about their health and culture. Today, the Omaha people are often plagued with diabetes and have a very short average lifespan. By studying the remains' bone chemistry, they can better understand why they are so prone to diabetes. After the bones were studied, they were then reburied, and both parties could be satisfied.
The last video, George Eastman House: Picture Perfect, explores both the life and inventions of George Eastman and the process that goes into curating and archiving the photographs and cameras at Eastman's house-museum. What is unique about the George Eastman museum is that you can get the entire history at this one location, rather than hopping from museum to museum. In addition to this, the viewers also get to learn about the life of Eastman in his very own house. Many "firsts" are housed at Eastman's, such as the first photograph of lightning or the first camera sold in the US. Many photographs at the museum not only document, but are works of art. Here is also the largest collection of daguerreotypes outside of France, that were the first to permanently capture photographic images.
George Eastman's greatest contribution was inventing cameras that were easy to use and affordable. He called his company "Kodak," a made-up word that he felt would be easy to pronounce and remember. The Brownie was an early camera that he sold for only a dollar. "You press the button, we do the rest" was a Kodak slogan that showed how simple using the camera really was. Ansel Adams himself used a Brownie, which is housed in the museum. Later, Eastman and Edison would develop one of the first motion cameras.Eastman constructed his house, which is now the Eastman museum, in 1902. Photographs, which are on display in the museum, show what the grounds and the house looked like during his time, which allows the director and curators to recreate what the house looked like. The house also has one of the largest film collections, from classic silent films to more recent works by Spike Lee. The curators admit that it's much easier to have a collection when you're only collecting things from the past hundred years. In 1996, the museum began teaching people how to restore films. The museum reaches out to people in several ways. Photographs are on display, they project films for people to see, and they can access their website.
Some of the videos related more to the creation of my Art Exhibition project than others. Displaying Modern Art, for instance, presented a way to arrange artwork that I think I would emulate. They arranged art not by chronology, but by theme. My artwork, too, would be split by theme. My overall theme is animal relationships with people, and the artworks I exhibit would not be separated by movement but by type of animal-human relationship. The first video, The Lowdown on Lowbrow, taught me that it is important to try not to dismiss certain types of art just because it is different from what is typically considered Fine Art. While searching for my exhibition's artworks, I should try to include art from more "lowbrow" settings, in order to present a more complete spectrum of human-animal relationships.
The George Eastman House video went into detail about how much they store at the museum. It also explained the various ways that they make their stores accessible to people. While this was good and important to know, I'm not sure how much it pertained to my particular Art Exhibition project, other than to be sure to include photographs as well, and perhaps even films. The Bones of Contention video also provided some very vital information about how curators and historians need to be sensitive to the requests of other cultures when studying people. Many groups of Native Americans believed that scientists were violating their ancestors when they studied their bones, while others believed it was for the good of the current tribe. Either way, a good exhibition is not worth insulting an entire group of people. I'm not sure that my exhibition was going to include and insensitive materials, but it was good to hear nonetheless.
Considering their subject matter, the videos were much more interesting than I was expecting. I wasn't sure how captivating videos about curating art would be, but indeed they were. Of course, that's not what Bones of Contention was really about, but the other three focused on the process of Lowbrow art becoming eventually accepted by mainstream museums, the storing of artworks, and the displaying of artworks in a manner that fits today's short attention span culture. Bones of Contention and The Lowdown on Lowbrow both heavily feature those that will be on display, whereas the other two focused mostly on the curator's perspective. It was good to see two new sides that exist in art exhibitions when we're typically only aware of one perspective--that of the viewer.
