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.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
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.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Art Gallery Visit 2
Exhibit:
For my second gallery visit, I went to the Burchfield-Penney. I explored the "Art in Craft Media 2011" exhibit, which appears to be an annual occurrence. The exhibition's theme was the creation of fine art works in media that are typically considered to "craft" media, such as clay, fiber, glass, metal, and paper. Sylvia Rosen's statement about the exhibit stated that there is a trend in current, conceptual art for artists to utilize artisans to actually make the physical object that the artist's idea represents. The artists in this exhibit, however, have all created the artworks with their own hands, which closes the division between the artist and the object.
Gallery/Physical Space:
The lighting in the gallery was quite dim. Most of the ceiling lights were not in use, though there were some skylights. Artworks were typically lit from the high ceilings, so there was almost a sort of spotlight on each work. For this particular exhibit, the walls were white. Other areas of the museum had dark gray walls, which perhaps separates the temporary exhibits from the permanent collection. The gallery has very high ceilings, and many of the walls only reach about halfway up. There are impermanent, movable walls in use, that can be moved to suit the needs of the exhibit. There were many white, rectangular boxes on the gallery floor, with the three dimensional artworks sitting on top and enclosed in glass. These boxes and the walls had a black strip running along the bottom of them, so they almost appeared to be floating. To make good use of the space, these boxes and the artwork that sat directly on the floor were not simply lined up along the wall, but spread throughout the gallery's floor space. There were not grouped into straight lines either, but were arranged so that the viewer is able to meander in between the artworks, not just walk rigidly in rows and columns.
The Artwork:
There didn't seem to be a huge amount of organization by type of medium or theme. It instead seemed to be arranged by what would create a nice balance of material and size. Ceramic, metal, and fiber work were typically fairly intermixed. One exception to this was in one section that was a little closed off from the rest of the exhibit by three walls, that was almost entirely jewelry. I say ALMOST entirely because on top of one of the walls a ceramic figure playfully sat, by Morgan Meheran.
The major thing the artworks had in common is that they were all created in "craft" materials by the artists' own hands. They were vastly different, however. Some had a specific purpose, such as the jewelry, some were purely decorative, such as the fabric pieces. Some represented real or fantastical figures, while others were completely abstract. Some were silly and whimsical, such as the image above, and others were highly unsettling like Sarah McNutt's Intrusive Investigations of Intimacy:
Most of the artworks were not framed, and few hung on the walls at all. While there was very little empty floor space, most of the walls were bare, with several yards separating those artworks that were the closest together. As few of the art was two dimensional, there was very little to frame, unless you count the glass boxes that encased much of the smaller art. There were clear labels next to the artworks, that stated the artist, title of the artwork, date, medium, and where the artwork came from (typically it was "courtesy of the artist."). Additionally, any artwork that was made by people who either attended or taught at Buffalo State had an image of an orange tiger on the label. While the hanging artwork was spaced far apart, the floor art often had no more than a couple yards in between each piece, and often much less.
Art Criticism:
The first artwork that drew my attention was at the beginning of the exhibit, Jessie Walp's Spring. While it sat on one of the white boxes, it did not have a glass case that would have distanced it from the viewer. It had a dark brown, roundly ribbed base, and a lighter brown neck that curved up into a series of differently sized spheres. The sculpture uses line to create movement, from the ribs on the base to the curving, serpentine neck that draws the eye from bottom to top. The work is not symmetrical (at least from this vantage point), but feels balanced because there is the heavier, darker form on the left, but more negative space (the areas around the curved neck) on the right. Both organic and inorganic forms are used: the spheres on top are very geometrical, but they when combined together and the rest of the forms in the piece create organic shapes. There is variety in the piece because of the two shades of brown, but the piece is also united by the soft, curving edges that exist in every part of the artwork.
The artwork reminds me the most of a bird, perhaps a graceful swan. It certainly seems to have the neck of a swan, and the spheres on top seem to form a head and beak that is proudly raised. The bird's body would be the dark brown base, that is also rather reminiscent of a gourd. The one thing that is missing is the wings. This missing element makes one wonder if the artist's intent was to show something that is trapped, like a flightless bird. I have a little bit of a hard time believing this, however, for despite its lack of wings, the creature appears proud and steadfast. The title Spring gives the impression that something is being born or rising up. Perhaps, then, the base can be seen as a kind of shell, from which the creature is emerging and thrusting itself into the world.
Secondly, I was drawn to Scott Losi's A Credit to the Flock, which I just realized is also bird-themed. This was one of the few artworks hanging on the wall, though it is far from a conventional painting. The work has a two dimensional image of a baby bird, created mostly in black and white. Below it is an actual shelf, that seems to have a small, 3-D, ceramic farm scene placed on it, all in white. Below the bird and on the shelf there are a number of different black and white patterns. Value is an important element in this artwork, as it is mostly black and white. The bird has subtle shades of gray, but the patterns are starkly black or white. This makes the baby bird appear delicate, and the patterns to appear more forceful. Real value comes into play by creating the 3D shelf, which makes a shadow fall onto the piece beneath it. There is a rhythm in the repeating black forms that twist about in the bottom half of the piece, that is broken up by the smaller patterns on the shelf. There are organic shapes in the image of the bird, which is contrasted my the geometrical forms of the farm. The horizontal shelf acts as a place for the eye to rest before it is brought up through the throat and beak of the bird, where it waits, for whatever the bird is waiting for.
Baby birds are typically seen as helpless and fragile. I think that Losi is using this symbol in order to subvert it. This baby bird appears strong despite its delicateness. Just like the other work, its head is raised and it feels like it is making a fierce cry. I have a hard time figuring out what the house/farm could represent. Is it contrasting human dwellings with the bird's dwelling? Does the shelf represent a nest? Are the patterns an abstract version of the weaving of a nest? Perhaps the artwork is representing the triumph of this little baby bird, which is represented so much larger than the house, who does not need human technology to survive. Maybe it is a testament to the power of nature, and how human civilization is a lot more insignificant than we generally believe it to be.
