San Francisco Street Art

All over San Francisco there are sculptures of hearts. "Hearts in San Francisco" started as a fundraiser for the General Hospital in San Francisco. Every year they are molded and painted by different artists. The hearts decorate the city in different areas until they are auctioned off at the event for the hospital charity.

Robert Rauschenberg

Rauschenberg helped transition art from abstract expressionism to pop art.

He picked up trash on the streets of New York City and found objects that interested him and brought them back to his studio where he could merge them into his work 

Albany International Airport Gallery

Scott McCarney: Last Lines, 2010

Scott describes his piece of art, "The books I use are library discards, thrift store finds, or throw aways. Their out-of date content and bulk are poor competitors with the vast, but invisible World Wide Web."

William Ransom: Hold Back Hold Forth, 2009

"The dynamics of distance and separation shape this piece made from the trunk and branches of a single tree. The two empty seats retain a connection that is rigid, yet fragile. And while each end can move, they cannot either come together or move apart; a metaphor for our ties to family and geography."

Improve Everywhere, Ice Cream Truck Orchestra and Princess Hijab

Improve everywhere, a group which causes scenes in various ways in public.  The people involved are randomly picked from the public.  Personally I love the videos that they make of their "missions" lead by specific agents (leaders that organize the missions).  They are extremely funny and creative.  I like how they get such drastic response from the people who are witnessing these missions of the group.  I went to their website and watched many of their videos and these were my favorite ones.

Who You Gonna Call?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKB7zfopiUA


Suicide Jumper
http://improveverywhere.com/2005/12/10/suicide-jumper/

The video we watched on the Ice Cream Truck Orchestra, I thought was fairly annoying and I didn't really consider it art.  It also didn't really involve the public as much as improve everywhere videos did.  Not my favorite videos we have watched in class thus far.

Princess Hijab is a what they call the unknown artist in France who mysteriously goes around painting black veils on metro fashion ads and other ads posters billboards in France.  This has been very controversial because of the governments push on banning all face covering veils in France.  I personally think her art is a huge statement in their society.  I don't think that there should be a ban on veils and feel that its a personal preference.  Her artwork for me expresses he feelings towards not banning veils because she paints them on the faces of famous people in ads.  Here are some of her works that I like.

MIA POWERS

Art and the Public

In class we discussed how contemporary artists are using bodies, figures and the public to create their pieces of work.  I believe that involving people to create artwork is ingenious and gives people a greater interest in the art world.  Using humans as a medium for artwork is different from all other forms of mediums used in art and what I personally would ever think of when I thought of art.  Personally, I feel that  using the public as a way to express humor, social/political ideas, and personal feelings of various topics, helps people to connect greater with the artwork.  Being able to observe artwork through performance, images, movement, sound and active objects are art forms that encompass and relate to the public experiences, thoughts and feelings.  I find that photographs and performance art which connects certain beliefs and experiences with the human body is a wonderful form of art.  We looked at various artists that developed art by using the public such as, Damien Hirst, Gillian Wearing, Spencer Tunick, and Anthony Gromler.  My favorite artist out of this group would have to be Spencer Tunick.  He is my favorite because he goes outside of the norm and brings together enormous groups of people.  He uses their naked natural body to make connections with body and contemporary society.  I like how he goes outside the lines and takes risks.  His photographs are amazing, embracing the natural world and the natural body figure.  The architecture and landscapes that he uses are beautiful and capture a variety of surroundings from across the globe.  I respect and love how his large scale photographs show beauty in both the earth and humans.


Gillian Wearing

Spencer Tunick's Website: http://www.spencertunick.com/

Photographs "installations" by Spencer Tunick:

MIA POWERS

The Mona Lisa Curse (Parts 1-12)

This Documentary encompassed many of the things we have learned in this course to date...

Robert Hughes Most Important Quotes Parts 1-12: Regarding Opinion of Contemporary Art World and The Changes Which Have Taken Place 

Part 1

 "The entanglement of big money with art has become a curse on how art is made, controlled, and above all - in the way that it's experienced."d."