Even now, gallery curators look down their nose at most Lowbrow art. While Pop Art like Andy Warhol is sought out, Lowbrow artists believe curators are trained at universities to have certain opinions of what can and can't be Fine Art. Within Lowbrow art, however, there is little exclusion. Women, for instance, have become very prominent in the movement, believing they are better qualified to be painting women. The internet has allowed the movement to reach many people, and the artists are typically present at the showings so the audience can see and interact with them. With the 1970s came punk rock, and many people were first introduced to Lowbrow art with record covers. This medium reached a much wider audience than placing the art in a gallery. Many artists served as their own gallery curators, creating their own shows. The curator Billy Shire, however, saw Lowbrow art as Fine art, and opened up his gallery to them. Now known as "Pop Surrealism" in many cultures, Lowbrow art is finally being sought out in Fine Art galleries, even in New York.
Displaying Modern Art: The Tate Approach, is about how the Tate Modern museum changed how art is presented in galleries. The early twentieth century, with MoMA, set the standard for displaying art up until the Tate approach. Different art movements would be separated into different areas, each seeming to be a reaction of the one that came before it. By the 1970s, young artists were challenging this sort of distinction. Art could no longer just be hung on white walls. It was no longer just white male artists, but also females of many different ethnicities. At Tate, the art is separated into four sections, each divided thematically: landscape/matter/environment, still life/object/real life, history/memory/society, and the nude/action/body. This allows artworks from very different time periods and contexts to be displayed together. Claude Monet's Waterlilies, for instance, is in the same room as the British artist Richard Long's wall drawing, which was made much later, for the opening of Tate Modern. Placing them together makes one have to think about the potential parallels that exist between them.
Some people, however, believe that this makes the artworks harder to see individually. Monet's painting, for instance, was never supposed to be seen in relation to Long's work, so it takes away from it. Abstract expressionist paintings, which were placed in the landscape section, are now limited to only being perceived as landscapes, when really they could be anything. Without things being divided chronologically, it's harder for people unfamiliar with art movements to understand how art has progressed. Still, the self-contained rooms are very carefully thought out by the curators, one room holding a very different mood from the next. Very abstract artworks, such as Piet Mondrian's might be hard to classify by these four themes. His work is placed in historical art, but only those with art history knowledge would be able to understand this. Still, the planning can also be seen as Populist, for everyone can appreciate what landscapes, history, still lives, and nudes are, at least at their conventional level. People learn to think about artwork's connections rather than simple chronological art history. Like tv, the Tate Modern has displayed its artwork in a manner that is more fun and less work for the viewer, with artwork jumping to different styles and movements in the same way that one might flip through channels.
Bones of Conention: Native American Archaeology is about the ethics involved in collecting, studying, and displaying artifacts of culture. Many Native Americans are demanding that the bones of their ancestors, which are studied at museums, be returned to them. The historians and curators, however, believe that this would be akin to burning books, for it would be a loss of knowledge. In many states beginning in the 1970s, laws were passed that protected Native American remains. Sometimes, such as in California, the laws are so excessive that archaeology becomes quite difficult, and one archaeologist even quit and ran a bar instead. Unfortunately, the studying of human remains was given a black eye early on by Samuel Morton, who concluded after studying skulls that Caucasians were the most intelligent, while Native Americans were third. Suzan Harjo fights to return the skeletal remains of Native American ancestors, for she believes these people deserve to remain buried just like anybody else. By 1995, the bones have to return to the tribes that they were originally from, which one scientist believes is actually unfortunate for Native Americans, for they will now know less about their own history.
Many Native Americans, such as Lebeau, believe that they have always lived in the Americas. It does not matter to them if scientists study how they migrated to America, for they do not believe this to be the case, which is their right. Some scientists are measuring skulls in order to determine which tribe they are from, so they can be returned, but some Native Americans accused them of doing work similar to Nazis. Archaeologists may believe they are helping Native Americans by determining which tribes the skulls belong to, but to many this appears arrogant, for it should not be up to scientists to determine who's related to who.
In Nebraska, the Native Americans have actually worked with scientists and historians, asking them to study skeletons in order to learn more about their health and culture. Today, the Omaha people are often plagued with diabetes and have a very short average lifespan. By studying the remains' bone chemistry, they can better understand why they are so prone to diabetes. After the bones were studied, they were then reburied, and both parties could be satisfied.
