ART 21

El Anatsui:

El Anatsui is an artist from Africa, who mainly works with found bottle caps in order to create cloth-like installations. He works with a team, and really emphasizes the process of creating the work. Each time the installation is set up in a gallery or anything like that, the end result is always different, because he encourages curators to set it up how they envision it. I really admire the way he emphasizes this team effort and letting everyone not only be involved, but let their creative expression show as well. Process>product, although the product is always incredibly beautiful. I also really like how El says that the use of bottle caps is not necessarily recycling, but transforming an object- and I like that he gives curators the opportunity to transform the piece as well. The pieces are obviously incredibly versatile if they can be rearranged infinite numbers of ways and still end up with a gorgeous product.

Laylah Ali:

I really related to Laylah when she was discussing how she was influenced by cartoons, because that’s totally me—the reason why I wanted to become an artist in the first place. Unlike her, I do find my process of creating cartoons to be escapist in a way-- I like creating silly, trivial cartoons to get away from the sucky reality of humanity. But I also like to do art that makes statements about the issues pervasive in society as well. I also thought it was really funny how she collects all these clippings—I too keep notebooks and notebooks filled cover to cover of pictures and brochures and magazine pages I collect that inspire me as well. Obsessed with her reasoning and her choice to use paper rather than canvas with her paintings, comparing it to the intimacy of reading a book. I totally get where she’s coming from. When discussing the dancers that reenact her paintings, I found this quote to be incredibly funny and relatable--“how do you deal with alive people???” AMEN.

Alfredo Jaar:

Right off the bat, I thought his work was gorgeous; I loved the asymmetrical placement of the long strips of light with the portraits.

I admire his outrage—with his example of the 35,000 dead making a measly five sentence story on page seven of a newspaper. So many privileged people look past that and make no connection whatsoever-they don’t care, it doesn’t affect them, they yawn, continue reading their paper, drink their coffee and complain about their office job. I love the fact that he actually gives a shit and actually does something about it. I love his dedication—6 years trying to accurately convey the struggles going on in Rwanda.

I loved his use of identity as a tactic-focusing on a real person to connect with people. People don’t connect with numbers. I thought it beautiful to use the photo of the boy’s eyes—eyes are so personal, they tell so much and it makes you think about what those eyes have seen, what the owner of those eyes has experienced. 

Jeff Koons

I really admire how Jeff Koons aims to create a sense of community with his work and have a large team/wanting interaction and communication. Even though the art pieces take a long time, he really emphasizes relishing the process---connecting with other people. However, as always, I wonder why only one artist gets all the credit. Even though he emphasizes how he couldn’t do this without his team, I only see them doing all the work and they even note how he rarely works on the actual painting and instead just stops by to direct the group. It’s really hard for me to wrap my head around that. I consider who ever creates the piece-the final piece-- to be the artist. I don’t really see how someone comes up with an idea, and then lets other people implement it yet he gets all the credit. I’m not sure if I relate much to his work, although I do agree with his idea that art should be powerful, should invoke something, but morality comes along with power. My favorite pieces of his were the shiny, reflective pieces, like the pink “egg” thing & bunny & balloon animal work—totally beautiful and surreal/alien-like. I also like his use of mathematical patterns, because I’m a math nerd and I think it’s really cool when artists use math and science in their art. I also really liked his topiary pieces, because it reminded me a lot of the Shining (book) and I felt like little Danny looking at them—in wonder, but also kind of scared and intimidated. Overall, I thought his work was interesting and beautiful to look at, but I’d rather see artists actually working on their piece.

ART 21

1) Ursula von Rydingsvard

-Ursula is a sculptor from Deensen, Germany who uses mostly cedar as her primary medium. Ursula’s work was incredibly inspiring to me; not only was it very ambitious, but she even notes the importance of hard work in order to achieve success. Her use of organic materials/nature to create work in natural spaces is very effective I think—I think that I would respond more to a work displayed in nature rather than a museum. This is obvious when she notes how at least 12 marriages took place at the site of one of her sculptures—you also see young children playing and interacting with the piece. If one were in a museum, there would be a very limited interaction between the viewer and the piece—you would feel like you can’t touch it, that it’s simply a sculpture and nothing more.