“Apart from drugs, art is the biggest unregulated market in the world, with contemporary art sales estimated at around $18 billion a year. (….) Boosted by regiments of nouveau riche collectors, and serviced by a growing army of advisors, dealers and auctioneers. As Andy Warhol once observed, ‘Good business is the best art.’"

Part 2

Hughes noted about the display of the Mona Lisa; “People came not to look at it, but to say that they’d seen it. (….) The painting made the leap from artwork to icon of mass consumption.” The postmodernist period of art as commodity and mass spectacle had begun..."

Part 3

 “In just a few years this would change, art as commodity would begin to take over from art as art.”

Part 4

“On the 18th of October, 1973, the Sculls auctioned off 50 works from their collection through Sotheby Park-Bernet, Inc. This was the first time a collector from that small contemporary art world treated their collection as an investment.”

Part 5

“American contemporary art as a serious ‘commodity’ was about to be born.” 

Part 6

“The consequences of such prices, was that art became admired, not through any critical perspective, but for its price tag. Auction houses were the new arbiters of taste.”

Part 7

“The way that art is experienced in these spaces has changed beyond recognition. The museum has adopted the strategy of mass media; an emphasis on spectacle, the cult of the celebrity masterpiece, art clocked through the blink of an eye or through the lens of a camera. But what it’s gained through an increase in these numbers, it’s lost in terms of freedom of access and availability to the eye and the mind.”

Part 8

“The Tate is a brand, the Louvre is a brand - is the Guggenheim a brand, I guess it is.”

Part 9

“I admired some of his work in the 60s and early 70’s, but he turned into a dull celebrity business man branded to the hairline. It was as good as printing dollar bills. The dominance of the art market has produced multiple Andys - global brands like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.”

Part 10

“appropriation” artist Richard Prince – a painting that sold for $7.4 million. Mugrabi professed; “We support these artists by promoting them, by buying them at auction, by buying them privately - you could say it’s a way of controlling it.”

Part 11

“Isn’t it a miracle what so much money and so little ability can produce? Just extraordinary. You know, when I look at a thing like this I realize that, so much of art - not all of it thank god, but a lot of it - has just become a kind of cruddy game for the self-aggrandizement of the rich and the ignorant, it is a kind of bad but useful business.”

Part 12

“If art can’t tell us about the world we live in, then I don’t believe there’s much point in having it. And that is something we are going to have to face more and more as the years go on; that nasty question which never used to be asked because the assumption was always that it was answered long ago - ‘What good is art?, What use is art, what does it do? Is what it does actually worth doing? - and an art which is completely monetized in the way that it’s getting these days, is going to have to answer these questions or it is going to die.”

Summaries and My Opinions on Part 1-12 

Robert Hughes the narrator of this documentary, has strong views on the contemporary art world and its over commercialization, most of them which I agree on.

In part 1, I agree that people focus less on the talent and beauty in the art that once was produced.  The love of art and appreciation of art that people used to uphold is no longer dominant and rarely present in the world of art. Money has taken over the art world and people are consumed in the profit and status their artwork they collect shows.  I personally would never purchase art based on the amount of money, the popularity of the artist, or for pure investment.

In part 2,  I also side with Hughes.  Mass media has completely distorted the importance of great artwork such as, the Mona Lisa.  I value how amazing that piece of artwork is and the talent it took to paint a portrait.  With contemporary artwork, many of the artist create a name and a brand with their names and lack the talent that used to be appreciated.  I don't find it interesting and beautiful to look at artwork that I feel like took no effort, time and talent and was just created to make money.

In part 3, "Hughes recalls his early days in the vibrant late 1960s art scene of New York, where he met and befriended the likes of Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) and James Rosenquist (1933-)." Hughes discuses how after this period art changed for the worse.  The art world and the people within it only considered art a profit making investment.  I completely agree that this is a negative impact and in my opinion just like like many other aspects in society the art world has transformed into a market that appreciates money over beauty and meaning.

Part 4-8 "Hirst ’sculpture’ – a dead shark suspended in a tank of formaldehyde titled; The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living."  We had previously discussed Damien Hirst and I believe he is a negative impact in the art community.  He is I believe one of the artist that is in it only for the money.


