Class Notes:
* Early postmodernism...
Andy Warhol, soup can, 1962
Art could be anything, commercial object. Cross over with business. Anti analysing things. He painted tomato soup because he ate it everyday for 20 years. Finding out these factors helps discussing things and framing your work.
Richard hamilton, collage of the scenses, 1956.
People should be more engaged with life. How people are bombarded with information. Telling you to think and ask questions.
Rauschenberg, monogram, 1959.
Starting to expand the category's of art. Its a combined.
Smithson, spiral jetty, 19691-70
Sculpture but expanded. Colours came from bacteria from the lake.
Art outside the gallery.
Not to do with aesthetic value.
Dubuffet, seated cat, 19
Tapies straw on wood, 1969
Post modernism Used materials that were ugly to change the way we looked at art.
Anthony scott, catalogue tearing, london, 1968
They also could be conceptual.
John baldessari, no ideas, 1966-68.
Pluralism of art. Difficult to judge art and lots of questions of what is art.
* mid- postmodernism...
1968- early 80s... Focus on this after christmas.
Period of rebellion. And very political.
Hippy period.. Martin luther king was killed.. Americans peak of the vietnam war. Protests. Discontent of group. Identity groups started to form. Women were fed up of not having equal rights. Institutions went on strike.
Stereotypes and the feminine art.
Leon golub, napalm 1, 1969
Velazquez, rokeby venues, (17th century)
Sylvia sleigh, philip golub reclining, 1972. Reflection of a man in a female pose. Questioning stereotypes.
Philip golub is the son of leon.
Judy chicago, the dinner party, 1974-79
Celebrating famous women.
Represent female genticals.
Betty saar, the liberation of aunt jemimah, 1972
Highlighting racist stereotypes.
Aesthetics less important than the concept.
* late postmodernism...
Late 1970s, 80s & 90s
Serious purpose and not for entertainment.
Thatcher was in power. Self interest and
" no such thing as society" thatcher.
Everything about money, media and lifestyle.
Flurish of home improvement shows on tele.
Appearance became important.
Shock tactics.
Koons, winter bears, 1988
Koons, amore, 1988
Martin creed, work no. 88, 1994.
Damien hirst, away from the flock, 1994.
They not a painter or sculpture, they did alsorts of things..
Did it have any value.. Art could be anything but also some artists tried to claim back the art. Called the others. Claiming back modernists art.
Jenny saville, propped, 1992
Therese oulton, symtomps no3, 1986
Andy goldsworthy, tree soul, 1995 added something different with nature.
James turrell, atlan, 1995. Light shining through a hole. Couldnt tell whether it was sticking out like 3d.
Theory. Aim, message, plan etc
Basis of discussion and comparing things.
8th october...
Modernism to post modernism...
Mondrian composition 1921
Mondrian red, yellow and blue 1935-42
Not just interested in painting but all aspects of culture.
De stijl 'manifesto1' 1918 in art in theory p281. End of ww1
Interested in getting beyond national culture and how people could develop after the war.
Marcel breuer, steel chair 1928
Chair marcel breuer1925
About form and function. Modern materials. This could be mass produced.
Clear, logical forms based on rational principles readily accessible to everyone. Walter gropius (directorof bauhaus) 1919.
Bauhaus was an art college and attracted many artists to teach there. Closed in 1933 because of hitler. Based in germany but artist later moved and recreated the bauhaus in america.
Produced iconic designs which still look modern today. They made them so anyone could buy them whether rich or poor.
Tea glass by joseph albers.
Marcel breuer, interior 1926
Aesthetic is the styling of how it was put together. Aim was to design solution (best solution to do that job)
Siemens neophone, gpo type 1929. Stayed the same for decades and was mass produced. This wasnt changed for many years because it did the job it needed to.
British telecom phones, 1970s. They made phones lighter to suit more people.
We will look into recent changes and why they were changed?
Advertising became popular because when one company brought out a new version of phone the next also brought out a different kind of phone.
Once everyone had one, prices go down so other less fortunate people had a chance to have one.
Cars where also the same and the designing of different kinds.
Houses also went down the same route. But many moved to suburbia because of design.
Levitt house 1950
The levittown 1967
Suburbia, black convertable.
Edsel,
Model t ford, 1927 same as it was designed in 1912. Design became about status not just function.
Car adverts 1956.
Harley earl, head of design at general motors, 1950s
Aim was to get people swapping cars more often and making people want the next one. Social motivation.
Motorama,
Cadillac, 1956 and skyhawk,
Buick riviera tail fins
Each year they brought out different models and styling. Fins were put on because they thought it made it move more aerodynamic. Adverts stimulated the urge to buy.
Advantages to consumerism.
Mass production and the chance for everyone to have one.
Disadvantages: waste and debt. Uncomfortable state for those who cant buy.
Healthy society you need a balance and within the 1950s there wasn't a balance due to wealth.
Pollution, citys needed balance with the wealth and public squaller.
Some views from 1958 can still be recognised today.
Key point: consumerist society caused how people see the world and in design the solution was the focus on social role of the design rather than the function. It was about status, like the saying keeping up with the jones.
Modernism was about unity and consumerism is about status and about how people are different from one another.
Social mobility is desirable, possessions tell the world what kind of person you are. Lifestyle becomes more
Universalism to individualism ( modernism to post modernism)
Readings 15/10:
Lawrence alloway, 'the arts and the mass media' 1958 in art in theory, p715-717
John mchale, 'the fine arts in the mass media' 1959 in david robbins. The independent group, post war britian and the aesthetics of plenty, 1990 p183
12th November with Katy Suggitt.
Futurism, dada, fluxus, bauhaus, post modern and relational all experimented with sound.
Time and Duration; To artist this is about breaking the rules, they didn't want to stick with a certain amount of time during artwork but while making video this was different because they would stick with times such as 15/45/60 minutes etc.
Immersive experience; All artists played with the idea of sound. Some movements include Dada, Bauhaus, Futurism etc.
Sculpture is an object. installation is something people can get involved in. (Touch and explore)
Continuity and discontinuity; Continuity is about keeping the viewer interested. (Engaged) Discontinuity is strange and unexpected. (Unsettling)
Narrative and structure; This is about telling a story and structure of it. A photography could be narrative.
Hybrid Media - intermedia; This involves different types of media such as sound, video, photographs, sculpture etc.
Robert Rauschenberg;
* Open score, 1966 Wired Tennis Racket.
Born 1925-2008
Experimented with different media. He was involved with a group called E.A.T for sound.
Rauschenberg was about finding new possibilities.
Solstice 1968.
Pictures in different layers of glass involving sound.
Open score, 1966.
John Cage; 1913-1992
Trying to break out of habits. He was a composer and a philosopher. Cage wanted the audience listen to audio of silence.