Finally, I really enjoyed studying Ani Hoover's Astro Dot Net. The wall hanging is created out of many paper circles attached to each other by the zip ties. They are mostly colored in pinks, but there are other colors, such as blues and yellows, incorporated as well, if one looks closely. There seem to be two different rows in the shape of waves, the bottom's crests connected to the top's troughs. The piece is very unified looking, with its (mostly) monochromatic pink coloring and its motif of the circle. Some variety exists by the odd ring that is a different color. The roundness of the individual circles is contrasted by the sharp, wave shape that is created when they are combined. There is no focal point, except perhaps in the negative space that separates the two rows of waves, which breaks up the form into two different pieces.
As I said above, the artwork reminds me of waves. While it is made up of rings that complete themselves, they are connected into a larger form that feels like it could keep going on either end. It feels like it is perhaps drifting across the wall, like waves on a lake. The "net" is made up of everyday objects, which makes it odd that the piece uses the word "astro" in its title. The word is associated with science and outer space, and yet the piece is created out of materials that could be found in an art classroom. Maybe Hoover is trying to combine the everyday with science in order to create a homey science fiction. She is creating an outer space narrative that is not cold and unfeeling, but comforting. The net is like a blanket, made up of waves that are traveling through space. In all of the perfect circles that remind one of geometry and mathematics, she is creating something reassuring.
I admit that I do not typically look at the architecture and set up of a gallery, with the exception of the Louvre. There, I was much more intrigued by the building itself than the artworks that it held. But even then, I didn't really consider what went into planning how the artworks should be arranged, and how they should be lit. By looking at this exhibit from this new perspective, I was able to better see the exhibit as a whole rather than by its individual pieces. I could appreciate not only the work that the artists put into the exhibition, but also the work that went into displaying each artwork in the best possible way while still connecting it to others. I can now appreciate how deliberate all of the decisions, from minor to major, are. Hopefully, I continue to view galleries from this perspective (as well as other perspectives) when I visit museums in the future.
For my second gallery visit, I went to the Burchfield-Penney. I explored the "Art in Craft Media 2011" exhibit, which appears to be an annual occurrence. The exhibition's theme was the creation of fine art works in media that are typically considered to "craft" media, such as clay, fiber, glass, metal, and paper. Sylvia Rosen's statement about the exhibit stated that there is a trend in current, conceptual art for artists to utilize artisans to actually make the physical object that the artist's idea represents. The artists in this exhibit, however, have all created the artworks with their own hands, which closes the division between the artist and the object.
Gallery/Physical Space:
The lighting in the gallery was quite dim. Most of the ceiling lights were not in use, though there were some skylights. Artworks were typically lit from the high ceilings, so there was almost a sort of spotlight on each work. For this particular exhibit, the walls were white. Other areas of the museum had dark gray walls, which perhaps separates the temporary exhibits from the permanent collection. The gallery has very high ceilings, and many of the walls only reach about halfway up. There are impermanent, movable walls in use, that can be moved to suit the needs of the exhibit. There were many white, rectangular boxes on the gallery floor, with the three dimensional artworks sitting on top and enclosed in glass. These boxes and the walls had a black strip running along the bottom of them, so they almost appeared to be floating. To make good use of the space, these boxes and the artwork that sat directly on the floor were not simply lined up along the wall, but spread throughout the gallery's floor space. There were not grouped into straight lines either, but were arranged so that the viewer is able to meander in between the artworks, not just walk rigidly in rows and columns.
There didn't seem to be a huge amount of organization by type of medium or theme. It instead seemed to be arranged by what would create a nice balance of material and size. Ceramic, metal, and fiber work were typically fairly intermixed. One exception to this was in one section that was a little closed off from the rest of the exhibit by three walls, that was almost entirely jewelry. I say ALMOST entirely because on top of one of the walls a ceramic figure playfully sat, by Morgan Meheran.
The first artwork that drew my attention was at the beginning of the exhibit, Jessie Walp's Spring. While it sat on one of the white boxes, it did not have a glass case that would have distanced it from the viewer. It had a dark brown, roundly ribbed base, and a lighter brown neck that curved up into a series of differently sized spheres. The sculpture uses line to create movement, from the ribs on the base to the curving, serpentine neck that draws the eye from bottom to top. The work is not symmetrical (at least from this vantage point), but feels balanced because there is the heavier, darker form on the left, but more negative space (the areas around the curved neck) on the right. Both organic and inorganic forms are used: the spheres on top are very geometrical, but they when combined together and the rest of the forms in the piece create organic shapes. There is variety in the piece because of the two shades of brown, but the piece is also united by the soft, curving edges that exist in every part of the artwork.
 |
| Jesse Walp, Spring, 2011, Sapele and Osage Orange Wood |
Secondly, I was drawn to Scott Losi's A Credit to the Flock, which I just realized is also bird-themed. This was one of the few artworks hanging on the wall, though it is far from a conventional painting. The work has a two dimensional image of a baby bird, created mostly in black and white. Below it is an actual shelf, that seems to have a small, 3-D, ceramic farm scene placed on it, all in white. Below the bird and on the shelf there are a number of different black and white patterns. Value is an important element in this artwork, as it is mostly black and white. The bird has subtle shades of gray, but the patterns are starkly black or white. This makes the baby bird appear delicate, and the patterns to appear more forceful. Real value comes into play by creating the 3D shelf, which makes a shadow fall onto the piece beneath it. There is a rhythm in the repeating black forms that twist about in the bottom half of the piece, that is broken up by the smaller patterns on the shelf. There are organic shapes in the image of the bird, which is contrasted my the geometrical forms of the farm. The horizontal shelf acts as a place for the eye to rest before it is brought up through the throat and beak of the bird, where it waits, for whatever the bird is waiting for.
