art and the archive

Matej Krén, a Slovakian contemporary artists, has focused mainly on the means of amplification and the communication of knowledge, establishing suggestive links between their historical and ideological relativity and the experimentation with many forms of optical and perceptual illusion.

books in this installation are used as raw materials for an artistic process existing and communicating on many distinct levels.

Books generally a historical and archival reference of knowledge have been transformed into a surrounding tomb like architectural structure in a powerful way

The common reference to a library like scenario points us in the direction of curiosity of the books themselves and their contents. This then takes the books away from a material only bases and categorises them into a documentation like manner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K21F26Gb0o

art and globalism

Do-Ho Suh is a Korean artist who moved to the United States. His definition of Globalism is the “mass or the collective that is made up of individual or it can be viewed as the collective vs the individual.”

After Do-Ho Suh fulfilled his term of mandatory service in the South Korean military he then states “the danger following globalism is the threat of the loss of the identity of the individual or of single nations as the attention is concentrated on the greater good of the whole, where the smaller people or countries may get left behind. Some argue that globalism creates opportunities that would never before had been possible for the individual”.

Through his work Do-Ho Suh shows this duality in globalism. The installation Some/One 2001 is thousands of metal dog tags, which make up this emperors style of jacket or a coat of armor. This suggests of the thousands of people that may have lost their lives protecting a nation.

art and politics

Chen Wenling’s political sculpture resembles a like Bernie Madoff (Bernard Lawrence) a former American stockbroker, entrepreneur, and investor. This art work uses many signs any symbols to resemble a comical message about American politics and scandals. Bernie Madoff ressembled as a devil-man being smashed by the economy represented by a giant golden bull he helped to depress and soon went to jail for. This artwork both visually and ironically plays on words and their meanings. “放屁“ (fang pi) in Chinese literally means to fart but in slang it means to bluff or lie."

art and spirituality

Art and spirituality

This installation, Gdansk ‘?’, was created by Robert stadler located In the St John gothic church in Gdansk. Visitors enter the church through a lateral door and first see a scattered group of luminous spheres hovering in the choir. As they approach the centre of the room, the spheres form a giant question mark. This installation is powerful not only in its visual appearance but by its location and conceptual idea. By placing a question mark in the middle of a church is highly controversial, as the implication of this symbol would appear to raise the question of doubt in the religion. But to look in further of this conceptual meaning the process of how this question mark is visible changes the initial meaning of this artwork. Because the figure becomes abstracted again as the viewer moves through the cathedral the lights Contrast with the symmetry of the edifice, these mimic musical notation, or holes punctuating the architectural volume. The question (or doubt) is absorbed by the space.

Annotated bibliography

Annotated bibliography

Heartney, E. 2008. Art & Today.

• Art and architecture

• - was one of the most conservative art forms
• - stuck to its conventions, from wealth, and structural satiability
• - restricted within budget, zone, safety laws
• - opportunity to stretch their imaginations
• - people called artists rather than architects because they reject rationality for fantasy
• -
• - started in modernism
• - Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim bilbao
• - Cubists arrangement of curves and planes of glinting titanium steel that gives no hint on the building purpose or internal configuration.

Noble, Richard, 2009, Utopias, critical utopia Documents of contemporary art

• - Dan graham
• - “it begins with minimal art, but its about spectators observing themselves as they are observed by other people”
• - beginning artistic practices. Peformance installation Roll. 2 projections on either side of the wall.
• - Artist rolling around on the floor
• - Views from hand held camera and external view
• - Started his concept of visual angles and surveillance
• - Phenomenological experience
• - Pavilions would later emerge from this concept combining this experience with architectural visual and structural qualities
• - Graham uses self irony anarchic humor allied to the utopian aspiration in his artworks

Brouwer, Marianne, 2001, Dan Graham : works, 1965-2000

• - Hybrid of Functional spaces with a structural object
• - pavilions structural element mirrored the qualities of the modern skyscraper
• - the glass he used was double sided
• - creating a faint fun house effects
• - basic of spatial distinctions are confused
• - unlike architectural buildings his works were not restricted to any particular zone.
• - Environment varied
• - Light and surroundings
• - Resembles different types of architecture

• - Pavilion Influenced by Moon Windows
• - Depending on where you stand the reflection will show a different stage of the moon cycle

gallery visit

David Haines and Joyce Hinterding unguided tours art gallery NSW

the fine line between the real world their artwork and a video game.

watch interview

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/unguided-tours/

art and identity

what could be more personal than literally connecting you art work onto yourself.

Stelarc uses science both as a medium in his sculptures and performance works as well as his own body. Stelarc looks at the human evolution and the connection between man and machine. Slelarc takes this concept to extremes but litterly hooking himself to machines and robotic limbs. One of stelercs most recognizable works is his third arm. Stelarc used this fully functional prosthetic limb in many of his performance, sculptural and digital artworks. This third arm was made from Aluminum, stainless steel, acrylic, latex electronics, electrodes, cables and battery pack. The movements of the prosthetic hand are controlled by electrical signals sent out by stelarcs muscles mainly from his abdominal and leg muscles which are connected through wires and censers, signals from contractions in stelarcs muscles are picked up, pre-amplified, rectified and sent to the switching system. The use of other muscles then allows stelarc to independent move each of his three hands without mirroring his right hand on which it is based.

