Monday, April 26, 2010
Week 14
In the book, "Criticizing Art", Terry Barrett suggests using four criteria for writing about art. First,describe the work, it's subject-matter,medium,and form as well as including some information about the artist,location and dates of the exhibition.Secondly,interpret the work.What is it about? Can one place it in the context of other art work and influences? Third,judge the work .This may include an assessment of the worth of an object based on certain criteria such as Formalism or Instrumentalism or a combination of criteria chosen by the critic.Fourth, place the work in the larger context of critical theory. Try to develop a point of view,and generate meaning through interpretation.In a group show,look for themes,as well as noting how the work was selected and by whom.Try to increase appreciation by maintaining a generally positive tone.Careful observation can improve ones' knowledge of art and its place in our culture.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Graduate Art Seminar Week 13
It would seem that we are on the cusp of "A Brave New World", where Utopian dreams have been shattered,and technology is bringing changes faster than we can measure,much-less foresee the consequences of environmental degradation,genetic engineering,and suburban sprawl.The idea that technology will save us has devolved into the feeling that the world is out of balance.War is still the driving force behind many technological advances,and money still rules.In a "Post Human"future,evolution may be the survival of the richest.Perhaps this is no different than it ever was,but it provides plenty of fodder for the artists and commentators of today.
In our world,deformation,decay,and chaos are the flip side of birth,growth,and regeneration and are equally valid subjects of artistic exploration.In fact,deformation might be a more important subject today regarding the various impositions we placing on the planet and in light of the adulation of the young and beautiful in our culture.Many artists through the ages have shown an interest in death and disease and have sought to subvert the accepted idealization of forms.The reading on Freak Photography made many interesting observations,where Diane Arbus mixed documentary and high art and brought some of the seamiest aspects of popular culture to our attention.
In our world,deformation,decay,and chaos are the flip side of birth,growth,and regeneration and are equally valid subjects of artistic exploration.In fact,deformation might be a more important subject today regarding the various impositions we placing on the planet and in light of the adulation of the young and beautiful in our culture.Many artists through the ages have shown an interest in death and disease and have sought to subvert the accepted idealization of forms.The reading on Freak Photography made many interesting observations,where Diane Arbus mixed documentary and high art and brought some of the seamiest aspects of popular culture to our attention.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Graduate Art Seminar Week 12
How has the use of narrative changed in contemporary art? In the past,important religious or historical events were usually the subject of narrative art. Today any idea no matter how important or mundane is worthy of investigation. The way a story is told can be more meaningful than the content of the narrative. In the modernist tradition narration and representation were removed to focus on the formal elements of a work in defiance of the historical norm. Representation and narration are linked,especially in photography, cinema,and video. Critic Craig Owens uses the idea of the palimpsest as an allegory where events and characters have layers of meaning. Heartney believes this leads to illegibility as opposed to modernism's "mythology of coherence",and notes that Roland Barthes, in his essay "The Death of the Author" puts the emphasis on the reader or viewer to give meaning to the "text". This is the case in the work of many contemporary artists whose vague and disjunctive stories offer no obvious way of interpration.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Review of the Armory Show
While a lot of interesting art was on display at the Art Dealers Association of America's 2010 Armory Show, it was at its core, a trade show. The talk was who sold what for how much. This event is more about money, personalities, and politics than anything else. The recent Damien Hirst show "End of an Era" came to mind. A large head of a bull with a large gold disk between gold horns in a gold tank of formaldehyde reminded me of the scene in the "Ten Commandments" when Moses came down from the mountain and found the Israelites worshiping a golden calf in an orgy of excess. What is a young idealistic art student to think? If you are in it for the money, you need to cultivate the right connections.
At the Pierogi booth, Jonathan Schipper, turns the art world on its head by inverting two classical figures and suspending them from a chain. These two figures in the piece called "To Dust" 2009-10 face each other like the characters in a Greek myth.
Robert Irwin's "4 Fold" 2009, light sculpture at the Nyehaus booth consists of two deep blue columns of light and various shadows and reflections surrounding it, $95,000.00.
In Matthew Chambers piece, "Noble Rider of Sound"2009, a large oil and acrylic painting on canvas, bands of color intersect and overlap, weaving to create a dense cluster of tones that have depth and movement.
A large painting titled "Thoughts on a Monsoon Morning/Orange Room" 2007 by Irene Fish is an expansive interior view of a light filled space notable by its birds eye vantage point composition. This was at the Locks Gallery booth.
I could go on, but I suppose some of my feeling about the show is sour grapes, if I had the money to collect, or could profit from the sale of expensive art work I might feel different.