He says he absorb sounds. John cage is very interested in structures especially in music.
He likes sound that doesn't mean anything.
video link to John cage talking about silence.
Critical studies 7
Intro:
What is the 'expanded field'?
This represents the increase in what artists be and can do.
Robert rauschenberg (1925-2008)
Background and influences:
Early post-mpdernism.
Also part of the anti-art with de kooning.
Best known for his combines and discarded things (rubbish)
Intrested in them for the chaos.
Didnt write much about his own work.
John cage: "there is no more subject in the combine than there is in a page from a newspaper. Each thing that is there is a subject"(pg735/1.34-36)
John cage: "And object is a fact, not symbol". (P737/1.19)
Rauschenberg: "Painting relates to both art and life"... ("I try to act in the gap between the two".) ( pg736/1.42&43)
Combine is not a composition because its all there.
Opened up so many possibilities for art in the future, using real things for art.
Liked the idea of chance, try not to repeat and use similar objects. Wants the viewer to look art with fresh eyes.
He not disguising things to look like something else but as they are.
"There viewer must learn how to use their eyes" rauschenberg.
Other artists that mixed rubbish in there art and combined 2d and 3d. Inspired by rauschenberg.
Kurt schwitters, pino antoni, 1933-34
Sarah lucas, au naturel
Tracey emin, my bed, 1999
Damien hirst, my way,1990-91
His Works:
Rauschenberg, interview
Untitled,1951
Dirt painting ( for john cage), 1953
Satellite,1955
Rebus, 1955 described as three panels with a mixture of materials by rauschenberg.
Gift for apollo, 1959
Monogram, 1959
Kickback, 1959
Reservoir, 1961
Allegory, 1959-60
Bed, 1955. Wall mounted and made of real quilt. People were shocked by this.
Untitled, 1952
Summary: he redefined sculpture. Opened up the idea it can be messy and the viewer becomes responsible for the meaning.
Sculpture:
Robert morris, felt, sculpture, 1967.. Also made by gravity
Michelangelo pistoletto, golden venus of rags, 1967-71
Giovanni anselmo, untitled, 1968
Joseph beuys, coyote, 1974
Joseph beuys, fat chair, 1963
Robert smithson
He believes When you put art into a gallery its imprisioned.
"A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world" Smithson.
Liked making his art in polluted places.
Land art.
His works:
Robert smithson, six steps on a section, 1968
General mirror with cracks and dust
Spiral jetty, 1969-70
People who followed his inspiration:
Nancy holt, sun tunnels, 1976 (she was married to smithson)
Holt, sun tunnels, 1976
Michael heizer, displaced/replaced, 1969
Walter de maria, the lightning field, 1971-77
Walter de maria, Half-mile long drawing, 1969
Andy warhol was one of the first to do this along with smithson.
Start of performance art.
Came from rauschenbergs input to art.
Allan kaprow ' assemblages, environments and happenings
Works:
Ed kienholz, roxy's, 1960-1
Jim dine, car crash, 1960
Yves klein, audience
Yves klein, Le into the void, 1962
YvesAnthropometries of the blue age 1960
Allan kaprow, 'eat' environment, 1964
Allan kaprow Household, 1964
Kazuo shiraga, making a work
Niki de saint phalle, 1960s
Anthony scott, catalogue tearing, london 1968.
Gustave metzger, demonstration of acid nylon technique, 1961
Jean tinguely, hommage a new york,1960
Readings:
Atelier populaire oui, atelier bourgeois non ( 1968) in posters from the revolution (1969)
Art workers coalition, statement of demands (1970) in art in theory p926-7
Critical studies 10
Women in art. 60s/70s feminist art.
Lavinia fontana, self portrait with keyboard, 1577. (Wedding portrait) wealth and educated. Red is traditional in italy.
She has 11 children and was the bread winner of the family.
Artemisia gentileschi, judith and holofernes, 1620. Very graphic and gory. Lead to house by man who lead the village, she and her maid killed him
Rachel ruysch, flowers with plums, c.1710 life and death of the flowers
Angelica kauffman, self portrait hesitating between the arts and painting and music, 1794. Choosing painting. Very popular. One of two women in the royal academy (one of first)
Johann zoffany, the academicians of the royal academy, 1772... Life drawing, women werent allowed in life drawing because it wasnt appropriate for women to see naked men.
Rosa bonheur, the horse fair, 1835/6 french artists and painted horses because she loved them. Went to races and the bus depo while it was hotse and carriage. Large scale. She wore trousers, she didnt want to go bus depo in a dress, it was illegal but she had written permission.
French art critic in1860 on female art. (Add from moodle)
Camille claudel c. 1884 sculpter
Claudel, l'age mur, 1895-1902
She ended up in a lunatic asylum.
Late 60s and 70s
There was a call for gender eguality and political protest (challenging authory)
Hippy period. Direct action and getting involve to change things.
Women's march, 26 august 1970. Usa
Mid post-modernism:
Sylvia sleigh, imperial nude: paul rosano, 1975.. Born in wales and moved to usa. Married to laurence alloway.
Velasquez, rokeby venus, c.1650 - sylvia sleigj, philip golub reclining, 1972.. Reversing the image.. Paints people as they are but in a classical pose.
Sylvia sleigh, the turkish bath, 1973 inspired by another art work painted by a man.
She is challenging of stereo types of gender.
Alexandre cabanel, birth of venus, 1883 she wanted to change the males thoughts on female body
Lawrence alma-tadema, tepidarium, 1881
Lynn hershman, roberta breitmore's construction chart, 1973 she invented a fantasy women doing things, isnt real but everyone can be her. About women and identity. Telling man we are capable of doing as much as men.
Gina pane, psychic action performance, 1974
Judy chigaco, menstruation bathroom, 1972
Things kept secret to keep women respected such as periods, things such as tampons kept out of see sight in shops etc.
Post-partum document vl. 1978-79
Interim-part1: corpus, and extase, 1985
Bodily process and rising awareness. She didnt want to glamourise the things women go through.
Martha rosler, vital statistics of a citizen, simply obtained, 1977. She making a joke on vital statistics on such as breast/waist sizes.
Women as an object rather than with history.
Eva hesse, contingest, 1968. Cheese cloth and fiber glass... Stretchy. Intrested in hard and soft and the contrast. Fragile.
Sculptor and born in germany. She has to leave due to ww2 and went to holland. Her and her sister went first and later parents but abandoned until reunited with family.
Hesse, right after, 1969
Uses soft materals into her sculpture and very open space.
Hesse, accession 11, 1967.. Rubber tubing through metal crate. Kids wanted to climb in it in museams. Soft rubber inside looks like a shaggy rug. Looked at sculptor in a different way.
She is questioning the way art is made and not lasting.