 | |
| Scott Losi, A Credit to the Flock, 2011, Earthenware, underglazes, oxides, and paint |
Finally, I really enjoyed studying Ani Hoover's Astro Dot Net. The wall hanging is created out of many paper circles attached to each other by the zip ties. They are mostly colored in pinks, but there are other colors, such as blues and yellows, incorporated as well, if one looks closely. There seem to be two different rows in the shape of waves, the bottom's crests connected to the top's troughs. The piece is very unified looking, with its (mostly) monochromatic pink coloring and its motif of the circle. Some variety exists by the odd ring that is a different color. The roundness of the individual circles is contrasted by the sharp, wave shape that is created when they are combined. There is no focal point, except perhaps in the negative space that separates the two rows of waves, which breaks up the form into two different pieces.
 |
| Ani Hoover, Astro Dot Net, 2011, Paper, paint, zip ties |
I admit that I do not typically look at the architecture and set up of a gallery, with the exception of the Louvre. There, I was much more intrigued by the building itself than the artworks that it held. But even then, I didn't really consider what went into planning how the artworks should be arranged, and how they should be lit. By looking at this exhibit from this new perspective, I was able to better see the exhibit as a whole rather than by its individual pieces. I could appreciate not only the work that the artists put into the exhibition, but also the work that went into displaying each artwork in the best possible way while still connecting it to others. I can now appreciate how deliberate all of the decisions, from minor to major, are. Hopefully, I continue to view galleries from this perspective (as well as other perspectives) when I visit museums in the future.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Matisse, Picasso, Renoir, Seurat, Expressionism
I chose Matisse and Picasso because while I am familiar with both artists, I don't know much about their relationship with each other. I chose Dance at the Moulin de la Galette because I've never been a big Renoir fan, so maybe learning more about the man and one of his most famous paintings will sway my opinion a little bit. I chose A Sunday on La Grande Jatte because it's always fascinating to learn about Seurat's process, and I chose Expressionism because it simply is a movement that can be strange and alluring.
Matisse and Picasso began in such a strange way that at first I felt like I was watching a Bergman film. We are first introduced with Matisse, who believes that drawing is that same as painting, but just with fewer materials. In 1905, most people were shocked at Matisse's portrait of his wife. The American Stein family, on the other hand, recognized it as something new and unique, and purchased it. It was Gertrude Stein that insisted that Matisse and Picasso meet. Their personalities, however, were very different. Picasso ran hot, was passionate, and had the support of his family. Matisse was cool, thoughtful, and had to go against his parent's wishes in order to paint. The women in their paintings, as well, couldn't be more different. Picasso often painted them diseased, as prostitutes, with misshapen, mask-like faces, while Matisse's women were innocent and deity-like. They both, however, respected one another.
In 1918, they had a joint exhibition, but then parted ways for a time. At nearly 50, Matisse left his family for Nice, and painted "odelisks". Picasso, meanwhile, married Olga the ballet dancer, who did not care for the avant garde. He created odelisk paintings that mock them, and Olga as well. Matisse traveled to Tahiti, but Picasso felt no need to travel. He wanted to paint while as close as possible to the unconscious, and so did not need the external stimulus of a new, exotic place.
Both artists were interested in painting the woman in relation to the painter, but Matisse's were more real, more personal women. Picasso had many lovers, and amplified their round, curving femininity in his paintings. His women were more objectified and exploited than Matisse's, who wanted an equal. Both Picasso and Matisse stayed in Paris during the German occupation of France, and the violence of the times can be seen in Picasso's work, but not in Matisse's, even when he learned that his wife and daughter had been arrested. Both experienced depression and had suicidal thoughts occasionally, and painting was a way to cope with this, even if their end products were vastly different. Late in life, both experienced "new" lives. Picasso became a father again at age 70 and explored ceramics, and Matisse became restricted to a wheel chair, where he used paper cutouts to create his artwork. The two would visit and talk with another, obsessed with their opposites. When Matisse was creating the artwork for a chapel, the differences between them became more pronounced, as Picasso was a staunch atheist. Still, Picasso helped him with the project for four years. In the Temple of War and Peace, Picasso created a "reply" to Matisse's chapel, a much darker place. At Matisse's death, however, Picasso did not attend the funeral. He mourned privately, and carried on the dialogue he had with him, now assuming both ends of the conversation.
Dance at the Moulin de la Galette is an example of the Impressionist's love for the joy of modern, bourgeois life in Paris. It's a Sunday afternoon at a dance hall, the dappling of the sun evident. There are actually two versions of it, one half the size of the other and rarely seen in public. Renoir loved the dance hall, which had not yet been transformed by Haussmann and was nestled between two windmills. Some of the people featured in the painting are local models he was fond of, while others were fellow artists and friends. The women were often from the lower class, while the men were typically higher class. What is not evident in the painting is the prostitution that existed in these dance halls. While the women are smiling and laughing, they were largely poor seamstresses that sometimes had to resort to selling themselves. One of the main figures, for instance, only modeled for Renoir because she needed the money. His world was a fantasy world, that only featured joy.
The carefree painting was created in violent times, when the government declared war on Paris. The dance hall was even occupied by the "Commune," the rebelling forces. It wasn't because he was trying to pretend that everything was perfect that he left out these darker sides of the dance hall, but because he wanted to show the positive side of people. Renoir began his career as a porcelain painter, and from then on he was interested in the interactions and flirtations between men and women. In Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, the couples not only touch each other, but seem to cling to each other. They appear very intimate. Other artists chose this dance hall as the subject for their artwork, but the effect is quite different. It often appears seamier, darker, and edgier. The innocence and joy is gone. All of the paintings are from the artists' points of view, one not more valid than another.
The painting, whether it's "accurate" or not, was new in the way it was painted. At the time, it looked unfinished and sketchy to many people. He did not always mix his colors, but instead painted colors side by side. He possibly did not paint in the studio, but at the dance hall itself. The smaller version is even sketchier, which is why most people believe this one came first. The larger version was shown in the third Impressionist exhibition, where the reaction was mixed. It was the artist Gustave Caillebotte who purchased it, and it now rests in the Musee d'Orsay. The smaller version, meanwhile, is typically hidden from public eye. In 1990, it was up for auction, and bought for 78 million dollars, the second highest bid for a painting in the world. The winner placed it into a climate controlled vault, where it could be seen by no one, until it was sold again for fifty million dollars by an anonymous bidder. While this private collector has made it so that the public can no longer view it, Dance at the Moulin de la Galette is still seen through reproductions, magnets, t-shirts, and countless other versions of it.