In part 9-12 I agree with Hughes in that mass production of art has made it so the public lacks the appreciation of the original piece of art.  Mega-collectors and art dealers are making the art industry worse and worse.  They promote artists and increase how much money an art is worth.  They are negatively impacting the future of art.  




Mia Powers

Collecting

In the last class we discussed collecting and how it relates to art.  Collecting is done by various people and places. You can find collections of art work in museums,  galleries and on websites.  Collecting is also done on a personal basis.  Private dealers, wealthy individuals and everyday people all collect art as well.  We looked at Judith Greer, who was a wealthy art collector.  She collected artwork from various places such as the Frieze Art Fair.  She was an avid art collector, who appreciated and and loved the artwork she purchased. We then looked at Herb and Dorthy, who were different in that they were art collectors who did not have money.  They bought art that was reasonable in price and that they loved.  They didn't choose the artwork they bought based on how famous the artist was or the type of artwork that was popular at the time.  They started collecting in 1962 and unlike many art collectors in dealers were not in it for the money and investment.  They appreciated the artwork they bought, which was usually minimal, conceptual and abstract artwork, done by new and upcoming artists.  Their collection by the early 2000s was estimated to be worth around 9 million dollars.  Instead of selling their collection and profiting off of it, they gave it to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.  Many art collectors have a passion, appreciation and a love of art, there are those who are in it for the profit, which has over time been increasingly more of a common practice.

If I were to collect artwork I would look not at who the artist was, how much it was worth, or the investment.  For me, I would choose the art that I felt was the most beautiful, the art that I considered reflected the artists talent and creativity.  I would also consider how the piece of artwork made me feel and what it was expressing.  I believe it is important to not look at artwork based on the popularity of the type of work at the time, the artists status in the art world and the investment a piece of work might have.






Mia Powers

Installation Art: Fred Wilson

Fred Wilson:

Curates installations for his art.  His work focuses on cross cultural pieces, also on history, tradition and ethnicity.  He displays objects together that are related in various ways, whether its the time in history they are from, the places, or objects from different cultures who he is referring to.

Mia Powers

Movement of Installation Art

Installation art can include various arrangements of objects in any type of space.  Every piece of Installation art is different.  In contemporary installation art, pieces focus on the viewers experience.  Many types of installation pieces present views of the artist, and shows significant points to their lives, which are shown through objects.  Installation art varies within the space which is being used, the way its used and the difference in objects used.  Presenting objects unusually and the space between certain objects is an important part of creating installation art.  Artists use it as a means to connect to memories or specific events of times in history.  Installation art can be made up of any medium (sculpture, film, painting etc.) and is always influenced by different things.  Song Dong is an artist who used his life and all the belongings in his mothers house to create a space in a Museum Of Modern Art that mimicked his home.  "Waste Not" Image Below...

We also discussed different kinds of Installation Art as we looked at Turbine Hall and many of the works displayed there in the past and present.  We looked at artists such as, Doris Salcedo (crack in the floor, symbolized experience of unwelcome immigrants, racial hatred, social vs. politics) Ai Wei Wei (100 million porcelain sunflower seeds, currently displayed in Turbine Hall, also shows connection with politics and culture).

In my opinion Installation art is a great way to preserve history, but I don't believe I would consider it to be one of my favorite types of artwork.

Mia Powers

Richard Prince

Richard Prince is an American photographer and painter. In 1975, Prince began forming collages that had photographs in them. This is known as appropriation art. His re-photographed image, Cowboys, assembled from cigarette advertisements was the first re-photographed image to sell for above a million dollars.

Cowboys.

Kelly Salamack

Vija Clemins

The interesting thing about Vija Clemins artwork is that she uses many different types of media, such as, pencil, charcoal, oil paints, printing and sculpting. Most of her early work consisted of pictures of lamps, heaters, and TV's. She was said to pick her objects at random. However, she is best known for her later drawings of powerfully realistic images such as, the ocean and night sky.

For this image she used graphite as her medium.
What I most appreciate about her work is that these images are so plain but they really let the viewer get lost in the painting. Everyone can interpret their own feelings or meaning when they look at art like this. 