The last video, George Eastman House: Picture Perfect, explores both the life and inventions of George Eastman and the process that goes into curating and archiving the photographs and cameras at Eastman's house-museum. What is unique about the George Eastman museum is that you can get the entire history at this one location, rather than hopping from museum to museum. In addition to this, the viewers also get to learn about the life of Eastman in his very own house. Many "firsts" are housed at Eastman's, such as the first photograph of lightning or the first camera sold in the US. Many photographs at the museum not only document, but are works of art. Here is also the largest collection of daguerreotypes outside of France, that were the first to permanently capture photographic images.
George Eastman's greatest contribution was inventing cameras that were easy to use and affordable. He called his company "Kodak," a made-up word that he felt would be easy to pronounce and remember. The Brownie was an early camera that he sold for only a dollar. "You press the button, we do the rest" was a Kodak slogan that showed how simple using the camera really was. Ansel Adams himself used a Brownie, which is housed in the museum. Later, Eastman and Edison would develop one of the first motion cameras.Eastman constructed his house, which is now the Eastman museum, in 1902. Photographs, which are on display in the museum, show what the grounds and the house looked like during his time, which allows the director and curators to recreate what the house looked like. The house also has one of the largest film collections, from classic silent films to more recent works by Spike Lee. The curators admit that it's much easier to have a collection when you're only collecting things from the past hundred years. In 1996, the museum began teaching people how to restore films. The museum reaches out to people in several ways. Photographs are on display, they project films for people to see, and they can access their website.
Some of the videos related more to the creation of my Art Exhibition project than others. Displaying Modern Art, for instance, presented a way to arrange artwork that I think I would emulate. They arranged art not by chronology, but by theme. My artwork, too, would be split by theme. My overall theme is animal relationships with people, and the artworks I exhibit would not be separated by movement but by type of animal-human relationship. The first video, The Lowdown on Lowbrow, taught me that it is important to try not to dismiss certain types of art just because it is different from what is typically considered Fine Art. While searching for my exhibition's artworks, I should try to include art from more "lowbrow" settings, in order to present a more complete spectrum of human-animal relationships.
The George Eastman House video went into detail about how much they store at the museum. It also explained the various ways that they make their stores accessible to people. While this was good and important to know, I'm not sure how much it pertained to my particular Art Exhibition project, other than to be sure to include photographs as well, and perhaps even films. The Bones of Contention video also provided some very vital information about how curators and historians need to be sensitive to the requests of other cultures when studying people. Many groups of Native Americans believed that scientists were violating their ancestors when they studied their bones, while others believed it was for the good of the current tribe. Either way, a good exhibition is not worth insulting an entire group of people. I'm not sure that my exhibition was going to include and insensitive materials, but it was good to hear nonetheless.
Considering their subject matter, the videos were much more interesting than I was expecting. I wasn't sure how captivating videos about curating art would be, but indeed they were. Of course, that's not what Bones of Contention was really about, but the other three focused on the process of Lowbrow art becoming eventually accepted by mainstream museums, the storing of artworks, and the displaying of artworks in a manner that fits today's short attention span culture. Bones of Contention and The Lowdown on Lowbrow both heavily feature those that will be on display, whereas the other two focused mostly on the curator's perspective. It was good to see two new sides that exist in art exhibitions when we're typically only aware of one perspective--that of the viewer.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Rothko, Modernity, Warhol, Noguchi
I chose The Power of Art: Rothko because he is an artist whose pieces I used to strongly dislike, but I'm slowly accepting them more the more I am exposed to his life. I chose Uncertainy: Modernity and Art because it seemed good to watch a video that was more a general overview of 20th century art. I chose Andy Warhol: Images of an Image because, while I have seen plenty of Warhol works, and I've read about him, I've never really seen him speak for himself. Lastly, I chose Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpure of Spaces because he is an artist that I am completely unfamiliar with.