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte explores the Seurat painting of the same name. It was both an artwork and a experiment, and is now continuously caricatured. Seurat was in his twenties when he spent two years on the painting, which took place on an island on the Seine. Some believe that the location of the painting hints at prostitution, and that the woman with the fishing reel was a prostitute. Another odd aspect is the monkey, which was a symbol for lascivious behavior. Because of this, it is thought that the owner was a mistress of several men, who kept her dressed fashionably.
The painting was created in Seurat's new style, Pointalism. He actually painted on the island, observing it in different types of light, with figures placed in different areas. He read about color theory, and how a color was affected by the colors that were placed next to it. Having already spent a year on the painting, he now went over it with the tiny dots and dashes it's now famous for. Up close, one can see the tiny, contrasting colors that make up the painting, but when standing back, they work together and create an energetic, bustling surface. The rigidity of the figures' profiles are perhaps a comment on the rigidity of society at the time, or were perhaps influenced by Egyptian art's rigid poses.
Many artists were offended by the painting, and refused to have their paintings exhibited alongside it. Few at the exhibition paid it any attention, but those who did championed it as a comment on modern Parisian society. It was soon bought by an American, and it was only after this that France truly appreciated the painting. It now is displayed in Chicago, and only has left the city once, when it was nearly ruined in a fire. Like Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, the painting has been replicated in many forms, even as a topiary.
Expressionism, unlike the other videos, does not focus on one or two specific artists, but on the movement in general. Still, Edvard Munch is one of the most prominent artists of this movement. In his Ashes, Munch shows the sorrow of the woman, and the incompatibility of the genders. He showed raw emotion in his figures, which was too harsh for many of the bourgeois audience. Perhaps he was capable of portraying such emotion because of the deep, tragic feelings he felt at a young age at the deaths of his mother and sister. His paintings were often pessimistic, showing the anxiety people felt both in nature and in the modern world.
Franz Marc, the German artist, typically incorporated animals into his paintings, for he found them beautiful while humans were "ugly." This is evident in The Tiger, where the animal is not a trophy for humans, but majestic in its own right. His paintings were typically painted in unrealistic colors that were chosen instead for their emotional content. The forms were very simplified and angular, almost abstract, and he joined the movement led by Kandinsky, The Blue Rider. His paintings feel like premonitions of war, which would soon cause his death. Ernst Kirchner's Five Women on the Street is another German painting, created near the beginning of WWI. The figures appear flashy, streamlined, and rather grotesque in their fanged luxury. He began another art group, The Bridge, which was a period of friendship and creativity for the artist. His style changed after the breakup of the group, becoming more linear and tense. Like Marc, his disquieting painting of the five women seems to be a premonition of the war.
Max Beckman worked as a medical orderly during WWI, and this changed his painting style. His work became sharper, and was labeled degenerate. In Amsterdam, he created Actors, where a king appears to be stabbing himself with a knife. The work is a triptych, portraying a play, and isfilled with movement and action. What exactly is going on in the painting is something of a mystery, but it is perhaps a metaphor for his own life. Georg Baselitz's The Great Friends shows two people who appear to be filled with sorrow but are somewhat lifeless. They appear to be in some kind of ruin, but it is unclear what catastrophe has taken place. Is it real? A dream? While the two friends seem to be in very bad shape, they are struggling to survive, so there is some hope. Anselm Kiefer's Interior explores, like many of his paintings, Nazi Germany. The painting is highly textured and rough looking, with earthy coloring. No people inhabit the painting, and it almost seems to be a study on architectural perspective. It is reminiscent of da Vinci's The Last Supper, but the Messiah is now gone and the place is abandoned and rotting. It is also influenced by Nazi architecture, which appears in his painting as ghostly and tomb like.
Matisse and Picasso related to the text because it focused on two artists that were leaders of prominent 20th century movements. The video is a good supplement to the text because it shows how the artists of different movements interacted with each other. Sometimes, when learning about various movements, one forgets that many of them were happening at the same time, and these artists would have known and influenced each other. Dance at the Moulin de la Galette explores Renoir's masterpiece, which is one of the few Renoirs that I don't mind. We learned a little bit about it in the text, but in the video we learn about the historical context of the painting, and how many elements of the dance hall were left out in order to create a carefree painting. I never would have known that a rather mysterious, smaller version of the painting exists, and I would have dismissed it as a fluff scene rather than a painting of hope. This video as well as A Sunday on La Grande Jatte shows how the artworks have become more than paintings. We learn about the original paintings in the text, but in the videos we learn how they have entered popular culture. Expressionism was the most uncomfortable to watch of the videos. It conveyed the emotions that were present in Expressionism in a more palpable manner than the text did. It also covered Expressionist paintings from a century ago to fairly recently, so it was nice to see how the movement has evolved. That said, the narration was drier than I would have preferred, at least after having watched the other videos. Overall, though, the videos went in-depth into the artist's lives and historical contexts, which made me able to appreciate the artworks more than I had done previously.
Matisse and Picasso began in such a strange way that at first I felt like I was watching a Bergman film. We are first introduced with Matisse, who believes that drawing is that same as painting, but just with fewer materials. In 1905, most people were shocked at Matisse's portrait of his wife. The American Stein family, on the other hand, recognized it as something new and unique, and purchased it. It was Gertrude Stein that insisted that Matisse and Picasso meet. Their personalities, however, were very different. Picasso ran hot, was passionate, and had the support of his family. Matisse was cool, thoughtful, and had to go against his parent's wishes in order to paint. The women in their paintings, as well, couldn't be more different. Picasso often painted them diseased, as prostitutes, with misshapen, mask-like faces, while Matisse's women were innocent and deity-like. They both, however, respected one another.
In 1918, they had a joint exhibition, but then parted ways for a time. At nearly 50, Matisse left his family for Nice, and painted "odelisks". Picasso, meanwhile, married Olga the ballet dancer, who did not care for the avant garde. He created odelisk paintings that mock them, and Olga as well. Matisse traveled to Tahiti, but Picasso felt no need to travel. He wanted to paint while as close as possible to the unconscious, and so did not need the external stimulus of a new, exotic place.
