Response to Monday's Lecture

Today's lecture dealt with very interesting subject matter: using the body as art. Many artists use their bodies as a major part or even a whole art piece. There are so many different ways to do this, through photos, performances, social experiments, or exhibitions artists use many methods of getting a very personal message across by using their bodies. I liked the work that was shown that was made by William Feeney. I thought his work was very innovative and had very obvious meaning which is good for art in a lot of ways because it means that a larger number of people will understand what the message of the piece is. I liked that he used humor a lot in his work and that it struck people in an unexpected way. The piece called "Thinking About Leaving" where he sat on a chair that seemed to be on the water was my favorite. It was very dynamic and made for a great photo as well as the project itself.

I thought the work of Joshua Silver had the greatest impact on me. It was amazing that he used technology to make glasses that were so cheap and literally gave sight to people who would live a lifetime struggling without it.  The project and mission of his product stood as a very powerful art piece. It was so amazing and shows that altruism in humanity today is not lost. I feel like it is very hard to find people who aren't selfish or only interested in personal gain especially because the whole world is experiencing financial troubles. The one percent of the world that hold half of it's wealth need to come out and do more things like this to get us through this hard time.

The lecture reminded me of the work of Nikki S. Lee Her work is so fascinating. She is so versatile to change herself over and over and execute these really impressive project where she reveals the experiences of actually becoming someone completely different in a different societal class.

http://www.thememagazine.com/stories/nikki-s-lee/

Follow Up to Work This Week

For this week's exercise in class when we posted to the Daily Nexus' website I had written a fake story about Kanye West. (See Former Posts) I was pleased to find that someone had read and responded to my story. They were obviously really entertained by my article and they wrote something considerably more ridiculous  than I wrote but I thought that it was hilarious and possibly a drunken rant. The response is as follows:

"Kanye West is a f***ing boss. Literally, he is the tyrannasaurus rex of rap. All these other p**sy rapper are like lil velociraptors and Kanye is like NAW N***A RAAAWWR and then bites their faces off. Back to my thesis: Kanye being a boss. Aside from working TaySwift, Kanye continues to run train on the music industry. Literally, its single after single slappin beats and meats on America’s ears. F*ck year America! If you dont like Kanye, youre a terrorist.

PS: George Bush doesnt care about black people

<3<3<3 Chris Par. Derrrp —-(]====8 <3<3<3"

http://www.dailynexus.com/2011-04-04/police-barricades-capsize-floatopia/

 I am glad that someone gave some attention to my work. Also I recieved news that an editor at the Nexus has been working on perfecting and running the story about our class (finally). I feel that recognition is a large part of being an artist. We always seek recognition because otherwise wo don't feel as if our work even has been noticed and the point of art is to share an experience with at least one other person otherwise you have gotten nothing out. This exercise has taught me that there is a powerful feeling that comes with the response to your work. whatever that response may be.

Art Show Review

This weekend I traveled down to LA to see an installation by an artist that is very special to me. My former Design 2 Teacher from my CC  is an amazing artist who does very precise installations with flagging tape. She constructs them with amazing precision to create geometrically interesting formations that engulf the viewer. She recently did an installation at urban outfitters in LA and it was so interesting and playful looking. Megan Geckler is an artist that had a very unique idea and has run with it to make a very distinct identity for her work. She has done installations in the Wexler Museum and the Pasadena Art Museum which is what the picture below is from. I also saw that one and liked it a lot.

I feel that her work shows that even though something falls under the category of modern non representational art with simple materials that doesn't mean that it has to be boring or weird or childish and unskilled as I feel a great many contemporary artists today are doing. This work is so precise and planned out and executed beautifully with the weaving and the cleanliness of the design I believe that the design elements present in her work are something that should be addressed by more modern artists.

/http://www.megangeckler.com/

Confessions Project Proposals

Proposal 1: Kitten Obsession: I love to watch cat and kitten videos on youtube. I literally have seen all the top ones, and get excited if I notice a new one. I use stumble and even my stumble has taken to mostly pulling up images, videos and articles that relate to cats or felines of any kind. To be honest, it doesn't matter what kind of cat it is, whether it be a cat or a kitten or a tiger lion etc. My confessions project would consist of creating a slide show of all the cat images and videos that I can think of having looked at and then I would cover my computer with fabric fur and create cat ears for this since my laptop is the tool of this obsession.