Miriam schapiro, garden of paradise, 1980. Quilt looking pictures. Embroidery and sewing back into womens art. Reclaim hidden history and the feminine into high art. Just as important and skillful.
Judy chicago, the dinner party, 1974-79.. Bit like a paddling pool. 48 feet. 13 place sets on each side.
Sappho was a famous poet. Plates have painted flowers on them but also to ressemble the female genitals. (Vagina)
Celebration of forgotton women. Aim to raise consciousness of the women in history and the traditonal female.
Betty saar, the liberation of aunt jemimah, 1972. Raising awareness of black women and power. Exposing black females and stereotypes. A similar figure in things like tom and jerry etc.
Adrian piper, i am the locus. No.2, 1975
Feministo, portrait of the artist as housewife, 1977. Reclaiming traditional craft of women.
Summarize.
Restrictions of women and mid post-modern era of potitical and social actions of feminist art and gender stereotypes.
Bodily processes and exposed preconceptions of women and art that reclaimed traditions and craft of women.
Message of it was more important than what it looked like. Political message.
Lots of women exhibitions and men were not allowed to show or see...
They wanted to make people change opinion on women and have equality.
Critical studies 12
Late post-modernism
Early 70s in france.
Analyse and examine culture and life, they did this so it was easier to discuss.
Some art was about their theory.
Things we looking at:
The death of the author - roland barthes (1915-80)
Michel foucault (1926-84)
Power and diversity - foucault
Authenticity and hyper-reality - jean baudrillard (1929-2007)
The aestheticisation of art - mike featherstone
some theories said the picture was more important than the artists. Author function changes perception of the picture.
Aura has gone into the picture. If we get rid of focus of the author we have freedom, meaning death of author and its more expressive.
Instead of looking at the author and his/hers meaning but instead interpret it ourselves. Challenges the artists and the artwork.
Hyper reality anything can go together. Mixing reality with history.
Things became divorced from its original meaning such as dreadlocks was about rasters but now it has lost touch with that but rather a trend. Declassification of culture and the original source and meaning. Absence of history because we live in a virtual world. We can sit in our houses and see and speak to people everywhere. Building mixed styles. Eg: royal ontario museum new wing, toronto.
Cars did this also and furniture shops (habitat). Shop layouts became very much true to life, walking into a shopmwas like walking into a persons living room. About lifestyle. A person got thrown out of ikea for throwing a party but it was more of a protest.
Shopping centres became more of an experience, pump in fragrances, statues, waterfalls etc.
Objects became more about design eg: braun calculators, starck toothbrush which was bad because it became a breeding ground for germs.
Fashion became mixed, own identity (street fashion)
Hallucination of reality.
Diversity and power:
Become aware of diversity and access to mass knowledges.
Challenge institutions, practices, discourses, from mid post-modernism but he questions it at the beginning of late post-modernism.
Uprising of stories that had been supressed like women in art, (women can be artists) gay rights etc.
Diverse approach to art.
Art can be anything and use someone elses art but their could be rejection. This role could be threatened. How do you judge it?
Originality has gone because everything has been done.
Examples of feminists:
Mar
Examples of free art and uses of others work:
*Vincent van gogh, olive trees, 1899.
*atelier populaire posters- made by anominus. Example of interpreting it yourself. almost like borrowing another painters work and using it yourself.
* feministo, breadbin, 1977
* marcel duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919.. He has reused it from . The takes out the original artists aura and uses to challenge sex by putting a moustache on it.
* jeff koons, popples, 1988. He borrowed to enlarge the statue.
Foucault proposes: "...free circulation
Examples of late modernism art:
Jean dubuffet, the street, 1944
Dubuffet, michel tapie soleil, 1946
Andy warhol, pink cow, 1966
Andy warhol, electric chair, 1965. Just images, because we seen them that many times that they become less meaningful.
Hamilton, mchale, voelker exhibit, this is tomorrow, 1956.
Reading 28/01:
Victor burgin, extract from 'the absence of presence' (1984) in art in theory, p.1068-1072
Critical studies 14
Theory into practice.
Text into their work. What you get a message across use words.
Picasso in cubism. Sometimes used them as pums.
Still life with chair caning 1912, picasso
Futurists used text to give a visual expression.
A way of bringing poetry into art.
Rauschenburg, kickback,1959 used bits of scrap from rubbish bins etc
Dom sylvester houedard, sonic water, 1964 concrete poetry movement. Bit like dada and subversion of art.
Joseph kosuth,one and three chairs, 1965 raises questions about art. Conceptual art is linked to this.
Lichtenstein represents others art and put it into his own style. Roy lichtenstein, takka takka, 1962. Mixing it with the idea of conceptual art. Original creator becomes less important but what the viewer perceives it to be.
Barbara kruger
Barbara kruger, your body is a battleground, 1969
Barbara kruger, the marriage of murder and suicide, 1998
Uses theory in practice in advertising and billboards.
We wont play nature to culture, 1983 like an advert or poster and looks as if it was made from the 50/60s but has taken inspiration from hannes meyer, study of L.bees. Deliberately taken ideas from different photographers because its suits her needs and aimed at male dominated institutions. Very dominant image and challenging the viewer and men.
Kruger, your gaze hits the side of my face, 1981. Not talking about possession that would be in magazine advertising but rather the politics and gender. About women being in public space and feeling vunurable and turns them into stone. Useless or paralysed. Strongly feminist. Speaking for people who feel vunerable or possessed.
"I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are, what we want to be, and what we become."
Kruger, in goldstein.
Questions the meaning.
"Her images... Tap into part of us thats been invaded and colonised- by the news media, an entertainment industry and political structure"
Kruger, i shop therefore i am, 1987
You cant see the forest for the trees/what sign are you? 1989
She whats you to think and attacking consumerism.
Power, pleasure, design, disgust installation,1997 critising institions. Held in galleries.
Billboard installation, new york,1988-9 her usual way of exhibitiong her images.
Truth hurts,1994
Open your eyes.1994
Her need to question things and the motives of advertising.
Holzer.
Holzer, the abuse of power.... 1982 new york abuse of power comes as no suprised.
Creates taste,1986 las vegas. Location is important. People have an obession with money.
Light goes through branches,1986 she says her work is between literature and art and showned in airports, sports stadiums etc
First work, selections from truisms, 1977-82
Holzer, Action causes more trouble than thought,1988-9
Statements people say are used in her work.
"Authorship blows your cover.."Holzer more important to circulate an idea. She didnt sign some work because she believed it was the viewers idea from image is more important.
Crab the attention from the viewer and whatever is necessary.
Installation guggenheim, 1989-90 words moved because of the led lights wrapped around the steps.
Power, personal responsiblity and gender.