The Power of Art: Rothko tells the life and art of the famous Abstract Expressionist painter of Mark Rothko. In 1970, when the world had turned away from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, Rothko killed himself. The world was sick of his solemness. His paintings, once seen, however, would pull the viewer in to an unknown space, powerfully transplanting the viewer. While he had been considered by many to be one of the world's greatest painters, he was tormented by figuring out how much art could do. When asked to create paintings for a Four Seasons restaurant, the exorbitant price they were willing to pay him did not make him happy, but concerned about his role in American capitalism. He was born in Russia, and escaped to America to get away from the anti-Semitism, only to find it in America as well.
In 1958, Rothko gave his last insight into painting in a lecture. He believed his paintings were of and about the world, and contained elements of the world within them, such as irony and tragedy. In the Four Seasons paintings, Rothko wanted to show the weightiness of human tragedy. The work exhausted him, and he came to see the people that would be dining under his work as his enemies. They had been inspired by Michelangelo's library walls that he had visited years before, which made the dwellers feel trapped. The finished pieces were vibrant, pulsating, and seem to have some sort of force field about them. American culture now proved itself to not just be shallow.
Rothko's paintings were softly defined, rectangles floating on flat colors. They were very deep, and very emotionally charged. He wanted his paintings to elicit real human emotional reactions, not just to be beautiful. Because of this, he wanted to create art in a public space, where his artwork would not just be viewed in the rich's interiors. In the end, he turned down the huge commission and never hung his paintings on the restaurant's walls. He may have seen it as a failure, but it was a triumph of art over money. He began to be obsessed with creating some sort of chapel, which he would decorate with his own paintings. His work became darker at the same time that the rest of the world wanted light hearted Pop Art. In Texas, 1965, he was commissioned to create artwork for a chapel. He created very dark paintings that no longer showed any movement. It feels like a funeral for Rothko and his idea of art.
Uncertainty: Modernity and Art presents how modern art reflects the state of our civilization, just as it did for the Greeks. Modernism is fast-paced, consumerist, and so, therefore, is the art. Matthew Collings states that for the past century we have been living in an age of uncertainty. Our art is now restless, questioning, always reflecting our changing values and mired in controversy. The movement really took off with Picasso, who changed what reality looked like. Hitler even had a Modern Art exhibit, but he labeled it as "degenerative art," and explained how "deformed Jews" created "deformed art." Hitler was trying to battle against Modern art by clinging to a very simplistic, heroic art that no longer, and never did, reflect reality. Picasso's Guernica, on the other hand, approached truth in a new, different way. While it is less realistic, it feels far more human.
Piet Mondrian's works are gridded, similar to cities, but they are not supposed to be city blueprints. Their geometrical patterns are more timeless than that. Abstract Expressionists were a more critical look at modern life and consumerism. The images are much more stark than the whimsical Paul Klee created earlier. Pop Art, on the other hand, openly embraced modern life and consumerism. The 1960s celebrated the surface rather than depth. Andy Warhol in particular used pop culture icons in the way that a previous culture might have portrayed religious icons like Jesus.
For a long time, Chinese art was government propaganda. Now, however, they create contemporary art that is joined to western contemporary art. The problem is, Modern Art is now more interested in its market value in the very consumerist world that it is commenting on, and has become far less personal. Everything is illusion--where is the self?
Andy Warhol: Images of an Image studies Warhol's Ten Lizes in order to understand Andy Warhol and Pop Art. After having no ambitions for being an artist, he was inspired by Rauschenberg to begin cutting out newspaper ads, cropping them and blowing them up in the form of artworks. Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor became subjects for his silkscreens, though really they were objects. Ten Lizes shows Taylor not as a person, but as a commodity that the people consumed. The distorting of the silkscreen was like the distortion of Taylor from real person to icon. Warhol was also quite narcissistic, and created many self-portraits in the same style as his Monroe and Taylor paintings/prints.