Stelarc has also worked on a sculpture for your stomach which he had to be rushed to the hospital 5 minutes after because of concerns of a rupture or internal bleeding.

art and narrative-annotated bibliography.

Heartney, E. 2008. Art & Today.

Art has always been used to creat a story eg;

-cave paintings

-wars

-celibrations

-religious happenings

telling a story or narrative in an artwork could be portrayed through different ways eg;

-fiction

-non-fiction

-linier

-cyclical

-bassed on past present or future

Matthew Barney, Cremaster cycle 3, 2002. http://www.cremaster.net/#

CREMASTER 3 is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of spiritual transcendence.

Barney, Matthew the Cremaster cycle, 1994–2002, Cremaster 3.

In the dvd the Cremaster cycle. The entered apprentice played by Matthew Barney follows a serious of 5 stages through the Chrysler building overcoming challenges of birth, growth, death and rebirth. The do this through the use of instillation, peformance, sculpture, film cinematography and digital media.

art and the environment

Robert Smithson makes amazing land art. He uses both the idea of construction organic shapes into the land for example ‘Spiral Jetty, and he also takes land disasters man made and natural such as ‘Glue Pour’ and ‘Partially Buried Woodshed’ and seems to fuse the two concepts into one eg in Glue Pour the natural flowing of the glue down the slope is a real natural in contrast to the constructed avalanche like condition of ‘Partially Buried Woodshed’.

click this

art and its institutions

Duchamp’s readymades (‘fountain’ in particular) were considered one of the most controversial artworks for his time and were redeemed unsuitable for exhibition for example. Duchamp entered it into an art exhibition by the American Society of Independent Artists, a group that Duchamp himself was a director of. Duchamp entered the readymade under the name Richard Mutt that turned the entry into a test for the society.(randomly putting this in here to see if anyone actually reads these things) The exhibition was one where artists of all schools can exhibit only a payment of the initiation one dollar and the annual dues of five dollars. Duchamp sent in his sculpture with the required fees and according to the rules should have been accepted. However, his readymade was originally manufactured to be a urinal and considered by the society, to be too controversial and inappropriate for the standards of this time, and they therefore turned it down. There really hasn’t been much change to this where certain institution rejects artworks based on the fact that they do not accept the artwork as art.

art and popular culture

• Was a hasty, young and fun art movement of the 1960's.

• Pop Art was heavily influenced by Pop Music and youth culture.

• Pop Art sculpture had an interest in mass-media, mass-production and mass-culture.

• Pop art was strongly influence by the ideas and concepts of the Dada movement.

• Pop Art in America was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism.

• Andy Warhol has influenced many contemporary artists such as Jac Leirner

Claes Oldenburg was the sculptor of the Pop Art movement, creating many large scale public works such as ‘Spoonbridge and Cherry’. Oldenburg was inspired with the imagery of consumer merchandise. Oldenburg first started with a shop creating replicas of consumer goods made from plastic.

This is a quote by Claes Oldenburg "I am for Kool-art, 7-UP art, Pepsi-art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol Art, Dro-bomb art, Vam art, Menthol art, L & M art, Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx art, 9.99 art, Now art, New art, How art, Fire sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art, Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art."

art and abstraction

Characteristics of Minimalist Sculpture:

• Serial repetition of geometric forms
• Manufactured
• Industrial, commercially available materials
• Focus on the material rather than metaphor
• Simple colours and shapes

Dan Flavin strongly pursued the artistic possibilities of fluorescent light both as a solid installation using simple shapes and as a light installation using light. Dan radically limited his materials to commercially available fluorescent tubing in standard sizes, shapes, and colors. Flaven took the minimalist concept by occupying both the sculptural and surrounding space creating an atmosphere around the sculpture.

Part 2 performance art

The setting or venue was important for Rauschenberg’s pieces for determining the events, more important in fact the materials at hand and the players involved.

Rauschenberg’s aim was that the dancers costumes for instance would match the object do closely that integration would happen leaving no distinction between inanimate object and live dancer.

Carolee Schneemann:s Meat joy was performed at the Judson Memorial Church, New York. This piece transformed the naked body and fluids such as blood from animal carcases creating a moving painting. Schneemann wrote “What I find will be what I need both in terms of performers and of metaphorically imposed space relations” this quote relates to the fact that both people and location is a unique basic of selection for an inspiration for a work that with out the specific location and people that are incorporated with this than the artwork itself would fail to exist as it is.

Improvisation was a key element in performance art. Prompting their bodies to find out what they could do rather than focusing on a pre existing technique.

Artists such as architects, painters and sculptures were encouraged to explore on an outdoor stage rather than a familiar studio, unusual chorographic ideas. It was these kind of dancers that formed the inventive Judson Dance Group in New York.

Performance art includes a different array of aspects that strayed away from the conventional spotlight on the dancers themselves. John cage focused on using common objects and sounds to create ‘music’ within a space, where as Joseph Beuys focused on everyday objects to create a symbolised icon as well as live animals such as a Coyote. This artwork also involved a meditative conversation to an object, animal dead or alive. This then brought the meaning of the artwork out in the open as it was incorporated within the performance itself.

Art and Popular Culture

Jac Leirner's Lung, 1987 is a line of cigarette packs stung to nearly 5 meters long. This work reminds me of Andy Warhol's campbell soup cans in the way that they both consist a mass construction or gathering of a specific brand (in this case marlboro cigarettes). This also resembles Warhol's Time Capsules with an excessive compulsive attribute of a mass collection over years.