"...the unsuspecting audience will see
Cindy sherman
Cindy sherman, untitled, film stills #35,1979
#32,1979
#4,1977
#47,1979 like someone has shouted, makes the viewer thoughtful.
#92,1981
#122,1983 angry women, expectations of women.
#131,1983
#118,1983. Subverting fashion photography
#145
Uses herself for her images but disguises herself. She dresses herself as stereotypes and characters and black and white. Copying female roles. Using or borrowing a genre of a film still. Constructing the characters to make the viewer make consumptions. Reacting outside the photography. Constructed identities that becomes post-modern.
"My stills were about the fakeness of role-playing as well as contempt for domineering male audience who could mistakenly read the images as sexy.." Cindy sherman in seigel, p.272
"I want to put the viewer on the spot and make them feel uncomfortable, perhaps in recongnition of their expectations."
Sherman in papadakis et al, new art, p.180.7
"Once the viewer looked up close, not only are they fake, they belong to a hideous character, the face
"...in the black and white stage, i purposely would underexpose or overexpose and wouldnt care if it was printed properly becaise it was about cheapness and not high art. Thats very opposed to the concerns of the photographic
Art theorist quote:
"Art theorist janet wolff described postmodern feminist work as that....
Which self-consciously deconstructs tradition, by variety of formal and other techniques ( parody, juxtaposition, re-
Visual culture & feminism
Originality & authenticity.
Critical studies 15
Marcel proust- french theorist.. Search of lost time..
Involuntary memory and fortune or happy moments. The gradual loss of enchantment of childhood.
Fleetingly recapture moments of recognition of childhood and past happiness.
Question critique groups.
In search of lost time: madeleine...
"one day in winter as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing that I did not ordinarily take. . . . She sent out for one of those plump little cakes called "petites madeleines"...
"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me"...
Scene from ratatouille of art critic like marcel proust.
Gaston bachelard- poetics of reverie (daydream)
Nostalgia and daydreams towards childhood.
Poetics of reverie: poetry and daydream
A nucleus of childhood in the human soul. A childhood pf humanity.
Daydream about new human possibilities. Re-learn how to be astonished.
“We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.”
"Sometimes the house of the future is better built, lighter and larger than all the houses of the past, so that the image of the dream house is opposed to that of the childhood home. Late in life, with indomitable courage, we continue to say that we are going to do what we have not yet done: we are going to build a house. This dream house may be merely a dream of ownership, the embodiment of everything that is considered convenient, comfortable, healthy, sound, desirable, by other people. It must therefore satisfy both pride and reason, two irreconcilable terms.”
“I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.”
Ernst bloch
The principle of hope...
Shawshank redemption clip.
Echoes, traces/ connections to future possible utopian possibilities.
All culture (potentially) contains utopian material can prompt personal traces of longing.
Utopia, is not-yet, so we daydream about the possibility of transformed scenarios- through booms/ comics / films/ fairytales.
Hope-detective: future =not-yet.
Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What are we waiting for? What awaits us?
Dreams, aspirations and hope.
"Fraudulent hope is one of the greatest malefactors, even enervators, of the human race, congretely genuine hope its most dedicated benefactor".
"Even if in the building of mere castles in the air the total expenditure one way or the other scarcely matters, from which misdirected and ultimately fraudulently used wishful dreams then result, hope with plan and with connection to the due Possible is still the most powerful and best thing there is. And even if hope merely rises above the horizon, whereas only knowledge of the Real shifts it in solid fashion by means of practice, it is still hope alone which allows us to gain the inspiring and consoling understanding of the world to which it leads".
Many films take inspiration from this such as harry potter, lord of the rings etc
Many tv programmes also took inspiration such as detective shows like csi, sherlock holmes and many more.
All forms of art can provide a 'window' beyond spiritual disconnection... The mundane 'modern' world and technology.
Art can prompt us to remember and ache to move beyond current limits and constraints.
Utopian self-encounters via art reminds us we want to "sing a better song"
Something missing...
A clip from danny boyles film 'sunshine' 2007
Spaceship crew, drifting towards their immanent death... Through space, homeless (the power of memory)
What if? Somethings missing! Selling dreams back to us. Consumption film/books etc become detectives all over again. Make a difference we have to make a difference. The power of memory.
Critical studies 16
Art and popular culture: prince, kelley, & koons.
Imtroduction range of approaches in late postmodernism:
Burgin, atkinson, himid, boyce, piper-
In common: political artists. Deliberality using media to actack institutions.
Bad painting to the art world and borrowed colourfield painting from the 1950s burgin.
Kruger, holzer, sherman were feminist artist and looking at their work was uncomfortable. Representing things.
Levine: rephotographs a photograph and presents work. Saying the original painter is important but rather the message the photographer is trying to say. Culture is the source of art.
Comparison with early postmodern pop art
Richard hamilton, just what is it that makes todays home so different, so appealing? 1956
Richard hamilton, $he, 1958-61
Welcomed moralistic ideas.
Andy Warhol, four campbells soup cans, 1965
Andy warhol, orange car crash, 1963
Presents work to attack mass production and paints stuff that was already somebodies work. Again the idea of the original painter isnt important.
Also didnt have a moral stance on it (doesnt mean anything.)
Hamilton and warhol wasnt about political agenda.
Richard prince: photo researcher or editor.
Had a bank of images and used them for modern america.
Richard prince, untitled (3 men looking in the same direction, 1978
Richard prince, untitled (3 women looking in the same direction),1980
Draws attention to how people are dipicted and how the models are posed and dressed. Assumptions of how people should look like in the states.
"Most of whats passing for information right now is total fiction. I try to turn the lie back on itself".
Richard prince, untitled (cowboy), 1980-4
Richard prince, untitled (cowboy), 1980-4
Took photos from adverts like molobrough cigerettes. He re photographed them and presented them again.
Represents from mass media and believes original photographer isnt important.
Quotes:
"Re-photographing someone elses photograph, making a new picture effortlessly. Making the exposure, looking...
"They are not so much the death of the author, more about establishing a new life for the author.... Artists tend tothink their experiences are unique, but they are not. Why should anyone be interested in the nightmares.....
Sherrie levine, untitled (after walker evans),1981 she questions the importance of the original photographer. She liked them and was intrigued by them but also questions walker evans.
Richard prince, the salesman and the farmer, 1989
Richard prince, what a business 1989
Re draws these and again re presents them
Similar to lichtenstein, blam, 1962.. Hes interested in the athestic views and values of the work rather prince isnt.
Work
Prince, good news bad news,1988
Richard prince, coming and going,1988. These are jokes made into large canvases. Jokes are usually heard by mouth but had presented it on canvas in large blocks of colour to make it uncomfortable.
Richard prince,what a kid i was,1988
Prince, half-boy/half-man,1989. He did a series on just car hoods because of the matt colour made them look like paintings.