Death was a main theme for Warhol. He produced images of electric chairs, suicides, and plane and car crashes. He created Monroe portraits after she had died, Taylor portraits after it seemed she was going to die, and Jackie Kennedy portraits after her husband died. Ten Lizes, in fact, feels like a death portrait of Taylor, whose "glow" has been deleted through the process of the rough silk screening. The ten portraits that make up the artwork vary from one to another, each showing its own deformities.
Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpure of Spaces is about the artist and his sculpture gardens, from the artist's point of view. Self expression is not enough for him--if it was, he would be a painter. He studied Japanese gardens, which he saw as a form of sculpture, and began making his own sculpture gardens. The Unesco Garden in France was his first opportunity to do this, which he calls an homage to a Japanese garden. He says it was a "humanizing" of both space and sculpture, for it didn't distance the artwork from the viewer, but instead they interacted with each other.
He had an American mother and a Japanese father, and moved to the US from Japan during his childhood. He believes he became a "typical American," lived in some poverty for a time, and got by by creating stone heads. He created sets for productions by Martha Graham. After decades of success, Noguchi was commissioned to design Bayfront Park in Miami, which was controversial because he was demanding increasing amounts of money and the destruction of a library. He believed that the artist should be a dictator, not compromising his vision. He then would experiment using water in his sculptures by creating fountains. After that, he created playground sculptures, showing how he believed that art should not just be in museums, but it should be useful to the people in public.
He did not try to make his sculptures perfect, for he was trying to imitate nature. As he said, imperfection was better than perfection. He also believed that the scale of sculpture should be the scale of "man." The person and the sculpture both can interact with each other. When creating the sculptures in Jerusalem, the project meant a lot to him, for he felt a connection with the Jews who had finally found a home, as he had. His final work he worked on in his eighties, never slowing down. This sculpture space was for Moere Numa Park in Japan, a return to the country that he first grew up in. Unfortunately, he died before his creation was realized, but the park was created after his passing. His friends still feel like Noguchi is just traveling, and will return to his home of peaceful solitude any day.
The Power of Art: Rothko delves into Abstract Expressionism from the point of view of one artist, whereas the textbook could only afford a few paragraphs for the movement as a whole. While it is still not the same thing as looking at the paintings in person, it was nice to see so many of his paintings in the video. A few examples in a book can't compare to seeing the paintings in the video, where their size and texture are more evident. I was curious about the scenes where an actor plays Rothko--were his monologues things that Rothko had actually written and said? In Uncertainty: Modernity and Art, we see how Modern Art was a reflection of modern society. Sometimes the art criticized the consumerism of the modern world, and other times it reveled in it. It seems that videos like this one are less objective that the textbook is. We are hearing and watching the interpretation of art from one man's perspective. The text, of course, has to do this to some extent, but it seems like it does not go as far as the videos do.
In the text, there is a mini, one page biography of Andy Warhol. I was hoping that the video would end up giving a more personal account of Andy Warhol, but this was not really the case. In this instance, it seemed like the text was actually more in depth than the video. The video focused a lot on the technical aspect of Warhol's works, which is less interesting to me. I was hoping to actually watch some interviews with Warhol, but apart from a quick clip in the beginning, there were none. Perhaps this is because interviews with Warhol were hard to come by, or at least ones where he showed his true self. After all he said, according to the video, to only look at the surface of his prints and paintings to understand him--there's nothing underneath.
Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpure of Spaces was about an artist that I know has been discussed in the text, but I honestly did not have a great recollection of him or his work, so it was good to learn about him in this video. This video relates to the final section of the final chapter in the book, where Getlein takes a look at artists who are a part of more than one culture. This, too, is the case for Noguchi, who is half American and half Japanese. While he creates artworks in America, he is largely inspired by Japanese Gardens. The video allowed us to see the life's work of someone who is influenced by the multiple cultures he grew up with. While at times the artist seemed rather selfish (such as the destruction of the library and the demand for high amounts of money), at other times his concern for creating art that interacts with nature as well as with people seemed very heartfelt.
