Purity Paintings

Today in class we learned about Michael Craig-Martin, who was a contemporary conceptual artist and painter.  I loved looking at his artwork in class today, his paintings were so bright and vivid in color which really attracts my eye.  I like how he stated in his documentary that he knows he's doing something wrong in his paitings if people cannot figure out what he is drawing right away.  His art reminds me of Andy Warhol in a sense that he uses very vivid bright bold colors which draws in the attention.  In a few articles I read about Martin, it stated he was influenced by a couple artist we had previously learned about, Marshall Duchamp and Damien Hirst.  "His first retrospective took place at in the Whitechapel Gallery

in London in 1989.  In 2006, the Irish Museum of Modern Art presented “Michael Craig-Martin: Works 1964-2006” which included works from over 40 years of Craig-Martin’s career.  The exhibition showed around 50 paintings, sculptures, wall drawings, neon works and text pieces by the artist, covering everything from his sculptures to digital works". (wikipedia)

(posted by Kaitlyn)

"The Most Wanted Paintings on the Web"

http://awp.diaart.org/km/

Today in class we discussed Komar & Melamid paintings.  On this website gives an online survery for populations in different countries on what people like to see in artwork or paintings.  The website then lists the most wanted and least wanted paintings from each surveyed country.

United States: Most Wanted Painting                     United States: Least Wanted Painting

We also dicussed Vija Celmins.  We watched an interesting documentary on her.  She is a "master of several mediums, oil paintings, charcol, and multiple printmaking processes...she has a highly attuned sense for organic detail." (pbs.org)  The picture to the below the artist has been working on for over a year, she isn't crazy about her artwork on it but something fascinates her about it to keep working on it.

This picture to the right is actual painting of rocks painted by Clemins.  I think this painting looks so real it looks like a photo of rocks rather than a painting.  Theres so much detail included in the painting through the use of color, you can even identify the type of surface on each rock whethe it is smooth or rough.  I think this painting was does extremely well.

(posted by Kaitlyn)

Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty

I found this reading to be.....confusing. I hardly understood any of it yet I believe I may have picked up on some points the writer was trying to make. When someone asked him what his opinion was on "'The Issue of the Nineties'" he said "'Beauty'". He, I believe, is another person that believes art must do something, in that make you think, feel, ponder, anything that would elicit an emotion.
Dave Hickey is actually an art critic. An art critic is a concept I have trouble understanding. How can one critique art if there is no clear definition for what art really is? Does he base his opinions off of what he thinks art is? If so, he is entitled to his opinion but who is he to tell others how it is? Many rely on the reviews from movie critics to determine whether or not they will go to see the movie. There are far too many factors to simply base one's opinion off of another's. The critic probably has a different taste than many, they may be having a bad day, they may not like the artist's previous work and suspect this one will not be good either, or someone else could have told them their own opinion. giving the critic a preconceived notion of what to expect. If someone tells them they didn't like it or thought it was stupid, ugly, etc. the artist may base their opinion off of what the other person thinks.
All in all, I wonder how one becomes an "art critic"? Are there qualifications for this profession? Or maybe they must just be well known or have connections or be well off. Either way I believe that the job of an art critic is one like the job of a movie critic, it is good to keep in mind what they have to say but after all, it is better to critique something and form your own opinions yourself.
(Posted by Sarah)

Art Imitating or Not Imitating Life

Today in class we talke about Jeff Koons.  He is an American artist who works with a huge team of people.  He comes up with an idea and has his team create it.  Koons stated, "I'm basically the idea person. I'm not physically involved in the production. I don't have the necessary abilities, so I go to the top people...".  He isn't very skilled in drawing, sculpture or painting. (wikipedia)  Most people believe the factory they all work in takes away from the workload, but he believes it is neccessary in order to get the artwork accomplished. "He is  known for his reproductions of objects: such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces" (wikipedia).  I think his work is very interesting and intriging.  He tyrns everyday objects into art.  His work is also very precise, in the documentary we watched today, him and his team did a painting on popeye and the amount of detail and different color schemes that went into each section of the painting was amazing.  There was over 141 shades of one color dedicated to just the fist of popeye.  I think his work is very different from any other artist, he actually takes something from real life and turns it into a fascinating piece of art.

Creativity- Can it be Taught?