Proposal 2: Drinking: I have to say there have been way too many times living in IV that I have drank just in the hopes that I will make new friends from the experience of going out and connecting with people. It seems sometimes that the only thing people want to do socially with each other is drink a lot of alcohol. My house in particular consumes so much that sometimes I think they might be alcoholics. I am a transfer and sometimes I go out and drink even though I'd rather stay in and watch a movie or something like that because I know people will think that is lame. This really saddens me. To execute this I think I would take all our empty alcohol bottles from the weekend and put my friends pictures near them.

Proposal 3: Dad: I've just never been naturally close to my dad. He was always the strict mean parent in my eyes and we never had anything in common. He has a heart problem. I always hope that he will change his diet and help himself but he is just too stubborn to stop eating the fatty foods that he always has.I'm too afraid to tell him to change because he always gets offended so easily.I sometimes think that I will never become close to him and it will soon be too late. I always tear up at commercials that have to do with father daughter relationships and am very jealous when my friends describe theirs'. I don't know how I would execute this proposal and am not sure I would want to.

Response to Comics Chapters 3 & 4

A normal person will finish mentally and make assumptions about what is not pictured in the image above... but why??

Chapters 3 and 4 of our comics book taught me more about how to think of art differently. It is a very philosophical book that introduces many basic philosophy principles with relation to art. The concept of closure is something humans all naturally do on a subconscious level. Since our senses fragment the world and we can never experience everything, we often finish images or scenes mentally. Like in the viewing of a photograph, if a part of a human is cropped out we still assume the part was there and can even envision in what position it is in. This process helps humans to construct a fluid reality.Artists can use transitions, crops etc to engage the viewer in mentally finishing or assuming an end to a piece of art and it may differ from person to person. This is an interesting thing to consider and another element for manipulation in art. I plan on trying to use this in some way even if it's not finishing a sentence and seeing what another person says in order to finish it. That reveals something about people.

The other idea presented dealt with the direction and perception of action through art sequences. Size, direction and framing of a scene can affect the weight and meaning a reader gives it. An artist should direct theviewer's attention in order to get their intended meaning or purpose across.

Marcel Duchamp

After reading about Duchamp from the reader I have to say I learned a lot about his work and his life. Personally, I don't care for any of his work. I can however, appreciate it after learning the ideas behind it. Duchamp was a man who was frustrated and disgusted by the cheapening of the art scene. He saw artists as selling out to achieve mass appeal to create the most sales. Duchamp wanted to express his emotions and critique art in a way that would be very powerful so he took to creating it. First he was into cubism and painting. Then later and much to my interest he introduced the ready mades. I was surprised to learn that the first ready made exhibition that Duchamp did was at the Pasadena Museum of Art. This museum is 20 minutes away from my house, and I have visited it a few times. It is interesting that the ready made work would be hosted in such an area because Pasadena is notorious for being the home to "old money" and republican stuffy people. This probably made the exhibition all the more controversial. It is so amusing to think of it because even now an exhibit like that would be looked upon strangely by the Pasadena natives. It is kind of out of place because that museum is very modern and so I can understand why they would host an exhibit like that. I learned that Duchamp was a man who was highly critical of the art scene itself and expressed this in an interesting way. His work has a very unique idea behind it and he wanted it to engage his viewers in a meaningful way.

Art Objects??

This is my water faucet in my bathroom. It may not look like art at first glance, but when abstracted you can appreciate the form of the sculpted metal. It is something that was designed by someone who knew aesthetics and though it may not seem like a huge deal to everyday life, people spend a long time trying to choose the perfectly aesthetically pleasing faucet to complete their bathrooms. The curvatures and reflections of the abstracted image that I took make the image interesting and let you examine the faucet in anew way. The way the metal manipulates light is very pretty.

This is a Larry Bell piece. I have tried and tried to understand how such simple work like this could be seen as art. I do not understand how a simple square of color in another square of color has art value beyond being a tool that could be used to teach small children the colors of the rainbow. I am amazed that this guy became famous and was able to sell things like this. Even if I could sell a colored shape inside of a color I would be kind of embarrassed to do it because it is not representative of any skill level.

It is hard to understand what is and isn't art, it is a very personal choice that is often left up to experts. I have my own definition of art and it usually pertains to things that I believe to have art value whether or not I like them.