I got to show my group and Viktor the idea I'm working on. It's a triptych of how we leave behind ideals as we go through life, and in our old age look back to see we didn't get much out of our compromised lives. It's told by paintings of one man's experience, but is hopefully flexible enough to be relatable.
Viktor decided the triptych had too much narrative, and the meaning of the piece became obvious too quickly. My peers seemed to like what I was doing. I appreciated what my group had to say as well as Viktor's feedback. If I had to choose between the two, I'd rather have my piece seem too obvious than seem like an unintelligible mess (which I feel like I could make too easily). I'll try different changes and see if I like one.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, November 13, 2009
2009 First Year BFA Exhibition Review
I have to say that I'm not usually one who likes photography, but I must praise Betsy VanLangen's set of photos for stealing the show. Burnt cigarettes around the neck like a noose, covered in the tape ripped out of a cassette, contoured by paint or simply impaling a cherry pie with her tongue, each photograph has a composition that pulls you in, and an atmosphere with just enough mystery to keep you hypnotized.
A piece that caught my interest, for reasons I couldn't find by the time I had to move on, was John Amelchenko's "Anticipated Nostalgia Who Who Leaves Unnamed [sic.]" It's a work of simply two black triangles with some transparent drapery hanging over, but for whatever reason I kept thinking about it while walking around the exhibit.
Another work that attracted me was (tentatively, I hope) labeled "KAM: Bottles and Bones." These were interesting sculptures designed to look like configurations of bones, and then painted white. The underside of these forms were painted in vibrant color, as to deflect colored light outward onto the white base they were set on. It made for a subtle effect.
I want to mention Erik Schoonebeek's "Feel the Wall" simply for the presense it had. It did not, unfortunately, have enough command to make me actually feel the wall.
Eileen Behnke had a very fleshy look to the characters in her painting "The Things You Do For Love." These characters are apparently from a reality TV show, and I guess they are competing for love. They are all so sickly looking and so unnatractive in this painting that I find their run-down appearance to match the brushy style of painting so appropriately. I think they're supposed to be glorious and we're supposed to envy them, but the painting makes them look like they're at death's door.
There was a gigantic painting on the far wall, noted only as "Put Label Here." It's a huge canvas, not completely covered in paint, not even covered in gesso. It's paint on a huge canvas, but the brush strokes have so much vigor and energy across the huge breadth of space that you feel the artist exhausted themself just finishing a line.
Overall, I have to say that this show had a lot of good entries, and a lot of entries that just meant absolutely nothing. A few paintings seemed like they were stolen from highschool students. The curation was all over the place, but the best pieces of the show didn't suffer for it. The best held their own, while the secondary pieces sunk into the abyss of obscurity.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
MFA Programs:
If I were interested in an MFA, I'd probably head out to New York since once I'd go broke I'll need to be by family...
...but I'm tired of spending tons of money in short amounts of time and won't be pursuing a Masters Degree.
If I were interested in an MFA, I'd probably head out to New York since once I'd go broke I'll need to be by family...
- Colombia - (pricey, but famous faculty and you get what you pay for)
- Pratt - (supposed to be great for computer graphics)
- Hunter College - (best deal in NYC price-wise)
- NYU - (they seem to be giving attention to their fine-arts program)
- SVA - (great location, focus on illustration)
...but I'm tired of spending tons of money in short amounts of time and won't be pursuing a Masters Degree.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Gallery Visit: Nick Mauss at the 303 Gallery
I chose this gallery exhibit because I liked it the least of everything I'd been to that day (including a crowded and stinky McDonalds). It's more interesting for me to explain why I dislike something than it is to explain why I like something, so here goes.
Let me quickly describe the gallery. A cage hung suspended from the ceiling. Nearby, a tall and wide canvas stood, a simple geometric shape painted on it in black and white, with a large, physical rip going half-way through it.
Surrounding these two floor pieces were seven paintings hanging on the wall. These were paintings on wood, totally gray, but the paint was put on thick, making the paintings resemble slate.
The only thing I learned in my Contemporary Art courses is that sometimes I'll miss the "depth" of a piece of art until it's explained to me. So I thought about that as I tried to read these paintings that look like pieces of my sidewalk. After a wasted series of thoughts went by, all I could think was "So what?" There's a cage that elicits zero emotion, a half-ripped painting that I'd like to rip completely, and a handful of paintings that remind me of a walkway I trip over every morning. There's nothing to read into or thought about.
Maybe Nick Mauss made this for his own emotional fulfillment. I can see him congratulating himself while gallery visitors try to make themselves sound smart by intellectualizing this shallow work. Enough buzzwords and he may even start to believe it. I disliked this gallery though, and I can't imagine myself being convinced that this is anything other than a pretentious display.
I chose this gallery exhibit because I liked it the least of everything I'd been to that day (including a crowded and stinky McDonalds). It's more interesting for me to explain why I dislike something than it is to explain why I like something, so here goes.
Let me quickly describe the gallery. A cage hung suspended from the ceiling. Nearby, a tall and wide canvas stood, a simple geometric shape painted on it in black and white, with a large, physical rip going half-way through it.
Surrounding these two floor pieces were seven paintings hanging on the wall. These were paintings on wood, totally gray, but the paint was put on thick, making the paintings resemble slate.