-Although her drawings are personal, I almost like the one she showed more than her main work-maybe it’s just because I’m more of a 2D artist, but the one she showed was so organic and delicate, and had kind of an unkempt, sporadic look to them, which I love. My favorite sculpture of hers was probably the one where she hollowed out the middle and she mentioned that it was about introversion and I totally got it. As a kid, I loved hiding in confined spaces, and I like caves and nooks and hiding spaces, so I could 100% relate to this piece—I feel like if I saw it in real life, I would be totally drawn to crawling and hiding inside of it.

-One thing that made me question her work was the fact that she has sooo many helpers-- So much that her work would almost be impossible without them. And then I began to question if it could even be considered “her” work. It seems as though she just draws the lines to be cut, and her team cuts the wood, lifts the wood, glues the wood, nails it together. Why does she get all of the notoriety and the helpers receive hardly any credit?

2) MARK DION

-Mark Dion is an artist from New Bedford, Massachusetts who makes installations of “things.” Right off the bat, I was stoked to see his work, because I’m utterly obsessed with collections of oddities and having a lot of “stuff.” An avid hoarder, I love things and surround myself with junk to make me feel comfortable. Mark visits flea markets and yard sales, surrounding himself with things that are inspirational. He also mentions how he is constantly searching for the oldest museum/looking to the past. I loved his cabinets full of collections of things-- accumulation of things is so fun to look at, your eye never stops moving. My room is very much like this kind of work-newcomers to my room spend a while just taking it all in, looking around, exploring—people like to look at things-it keeps them engaged and interested and intrigued. He seems obsessive, which I like and completely relate to.

-His tar/rat work was incredibly disturbing, but he mentioned how he was trying to “hold a mirror to present”. So, he is kind of reflecting on how society does not care for our planet, we pollute, we kill earth’s creatures for our own superficial benefit, etc. He also mentions art’s relationship to science—the main focus of our culture is solely math and science; art is kind of overlooked or is seen as inferior or trivial compared to those realms (especially in education)—so the demand from artists is to combat that or complement it or make a statement about it, which is what Mark does with his work. He notes that he uses nature as a resource for his art, which can be seen clearly when he takes the fallen tree in the forest, and creates an elaborate greenhouse to keep it alive. He places a natural being in an unnatural environment, which requires a ton of science and technology just to keep it alive. 

Project #2 TIME Proposals

1) Medium-Photo Series
My family is very sentimental and loves to look at old photographs. My thought was to take old photographs and recreate them now. I would include the same people, try to make the outfits/environment as similar as possible. It would show how much things change over time. it depicts moments captured in history and how people grow. For example, one of my favorite childhood photographs is one of my sister and I dressed up as the stereotypical witch for Halloween. Back then, the situation was fun, exciting, innocent. Halloween and witches meant nothing to me, really. Just a fun holiday and getting to dress up was enough for me. However, in the photo, we are contributing to a culture that consistently portrays Witchcraft in a totally incorrect light. Since then, I've researched and read a lot and I now actually am a Witch. Although I don't get upset or offended with witch costumes or the way Halloween has become so commercialized, I still am adamant about dispelling the negative stereotypes surrounding Wicca and educating people about the religion. So I can show how the old photo and the new one relate to each other, how those moments in time are similar and how they are different. Halloween has become accepted, adored, and commercialized while witches face oppression. (So witches are satanic and evil and green and ugly and eat babies, lets discriminate against them and strip them of their basic human rights and privileges, but lets misappropriate, lets keep their most sacred holiday for ourselves so we can have fun.) In the past, I took part in this and now I aim to change it.

2) Medium-Film; "The Shining" Concept
The film The Shining by Stanley Kubrick is one of my all time favorites. I recently watched the documentary"Room 237", revealing all kinds of crazy symbolism and hidden messages in the movie. (Highly recommend if anyone is a Kubrick fan.) One thing incredibly interesting that I learned was that the Shining can be played forwards and backwards simultaneously and the scenes will match up and relate to each other in some way. They could contain metaphors, foreshadowing, etc. I thought I could try to use this theme in my project-film some kind of story in sequential order, and then use some overlay effect to play the film backwards at the same time so that the scenes match up and relate to each other. I'm still not completely sure what the subject matter would be or what kind of story I would tell, but I will mull over it some more.

