"Thing from our past"

Today in class we discussed things we used to collect when we were younger.  This is the first class discussion where students were actually engaging in the conversation.  When I was younger I used to collect beenie babies and pogs.  Other students stated they used to collect business cards, American Girl Dolls, Baseball Cards and even barbies.  We went on to further discuss Judith Greer, who is an American art collector.  It's pretty interesting to see how much art Greeg acquired over the years she has been collecting.  Judith states, "For the passionate and dedicated individual, collecting is not just about the object. It is about the journey taken in finding".  This is interesting because it is evident most of her artworks have significant meaning on where they came from or how she came across them.  She even created a book called "Owning Art, The Contemporary Art Collector's Handbook", which gives guidance to those intersting in buying and collecting art.  Whether it be art or not, something you collect or use to collect must have had a major impact on you life.  It was obviously important to you at some point in your life.  Thinking back on it I believe I even still have some beenie babies that I really cherished at a younger age.  It's amazing to see the different trends we go throuugh as we grow up, but it's cool to look back on something we did in the past, which could be cosidered a type or art.

Art Performance: Nao Bustamante "Silver&Gold"

On October 20th, I attended the performace "Silver&Gold" by Nao Bustamante at RPI's Empac Studio.  This type of performance was the most bizarre thing I think I've ever witnessed.  Nao Bustamante is an internationally known artist who specializes in performace art, video installation, visual art, filmmaking and writing.  The show I went to see I am not even sure how to describe in words it was so outrageous.  This production incorporated film and live performance (filmformance).  Bustamante uses filmmaker Jack Smith story of movie star, Maria Montez.  This show began with a film, where Bustamante representing Montez, is picking and gathering lilacs and putting them into piles.  In the forrest she is journeying through, she comes across a sculpture dressed in a sequin dress, where she transform into a new role as the costume is put on.  With this new role and costume also came the surprise of acquring a penis.  This part of the performance was extremely weird and awkward.  After the transformation she realizes she is being chased by a pack of penises,also extremely awkward and just simply confusing.  In the life performance there is a scene where Bustamante commits suicide on accident by drinking the posion she intended to give to her husband after they both engaged in what seemed like an arabian, egyptian dance.  When she wakes up, she states she is in purgatory and uses a "machine" to sell off to the audience silver and gold, which was a pillow with silver and gold chains hanging from it. (rpi.edu)  She incorporates the audience by taking some of the hands in the audience and sticking it up the "machine" to see if silver or gold fit them better.  Honestly, I was extremely confused throughout the whole performance and basically in shock.  I felt as though the audience knew something I did not as they were laughing most of the time and I was in utter shock and confusion. 

The performance overall was strange and very foreign to me.  What exactly was the point of having a bunch of penises chase after her?  It didn't make any sense to me and I felt myself laughing at the production because I was so clueless to the whole performance.  The man to the left came into the performance during the arabian and intricate dance.  I was so thrown off my the costume he was wearing, I couldn't understand what he was trying to represent.  I only found out he was her husband when Bustamante kept trying to get him to drink the posion, saying, "No, you first my husband".  That was another thing that confused me, why was she trying to kill her husband?  He than left the stage for the rest of the performance after Bustamante drank the drink with the poison in it.  He simply carried her over to a decorative couch and left the stage for the rest of the performance.  After the performance, Bustamante came back out to thank all who helped her make her performance happen, it was weird because throughout the whole show she played a character with a very heavy accent, when in reality she had no accent at all!  I was a little surprised to find out that was not her real voice since the accent she used sounded so real.  I guess was so shocked because I didn't expect any of the events that actually occured never crossed my mind!  Although Professor Blum did warn us Bustamante's work is usally very shocking and unique.
(Posted by Kaitlyn)

Installation Art Cont.

Today in class we continued to talk about installation art.  We discussed an interesting artwork by Chinese artists Ai Weiwie.  Weiwei and his team handpainted and sculpted 100 million tiny sunflower seeds, made out of porcelain.  I thought this was a very interesting artwork.  From watching the 14 minute documentary on it you can really see how tedious this job was, so much work was put into each sunflower seed.  People who visited the Turbine Hall to see this artwork were actually able to walk ontop of these seeds, pick them up and look at them in closer detail.  The artwork actually had to be closed down due to the dust coming from the sunflower seeds bothering guests.  Installtion art is very different from any other artwork I've been introduced to before.  It's extremely innovative and creative, and really cannot be copied by anyone else.  We also looked at another form of installtion art called "The Gates", which I've actually seen in person. 