Both artists were interested in painting the woman in relation to the painter, but Matisse's were more real, more personal women. Picasso had many lovers, and amplified their round, curving femininity in his paintings. His women were more objectified and exploited than Matisse's, who wanted an equal. Both Picasso and Matisse stayed in Paris during the German occupation of France, and the violence of the times can be seen in Picasso's work, but not in Matisse's, even when he learned that his wife and daughter had been arrested. Both experienced depression and had suicidal thoughts occasionally, and painting was a way to cope with this, even if their end products were vastly different. Late in life, both experienced "new" lives. Picasso became a father again at age 70 and explored ceramics, and Matisse became restricted to a wheel chair, where he used paper cutouts to create his artwork. The two would visit and talk with another, obsessed with their opposites. When Matisse was creating the artwork for a chapel, the differences between them became more pronounced, as Picasso was a staunch atheist. Still, Picasso helped him with the project for four years. In the Temple of War and Peace, Picasso created a "reply" to Matisse's chapel, a much darker place. At Matisse's death, however, Picasso did not attend the funeral. He mourned privately, and carried on the dialogue he had with him, now assuming both ends of the conversation.
Dance at the Moulin de la Galette is an example of the Impressionist's love for the joy of modern, bourgeois life in Paris. It's a Sunday afternoon at a dance hall, the dappling of the sun evident. There are actually two versions of it, one half the size of the other and rarely seen in public. Renoir loved the dance hall, which had not yet been transformed by Haussmann and was nestled between two windmills. Some of the people featured in the painting are local models he was fond of, while others were fellow artists and friends. The women were often from the lower class, while the men were typically higher class. What is not evident in the painting is the prostitution that existed in these dance halls. While the women are smiling and laughing, they were largely poor seamstresses that sometimes had to resort to selling themselves. One of the main figures, for instance, only modeled for Renoir because she needed the money. His world was a fantasy world, that only featured joy.
The carefree painting was created in violent times, when the government declared war on Paris. The dance hall was even occupied by the "Commune," the rebelling forces. It wasn't because he was trying to pretend that everything was perfect that he left out these darker sides of the dance hall, but because he wanted to show the positive side of people. Renoir began his career as a porcelain painter, and from then on he was interested in the interactions and flirtations between men and women. In Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, the couples not only touch each other, but seem to cling to each other. They appear very intimate. Other artists chose this dance hall as the subject for their artwork, but the effect is quite different. It often appears seamier, darker, and edgier. The innocence and joy is gone. All of the paintings are from the artists' points of view, one not more valid than another.
The painting, whether it's "accurate" or not, was new in the way it was painted. At the time, it looked unfinished and sketchy to many people. He did not always mix his colors, but instead painted colors side by side. He possibly did not paint in the studio, but at the dance hall itself. The smaller version is even sketchier, which is why most people believe this one came first. The larger version was shown in the third Impressionist exhibition, where the reaction was mixed. It was the artist Gustave Caillebotte who purchased it, and it now rests in the Musee d'Orsay. The smaller version, meanwhile, is typically hidden from public eye. In 1990, it was up for auction, and bought for 78 million dollars, the second highest bid for a painting in the world. The winner placed it into a climate controlled vault, where it could be seen by no one, until it was sold again for fifty million dollars by an anonymous bidder. While this private collector has made it so that the public can no longer view it, Dance at the Moulin de la Galette is still seen through reproductions, magnets, t-shirts, and countless other versions of it.
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte explores the Seurat painting of the same name. It was both an artwork and a experiment, and is now continuously caricatured. Seurat was in his twenties when he spent two years on the painting, which took place on an island on the Seine. Some believe that the location of the painting hints at prostitution, and that the woman with the fishing reel was a prostitute. Another odd aspect is the monkey, which was a symbol for lascivious behavior. Because of this, it is thought that the owner was a mistress of several men, who kept her dressed fashionably.
The painting was created in Seurat's new style, Pointalism. He actually painted on the island, observing it in different types of light, with figures placed in different areas. He read about color theory, and how a color was affected by the colors that were placed next to it. Having already spent a year on the painting, he now went over it with the tiny dots and dashes it's now famous for. Up close, one can see the tiny, contrasting colors that make up the painting, but when standing back, they work together and create an energetic, bustling surface. The rigidity of the figures' profiles are perhaps a comment on the rigidity of society at the time, or were perhaps influenced by Egyptian art's rigid poses.
Many artists were offended by the painting, and refused to have their paintings exhibited alongside it. Few at the exhibition paid it any attention, but those who did championed it as a comment on modern Parisian society. It was soon bought by an American, and it was only after this that France truly appreciated the painting. It now is displayed in Chicago, and only has left the city once, when it was nearly ruined in a fire. Like Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, the painting has been replicated in many forms, even as a topiary.
Expressionism, unlike the other videos, does not focus on one or two specific artists, but on the movement in general. Still, Edvard Munch is one of the most prominent artists of this movement. In his Ashes, Munch shows the sorrow of the woman, and the incompatibility of the genders. He showed raw emotion in his figures, which was too harsh for many of the bourgeois audience. Perhaps he was capable of portraying such emotion because of the deep, tragic feelings he felt at a young age at the deaths of his mother and sister. His paintings were often pessimistic, showing the anxiety people felt both in nature and in the modern world.
Franz Marc, the German artist, typically incorporated animals into his paintings, for he found them beautiful while humans were "ugly." This is evident in The Tiger, where the animal is not a trophy for humans, but majestic in its own right. His paintings were typically painted in unrealistic colors that were chosen instead for their emotional content. The forms were very simplified and angular, almost abstract, and he joined the movement led by Kandinsky, The Blue Rider. His paintings feel like premonitions of war, which would soon cause his death. Ernst Kirchner's Five Women on the Street is another German painting, created near the beginning of WWI. The figures appear flashy, streamlined, and rather grotesque in their fanged luxury. He began another art group, The Bridge, which was a period of friendship and creativity for the artist. His style changed after the breakup of the group, becoming more linear and tense. Like Marc, his disquieting painting of the five women seems to be a premonition of the war.