The Armory Show on Park Avenue was also a mix of contemporary and 20th century artists works. A Milton Avery painting was priced at over a million dollars. I did discover some artists that I had previously over looked. Thomas Chimes, David Rabinowitch, Ray Johnson, and Conrad Marca-Relli are among those whose work I would like to be more familiar with. Next year, who knows?
At the Pierogi booth, Jonathan Schipper, turns the art world on its head by inverting two classical figures and suspending them from a chain. These two figures in the piece called "To Dust" 2009-10 face each other like the characters in a Greek myth.
Robert Irwin's "4 Fold" 2009, light sculpture at the Nyehaus booth consists of two deep blue columns of light and various shadows and reflections surrounding it, $95,000.00.
In Matthew Chambers piece, "Noble Rider of Sound"2009, a large oil and acrylic painting on canvas, bands of color intersect and overlap, weaving to create a dense cluster of tones that have depth and movement.
A large painting titled "Thoughts on a Monsoon Morning/Orange Room" 2007 by Irene Fish is an expansive interior view of a light filled space notable by its birds eye vantage point composition. This was at the Locks Gallery booth.
I could go on, but I suppose some of my feeling about the show is sour grapes, if I had the money to collect, or could profit from the sale of expensive art work I might feel different.
The Armory Show on Park Avenue was also a mix of contemporary and 20th century artists works. A Milton Avery painting was priced at over a million dollars. I did discover some artists that I had previously over looked. Thomas Chimes, David Rabinowitch, Ray Johnson, and Conrad Marca-Relli are among those whose work I would like to be more familiar with. Next year, who knows?
Whitney Biennial 2010
While the Whitney Biennial has no obviously discernible theme, certain ideas of why this group of artists were chosen to represent the state of American art at this time begins to emerge upon reflection. Its scaled back scope , and insular aesthetic is placed in a historical context by the inclusion of "Collecting Biennials", the 5th floor showing of work from post annuals and and biennials on the occasion of its 75th anniversary. Begin 1932, the show was an annual event until 1973, alternating sculpture and painting each year where in lieu of prizes, some works were bought for the museums permanent collection. To further historicize the 2010 show, the catalog lists all the artist who ever participated, by year and reprints various reviews from The New York Times.
This show is less political than some recent shows and according to its curators, Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari, is based on a "personal modernism" wherein a rediscovery of the "experimental nature of the artistic endeavor and politics within the self" are needed "in order to understand our role in a larger social and cultural transformation".
Apparently, modernism is alive and well as indicated by the inclusion of the paintings of Sara Crowner. Her large sewn and painted canvas pieces are, according to the curators, reconstructing the styles of earlier movements and creating a dialogue with traditions of craft and the handmade.
Susan Frecon's large red paintings are also in the modernist tradition where color and quality of the paint, surface texture and luminosity of forms create a tension and balance that have faintly architectural references.
The lovely, intimate, sparse but brightly colored landscapes of Maureen Gallace seemed somehow out of place in the Whitney. Perhaps they are a parody of an earlier American Modernism, again implying that all styles and forms are valid areas of exploration.
In the same vein are the large ink on paper flower paintings of Charles Ray. These brightly colored pieces are almost caricature and have a slightly disturbing unfinished quality that comes from their placement on the page and the amount of unpainted space. I think the act of painting these must be important in a meditative zen way.
Other paintings of note include works by Scott Short, R.H. Quaytman and Storm Tharp. Scott Short's process of copying copies many times reduces an image to a textural pattern that he then copies meticulously in paint creating an evocative image that involves mechanical deconstruction with a painterly process. R.H. Quaytman's silk screened photographs combined with oil paint uses optical patterns and layers of references to other artists to create a kind of montage of personal motifs. The disembodied characters inhabiting the paintings of Storm Tharp seem to have one foot in another world, perhaps the subconscience. These haunting portraits are literally drawn out of the puddles of wet ink, some areas well defined while others remain vaguely obscure, that reminds us of our own partially formed nature.
The curators use of the bridge and fence metaphor is aptly reflected in Robert Groovenor (untitled, 2009) piece that is formally architectural in nature and based on the relationship of the the main elements, a red flocked bridge that is furniture related in its color and texture and a screen like "fence".
Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Hannah Greely are both using quotidian objects to make sculptural works. Hutchins, in "Couch For a Long Time, 2009", covers a couch from her childhood home with newspaper articles about Barack Obama and placed ceramic objects on it that seem to act as surrogates for people, while Greely in "Dual" (2005-9) creates a dingy scene from a bar and apparently copies or makes objects that mimic the real thing.
Another bridge piece that combines the sculptural object with video is "We Love America, We Hate America" by the collective called the Bruce High Quality Foundation. An ambulance-hearse that projects a montage of film clips onto the windshield, part history, part pop-culture, part spoof and part critique of the art world makes one realize that art can be fun and entertaining while providing social commentary.