Interested in meaning of consumer goods or signs.
Floating images.
Mike kelley 1954-2012
Background is in performance and source of work is in popular culture and everyday things.
Uses stuffed toys in his work.
Quote
"Pop art was pretty formal. It was like hard edge paintings in disguise. Theres nothing in pop art that really addresses the material it pictured, with perhaps the exception of warhol...
"In our culture, a stuffed animal is really the most obvious thing that portrays the images of idealisstion. All commoditites are such images, but the doll pictures the person as a commodity morethan most. By virtue of that, its also the most loaded in regard to the politics of wear and tear."
"To parents, the doll represents a perfect picture of a child- its clean, its cuddly, its sexless, but as soon as the object is worn out at all...
"...reductive, essentially heroic primal forms [which] lend themselves easily to the role of the authority figure. Thus it is only right we should want to defame them....minimal art is something that needs....
If rape or arson, poisen or the lnife, has wove not pleasing patterns in the stuff
"...art may not effect lasting changed, but by changing certain representations, art change ideas about things"
"...One... Of the complexities of art...
Work
Mike kelley, arena 7, 1990
Mike kelley, installation with deodorisers and stuffed animals, 1991-2. Didnt want new toys but old from seond hand shops but goves you an unsettling feeling as we associate toys with real children. People see the work as sad.
Mike kelley, more love hours than can ever be repaid, 1987 about emotional blackmail.
Mike kelley, installation,1991
Poked fun at minimalism. Little to see. All about the object but linked with children and pets. How much our pets become like our children.
Mike kelley, bestowing a blessing on columbus, reconstructed history series,1989. Making fun of american history and was taken from school history books.
Kelley, pay for your pleasure, basel/ic,1992
Kelley, pay for your pleasure, berlin, 1988. Quotes from crime and painted by prisoners.
Similarities;
Clas oldenburg, hamburger, popsicles, price, 1962
Jeff koons
Very clean and new contrast to kelley
Quote:
"I have always used cleanliness and form of order to maintain for the viewr a belief in the essence of the eternal..."
"It is a breathing machine. It also displays both male and female sexuality...
"I am a very spiritual person and i believe that spirituality is very, very necessary in the life of the individual"
"Ive been very interested in trying to help liberate people so that they can participate in social...
"I am absolutely a product of marcel duchamp; i come out of the duchampian period. So did andy...
Work:
Koons, winter bears, 1988
Koons, amore,1988 they were spiritual objects he said.
Koons, stacked,1988
Koons, naked,1988
Made in heaven, lithograph on canvas,1989
Puppy, (guggenheim, bilbao), 1992.
Balloon flower, versailles,1995
Hanging heart,1995/6
Balloon dog, 1995/6
Bmw art car, 2013
Collaboration with lady gaga, 2013
Leonardo da vinci, st john the baptist, 1513-16
Koons, john the baptist, 1988 his work is political and for the viewer to engage with his art. Deep emotion of love and spirituality.
Worked for museam of modern art.
Not interested in exposint sterotypes and to make people feel good. Adveryising the american dream and approves of the american life.
Critical studies 17
Sensation: the ybas 1990s british artists... ( young british artists)
Sensation exhibition at the royal academy in london...
Sensation exhibition catalogue, 1997
More the 40 artists involved. 1952-1971 born.
*Simon calley 1960
*jason martin 1970
*jenny saville 1970
*rachel whiteread 1963
*gavin turk 1967
*chris ofill 1968
*glenn brown 1966
*michael landy 1963
*tracey emin 1963
*martin maloney 1961
*sarah lucas 1962
*ron mueck 1958
*richard billingham 1970
All collected by a collector called charles sarchy. Advertising modle.
In 80s he started going to end of year shows in degrees and use to by the whole show and thought he would get some golden eggs because they were cheap and before they become famous.
1988 damien hurst set an exhibition called freezing and invited collectors and critics and sent out cars to pick them up to make sure they came. He lent his art collection to the royal academy exhibition.
Sensation, general view, 1997
Simon callery
Simon callery, newtons note, 1996 evoke the sky from a very high building.
Series of layers of pale washes. Interested in possibilities of pale painting.
Jason martin
Jason martin, merlin,1996
Jenny saville
Jenny saville, propped, 1992 19 feet high. Large scale. Inspiration from earlier painters and very tradition with a modern touch. Feministic.
Rachel whiteread
Rachel whiteread, house,1993 won the turner prize. The only derelic house standing in london. Takes moulds of things and interested in sculpture and negative space.
Whiteread, holocaust memorial, vienna, 2000. Shows her negative space and was commissioned to do a sculpture in trafalgar square.
4th plinth, trafalgar square,2001.
Gavin turk
Gavin turk, pop,1993 wax work portrait in a glass case. They put precious things in glass case to be kept clean. Stood in elvis pose.
Warhol, double elvis,1963
Sid viscious of the sex pistols. Died in 1979 and acused of murdering his girl friend.
Linked the two icons together and also represents the death of the author.
Gavin turk, cave, 1991 end of year show at university and just a black dot in a large empty room.
Borrows ideas.
Chris ofili
Chris ofili, popcorn tits, 1996
Chris ofili, No women no cry,1998
Elephant dung was used to hold up his work and became his signiture. Also his african heritage and became an african campayne.
Becaome mainstream culture, artists became part of celebrity peak.
Glenn brown
Glenn brown re paints well known works, borrows work and large scale.
Very detailed. Exhibition of dali re paintings and was stopped because of the dali foundation who said he was stealing his work.
Glenn brown, dali christ, 1992.
Michael landya
Costermongers stall, 1992-7
Closing down sale, 1992
Interesting in art and business like warhol etc.
Product disposal facility,1998 cleaning service to get rid of unwanted people and stuff. Performance piece called breakdown and took over at shop called ca in london and collected things like paper clips etc and destroyed them. Open to vistors. Cars, clothes etc destroyed. In the end he only had his overalls he had on left.
Breakdown, 2001
Tracey emin
Early work involved sewing.
Everyone i have ever slept with,
Dirty sheets and all, 2006
May dodge, my nan,1993
Love is what you want, 2011.
Confessional work and feminist art. Very intimate and uncomfortable to look at. People said its more like theropy for her
She become a national treasure.
Martin maloney
Sony levi, 1997
The lecturor, 1997
Very naive and childlike. Deliberately bad painting. Attacks political agenda.
Sarah lucas
Sod you gits,1990 very sexual work.
Bunny,1997
Au naturel, 1994
a lot of work came from the sunday sport and intended to provoke and emuse. Visual tricks.
Feminist and exposing how women are spoke about in the media.
Ron mueck
Big baby,1996
Dead dad, 1996
In bed, 2010
Mask, 1997 7 feet tall in versace collection.
