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

Art & Politics - Voina

Voina is a Russian performance group who are known for their political and provocatively charged works. Their most recent stunt titled "Palace Revolution" involved a cordinated over turning of Moscow police cars in protest against the Ministry of Home Affairs. Due to this stunt two of the groups members, Oleg Vorotnikov & Leonid Nikolayev were taken without warrant an imprisioned to await trial. The members were bailed thanks to fund raising from fellow street artist Banksy, who donated $147 000 to the group.
Some of the groups other pranks have included; a public orgy at the State Biological Museum infront of a banner ridiculing Medvedev; live cats being thrown at McDonald's staff during International Worker's Day; and a huge skull and crossbones projected onto Russian Parliament

This video (which didnt have a share option for blogger so ill just post the link) features some of the groups stunts and an interview with the group's coordinator
http://vimeo.com/10365363

Body Reading Summary

The reading discussed the notion of conceptual art attempting to remove the elitist connotations attached to the art world at the time. What I found interesting was its complete failure to do so. Conceptual art is very concerned with the exploration of language as the underlying condition of aesthetic experience and this exploration led to the formation of a conceptual art language, effectively making the art form more elitists as you must have an understanding of this lanuage to understand the art. This focus on the raw idea of art in an obsessional and rationalistic way again forced audiences against the work as the aesthetics they were used to were stripped away, replaced with language and documentation of process which needed to be decifered

Art & Archive

In my research on art and politics I found this website for a magazine called Guernica and found a link to this work by Legacy Russell in October 2011 in Manhattan. The work features minature shrines all with tags describing people who had lived and died there. Over the period of the instillation members of the community laid flowers by the shrines.
http://www.guernicamag.com/art/3122/russell_art_10_1_11/