Kelly Salamack

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman is a contemporary artist that found his passion for art in college. He set up video cameras in his studio and recorded mice activity. He believed that you need to not watch anything so you can be aware of everything. He also saw that any act in his studio was a work of art. For me, I don't really understand Bruce Nauman's artwork. It tends to seem extremely random, however, it draws an interest because it is so random. Some of his artwork includes:

Kelly Salamack

Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst is an English artist and is allegedly Britain's richest living artist. Hirst's most well known piece of artwork is the Shark. He injected a tiger shark with formaldehyde and put it in a glass box so that you could see the entire animal. Hirst taps into human emotion and causes the viewer to think about life and mortality. 

"Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way, 2007. Stainless steel and glass cabinet with painted resin, plaster and cast metal pills" 

"Keep it Spotless"

Kelly Salamack

Arthur C. Danto

Arthur C. Danto was an art critic in the 1980’s. Danto’s was also a professor of philosophy and his theories stated that art is ever changing and controversial. He is best known as a significant art critic and much of his work was done in the Nation. Danto’s epiphany was that anything can be art and he invented the term “artworld”.  “Artworld” can be described by “an atmosphere of art theory”. 

Kelly Salamack

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a french artist whose art influenced growth of post World-War 1 Western Art. He counseled modern art collectors thereby shaping some of the tastes of Western Art. Duchamp opened doors for many artists and some of his most controversial works of art were: Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 and Etant Donnes.

Kelly Salamack

Installation Art

Installation Art:  Focuses on the viewers experiences
-presenting objects unusually
-objects placed in a certain amount of space
-artists use installation art as a means to connect to memories, history etc.
-it can be composed of many different mediums (film,photographs, objects, sculptures, painting etc.)
-the actual work of art is the room (space) in which the viewer enters
-arrangement of objects in one place
-this art is diverse, can be created in many different ways

2 examples:
 Damien Hurst: "Pharmacy"
Song Dong: "Waste Not"

Another example: John Dahlsen (environmental artist and contemporary painter)

"Multi Coloured Plastic Installation"
http://www.johndahlsen.com/detail_installation_art/multi_colour_install.html

Description: Size: Price: These Installation art works are a combination of two primary elements that make up my recent work.The wall works are large scale high resolution digital prints on canvas. The floor piece is made from the found plastics. One mimicking the other. .3m (h) x 4m (w) x .4m. (d) (Found plastics) 1 m (h) x 3 m (w) (canvas) $14,000

Mia Powers

Marina Abramovic

Videos of Marina Abramovic's Performance Art: Information of her life, cultural background in parts of these videos...

In my opinion Marina Abramovic crosses many of the boundaries that no other artist would even attempt to cross. Performance art, I believe, effects the viewers response and feelings more dramatically than any other type of art. Her performances exhibit the extreme risks that she takes as she makes her art come to life and interact with the people surrounding her.  I believe in many ways the art she creates, is in itself the viewers reactions to certain situations and the interaction with each individual.  I think that the peoples response with the interaction of her performance art is the art, the peoples emotions from her actions is the art she is creating.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9-HVwEbdCo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GD5PBK_Bto&NR=1





Mia Powers

Ann Hamilton and Matthew Barney

Ann Hamilton and Matthew Barney are both artists who blend art forms.  In contemporary art today, it is not always easy to identify and recognize the techniques and mediums artists use.  These artists use multiple types of mediums and styles in their artwork.  Both have different processes and use different mediums, although some of their artwork is similar.

  I believe that both these artists show how art has evolved and the realm of what is considered art has and will keep expanding.  This art is very interesting and I respect both of these artists for the amount of creative thought and the collective talent of different types of art they use in their processes.


Ann:


-works alone
-combines different types of acting
-uses photos, water, fabrics, light, film etc.
-her focus is on the five senses and how they relate to each other
-she creates videos

http://www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/videos/265 : "Creating Indigo Blue" Ann Hamilton (explains research and creation of he piece of work Indigo Blue)

Matthew:


-photography, film(theatrical)
-combination of videos, installation art, theater, music, fine arts, sculpture
-produces props for films, creates costumes
-focuses on the body and journey (story)
-5 movies:

 "Cremmaster" (levels of understanding, no straight forward understanding)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJfI1LRK0tc : interview with Matthew Barney.