"The Gates"

(Posted by Kaitlyn)

Installation Art

The above picture is a work of installation art that reminded me a lot of the work by Ai Weiwei we saw in class with his sunflower seeds, except these are much bigger and they are faces. There are also less of them then in the sunflower works but the gray aspect and the fact that there are people walking on it made me think immediately that the two were very much alike. I am not sure how I feel about installation art. I admit its cool and looks interesting but the association with art is somewhat lost to me. I found another example of installation art that I found interesting.
 "Hello Darkness" is  220 Latex balloons, filled with LED/batteries in a dark room with  benches for rest and contemplation. An indoor sculptural garden/Installation dealing with the beauty of darkness and solitude. It is a pretty cool idea which I'd image would take a lot of time to do but the logistics kind of confuse me. Are people allowed to just walk on the floor that the balloons are on? If so how are they not pooped or taken or kicked around? Over-all installation art is a form of contemporary art that is interesting to look at and ponder.

Installation Art

Today in class we learned about installation art.   "Installation art can be either temporary or permanent. Installation artworks have been constructed in exhibition spaces such as museums and galleries, as well as public and private spaces". (Wikipedia)  This type of art utilizes everyday materials through sound, video, performance, etc.  I love this piece of artwork to the right.  It looks exactly identical to my bedroom, white background will all different colored polka dots.  I love bright colors and polka dots so this particular type of art really stands out to me.

                   

                                                                                 "Pharmacy" Damien Hirst

(Posted by Kaitlyn)

Performace Art

Today in class we discussed Marina Abramovic, a performance artist.  She is recognized as one of the leading international practioners of performance art, she also works with video and life-sized polariod.  "Her performance strategy was to use the body as art-making material, presenting herself as art objects to explore and transcend the physical and psychological limitations of the self".  (eai.org)  From researching the type of performance art Abramovic and her partner Ulay engages in is very strange.  "Marina Abramovic and Ulay irritate profoundly the visitors of a performance when they beat each other until exhaustion or physically clash. The duration of time stretches endlessly so that the shere physical impact is extreme". (MediaArtNet)  This is just extremely weird to me.


(Posted by Kaitlyn)

Every Day Performance Art

We've all seen them. The people who paint themselves and their clothes in one color, normally gold or silver to look like a statue, and stand completely still. They are on street corners, parks, vacation spot, cities, pretty much any location that will have many people. Over the years I have seen many myself. One time, when I was in Florida, I saw something that looked like a statue and just kept walking. For some reason I looked back and all of the sudden it moved and scared me. I don't know why it scared me, probably because what I thought to be a stationary, inanimate object, was actually a living, breathing person. It always fascinates me to look at these people. I find myself wondering how on earth they could stay so perfectly still for such a long time. They don't move at all, don't blink, and don't even appear to breathe. These people must practice for hours to seem like a statue (I doubt that anyone could just randomly do this without training). This performance takes dedication, skill and the ultimate patience. Imagine how many distractions there are at the places they perform. There are people, dogs, noises, music, laughing, and who knows what else going on around them. I bet people even get up in their faces and try to make them react somehow. That part actually reminds me of the London Guards. They just stand there protecting their assigned place and do not move or react. I am perfectly ready to admit that this performance in and of itself is an art form.

(Posted by Sarah)

Appropriation Art

In class we discovered that appropriation art is to "borrow, adopt, recycle, or sample aspects of (or entire form) man-made visual culture". Afterward we were given several artist that are known for this type of work; Richard Prince, Damien Loeb, Cory Arcangel, and Glenn Brown. The last mentioned, Glenn Brown takes famous, classical art pieces and changes them. The way he changes them however seems to me to be an easy, cheap way of making art. He took a normal portrait and turn it blue with a red nose and called it "Special Needs". I don't really see a point in doing this and I agree with several others in that this is not original. It seems to me that it should go again some copyright law or something. It reminds me of the computer software called "Paint" in which there is a button that allows you to just fill in the lines of something with a single click of a mouse....my four year old brother can do that. This is not to be rude to those who like this kind of art, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I guess my opinion is I just don't get it.
 (Posted by Sarah)

 Love Never Dies- Glenn Brown

Appropriation Art

Today in class we discussed appropriation art which by defiition means, "to adopt, borrow, recycle or sample aspecrs (or the entire form) of man-made culture.  The term refers to the use of borrowed elements in the creation of new artwork.  An appropriation artist we learned about today is Shepard Fairey.  He changed the angle of O'bama's face from the oringal photo taken, he stated he titled it at a different angle.  Although he did have copywright issues as he took this photo from a photographer.  If he had simply took the photo and turned it first into something of his own, by drawing it first, it would have been okay for ownership. Another artist who uses appropriation is Andy Warhol in his Campbell Soup artworks.