Briefly in class today we discussed whether creativity can be taught or not.  In my opinion it cannot be.  Creativity is something that you are born with.  Anyone can be creative, it is what defines you and your personality.  We also discussed how art class when you grow up is a way for you to experience art, not learn how to do art.  You cannot just learn how to do art, art comes from within and what you perceive something to be at a particular time.  I feel as though yes anyone can be creative but you have to use your imagination, it's not something that can be taught in a classroom or through books, it's is your own personal self that creates creativity.

We also discussed in class today Bruce Nauman.  He was recognized to be an innovative contemporary artist.  He believed that anything he did in his art studio space was considered to be art.  From watching the video in class it was hard to consider some of the things he perceived to be art actually be art.  In one of his "artworks" called Setting a good Corner, he used a forklift to place wood poles into the ground to form a corner and called it art.  It is hard to imagine this as a work of art.  Nauman is also known for his torture videos, one known as "Clown Torture", which honestly is just freaky.  He explains in his video how he does not use repition in his artwork yet in his torture videos he repeats and emphasizes a particlar word, kind of strange.  The whole idea of this  sort of artwork is very odd and weird.  If anything I think it would just annoy an audience and want to never see it again, at least after seeing it today I know I would never want to see it again.

(posted by Kaitlyn)

What is ART?

        This week we addressed what art was again. However, this week we observed what can be considered the "darker side" of art. One piece in particular I had seen before, from having studied artists from Spain. Francisco Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Son" is a grotesque and disturbing image of Satan eating his own child so that he can not overrule him. Although Goya did make some "normal", he had a period in which many of his painting were just disturbing, if not on the same grotesque level as "Saturn Devouring His Son". His other work that was featured in class was Goya's "El Tres De Mayo De 1808". It showcases the injustice and horror the Spaniards had to endure when the armies of Napoleon.





     We also viewed art that would be very controversial to many people. We looked at Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ". Many are offended by this and wonder how this is art. Even people who are not offended by it wonder how it could be considered art. As I have said before art in is the eye of the beholder. Although I may not agree that some of these things are art, it is not my place to say what is art, after all, all of these pieces do cause the viewer to turn their attentiveness toward them.
(Posted by Sarah)

What is Art and What Consitutes Art Cont?

"Beauty is confusng to art, beauty does or doesn't make something art".

Today in class we looked at diferent images that were very grusome, graphic and brutal.

"Devil Devouring it's Children"



 "Judith Beheading Holofernes"

Both these paintings scream horror and pain to me.  Yet at the same time both represent a sort of beauty.  Our teacher stated, "beauty is shown in a way the imagery is depicted".  Here she is saying through the use of color, lighting, and shading of the painting, even through the picture itseld is grusome, the way it was done represents beauty.   We also looked at another artwork called "Piss Christ" which was very shocking.  It is a depiction of the crucifix drenched in the artist urine.  Very disturbing and gross to me yet is known to be a very famous artwork.  What beauty is to someone else may be very different from another person's perspective.  I think the artwork may come across very offensive to some who are of the Christian Religion.  I can see where controversary might arise over the artwork.  It's almost as if the artist is stating, "I piss on Christ", which most who are religious would find offensive.

                                                                                                                                       "Piss Christ"

To the left is known definition of art.  Yet everyone I believe has their own definition of what art is or what constitutes art as.  I feel art is anything that draws attention to your mind, anything you can feel emotionally and physically attracted to.  In order for it to be art to you, it has to grab your attention in order for you to have any interest towards it.  As we discussed in class I do not feel as though something has to appeal to beauty for it to be called art.  We looked at some pretty grusome paintings today that I did not see beauty in, yet I considered them to be art.  They all appealed to my eye and drew in my attention even though they didn't scream beauty to me.

(posted by Kaitlyn)

"Definition of Art"

"Andy Warhol is a genius!"-Danto

Today in class we discussed Andy Warhol again.  He is known as a Commercial or Pop Artist.  He is also one of my favorite artist.  I like his use of bold colors and how he turns like-life things into art.  Today we looked at his silkscreen Brillo Boxes:

"Brillo Boxes"

In the reading we talked about today, how we perceive art comes a lot from art historians.  Art critics judging the particular "artform" tells us if it really is art or not.  Reading someone else's interpreatation of an artwork can really influence our take on a particular piece of artwork.
In the picture to the right is a piece from Andy Warhol of using different takes on Marilyn Monroe's face.  Here I feel Warhol is trying to depict Monroe's different personality traits.  When I was in 10th grade I remember back in art class I did a represenation of this piece out of clay and paint.  As I stated above I like the use of Warhol's sense of color and how he mixes them all together to make each square that appears to look the same each look different and unique.

