Week 12 Reading Part 2

Criticizing Art Ch. 5, Part 2: Critical judgments of artwork are made up of appraisals that follow a critic’s criterion. There are reasons for negative appraisals. It is their own set of assumptions as to what art is and should be. The criteria can be simplified into four theories: realism, expressionism, formalism, and instrumentalism. In Realism, nature is the truth and artists should represent what they observe accurately. In Expressionism, artists express their own understandings of what they see in nature and use mediums to represent their inner lives to focus on giving a certain feeling. In Formalism, art is created for art’s sake and form is the only criterion that art should be judged on. In Instrumentalism, art is more like a tool that serves a purpose beyond aesthetic values, such as in politics and activism. Originality and craftsmanship are also valued criterion. Critics choose from among the different criteria to develop their appraisals and some can consider many points of view and still hold to one set of criteria. There is a difference between preference and value, with the painting we are personally attracted to maybe not being the best work of art. Values need to be defended, while preferences don’t need to be. “Judgments are informed critical arguments about the value of a work of art”. Judgments should be backed up with reasons and be based on definable criteria.

“Taking” Pictures by Barbara Kruger talks about using a picture that already had it’s own meaning and then using it as a parody by making alterations. The images and their repetition suggest popular culture and create a less personal distance between the viewer and the work.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled

Week 12 Reading Part 1

John Baldesarri, Semi-Close up of Girl by Geranium, 1966-8

In the article No More Boring Art: John Baldessari’s Crusade by Calvin Thomas, it discusses the American conceptual artist, John Baldessari’s career as a teacher and artist. His art includes photography-based art-about-art where the ideas take precedence over the images and the artist’s personal “touch” doesn’t count. Early in his career, he didn’t like being compared to abstract expressionism, so he moved towards conceptualism. For him, the word and image equal. John created text paintings done by printer’s and were presented just like information. His work is playful, but serious. Over the years he has tried all types of different things while he was trying to figure out what he thought art was.  When he was asked if he had figured it out he said, “Not a clue”. John taught to support his family and developed an open teaching style that allowed students to find their own path. In the eighties, he started to paint out the faces of photographs to leave viewers to fill in the blank and focus on different parts of the work. Mst of his pieces he doesn’t make himself; it is printed at shops or he has assistants that follow instructions, similarly to how Sol Lewitt’s worked.

Robert Frank, Elevator-Miami Beach, 1955

In the article Road Show: The Journey of Robert Frank’s “The Americans” by Anthony Lane, it describes the creation and response to Robert Franks book “The Americans”. He took twenty-seven thousand photos on a road trip across America that took him a year to complete. Some of his photos feel deserted and unwelcome, but there is still a human presence. He received a Guggenheim scholarship to record “what one naturalized American finds to see in the United States that signifies the kind of civilization born he and spreading elsewhere.” Which is what he did, although he was not a citizen yet. Critics thought  “The Americans” was un-American and he was discriminated against because he was foreign. I think the photos were just a honest, realist view of Americans and weren’t intended to cause any controversy.

Opening Reception 2011 Senior B.A. and B.F.A. Exhibition and 2011 M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition

2011 B.F.A. degree candidates Elizabeth M. Beaudoin, Katharine W. Austin, Heather N. Hall, Joshua M. Torbick, and Shayna Bicknell

Tonight I attended the reception for the MFA, BFA, and Senior BA students for 2011. I came towards the end of the reception, but it was still crowded. It makes me excited to share my work next year and seeing the nice response all the artists were receiving. I always wanted to have my work displayed in a gallery. I feel like no matter whether it is “good” or not, it will be considered thoughtfully just because it was chosen to be hung up in that type of space. The artwork was all impressive and I can’t wait to go back and really spend time looking at everything and reading their artist statements. I liked that they put out a lot of their other art that they had worked hard on but didn’t make it into the exhibit in the alcove gallery. There I can appreciate more all the work they did to get those pieces that were selected. I particularly like Elizabeth Beaudoin’s still life’s with all the vegetables and bananas. The dark outline around the shapes and the way she applies the paint is appealing. Everything I see encourages me to work hard and always inspires me to think of new ideas. I am excited and already worried to start working on my BFA thesis next year, but after seeing how much the students have gained from the experience, I know it will turn out well.

Recent Work

Tara Appleton, Bosom Buddies, 2011

Tara Appleton, Buddies, 2011

Art Break: Janvier Rollande

Last week, I attended the artist talk with Janvier Rollande, who draws detailed portraits in graphite. When I saw her pieces in the gallery, I didn’t really like how photographic they were and the picture of the old woman was kind of upsetting at first. Since I have heard her talk I have changed by opinion of the works. It is wonderful that she can do art her way and still get recognition.

Janvier Rollande didn’t go to school for art until she was in her thirties and has since been working on pieces for herself and commissioned pieces. She works from photographs that she has taken. She combines the best features of a few photographs to make the image she wants.  It takes her a long time to slowly builds up the values using diagonal lines.