The only thing I learned in my Contemporary Art courses is that sometimes I'll miss the "depth" of a piece of art until it's explained to me. So I thought about that as I tried to read these paintings that look like pieces of my sidewalk. After a wasted series of thoughts went by, all I could think was "So what?" There's a cage that elicits zero emotion, a half-ripped painting that I'd like to rip completely, and a handful of paintings that remind me of a walkway I trip over every morning. There's nothing to read into or thought about.
Maybe Nick Mauss made this for his own emotional fulfillment. I can see him congratulating himself while gallery visitors try to make themselves sound smart by intellectualizing this shallow work. Enough buzzwords and he may even start to believe it. I disliked this gallery though, and I can't imagine myself being convinced that this is anything other than a pretentious display.
Seven Days In The Art World: Chapter 3
This chapter spends a lot of time on the Art Collectors. They're people who are insanely wealthy, saying things like, "Only a century ago, no one had a car. Now people have two or three." They're not saying that in awe of how far we've come. In the context of the reading, it's said to demonstrate that the automobile isn't all that special to the particular collector.
Collectors seem to make their hobby a profession in itself.
"'When you first start collecting, you're intensely competitive, but eventually you learn two things,' explains Don. 'First, if an artist is only going to make one good work, then there is no sense in fighting over it. Second, a collection is a personal vision. No one can steal your vision.'"
Some very misguided collectors make it a religion.
"I'm an atheist, but I believe in art. I go to galleries like my mother went to church. It helps me understand the way I live."
And others just use it to talk themselves up, believing they're in possession of some sort of supernatural power.
"You have to have an eye - a savantish ability to recognize work that is symptomatic of an artist with real intelligence, originality, and drive."
But the book shows how much pull these people have, out-of-touch or otherwise, and how necessary they are to the art world.
This chapter spends a lot of time on the Art Collectors. They're people who are insanely wealthy, saying things like, "Only a century ago, no one had a car. Now people have two or three." They're not saying that in awe of how far we've come. In the context of the reading, it's said to demonstrate that the automobile isn't all that special to the particular collector.
Collectors seem to make their hobby a profession in itself.
"'When you first start collecting, you're intensely competitive, but eventually you learn two things,' explains Don. 'First, if an artist is only going to make one good work, then there is no sense in fighting over it. Second, a collection is a personal vision. No one can steal your vision.'"
Some very misguided collectors make it a religion.
"I'm an atheist, but I believe in art. I go to galleries like my mother went to church. It helps me understand the way I live."
And others just use it to talk themselves up, believing they're in possession of some sort of supernatural power.
"You have to have an eye - a savantish ability to recognize work that is symptomatic of an artist with real intelligence, originality, and drive."
But the book shows how much pull these people have, out-of-touch or otherwise, and how necessary they are to the art world.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Zimmerli Gallery Visit
Trail Blazers of the 20th Century
This collection's paintings and sculptures are all modern. The paintings seem more conceptual, with amorphous shapes and high-contrast colors, while the sculptures go in a more emotional direction. The piece "Dark Reflections" by Louise Nevelson is made of convex and concave wooden pieces assembled together and then spray painted black and turns out to be a decidedly morose piece.
Favorite Piece:
Blocks of Color
This is a collection of wood-cut printmaking. These artists took inspiration from Japanese art and employed a similar technique. The prints take on a watercolor-like quality and some don't even look like prints, appearing to be made with brush strokes. There are woodcut only prints that appear to be made with the brush, but there are also some pieces that combine both woodcuts and brushwork.
My favorite pieces:
This collection's paintings and sculptures are all modern. The paintings seem more conceptual, with amorphous shapes and high-contrast colors, while the sculptures go in a more emotional direction. The piece "Dark Reflections" by Louise Nevelson is made of convex and concave wooden pieces assembled together and then spray painted black and turns out to be a decidedly morose piece.
Favorite Piece:
- Jacques Lipchitz - The Suppliant (1943)
Blocks of Color
This is a collection of wood-cut printmaking. These artists took inspiration from Japanese art and employed a similar technique. The prints take on a watercolor-like quality and some don't even look like prints, appearing to be made with brush strokes. There are woodcut only prints that appear to be made with the brush, but there are also some pieces that combine both woodcuts and brushwork.
My favorite pieces:
- Berth Lum - Fisherman (1912)
- Sybil Andrews - The New Cable (1931)
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Seven Days in the Art World: Chapter Six
- "While Blum may be a generic leading man, Poe resembles the Dude as played by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski."
- "'When people think of artists' studios, they imagine Jackson Pollock dancing around a canvas,' says Poe grumpily from under his beige baseball cap. 'Dealers are editors and conspirators. We help determine what gets shown and how it gets shown, and we help put art in production.' Poe turns around and looks at Blum, then at me. 'At the end of the day, our business is to sell symptoms articulated as objects,' he declares. 'I like to think that I have a more honest relationship with our artists than some other dealers, but I don't want to be anyone's shrink.'"
- " A total of eighty-five canvases were on the way to becoming what Murakami casually calls "big-face flowers" but are officially titled Flowers of Joy. Gagosian Gallery sold the fifty on display in its May 2007 show for $90,000 apiece. (The official price was $100,000, but everyone who's anyone gets a 10 percent discount.)
- "I don't really want to work in a company, but I have big desire for making many pieces."
- "I don'y know how to operate Illustrator, but I will say 'yes, yes, yes, no, no, no' when I check the work"
- "Kanye was a big fan of my big breast sculpture."
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