The photography of Nina Berman, and Stephanie Sinclair are strong on social commentary as well. Berman's "Marine Wedding" is a heartbreaking portrait of former Maine Sargent Ty Ziegel, disfigured in the Iraq war,it is intimate and disturbing. In the hard to look at series "Self-immolation: A Cry for Help (2003-05) Sinclair documents the brutality and despair of women and girls who are suffering from self-inflicted woulds committed to expose domestic violence.
Ultimately, the video works are the most compelling part of the Whitney Biennial 2010, among many interesting pieces a few stand out for me: Kerry Tribes's piece on memory, Shannon Hays "Parole" and Ari Marcopoulos's "Detroit" 2009 where two kids improvise on electric guitars pedals. A filmed rant by Marianne Vitale is at first abrasive but after a few minutes the irony and humor become apparent.
While this Biennial may be a bit underwhelming, it never the less has enough merit to justify the time and expense involved and raises some important questions about the nature of artistic endeavor and the socio-economic system called the art world.
This show is less political than some recent shows and according to its curators, Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari, is based on a "personal modernism" wherein a rediscovery of the "experimental nature of the artistic endeavor and politics within the self" are needed "in order to understand our role in a larger social and cultural transformation".
Apparently, modernism is alive and well as indicated by the inclusion of the paintings of Sara Crowner. Her large sewn and painted canvas pieces are, according to the curators, reconstructing the styles of earlier movements and creating a dialogue with traditions of craft and the handmade.
Susan Frecon's large red paintings are also in the modernist tradition where color and quality of the paint, surface texture and luminosity of forms create a tension and balance that have faintly architectural references.
The lovely, intimate, sparse but brightly colored landscapes of Maureen Gallace seemed somehow out of place in the Whitney. Perhaps they are a parody of an earlier American Modernism, again implying that all styles and forms are valid areas of exploration.
In the same vein are the large ink on paper flower paintings of Charles Ray. These brightly colored pieces are almost caricature and have a slightly disturbing unfinished quality that comes from their placement on the page and the amount of unpainted space. I think the act of painting these must be important in a meditative zen way.
Other paintings of note include works by Scott Short, R.H. Quaytman and Storm Tharp. Scott Short's process of copying copies many times reduces an image to a textural pattern that he then copies meticulously in paint creating an evocative image that involves mechanical deconstruction with a painterly process. R.H. Quaytman's silk screened photographs combined with oil paint uses optical patterns and layers of references to other artists to create a kind of montage of personal motifs. The disembodied characters inhabiting the paintings of Storm Tharp seem to have one foot in another world, perhaps the subconscience. These haunting portraits are literally drawn out of the puddles of wet ink, some areas well defined while others remain vaguely obscure, that reminds us of our own partially formed nature.
The curators use of the bridge and fence metaphor is aptly reflected in Robert Groovenor (untitled, 2009) piece that is formally architectural in nature and based on the relationship of the the main elements, a red flocked bridge that is furniture related in its color and texture and a screen like "fence".
Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Hannah Greely are both using quotidian objects to make sculptural works. Hutchins, in "Couch For a Long Time, 2009", covers a couch from her childhood home with newspaper articles about Barack Obama and placed ceramic objects on it that seem to act as surrogates for people, while Greely in "Dual" (2005-9) creates a dingy scene from a bar and apparently copies or makes objects that mimic the real thing.
Another bridge piece that combines the sculptural object with video is "We Love America, We Hate America" by the collective called the Bruce High Quality Foundation. An ambulance-hearse that projects a montage of film clips onto the windshield, part history, part pop-culture, part spoof and part critique of the art world makes one realize that art can be fun and entertaining while providing social commentary.
The photography of Nina Berman, and Stephanie Sinclair are strong on social commentary as well. Berman's "Marine Wedding" is a heartbreaking portrait of former Maine Sargent Ty Ziegel, disfigured in the Iraq war,it is intimate and disturbing. In the hard to look at series "Self-immolation: A Cry for Help (2003-05) Sinclair documents the brutality and despair of women and girls who are suffering from self-inflicted woulds committed to expose domestic violence.
Ultimately, the video works are the most compelling part of the Whitney Biennial 2010, among many interesting pieces a few stand out for me: Kerry Tribes's piece on memory, Shannon Hays "Parole" and Ari Marcopoulos's "Detroit" 2009 where two kids improvise on electric guitars pedals. A filmed rant by Marianne Vitale is at first abrasive but after a few minutes the irony and humor become apparent.
While this Biennial may be a bit underwhelming, it never the less has enough merit to justify the time and expense involved and raises some important questions about the nature of artistic endeavor and the socio-economic system called the art world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)