I was particularly touched when she talked about the drawing below. It is of her mother that she took pictures of while she was on her death bed. It seemed like a hard thing to do, but it has resulted in a very emotional image. I can see how it is also a way to cope with the loss of her mother by having this project to meditate upon. She told us that people thought the image was too much to present in a publication, which I can understand because I didn’t like looking at it at first. I think knowing the story behind it makes it more humanized and personal and less disturbing.

Janvier Rollande, Adieu, Maman, 2007

Week 11 Reading Part 2

Bruce Nauman, "The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967

The article “Western Disturbances” by Calvin Tomkins, discusses the life and work of Bruce Nauman, who now lives mostly isolated with his wife, Susan Rothenburg in New Mexico. His influential work includes sculpture, film, sound, performance, and neon light. To get ideas he reads and thinks until he finds something that he has to work on using any media he wants. Nauman intended his work to look more like commercial displays than art. His early work seems playful, but later he focused more on engaging the viewer and less on himself. At the age of 31, he had a major retrospective, which seem to be premature no matter the talent. His work in the eighties sounds nasty, but it was created from his anger about how people were treating each other. Nauman’s feelings go into his work. He became a very influential minimal artist without becoming deeply involved in the “art world”. He really takes his time preparing and figuring out what he wants to do. To me his work seems pretty simple, but if I went to a gallery and was in the mindset to think, I suppose I would find his work engaging.

Asger Jorn, Modification, 1969

The article “The Death of the Object: The Move to Conceptualism” starts by describing modern art as being defined by context. In France, decollage was urban vandalism. Situationists spoke up about the the myth of social freedom promoted by advertising. Broodthaers and Haacke were part of the group CoBrA and set to  dismantle of the notion of museums in 1968. The sixties were a very political time and allowed for all these dialogues. Europeans refusal to separate art and politics made it hard to export modernism to America. I like the Situationist artist Asger Jorn’s modification series of adding new elements to second hand paintings, usually something odd and colorful. I liked how playful they are, even though his intentions were serious.

Asger Jorn, Modification, 1963

Week 11 Reading Part 1

The article by Sol Lewitt “Sentences on Conceptual Art” describes his view on art and conceptual artists. He writes that rational thoughts repeat the rational thoughts before it, so to create something new an artist needs to think make illogical judgments. Lewitt states that these illogical judgments must be followed through logically. This really makes sense to me, because if you come to the same conclusions that people have figured out before you, you will create something that is similar to what they have made. I think I do agree that when artists use painting and sculpture there are limitations based upon the traditions of each, but I also think that people have and will be able to find new ways to work with them. With more conceptual work, there aren’t guidelines that force you down a certain path, so that the art can help create itself. I have been trying to figure out a definition of art for myself and I like this quote, “All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the convention of art”. I hadn’t every thought to say that ideas about art are also art, because I always felt like art was a product of those thoughts. I don’t quite get it, but at the end of his sentences, Lewitt said, “These sentences comment on art, but are not art”. I actually just became aware of Sol Lewitt last year, when I visited the Mass MoCA and viewed all these wall drawings. This room was my favorite.

Sol Lewitt, Wall Drawing 146A, Mass MoCA, 2000

In the article “Searching for Silence” by Alex Ross, it discusses John cages experimental music and art. His pieces “4’33”” was four and a half seconds of silence as he sat at the piano. It was supposed to emphasize that all sounds are music and there is no actual silence. His work seems to be experiments that he just wanted to try out. Cage is considered a co-inventor of “happenings” and performance art. Ross made a good point that avant-garde music would agitate more people because they are “trapped” in a music hall and can’t move around like they could in a gallery. Cage’s used sound they way he would use paint, and may have made music more of an art rather than just separate music. In his early career as a composer, he ignored harmony and focused on percussion. He would include radios and prerecorded sounds in some pieces and let randomness and chance control the direction of other pieces.  It seems funny that he would get upset with performers if they did not follow his instructions to his liking, when it seems like his work is about the different outcomes of experimental performances. Cage’s work in 1960 sounds more like a comedy act with his “Theatre Piece” being performed by a woman putting a tuba on her head, a man slapping the strings of the piano with a dead fish, and another man making tea. Sounds like something from Monty Python. His later work was mash ups of classical pieces and opera, similar to what people do today on Youtube. John Cage had an attraction to sound and strong opinions that led him to create the sensational and experimental music he did. He liked the activity of sound and its variety. His music was more about space than time and the sounds didn’t need to mean anything. I would love to experience some of his works.

I have included a video of his piece “Water Works”. I can’t decide if the laughs are o.k. or not, but I suppose this was really far out for any of the regular viewers.

Recent Work and Confidence

Lately, I feel like I have figured out something about my art and I think it has a lot to do with the intermediate drawing class I am taking. I absolutely hated the format of my intro drawing class and was not looking forward to taking intermediate drawing, but the focus of the class is a lot different. This class seems to focus more on trusting your intuition and discourages people from making every mark precious and worrying about the final product. I entered this class with the attitude that I am going to go about the exercise how the professor describes and try not to care what it looks like at all. I have learned that it will turn out well in the end because of the time you spent and the build up of line. This has actually really helped me to create images that are very different from my paintings, because I guess I am allowing myself more freedom to adjust. It it useful to me to use all the different media that we are using in the class because it makes it fun to figure out what I can do with it and what kind of effects I can create. Honestly, I like the messier mediums when I am drawing because the marks hide any of my problems with proportion.