We also watched a video on Damien Hirst who is a British, Conceptual Artist.  He was known to have shifted the art market.  He is known for his famous "Shark artwork", where he preserved a shark and placed it on the second floor of The Met.  The preserving of the shark cost nearly $100,000.  In the video, Tinterow stated, "it is a powerful artwork..and it influences our emotions..".  I agree with this statement, although I have not seen the artwork up close and personal I imagine it to be very intimidating.  It must give the audience a one on one experience with a shark without the actual terror of being so close to a shark.  The image above is the front view of the shark with it's mouth wide open.  It's intimidating to see how big and wide the sharks mouth actually is and how sharp the teeth are.  This form of artwork is very different from a painting, drawing, sculpture, etc, it really puts you in the moment and you can definitely emotionally react to it.

"The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"

We also watched a video on Milton Glaser, a Graphic Designer, who has dedicated his life studies to determining the difference between fine art and commercial design.  He stated that "art is a powerful instrument for survival".  He also stated and firmly believes through this studies that, "if it moves you to attentivness is it art, if it doesn't it is something else".  I have to say I agree with this statement, something has to attract you and pull you in for it to be considered art, or else it isn't interesting, and isn't art interesting?  I do feel as though anything really can be art if you use your mind, but it doesnt have to evoke some sort of emotion for you to relate to it.

(posted by Kaitlyn)

Reflection on the First Week

On the first day of class we watched a video informing us of what people thought art was. There were a variety of responses to the question, all ranging from one end of the spectrum to the other. It made me think, what is art really? I believe that art is in the eye of the beholder. I would say that this image is art indeed, but when most think of art this would not immediately come to mind. It's something new, unconventional and just overall cool. Imagine the time, effort, and just skill it takes to produce something like this, to make it appear that he is climbing a set of stairs that are not there.

       Many have wondered how something that seems so simple, simple enough even a child could draw/paint something very similar, could be considered art. While I do see the point in the argument that something as simple as Piet Mondrian's "Composition in black and white, with double lines" should not really be art because it is seemingly juvenile, maybe if they  took a step back the would see the art in the simplicity, in a world of chaos who really thinks and takes the time to create something so majestically clean and refreshing. it makes you stop at observe it for a second, even if only to criticize the lack of color, design, technique, or what have you, but it makes you stop nonetheless. This piece of art has an effect on people, whether it is a good effect or bad it does not matter.

    As I said before, art is in the eye of the beholder. We can't really define it because to one, art could be the painting by Velazquez called "Las Meninas", an intricate, portrait of an actual scene that actually happened, for one person but yet for another, art could be a child's simple, messy drawing of their family even though Dad would be 50 feet tall if it were actually draw to scale, Mom would only have four fingers on her right hand, and Spot the beloved dog would be tripping over his insanely long tail. The point I am trying to make is this, art is not really definable, the term not set in concrete ( though if it were that might just be art too) but art simply is and will continue to be until the end of time.
(Posted by Sarah)

What is art & how we respond to it?

On our frst day of class 9/7, we were introduced to a cartoon on youtube that depicted what art meant or what constitutues something as art.  It had a humorous twist on it by using animated talking animals to tell us what art  meant to them.  The cartoon made references to certain artists I had learned about in previous art classes.  Such as Andy Warhol's famous campbell soup artworks and Dali's surrealiam paintings:

"Campbell's Soup Can"

"The Persistence of Time"

                                                                                                                                                                               "The Fountain"

On 9/9 we looked at artwork by Marshall Duchamp.  Became famous from taking a urinal, placing it in a muesuem and naming it "The Fountain", which became a very influential piece.  I feel this piece of artwork is very strange and shocking yet unique.  It's amazing to see someone take something from everyday life and call it art.  Johnathan Jones compared to looking similar to the shape of Virgin Mary.  I feel this particular artwork allows people to form their own conclusions and interpretations since it is so rare and awkward.

                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                       

(posted by Kaitlyn)