Lovesmessing about with scale. Always does sculptural work but did experiment with puppets. Changing scale makes it sinister.
Effecting space around the object.
Ghost, piece of work in liverpool tate.
Richard billingham
Untitled, rays a laugh,1995
Untitled, rays a laugh, 1995
Its exposing and using his family in an uncomfortable way. Some are staged.
Marc quinn
Marc quinn, self, 1991
8 pints of blood taken and made into a cast to create this self portrait sculpture. Made of him.
Became harder to do in later because of aids etc.
Mat collishaw.
Mat collishaw, bullet hole, 1988-93
Shock value and provokative,
Damien hurst
The physical impossiblilty of death in mind of someone living, 1991
A thousand years, 1996 about cycle of life and death.
This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home. 1996
Ford ad, after hirst. Inspired by hirsts dicepting things.
Jake and dinos chapman, great deeds against the dead, 1994 borrowed from painting below and made it into sculpture.
Goya, great deeeds against the dead, 1810-20
Marcus harvey myra, 1995 moors murder with ian brady. Iconic photograph and pixalated but close up each pixel is a childs hand print and was argued of its subject and people didnt like it. Ahock factor.
Myra in situ.
Critical studies 18
Richard peregrine
Gregory crewdson.
Mathew b brady, (ca 1822-january 15, 1896) and alexander gardner (0ctober 17, 1821-december 10,
Alexander gardner- lewis payne, one of the lincoln conspirators before execution in july 1863.
Wilderness landscape photography, firstly
Walker evans (november 3, 1903- april
Lewis wickes hine. Photographed mills in america but also came to britian to do the same.
Annie leibovitz is similar to hines portraits with her olympic images.
Lewis baltz
Robert adams
Stephen shore
New top graphic.
Robert frank artist. The americans book, Introduction by jack kerouac.
Looking at americans in an extreme way. Wasnt published in america for years because of the controversity.
Garry winogrand, decisive moment. Crewdson influence with race issues and how things are portrayed.
Duane michals, combines writing and humour into his photographs.
Ogle winston and used the first cinomatic technique with huge scale production. If train was in a different place it wouldnt be as good as it is. Locomotive railroading. Best known for his black and white photography. Wasnt respected by americans, people didnt think he was a good photographer and wasnt really recongnised.
William eggleston- freezer 1980
Edward hopper- nighthawks 1942 painting
Women in the sun 1961
Hotel lobby 1943
Influenced by crewdson photography.
Diane arbus "i really ...
Boy with granade
Twins
Nudist camp
8*10 plate camera - crewdson.
20-25 assistants and production.
Critical studies 18
Tradition in postmodern art.
What is tradition?
Something repeated in history.
Figurative painting because it tells a story.
Conforming and beliefs.
History that has been passed down.
Comes from a latin verb handing on from one generation to the next and keeping something alive.
Works:
Sarah lucas, self portrait with eggs, 1996
Jake and dinos chapman, tragic antimonies garden, 1996
Barbara kruger, your body is a battleground 1989
Jenny holzer, inflammatory essays 1978-9
Jenny saville
Jenny saville, propped, 1992 mirror writing painted into image, feminist text.
"If we continue...
Art with a political agenda.
Jenny saville, plan, 1992 carsched, jame sarch bought all her work from exhibition. Lines on the body are ment to look like a map because theses are usually show hills or could represent lines for cosmetic surgery. Indicating whete weight needs to be lost.
"I found this system of drawing...
Jenny saville, branded, 1993
Jennt saville, Prop, 1993
Very awkward positions.
"The foreshortening... She handles brilliantly in complex passages of subtle colour. Dense areas of white on the inside of the thigh shade into pinkish...
Someone describing her work.
Inspired by:
Lucian freud
Rubens, the judgement of paris, c1636
Rembrandt, self portrait, c.1663
William de kooning, women v, 1952-3
Artists working within a traditional discipline...
These challenged traditional art and deconstructs tradition.
Fighting against tradition in some way, domination of power in politics or rejecting the traditional art work.
Characteristics of work
* nude, body image.
* feminist painting, made to confront it, want you to feel uncomfortable.
* dipict reality of un-idealised flesh.
* obesity and size self portraits.
* untraditional poses
"I dont want you to control that image as a viewer, if you want assess this body then you have to assess your own position. Not just how you look at the body, but how you look at beauty or imagesof the female body in art."
"Ive got a real passion for paint, i am interested in the body and painting flesh. Plus i really enjoy being in and playing with the history. And tradition of figure painting."
Saville with glen luchford, closed contact, 1995-2002. 8 foot paintings in exhibition.
"Part of the interest i have in our photographs is that they possess a slickness, this opulant atmosphere that is in contradition to the content. People are drawn to this beauty, then it begins to register that its a female body, parts of which have been grotesquely manipulated. So you have this attraction and repulsion. I also like the fact that i am not inviting you to look yet i am pushing almost as close as i can get to you."
Hughie o'donoghue. 1953
Concerned with human values, sugguestions of human figures and very mysterious.
Fires, 1989 influence of turner
"We cant escape history... Its is important to understand the context in which one works, i think in many ways... Great works of art have crystallised certain univesal sensations of what it is like to be a human being. The same sensations are rediscovered by successive generations in a new way, in a way thia is particular to their time." Hughie o' donoghue
Fires exhibition catalogue, 1989
"Painting the nude is like putting on a heavy coat, its quite difficult to manoeuvre with this coat on. Its like an institutetion initself, the nude in art... You inevitably read... Jenny saville.
Martin maloney
Martin maloney, sony levi, 1997
The lecturer, 1997
Sherrie levine, untitled ( after kandinsky), 1985
Cindy sherman, untitled film still, 1977
Saville and o'donoghue were very opposite to this because they created own work and painted realistically rather the simple childlike paintings.
"Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take risks...
Anish kapoor
Anish kapoor, white sand, red millet, many flowers, 1982 uses intense colour. Cultral insignificance.
Studio shot
"I think that... The whole idea that in a world where things are explicable art remains unexplainable is absolutely crucial."
Likes work to be mysterious and celebration of culture and colour.
Anish kapoor, untitled 1990 describes them of solid lumps of blue air. Give you experience. Looking at his work you cant tell wheither they are solid.
Anish kapoor, untitled, 1990
Untitled 1992 (wood, fiberglass, pigment)
Turning the world inside out II, 1995 x2
Untitled, 1996(mirror)
Belladonna, 1997
At the edge of the world, 1998, stange colour and feeling, a big dome and gives you orge struck. Creates environment to experience that feeling.
"If i make a hole i always want it to appear to be full, thats what...
Makes you question your own space and make you involved to give you an experience.
Seen as a minaminalist with work being of floor and very large.
" I think the real subject for me, if there is one...