These two drawings were done with acrylic paint and a focus on line. We were also supposed to find ways to create space and be aware of the planes. These “paintings” are not about tone; they are about space. There was one model that would move around every eight minutes so that we could have lots of places to fit the figure in the space. When I figured out how to use the scale of the figures to describe the space, I think it really helped. I used the black to draw at first and used the white paint as an eraser. Over the whole class, I just kept painting and going over everything again and again. If the model moved to a new position that I had already finished, I had to go over it and lose what was there. When I was redrawing I was adjusting everything constantly so the lines really built up and I had to paint over some things to clarify the space.

So not only did I gain a better sense of space in my pictures, I also have been gaining confidence in my own choices as an artist. I hope I can find a way to translate what I have learned about drawing to my paintings. Black and white is easy for me, but when I add mixing colors to it I lose something.

Week 10 Reading Part 3

In Criticizing Art Ch. 4, pages 96-120, it continued to discuss the interpretation of art by critics. Jenny Holzer creates socially concerned language pieces in a variety of formats and media. Some critics say that she brings nothing new and only creates slogans that are offered as art. Other critics say that she presents an opportunity for the viewer to think. Her work is about the personal and the spectacle.  It is some people’s opinion that art to be read cannot be as rich as painting or sculpture. In the end, there is no consensus on her work by critics. Her Truisms statements are written and presented in uppercase letters. Holzer tries to represent all points of view while she is identifying and commentating in neutral voice. Her work makes me think and say no I don’t agree with all these statements. Her words seem more like poetry than art to me. The critics that automatically dismissed her work without giving much of an argument don’t help them in convincing the reader to see their point of view.

Elizabeth Murray, Bop, 2002-2003

The chapter then talked about Elizabeth Murray. Her abstract paintings made of shaped canvas pushed together are filled with narratives about home life. Critics have to become creative with the words they use to describe her work. They look for symbolism in her work, including psychological and domestic issues. Murray’s work allows for different interpretations that help to deepen the understanding of the work.

The next section discussed the principles of interpretation. The book states that art has “aboutness” and can be interpreted. Interpretations by critics are arguments to persuade the readers to see the work the way they see it.  All interpretations aren’t equal with some being better argued using better evidence. Good interpretations are more about the artwork that the critic themselves, although feelings are an important part of their interpretations. There are different and contradictory interpretations of the same work that work together to help to understand the art better. The critics interpret the work based on their own worldview and theory of art. The critic’s writing is judged by their coherence and inclusiveness.  Artwork is not only about what the artist intended for it, but also how other people can read it differently.  Critics are not the spokesperson for the artist and are not judging the artists as people. When judging art, we must remember that all art is related to other art.

Week 10 Reading: Originality and Plagarism Part 2

In the article “The Ecstasy of Influence” by Jonathan Lethem he talks about the reuse and reappropiation of writers and artists of the works that came before them. In literature are themes that are used over and over again. People are constantly collecting and borrowing information to form their own thoughts in writing or art.  To me remixing other peoples stuff for profit seems like plagiarism when you don’t have permission.  In art, who movements have been based on borrowing from other and culture, like pop art and collage. I know in my art, the finished product is based on thoughts and decisions that are derived from every thing that could influence me; it is a remix really of all the input I have had into my brain over my whole life. So then is that plagiarism? Artists find an image that has been simplified from all the vast information that they are receiving visually and cognitively. Allusions are very important for most paintings. We borrow and alluded so that it is easier for people to get the idea we are going for because they already have some experience they can relate it to. I had never thought that photography was stealing from the subject being photographed. I think it is the same as looking at something and trying to reproduce it in paint. Copyright does seem to be a moving negotiation, and some things are obviously copyrighted and law protected and other things are not as obvious.

I wonder how I would feel if my own work being used. I guess it depends. If someone uses it to make money I care, but if a kid or student using it in a project or copying it, I would think that is great. Artists will sell some things and give away other things as a gift.  I am sharing my thoughts because I want to and I wouldn’t like it if I felt like someone was stealing my ideas. In art, someone could make it better than the original and people need to have that chance. All at the same time, I feel like my stuff is mine and that’s the way they are and don’t mess with them, and the other part of me thinks it would great for someone to build upon what I started, with what I made probably some sort of response to something someone else has already done anyway.

A few years ago I came to the conclusion up that none of my thoughts were original but that thought itself was also not original to the world, just original to my existence, if that make sense. I like how we cut-and-paste ourselves, putting all this input in and editing it down to just what we like.  So in the end, plagiarism is a complicated subject that will always be changing. For artists, it is a balance between making a living and not owning everything. It was interesting how at the end of the article he wrote out all the different things he referenced in his article, showing the how many different sources he used just in that article.