The Power of Art: Rothko tells the life and art of the famous Abstract Expressionist painter of Mark Rothko. In 1970, when the world had turned away from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, Rothko killed himself. The world was sick of his solemness. His paintings, once seen, however, would pull the viewer in to an unknown space, powerfully transplanting the viewer. While he had been considered by many to be one of the world's greatest painters, he was tormented by figuring out how much art could do. When asked to create paintings for a Four Seasons restaurant, the exorbitant price they were willing to pay him did not make him happy, but concerned about his role in American capitalism. He was born in Russia, and escaped to America to get away from the anti-Semitism, only to find it in America as well.
In 1958, Rothko gave his last insight into painting in a lecture. He believed his paintings were of and about the world, and contained elements of the world within them, such as irony and tragedy. In the Four Seasons paintings, Rothko wanted to show the weightiness of human tragedy. The work exhausted him, and he came to see the people that would be dining under his work as his enemies. They had been inspired by Michelangelo's library walls that he had visited years before, which made the dwellers feel trapped. The finished pieces were vibrant, pulsating, and seem to have some sort of force field about them. American culture now proved itself to not just be shallow.
Rothko's paintings were softly defined, rectangles floating on flat colors. They were very deep, and very emotionally charged. He wanted his paintings to elicit real human emotional reactions, not just to be beautiful. Because of this, he wanted to create art in a public space, where his artwork would not just be viewed in the rich's interiors. In the end, he turned down the huge commission and never hung his paintings on the restaurant's walls. He may have seen it as a failure, but it was a triumph of art over money. He began to be obsessed with creating some sort of chapel, which he would decorate with his own paintings. His work became darker at the same time that the rest of the world wanted light hearted Pop Art. In Texas, 1965, he was commissioned to create artwork for a chapel. He created very dark paintings that no longer showed any movement. It feels like a funeral for Rothko and his idea of art.
Uncertainty: Modernity and Art presents how modern art reflects the state of our civilization, just as it did for the Greeks. Modernism is fast-paced, consumerist, and so, therefore, is the art. Matthew Collings states that for the past century we have been living in an age of uncertainty. Our art is now restless, questioning, always reflecting our changing values and mired in controversy. The movement really took off with Picasso, who changed what reality looked like. Hitler even had a Modern Art exhibit, but he labeled it as "degenerative art," and explained how "deformed Jews" created "deformed art." Hitler was trying to battle against Modern art by clinging to a very simplistic, heroic art that no longer, and never did, reflect reality. Picasso's Guernica, on the other hand, approached truth in a new, different way. While it is less realistic, it feels far more human.
Piet Mondrian's works are gridded, similar to cities, but they are not supposed to be city blueprints. Their geometrical patterns are more timeless than that. Abstract Expressionists were a more critical look at modern life and consumerism. The images are much more stark than the whimsical Paul Klee created earlier. Pop Art, on the other hand, openly embraced modern life and consumerism. The 1960s celebrated the surface rather than depth. Andy Warhol in particular used pop culture icons in the way that a previous culture might have portrayed religious icons like Jesus.
For a long time, Chinese art was government propaganda. Now, however, they create contemporary art that is joined to western contemporary art. The problem is, Modern Art is now more interested in its market value in the very consumerist world that it is commenting on, and has become far less personal. Everything is illusion--where is the self?
Andy Warhol: Images of an Image studies Warhol's Ten Lizes in order to understand Andy Warhol and Pop Art. After having no ambitions for being an artist, he was inspired by Rauschenberg to begin cutting out newspaper ads, cropping them and blowing them up in the form of artworks. Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor became subjects for his silkscreens, though really they were objects. Ten Lizes shows Taylor not as a person, but as a commodity that the people consumed. The distorting of the silkscreen was like the distortion of Taylor from real person to icon. Warhol was also quite narcissistic, and created many self-portraits in the same style as his Monroe and Taylor paintings/prints.