 

(posted by Kaitlyn)

Ed Ribeiro

“One of the principal ways we can change our relationship to difficult art is by repetition. An unpleasant piece of music may, the sixth or seventh time we listen, reveal new beauty. If we study one of Josef Albers's seemingly simple paintings of different colored squares, the colors start to shift. Of course, difficulty doesn't always give way to revelation - sometimes what follows is, alas, frustration. But when it does, we get that additional sense of satisfaction: The arduous ascent has been rewarded with a panoramic view.” Ed Ribeiro has a very distinctive style of painting. When I first saw some of his painting I was curiohttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8282344763617306649us to see what else he had done and was unsure what my opinion was on his works. It looked as if he had put a bunch of colors on a canvas and took something that reminded me of a chalk holder that could hold 5 pieces of chalk so I could make a music scale and dragged it across the still wet paint. As i continue to look at the works of Ed Ribeiro, I start to see things that could lead me to see the significance of the painting. As simple as it seems, getting those line right and exactly the way he wants it takes talent and patience. Something that looked like a simple blob of different colored paint with lines slowly starts to take shape.

    Ed Ribeiro was born in Sao Sebastiao de Passe, Brazil. His birth name is Edmilton Ribeiro, he was one of 17 children born to a poor family, believes that everyone should help the less fortunate, and he is also very religious, which appears in many of his works. Above, is his version of Christ on the Cross. It almost takes a second for on to realize what the painting is actually supposed to be, then even longer to determine what all the colors and blurs are meant to be. The white is the cloth he was wearing around his waist, the dripping red, blood, the brown, His hair, and the yellow, the crown of thorns the Roman forced upon his head. The way the paint is dripping and creates an almost disturbing blurred image serves as a gateway to the severity of the occasion being portrayed. The most blurred and obstructed part of this work is Christ's face, causing us to not know what he really looks like but it also creates a haunting unknown aspect of which we are forced to look upon.
   Almost all of Ed Ribeiro's works are done in the this fashion, you can tell what it is supposed to be but when you try to depict the details of the painting, it gets confusing and blurry. At first glance, these works may look simple, and perhaps they may be, but it is the grace and aspect of the unknown, the undefined, that attracts me to Ed Ribeiro's work. 
(Posted by Sarah)

An Oak Tree?

 Michael Craig-Martin is a famous artist, the above is one of his works. This work is entitled "An Oak Tree". It begs the question, why? Many of Martin's works make one question why or how he thought to do this. He has many works that are based on color and everyday items you might see around your house like a glass, scissors, a hammer, sunglasses, shoes, a fan, etc. He said in one video that the same object can have a different meaning if it is on a different color. Michael Craig- Martin uses very bright and vivid colors in his work and often does not have the entire object filled. It has color in it but the outline of it is a different color than what is inside it.

    Martin also has a sculpture. At first glance at it in class I thought it was just picture if an outdoor setting with the outline of a fork simply draw onto it but, after staring at it for a while, I eventually realized that it is a three dimensional object. The only way I can really tell still is by looking at the slight dirt marks on the bottom of the sculpture.
     Michael Craig-Martin introduced a new way to create art and put his own spin on it as well. He has adapted to his surrounding decade after decade and still manages to be a prominent artist in the world.

Work of Art?

 

“One of the principal ways we can change our relationship to difficult art is by repetition. An unpleasant piece of music may, the sixth or seventh time we listen, reveal new beauty. If we study one of Josef Albers's seemingly simple paintings of different colored squares, the colors start to shift. Of course, difficulty doesn't always give way to revelation - sometimes what follows is, alas, frustration. But when it does, we get that additional sense of satisfaction: The arduous ascent has been rewarded with a panoramic view.”

An artwork that I found to be very unusual is a piece by Jackson Pollock, Lavender Mist.  My first exposure to Jackson Pollock was in my Creative Arts class.  I felt his work looked like paint just splattered on a canvas.  When I looked up the background of these type of "splattered" paintings", I found out that "He danced in semi-ecstasy over canvases spread across the floor, lost in his patternings, dripping and dribbling with total control. He said: ``The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.'' He painted no image, just ``action'', though ``action painting'' seems an inadequate term for the finished result of his creative process".  It is interesting to see he actually had no plan or any direction to this particular piece, and look at the artwork he created.  Jackson Pollock has actually become one of my favorite artist work to look at.  I love the use of color and randomness to this painting.  For a painting that has no direction it just makes sense.

(posted by Kaitlyn)