Kapoor, orbit, 2012. Give viewer a persepective they wouldnt usually have.
Cloud gate, 2994-6, messing with perception and feeling of being small. People upsidedown and minimalistic.
Cloud gate with luminous field by luft werk, 2012
These artists believe that traditional art are still valued and can still work this way but add something unique to it.believe ypu can be engaged with art. Slow art, the viewer takes time. Viewer needs time to respond to the experience.
Jame turrell, 'mapping spaces' in stiles & selz (eds) theories & documents of contemporary art, p574-6.
Critical studies 19
Jmw turner, monte rosa, 1836 depicts unspoiled nature.
Ford madox brown, an english autumn afternoon, 1952-54
Smithson, spiral jetty 1969-70
Nancy holt, sun tunnels, 1976
Walter de maria, new york earth room, 1977
Robert morris, continuous project altered daily, 1969
Making a point about gallery and art should expand rather than nature. Itself..
Artists reacted against this kind of landscape painting. Natural form should be iradicated from art.
Piet mondrian, composition , 1922.
Nature stood in the way with progress.
Richard long 1945
Work outside in the landscape. Choice of lanscape is part of the work. Also interested in the human body making traces through the landscape. Lays the grass down and interested in trace of man through buildings.
Experience that place with the speed of the human body. Sometimes he leaves objects throught the way and collects stones and places them in the picture. Like leading the way. Interested in wilderness and how difficult to find it in modern day.
Remote place that many people dont go.
Not changing the landscape on a large scale. Experience of being outside.
Communicate a sence of place. Contrast between perminance and imperminace.
He walks hundreds of miles. Inportant documentary work.
A clearing, a six-day walk in the hoggar, sahara desert, 1988
A line made by walking 1967
Walking a line on peru, 1972 taken from the air, ariel.
A hundred mile walk, 1971-2 sometimes uses maps, words and photographs.
Mountain, lake, powder, snow, 1985 again taken by ariel photography. Interested in open space and the human.
"A walk is just one more layer, a mark, laid upon the thousands of other layers of human and geographic history on the surface of the land."
A stone line, 1980
Red earth circle, 1989
Materials: slate.
Andy goldsworthy, 1949
Studied in the north west. Only works with natural place. Doesnt move anything and its about that place.
Assembles things. Makes sculptures with natural materials. The photograph is the document pf the work because they will later seperate and no longer be there. Some he makes will natural stuff and presents them in a gallery. Bringing the outside into the gallery.
He photographs his sculptures. Photographs are the record of it.
Balanced rocks, 1978
Sycamore, 1979
Elm, 1978
Beech leaves (threaded by stalks), 1985
Horse chestnut, 1982
Drumlanrig sweet chestnut, 1988
Planes, 1988-9
Hazel stick throws, 1980
Rainbow splasher, 1980
Leaf stalk room,
Leaf stalk room, ( horse chestnut leaf stalks held together with blackthorns), 2007
Carving frozen snow, japan, 1987
Touching north (north pole) 1989
Melts back and doesnt pollute anything. He says its very rewarding working with snow because its easy to craft and the light effects.
James turrel
Mapping spaces 1987.
Juke, 1966
Squat, enzu, carn, 1966
He works with light. What he realise to to use light makes volume. Projects light into a corner to make a shape. Look like solid shape and are presented in gallery. Interested in visual perseption and giving the viewer a experience of a different perseption.
Uses intent colour that looks like a painting like rothko,
Last breath, 1990.. Very large and gallery dark, looks as through there is something solid there and uses light to alter your perseption.
Atlan, 1995. Uses colour to find it hard to focus and were the work starts and finishes, again looks solid because of the intense colour.
Sculpture he calls them solid lumps of blue air. People try to touch it but you dont feel anything.
"Often people reach out to try and touch it. My works are about light in the sense that lightis present and there: the work is made of light."
The deer shelter, yorkshire sculpture park, 2007. It is enclosed apart from the rectangle block on the ceiling and watch the sky moving and the reflection of light moving projected into room. Called aperture work. Like the opening the camera observing of the sky. Like flying in the sky in a plane.
"My desire is to set up a situation to which i take you and let you see. It becomes your experience. I am doing that a roden crater. Its not taking from nature as much...
Roden crater, arizona.
Roden crater (exterior) entrance to crater again like looking at the deer shelter and acts the same, aperture of light inside to project light and movement. Big observatory.
Interested in capture astronical events and sibline (something bigger than you)
Giving the experience to the viewer.
They all work with nature, not dipicting it but documenting it. Putting finger up to art. The viewer is active in this art because they are experiencing it.
Essay
What is the post-modernism?
Post-modernism creates its own uniqueness and individuality which creates a synthetic approach through gestures that are often funny sometimes confrontational and occasionally absurd.
This usually bases itself on clarity and simplicity and confronts you with the issues which occurred at the time with a positive aspect eg: war, politics and religion. Real life becomes a part of art. Common characteristics are installations, collages etc.
Post-modernist were trying to achieve a radical freedom in art and design in contrast with other forms of art because their aim was to change people’s ideas of what art was. They borrowed from other genres and artists. Eg: Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919... He has taken out the original artist’s aura and re-uses to challenge sex by putting a moustache on her. Things became divorced from its original meaning. They were using art to attack culture. The death of the author and the Mixing of reality with history became a major part of post-modernism.
"The free circulation, the free manipulation, the free composition, decomposition, and recomposition of fiction." Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” (1969)
A Period of rebellion, Originality has gone because everything has been already been done so they recycle past styles and bring it into the modern art world.
They had a wide variety of disciplines or areas of study, including art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, communications, fashion, and technology.
Post-modernism rejects tradition. Instead bring in the merging of subject and object and attempts to bring in the idea of self and other into the work. They want the viewer to think independently behind the object to create our own idea of what the artist is trying to portray.
These touched upon sore subjects like feminism, gay rights, minority issues and many more. For example: Lynn Hershmann, Roberta Breitmore’s construction chart, 1973. She invented fantasy women doing things and anybody could be her. This was to communicate women are capable of doing anything.
Women were restricted in the things they could do before post-modernism and these female artists wanted to make people change their opinion on how they see women and enable women to have equality. Some artists painted women how they are in reality because many paintings of women in previous years were about being sex symbols or stereotypical things women are supposed to do eg: washing and cleaning.
They challenged Authority and demonstrate political protest which was the beginning of the hippy period. They wanted direct action and society/viewer to get involved in changing the way of life.
“Part of the interest I have in our photographs is that they possess a slickness, this opulent atmosphere that is in contradiction to the content. People are drawn to this beauty, then it begins to register that it’s a female body, parts of which have been grotesquely manipulated. So you have this attraction and repulsion. I also like the fact that I am not inviting you to look yet I am pushing almost as close as I can get to you.” Jenny Saville
She wants the viewer to see women in a different way and make you feel uncomfortable. Women are seen as beautiful and perfect but in her imagery she wants to point out their imperfections and how women feel about the stereotypical women that are usually portrayed and it is unrealistic.