Mia Powers

Appropriation Art (Censorship and Controversy): Shepard Fairy and Glenn Brown

Last class we discussed Appropriation Art.  Appropriation art is art, created from images, from photos, and magazines etc.   It reuses objects and culture to develop new art that mimics old art or objects that have already been created in the past.  There are many copyright issues that come along with appropriation art: Artists artwork vs. ownership of original piece of works.  Art forgery is a problem when artists recreate art to make it their own, but there can be issues about how much a piece of art has been altered to make it different enough from the original.  Shepard Fairy, is an artist who ran into copyright issues after using a picture that was not his.  The picture of Obama he used was taken by someone in the association press.  Fairy changed the tilt of Obama's head and the colors, but this was not enough to not be sued by the person who had taken the photo.  It would have also been acceptable it he drew the picture and then from his drawing to create his work.  Marcel Duchamp in earlier art, also ran into copyright issues when he did his ready mades, including the Fountain.  Glenn Brown is an appropriation artist as well.  Develops his work from old, famous paintings.  He takes images of that are well known from different sources like postcards, calenders, online images (etc.). He then combines all these into one paintings into one.

Shepard Fairy: Not as much of a drastic transformation in creating his artwork as Glenn Brown.

 Altered a photograph of Obama.  He argued he changed the position of Obama's head slightly, when he used the photo to create his piece.

Glenn Brown: Changes and recreates a piece of work from the past.  Expresses that transformation and translation of historical paintings throughout history is a form of decay.

Makes his artwork his own (borrows imagery), looks at the differences in one piece of work (diff. images of same work makes his own art), paints a picture of how a piece of work has been distorted through time.

Glenn Brown's artwork reminds me of the way the Mona lIsa has been mass reproduced and has been altered.
I believe Glenn Brown is incredibly talented.  I have appreciation for his artwork because it recognizes changes within the art world which have distorted amazing artworks from the past.  I believe he is an important artist in contemporary society.  Unlike Shepard Fairy who basically mimics photos and other pieces of art, I believe that Brown has much more talent and does not mimic other artworks, but changes them so dramatically to express the importance of not altering original pieces of artwork.






Mia Powers

Lari Pittman

I choose to research Lari Pittman after I came across one of his paintings done in 1994, “Untitled #32 (A Decorated Chronology of Insistence and Resignation).”  He used acrylic, enamel, and glitter on panel.

 I choose this painting to research because I found it very unusual and didn’t quite understand what the painting meant.  I thought the painting was hard to understand when I didn’t know anything about the artist or his artwork.  Pittman’s inspiration comes from comercial advertising and folk art.  His process of painting is very unique.  He layers his paintings to create detailed and complex scenes.  His paintings are very different and make you think. Pittman’s work can mean various things for viewers.  “His paintings and drawings are a personal rebellion against rigid, puritanical dichotomies. They demonstrate the complementary nature of beauty and suffering, pain and pleasure, and direct the viewer’s attention to bittersweet experiences and the value of sentimentality in art.” (pbs.org).

This painting intrigued me because I included so much symbolism. For me the painting represented the negative side of money in our culture.  My impression of the painting was that it was a reflection of the importance of money in today’s society, and how it shapes our lives negatively. There are many images layered on top of one another, but what stood out at me was female eyes, red hand with pink nails and blood dripping down, four women, hair, two credit cards, arrows, “look! Haley’s Comet.,” “R.I.P.,” crowns, and two roses.  After I learned more about the artist and studied the painting more the images came together and the painting made much more sense.   

 

"For me, craft has always been an ideological component in the work because it’s about a type of focus and social comportment that usually isn’t expected of a male. There’s a dutifulness that historically has been referenced or attributed to females, so I’ve always seen my devotion to craft as a type of protest."

-       Lari Pittman

Pittman was born and resides in Los Angeles, California.   