Death was a main theme for Warhol. He produced images of electric chairs, suicides, and plane and car crashes. He created Monroe portraits after she had died, Taylor portraits after it seemed she was going to die, and Jackie Kennedy portraits after her husband died. Ten Lizes, in fact, feels like a death portrait of Taylor, whose "glow" has been deleted through the process of the rough silk screening. The ten portraits that make up the artwork vary from one to another, each showing its own deformities.
Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpure of Spaces is about the artist and his sculpture gardens, from the artist's point of view. Self expression is not enough for him--if it was, he would be a painter. He studied Japanese gardens, which he saw as a form of sculpture, and began making his own sculpture gardens. The Unesco Garden in France was his first opportunity to do this, which he calls an homage to a Japanese garden. He says it was a "humanizing" of both space and sculpture, for it didn't distance the artwork from the viewer, but instead they interacted with each other.
He had an American mother and a Japanese father, and moved to the US from Japan during his childhood. He believes he became a "typical American," lived in some poverty for a time, and got by by creating stone heads. He created sets for productions by Martha Graham. After decades of success, Noguchi was commissioned to design Bayfront Park in Miami, which was controversial because he was demanding increasing amounts of money and the destruction of a library. He believed that the artist should be a dictator, not compromising his vision. He then would experiment using water in his sculptures by creating fountains. After that, he created playground sculptures, showing how he believed that art should not just be in museums, but it should be useful to the people in public.
He did not try to make his sculptures perfect, for he was trying to imitate nature. As he said, imperfection was better than perfection. He also believed that the scale of sculpture should be the scale of "man." The person and the sculpture both can interact with each other. When creating the sculptures in Jerusalem, the project meant a lot to him, for he felt a connection with the Jews who had finally found a home, as he had. His final work he worked on in his eighties, never slowing down. This sculpture space was for Moere Numa Park in Japan, a return to the country that he first grew up in. Unfortunately, he died before his creation was realized, but the park was created after his passing. His friends still feel like Noguchi is just traveling, and will return to his home of peaceful solitude any day.
The Power of Art: Rothko delves into Abstract Expressionism from the point of view of one artist, whereas the textbook could only afford a few paragraphs for the movement as a whole. While it is still not the same thing as looking at the paintings in person, it was nice to see so many of his paintings in the video. A few examples in a book can't compare to seeing the paintings in the video, where their size and texture are more evident. I was curious about the scenes where an actor plays Rothko--were his monologues things that Rothko had actually written and said? In Uncertainty: Modernity and Art, we see how Modern Art was a reflection of modern society. Sometimes the art criticized the consumerism of the modern world, and other times it reveled in it. It seems that videos like this one are less objective that the textbook is. We are hearing and watching the interpretation of art from one man's perspective. The text, of course, has to do this to some extent, but it seems like it does not go as far as the videos do.
In the text, there is a mini, one page biography of Andy Warhol. I was hoping that the video would end up giving a more personal account of Andy Warhol, but this was not really the case. In this instance, it seemed like the text was actually more in depth than the video. The video focused a lot on the technical aspect of Warhol's works, which is less interesting to me. I was hoping to actually watch some interviews with Warhol, but apart from a quick clip in the beginning, there were none. Perhaps this is because interviews with Warhol were hard to come by, or at least ones where he showed his true self. After all he said, according to the video, to only look at the surface of his prints and paintings to understand him--there's nothing underneath.
Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpure of Spaces was about an artist that I know has been discussed in the text, but I honestly did not have a great recollection of him or his work, so it was good to learn about him in this video. This video relates to the final section of the final chapter in the book, where Getlein takes a look at artists who are a part of more than one culture. This, too, is the case for Noguchi, who is half American and half Japanese. While he creates artworks in America, he is largely inspired by Japanese Gardens. The video allowed us to see the life's work of someone who is influenced by the multiple cultures he grew up with. While at times the artist seemed rather selfish (such as the destruction of the library and the demand for high amounts of money), at other times his concern for creating art that interacts with nature as well as with people seemed very heartfelt.
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