Max Beckman worked as a medical orderly during WWI, and this changed his painting style. His work became sharper, and was labeled degenerate. In Amsterdam, he created Actors, where a king appears to be stabbing himself with a knife. The work is a triptych, portraying a play, and isfilled with movement and action. What exactly is going on in the painting is something of a mystery, but it is perhaps a metaphor for his own life. Georg Baselitz's The Great Friends shows two people who appear to be filled with sorrow but are somewhat lifeless. They appear to be in some kind of ruin, but it is unclear what catastrophe has taken place. Is it real? A dream? While the two friends seem to be in very bad shape, they are struggling to survive, so there is some hope. Anselm Kiefer's Interior explores, like many of his paintings, Nazi Germany. The painting is highly textured and rough looking, with earthy coloring. No people inhabit the painting, and it almost seems to be a study on architectural perspective. It is reminiscent of da Vinci's The Last Supper, but the Messiah is now gone and the place is abandoned and rotting. It is also influenced by Nazi architecture, which appears in his painting as ghostly and tomb like.
Matisse and Picasso related to the text because it focused on two artists that were leaders of prominent 20th century movements. The video is a good supplement to the text because it shows how the artists of different movements interacted with each other. Sometimes, when learning about various movements, one forgets that many of them were happening at the same time, and these artists would have known and influenced each other. Dance at the Moulin de la Galette explores Renoir's masterpiece, which is one of the few Renoirs that I don't mind. We learned a little bit about it in the text, but in the video we learn about the historical context of the painting, and how many elements of the dance hall were left out in order to create a carefree painting. I never would have known that a rather mysterious, smaller version of the painting exists, and I would have dismissed it as a fluff scene rather than a painting of hope. This video as well as A Sunday on La Grande Jatte shows how the artworks have become more than paintings. We learn about the original paintings in the text, but in the videos we learn how they have entered popular culture. Expressionism was the most uncomfortable to watch of the videos. It conveyed the emotions that were present in Expressionism in a more palpable manner than the text did. It also covered Expressionist paintings from a century ago to fairly recently, so it was nice to see how the movement has evolved. That said, the narration was drier than I would have preferred, at least after having watched the other videos. Overall, though, the videos went in-depth into the artist's lives and historical contexts, which made me able to appreciate the artworks more than I had done previously.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Mask Project
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| Guro Zamble (Antelope) Mask |
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| Cherokee Booger ("Bogey") Mask |
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| Terai Monkey Mask |
The Cherokee mask is an animal representation of the "bogey man," which the Cherokee considered the white man to be. To ease their fears of this invader, they present the person wearing the mask as comically rude and stupid. The mask itself, on the other hand, looks very pretty. It's made out of a carved gourd, and has intricate, almost Celtic looking, designs carved into it. The main element of art used in this mask would be line, which outlines and emphasizes key features, such as the eye, and creates eye-appealing patterns. The fur and feather "hair," add texture to the otherwise smooth mask. The antlers balance the mask, but asymetrically, as the antlers are not identical.
The Terai mask, from Southern Nepal, represents a monkey. I liked its long, sloping face, and the way its brow comes together to form its nose. The mask is monochromatic, for it is only one color, a darkish red. The entire mask is very round in form, and the lines from the ears and forehead travel down through the nose to the mouth at the bottom, making the eye move about the entire mask. The wideness of the eyes and the blackness of the large pupils create emphasis and focal points at these eyes, which are definitely the most prominent and alluring aspect of the mask, and make them seem very monkey-like.
I debated between three different animals for my mask. The first was a lion, which keeps the long snout that the monkey had, and would have a rafia mane. The second is a fox, that has a shorter snout but has the same general shape, and would be made out of a gourd. The third was a bird, that would have leaf-feathers.
The gourd is painted red and blue, which are complimentary colors, which make it appear bright and vivid. The mask is pretty much symmetrical, with the patterns that are on the left mirroring those that are on the right. The gourd's rounded shape gives it three dimensional form. The natural lines of the gourd, combined with the painted lines and dots, allow the eye to move around the mask. These lines, as well as the toothpicks that go in multiple directions, make the mask look more dynamic. The blue and red give the mask some variety that would have been lacking if the gourd had just remained orange, but it is unified overall by the connecting lines that are of the same thickness. There is also some variety in the textures: the smoothness of the gourd is broken up by the sharpness of the toothpicks, which gives the fox some fierceness.
Creating the mask was fun. At first, I didn't know how I could go about making a 3 D mask that wouldn't take more time than a weekend allowed. I considered making it out of paper mache, but then decided to mimic the way the Cherokee mask was created. I ran into some trouble when every kind of glue I tried to use wasn't making the pieces stick together--the gourd was too slick. This, however, led me to use the toothpicks, which probably adds to the mask. I wish it was a little more elaborate, but I think it turned out okay. I didn't get to carve a pumpkin this year for Halloween, so it was nice to be able to carve the gourd!
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Great Wave, African Art, Hinduism, and Buddhism
I chose The Great Wave because the print is quite ubiquitous, but I didn't know much about the artist behind the masterpiece. I chose African Art because I took an art history class on African art, but didn't get much out of it, and I'd like to learn more. I chose Hinduism because I'm interested in India's culture and history, and I chose Buddhism because it is a religion/philosophy that I deeply respect, even if I don't practice it.
The Great Wave was created by Hokusai, a Japanese artist born in 1760 in present day Tokyo. For much of his life, he created "floating world" style paintings and prints that focused on sensual, carefree pleasures. It was not until at the age of 70, when his grandson gambled away all of his money, that he created something truly profound. Western art had influenced Shiba Kokan, who created unheard of Japanese oil paintings, which in turn influenced Hokusai. In many ways, such as the horizontal words, the "frame" that surrounds it, and the perspective, the print feels Western. It was a part of 36 Views of Mount Fuji, which shows the esteemed mountain from multiple perspectives and seasons, and in the case of The Great Wave is only small and in the background. The wave dominates everything, including the fishing boats filled with who are either braving the wave to go home or to sell the season's first fish.