Mia Powers

Vija Clemins

In class we watched a video about the artist Vija Clemins and learned about the two Russian artists Komar and Melamid. Vija and the Russian artists use are contemporary artists that use different processes to establish their work. In the early 1990s, Komar and Melamid collaborated and worked on a project together.  They surveyed people within different cultures around the world to see what artwork was preferred in different cultures.  Their surveys asked various questions about what colors, scenes and type of media people would prefer in a painting.  Their results expressed democratic cultural society, the difference in preferences pertaining to art and came up with statistics about the most popular and least liked paintings.  Their project was called, " Most wanted Paintings On The Web."  Vija Clemins art and process were very different from theirs.  She was a artist who works alone and her process and are all about building a painting. She has different steps, which she takes while creating her work.  She sands a canvas and paint it white and then repeat.  She procreates images from magazines, photos and newspapers, as well as her own personal imagery.  Her pursuit of artwork is different in that, she focuses on what the connection her paintings bring on a personal level.  Vija is very exclusive while choosing her objects to paint.  She is very meticulous, and will paint her works over and over again, layering one on top of the other, just to get it right.    She also relies on her own expertise.  I believe Vija and Komar and Melamid both have unique process, in the way they create and connect with art.


Mia Powers

Dave Hickey

Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty by critic Dave Hickey…Quotes from the Reading…

            “… There are issues worth advancing in images that are worth admiring-that the truth is never plain nor appearances sincere.  To try to make them so is to neutralize the primary, gorgeous eccentricity of imagery in the Western culture since the Reformation:  the fact that it cannot be trusted, that images are always presumed to be proposing something contestable and controversial.” (Page 8)

            “The task of beauty is to enfranchise the audience and acknowledge its power-to designate a territory of shared values between the image and its beholder and then, in this territory, to advance an argument by valorizing the picture’s problematic content.” (Page 9)

            “… Contemporary art-no longer required to recommend images to our attention or to insinuate them into vernacular memory, no longer even to try.  The route from the image to the beholder now detours through an alternative institution, ostensibly distinct from church and state.” (Page 12-13)

Here of some examples of photographs done by Robert Mapplethorpe, the artist that Dave Hickey used as an example to support his critique:

Mia Powers

Jeff Koon

Last class we were introduced to the styles and movements of art through the decades. We also looked at art by Jeff Koon, an American artist who is best known for reproducing objects such as balloon figures. Koon also worked with flowers and in 1992 he created a piece for an art exhibition Germany. This 43 foot creation was Puppy.

Bruce Nauman and Dash Snow: What Should Be Considered Art?

Bruce Nauman and Dash Snow were artists we looked at in order to understand and answer the questions about what art is, the creativity of art and the impressions and connections one makes with pieces of art. They both considered their everyday life to be art.  Bruce Nauman is a contemporary, conceptual artist that creates videos, sculptures, paintings, neon’s and prints.  He is a creative and unusual artist that looks at actions including, speech and movements and considers them art.  The reactions and ideas to his pieces of artwork can be different for every viewer. Here are some of his pieces of artwork:

BRUCE NAUMAN:

Video:

"Mapping the Studio 1"

 "Clown Torture"

Neons:

Sculpture:

Dash Snow was another artist that used his own life to create art.  His collages and Polaroid’s showed and expressed his everyday life.  Although there are arguments to whether his art should have been recognized in the art world, it was recognized. Freedom to like and dislike and the process of appreciating art for whatever it might mean is extremely important in the art world.  Here are a few of his pieces:

I don't find that I have a connection with Bruce Nauman's artwork.  I would never be interested looking or purchasing any of his art pieces.  I do not agree with him that speech and movements are art.  Dash Snows artwork I believe is very interesting and expresses a world unknown to many people.  I find his artwork at many times to be repulsive, but I also fine them to be intriguing, unlike Bruce Nauman's artwork.

Bruce Nauman's Videos:  Documented his daily life, considered actions and movements art itself.  I felt his videos weren't interesting and I don't know if I personally would consider them to be art.

Dash Snow Photo Collages:  Dash Snow another artist that created his work by documenting his everyday life.  Although I think his photos are incredibly a times scary, weird and extremely weird, I thought that his artwork is much more interesting then Bruce Naumans.  His artwork hides nothing about his everyday life and even though sometimes its weird and hard to look at there is something intriguing about being able to see the record of his life.
Mia Powers