3) Medium- print installation
After working in the print making studio, I noticed that after I had been reworking the same stamp over and over, the print gradually started to fade, blur, lose quality. This gave me an idea to make a single print of an object or figure of some kind and then repeat the images closely together so that the resulting effect would be that the object or figure is moving. Not only would the piece capture a moment in time; it also addresses time progression and how things/memories/events/scars/pain/happy times fade or deteriorate over time.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/do-ho-suh

Do-Ho Suh is a sculptor from Korea who focuses largely on telling his stories and life experiences through his artwork. A lot of his work is nostalgic of his life in Korea and he focuses a lot on human interactions with each other and with public space. I really enjoyed his pieces that emulated the architecture of his past homes. I thought that was so genius-a foldable, portable piece of fabric that replicates a place that is near and dear to you. I love discovering new places, but I also get incredibly homesick and a piece like this would serve me well. It gives a sense of security, safety and comfort. It's like going back in time and savoring moments you've enjoyed in the past. I also really enjoyed his work that included multiple replications of a single object-the school uniform, the dog tags, the miniature people. He really explores/challenges identity, originality, uniqueness. I also think a lot about the average every-day person; how many of us there are, how we interact with each other without a second thought. It's really kind of eerie when you actually consider how many people are out there, how different/alike we are, and all of the stories that every single person carries with them.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/kara-walker

Kara Walker is an artist from California who creates silhouette works depicting themes of racism, slavery, drama, the shocking/unexpected, etc. I personally was blown away with her work. Not only is it incredibly beautiful and whimsical and mysterious and ominous, it also makes the viewer reflect on the glaring issues this country tends to ignore. I resonate a lot with her work. The subject matter of my artwork is also very twisted and theatrical, I like to tell stories with my art. I also explore themes of sexism, racism, homophobia and try to use my art to make people more aware of the systems our country has built itself upon. My favorite piece of Kara's was the one of her depicting a slave revolt; the slaves are disemboweling their master with a ladle, it is very graphic and the silhouettes intensify the sinister ambiance. I thought it was very clever to have the projector light, causing the viewer's shadow to be cast onto the work itself. It forces the viewer to be a part of the work. I think it is really symbolic as well. These viewers are also members of the country that builds itself on the systematic destruction of people of color, especially women of color. The viewers are forced to see that they are in actuality a huge part of this story, are responsible and are at fault.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/jessica-stockholder

Jessica Stockholder is an artist from Seattle, who works a lot with installation art. I really enjoyed her pieces and I loved seeing a little bit of the process of paper making. Like Jessica, I also like to work on my art alone. I thought it was really interesting how she makes these grand, beautiful installations using very cheap, very boring materials--materials not many people would consider using as parts of a sculpture. Not only is she recycling and putting waste to good use, but she's using it to make meaningful art that has a profound effect on others. Like she mentioned, her work is very playful in the sense that she doesn't really know what the end result will be. Her work is similar to Herrero's in that case, because there is also some risk, unexpectedness with his work as well (film in water technique).

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/arturo-herrera

Arturo Herrera is an artist from Venezuela who focuses largely on collage, photography and wall paintings. When watching this clip, I was extremely inspired by his technique of letting his film sit in water or coffee to give it this really cool, spontaneous effect. It reminded me a lot of the Ancient Chinese porcelain-crackling effect. I definitely want to try it out myself. I also really resonated with his pieces that incorporated images from childhood popular culture, like Dopey (Snow White was my absolute favorite film as a kid--I watched it about 5 times a day, not exaggerating), which I think was the point--to connect with people using symbols like that. I thought he made a really beautiful point about his abstracted art--how he takes images that are blatantly representing something, and then combines unrecognizable pieces of those images in a collage. It's really mysterious/secretive almost, making subtle references to many different things, which I really liked a lot.