Post-modernism was mainly about reacting to political issues and so they present in their work the imperfections in society and the will to change for the better.
James Turrell, an American artist born 1943.
Work: Roden Crater, Arizona.
Turrell's work was inspired by his family and their shared interest in meditation and spirituality, his grandmother once told him
"See the light within."
Turrell studied Perceptual Psychology at Pomona College and received his MFA at Claremont College.
He challenges the perceptions of reality using light and space with installations and dimensions. His first installation was created in 1968. James Turrell is also interested in capturing astronomical events and sibline (something bigger than you). He moves away from modern values because his work revolves around the viewer, their experiences and thoughts rather than what the artist is thinking and expressing. These are the typical characteristics of a post-modern artist.
"My desire is to set up a situation to which I take you and let you see. It becomes your experience. I am doing that at Roden Crater. It's not taking from nature as much as placing you in contact with it." James Turrell: The Art of light and space, (1992) p.205
These structures are situated in an elevation roughly around 5,400 feet in the San Francisco Volcanic Field near Arizona’s Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon. The Roden Crater is sat upon an extinct volcanic cinder cone and has been transformed into an observatory for visitors to explore the possibilities of light projected into the dome from stars and the moon etc.
The large project began construction during 1979 and is still on-going today.
James Turrell calls them 'Apertures', these acts like a camera lens allowing light into the space and the viewer engages with the art itself. I believe this is a form of borrowing from an historical idea such as the 'Pinhole Camera' invented by Ibn al-Haitham and brought into the post-modern era.
The present day we live in has become very technical and people live in a virtual world of computers and technology but this gives people/viewer the experience to engage with the old with new.
The observatory is almost like you’re in a virtual world with the movement and light reflected into the dome.
"My work is about your seeing. There is a rich tradition in painting of work about light, but it is not light- it is the record of seeing. My material is light, and it is responsive to your seeing." James Turrell.
He explains how the viewer sees light through the painter’s eyes and is only a record of light but with his work you can interact with the light and see for yourself how it responds with your surroundings.
I really find his work intriguing and would like to visit one of his exhibitions. He has exhibited work in galleries which are very simplistic, he projects light into corners to create a solid look shape of intense colour that is similar to a painting of Rothko's eg: James Turrell, Last breath. (1990) He calls them solid lumps of blue air.
"Often people reach out to try and touch it. My works are about light in the sense that light is present and there: the work is made of light." James Turrell, Mapping Spaces. (1987)
They look real and people visiting the gallery try to touch the object. I want to experience the light and see how it looks personally and interact with it. I chose to look at this artist because this links to my subject Photography.
“Visual art usually invades the head; Turrell hopes to invade the entire body.”
—UK’s The Independent
My second artist I have chosen to look at is Nancy Holt; she is also an American artist born 1938 and began her art career during 1974. Both artists are similar and different because they explore light and space with installations but are different because he uses the light from the sky while she focuses on landscape.
Nancy Holt 'sun tunnels' 1973-6.
The tunnels are situated in the Great Basin Dessert, in Utah. They are very large tunnels created from concrete with several circular holes punctured into the walls in a variety of sizes.
They are positioned and aligned into an 'X' shape due to the setting of the sun on the days of the solstices eg: June 21st and December 21st. The sun shines through all of the tunnels but later when the sun sets it casts light through the holes creating circles of light. Each of the holes has a certain diameter in size and is positioned to correspond with the four different stars eg: Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn. The tunnels frame a circular view of the desert from inside, giving them a camera like picture.
“I wanted to bring the vast space of the desert back to human scale” Nancy Holt, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. (1996)
The viewer sees the landscape picture in human scale. Nancy Holt wants people to interact with her work through vision and scale whilst also experiencing space and light. Like Turrell she is exploring with human perception.
She has used the desert as her gallery; she believes this will be just as accessible as the gallery due to moving into a post-modern world. Technology has progressed and has given people more mobile opportunities to visit her work.
"It is a very desolate area, but it is totally accessible, and it can be easily visited, making Sun Tunnels more accessible really than art in museums... A work like Sun Tunnels is always accessible... Eventually, as many people will see Sun Tunnels as would see many works in a city-in a museum anyway." Nancy Holt.
The 'sun tunnels' are situated in a natural surroundings in the desert giving her work a uniqueness "where no man has gone before" and the hope of bringing people out of cities to view her work because people are stuck in a modern world of city life.
You can appreciate the timelessness of the surrounding and peaceful atmosphere while in contrast with cities and the speed of man. I believe James Turrell had this idea also with 'Roden Crater'.
"One time I stayed about five or six days straight in the van, I would watch sunrises and sunsets and the stars at night, which were incredible – you could get lost in them. When you’re alone in the desert, you’re ageless, timeless. You start to lose a sense of being contained in your body. It can be scary – where do I begin and end? You expand to fill the universe. I found myself saying certain words out loud to myself over and over, just to know that I was there. I became very aware that Sun Tunnels was a way of bringing the universe back to human scale. It was a way of framing the landscape, and orienting one in space and time – of differentiating something vast and undifferentiated." Nancy Holt, Telegraph. (2012)
They both work with nature, not depicting it but documenting it. Putting the finger up to art. Freedom of doing what they want and involving the viewer to their art because they are experiencing it too. I believe they do reflect the beliefs and values of post-modernism because of this. Both artists want to bring the gallery into the wilderness and the viewer to travel to see the art because we have come into a post-modern society and the opportunity to travel.
These different locations have once been active with people many years ago but due to a modernism world people moved to be near cities. They contrast because Turrell wants the viewer to experience light and space because it is vital for our reality to see and the need of vitamin D whilst Holt speaks of the location and scale.
I believe both these artists are very interesting because of the use of light for their subject. This idea is different to what I or anybody has seen before because they have used light to their advantage. Light does make a great subject and is very important in the photography world because without light we wouldn’t be able create pictures or print.
It is interesting to see how light can make shapes and project shadows and is what both artists used in their imagery.
Harvard referencing.
James Turrell (1992). Art of light and space. America: Frank E Adcock. P205.
Kristine Stiles (1996). Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings... America: University of California Press. P536.
James Turrell (1987). Mapping spaces: A topological survey of the work by James Turrell. America: Peter Blum Edition. P2.
Michel Foucault (1969). "What Is an Author?” The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon 1984. P101-20.
Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Holt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Turrell
http://lemons2williams.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/nancy-holt/
http://www.neilstoolbox.com/bibliography-creator/reference-book.htm#
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