The Great Wave captures a moment in time right before destruction happens, a unique idea in a time before photography. Also ahead of its time, it uses fractal patterns. The waves have tiny "claws" at their tips, which look like more waves budding out of the bigger version. The print went in and out of popularity many times, picked up by the Impressionists, and then forgotten during WWI, then picked up again as Japanese propaganda in WWII, and then forgotten once more until the 1960s when Pop artists embraced Japanese mass prints. Hokusai died shortly before it spread to the west, with the belief that he still had yet to reach the goal of true artist. The print surrounds our lives today, in the form of murals, advertisements, tattoos, and a plethora of other places.
African Art was a very broad video about both the variety and generality that exists in African art. Many of the examples that we find in museums are quite recent, for much African art was created from easily perishable materials, such as wood and hay. African art typically focuses on the conceptual rather than the perceptual. They are less concerned with recreating how things look in real life, and more concerned with using their imagination and representing ideas and emotions. There is a wide variety of styles, uses, and forms of African art (some cultures focus on masks, others on more utilitarian objects), but there are also some elements that are common to almost all African cultures. For instance, across Africa there is no distinction between art and craft. Secondly, artists were not focused on coming up with new and unique ideas, but on honing traditions that were many generations old. They could try to be superior craftspeople, but their art had to remain traditional.
To truly appreciate a lot of African art, such as masks, one has to see them in their original contest. Masks were worn in elaborate masquerades, where the dancers lost who they were and became who the mask represents. The art was a combination of ritual, dance, costumes, and music, and was used as a means of getting in touch with the universe. In some ways unfortunately, much of today's African art is losing its original meaning, and is often created just for selling to tourists.
Hinduism studied the religion through its art and architecture. Varanasi is the holiest city for Hinduism, and has a 3000 year old history. Here is the Ganges, a river of life, death, and rebirth, where people worship. One ritual is dedicated to the Mother Ganges, who heals those who bathe in her waters. There are many Hindu gods and goddesses, who give access to Brahma, much like Saints give access to the Christian god. Temples are small and are not the only places of prayer. They focus on the letting go of material objects. Cremation places are all over the Ganges, for many hope to be burned in the Holy city. It is the untouchables that handle this process, as devout Hindus are not supposed to touch dead bodies. At Mamallapuram, in Southern India, there are large stone carvings that tell the story of the origin of the Ganges. In this area, there are many large rocks scattered about, which early Hindus carved, starting with the caves. Here, Krishna holds up a mountain, and nearby is a farmer milking a cow. One characteristic of Hindu art is having this sort of divine imagery right next to ordinary scenes of daily life.
Temples went from wood to stone, often carved out of one solid rock. One has a "half and half" statue of Vishnu and Shiva. This statue is an example of tolerance between religions. In Khajuraho, an elaborate temple exists hidden in the forest, dedicated to Shiva. There is a main spire that is 31 meters long, representing a mountain, a quality of Shiva. The temple is covered in erotic imagery, which is not nearly as taboo as it is in other religions. Here, they celebrate life and regeneration, the result of the eroticism. This is the male aspect of Hindu creation, and the Ganges is the female.
In the video Buddhism, we are first taken to Bodh Gaya, where "fact and legend intertwine." A stone slab represents where Buddha reached Enlightenment. There is a gateway to the temple, the "door to understanding," that is carved with the teachings of Buddhism. Buddhism emphasized becoming free from desire and following the middle way, between extremes. After Buddha's death, Buddhist art and architecture flourished. Sanchi contains The Great Stupa, based off of ancient funeral mounds. On the stupa and in the gateway, there are many carvings of Buddha's life, but he is never actually depicted. He is instead represented by other things, such as a bodhi tree. Past the ornate gateways, there is a winding path that the monk follows toward enlightenment, which must be walked clockwise. The monk must lose attachment to material objects.
In Indonesia, there is the largest Buddhist Shrine in the world, Borobudur. It was originally painted white, making it appear like a heavenly part of the sky. At the top, are the peaks of Enlightenment. There is a circle at top, where individual identities dissolve. Borobudur only existed 30 years before it was buried by an erupted volcano, and wasn't rediscovered until much later. The Chuang Yen Monastery, in upstate New York, is built in the style of the Tang Dynasty. The buildings are simply designed, though the Great Buddha Hall is a large open space with no internal pillars. Layers of timber are glued and pressed together that creates a very open space that holds a very large Buddha statue. Buddhism has now become somewhat paradoxical: it has elaborate temples and has become very institutionalized for something that champions being a lantern unto yourself and living simply.
The Great Wave mainly focused on one specific piece of art from Japan, rather than going into a general overview like the book did. The video also did not really get into the culture or religion behind the work, which was emphasized in the readings. The video, in fact, seemed to talk more about how the video related to Western art, rather than Japanese culture. African Art seemed to be the rare case where the video was more vague than the reading. While the reading went into a variety of specific cultures, the video focused more on generalities--what African art is as a whole, rather than how distinct it can be from within. Hinduism and Buddhism were from the same series of films, and both focused on several key places that were both key to the religions and had splendid architecture. The videos seemed to pick some unusual choices of locations, however, such as the Chuang Yen Monastery in upstate New York.
It seems like the more specific the video, the better. The Great Wave was far more interesting to watch than African Art, for the latter didn't really go in-depth at all. The Hinduism and Buddhism videos spent just as much time, if not more, talking about the religions rather than the architecture of the religions. This is fine, as learning about the architecture without knowing anything about the religion wouldn't make sense, but it's too bad the architecture couldn't be explored further. I'd like to look up the Buddhist place in New York now, and check it out!
The Great Wave was created by Hokusai, a Japanese artist born in 1760 in present day Tokyo. For much of his life, he created "floating world" style paintings and prints that focused on sensual, carefree pleasures. It was not until at the age of 70, when his grandson gambled away all of his money, that he created something truly profound. Western art had influenced Shiba Kokan, who created unheard of Japanese oil paintings, which in turn influenced Hokusai. In many ways, such as the horizontal words, the "frame" that surrounds it, and the perspective, the print feels Western. It was a part of 36 Views of Mount Fuji, which shows the esteemed mountain from multiple perspectives and seasons, and in the case of The Great Wave is only small and in the background. The wave dominates everything, including the fishing boats filled with who are either braving the wave to go home or to sell the season's first fish.
The Great Wave captures a moment in time right before destruction happens, a unique idea in a time before photography. Also ahead of its time, it uses fractal patterns. The waves have tiny "claws" at their tips, which look like more waves budding out of the bigger version. The print went in and out of popularity many times, picked up by the Impressionists, and then forgotten during WWI, then picked up again as Japanese propaganda in WWII, and then forgotten once more until the 1960s when Pop artists embraced Japanese mass prints. Hokusai died shortly before it spread to the west, with the belief that he still had yet to reach the goal of true artist. The print surrounds our lives today, in the form of murals, advertisements, tattoos, and a plethora of other places.
African Art was a very broad video about both the variety and generality that exists in African art. Many of the examples that we find in museums are quite recent, for much African art was created from easily perishable materials, such as wood and hay. African art typically focuses on the conceptual rather than the perceptual. They are less concerned with recreating how things look in real life, and more concerned with using their imagination and representing ideas and emotions. There is a wide variety of styles, uses, and forms of African art (some cultures focus on masks, others on more utilitarian objects), but there are also some elements that are common to almost all African cultures. For instance, across Africa there is no distinction between art and craft. Secondly, artists were not focused on coming up with new and unique ideas, but on honing traditions that were many generations old. They could try to be superior craftspeople, but their art had to remain traditional.
To truly appreciate a lot of African art, such as masks, one has to see them in their original contest. Masks were worn in elaborate masquerades, where the dancers lost who they were and became who the mask represents. The art was a combination of ritual, dance, costumes, and music, and was used as a means of getting in touch with the universe. In some ways unfortunately, much of today's African art is losing its original meaning, and is often created just for selling to tourists.
Hinduism studied the religion through its art and architecture. Varanasi is the holiest city for Hinduism, and has a 3000 year old history. Here is the Ganges, a river of life, death, and rebirth, where people worship. One ritual is dedicated to the Mother Ganges, who heals those who bathe in her waters. There are many Hindu gods and goddesses, who give access to Brahma, much like Saints give access to the Christian god. Temples are small and are not the only places of prayer. They focus on the letting go of material objects. Cremation places are all over the Ganges, for many hope to be burned in the Holy city. It is the untouchables that handle this process, as devout Hindus are not supposed to touch dead bodies. At Mamallapuram, in Southern India, there are large stone carvings that tell the story of the origin of the Ganges. In this area, there are many large rocks scattered about, which early Hindus carved, starting with the caves. Here, Krishna holds up a mountain, and nearby is a farmer milking a cow. One characteristic of Hindu art is having this sort of divine imagery right next to ordinary scenes of daily life.
Temples went from wood to stone, often carved out of one solid rock. One has a "half and half" statue of Vishnu and Shiva. This statue is an example of tolerance between religions. In Khajuraho, an elaborate temple exists hidden in the forest, dedicated to Shiva. There is a main spire that is 31 meters long, representing a mountain, a quality of Shiva. The temple is covered in erotic imagery, which is not nearly as taboo as it is in other religions. Here, they celebrate life and regeneration, the result of the eroticism. This is the male aspect of Hindu creation, and the Ganges is the female.
In the video Buddhism, we are first taken to Bodh Gaya, where "fact and legend intertwine." A stone slab represents where Buddha reached Enlightenment. There is a gateway to the temple, the "door to understanding," that is carved with the teachings of Buddhism. Buddhism emphasized becoming free from desire and following the middle way, between extremes. After Buddha's death, Buddhist art and architecture flourished. Sanchi contains The Great Stupa, based off of ancient funeral mounds. On the stupa and in the gateway, there are many carvings of Buddha's life, but he is never actually depicted. He is instead represented by other things, such as a bodhi tree. Past the ornate gateways, there is a winding path that the monk follows toward enlightenment, which must be walked clockwise. The monk must lose attachment to material objects.
In Indonesia, there is the largest Buddhist Shrine in the world, Borobudur. It was originally painted white, making it appear like a heavenly part of the sky. At the top, are the peaks of Enlightenment. There is a circle at top, where individual identities dissolve. Borobudur only existed 30 years before it was buried by an erupted volcano, and wasn't rediscovered until much later. The Chuang Yen Monastery, in upstate New York, is built in the style of the Tang Dynasty. The buildings are simply designed, though the Great Buddha Hall is a large open space with no internal pillars. Layers of timber are glued and pressed together that creates a very open space that holds a very large Buddha statue. Buddhism has now become somewhat paradoxical: it has elaborate temples and has become very institutionalized for something that champions being a lantern unto yourself and living simply.
The Great Wave mainly focused on one specific piece of art from Japan, rather than going into a general overview like the book did. The video also did not really get into the culture or religion behind the work, which was emphasized in the readings. The video, in fact, seemed to talk more about how the video related to Western art, rather than Japanese culture. African Art seemed to be the rare case where the video was more vague than the reading. While the reading went into a variety of specific cultures, the video focused more on generalities--what African art is as a whole, rather than how distinct it can be from within. Hinduism and Buddhism were from the same series of films, and both focused on several key places that were both key to the religions and had splendid architecture. The videos seemed to pick some unusual choices of locations, however, such as the Chuang Yen Monastery in upstate New York.
It seems like the more specific the video, the better. The Great Wave was far more interesting to watch than African Art, for the latter didn't really go in-depth at all. The Hinduism and Buddhism videos spent just as much time, if not more, talking about the religions rather than the architecture of the religions. This is fine, as learning about the architecture without knowing anything about the religion wouldn't make sense, but it's too bad the architecture couldn't be explored further. I'd like to look up the Buddhist place in New York now, and check it out!
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