This week I have started to work on the background of the scene. I am facing the challenge of making it a big enough contrast to the sky in order to be seen while still blending it to make it look distant.
In art this quarter, we’ve been talking a lot about controversial contemporary art, and the debates surrounding it. Sarah Harrison writes, “As time has moved on and contemporary art has moved with it, controversy has somehow always managed to keep up.” Harrison’s article, “Censorship and Controversy in Contemporary Art” relate to the ones we’ve been reading for class because they’re all about censorship and controversy, and the question of whether or not art has a limit that it should not cross.
My understanding of art has shifted back and forth while reading these pieces because they provide multiple perspectives, and each perspective has valid points. While some of the modern art today can be alarming and even offensive, people have to consider how art changes. Harrison talks about how 1907 was the year that modernism was born when Pablo Picasso delivered Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which shocked and offended people. The abstract painting of what appeared to be a group of prostitutes was appalling to the public at that time. Even more difficult for us to understand today was the shock and outrage that came with the impressionist paintings. However, the impressionist period and the beginnings of modernism have served as a base for so much art created later on. It seems like, from our history, we should learn that it is always good to support art and lift up artists whose work is new and different. Suppressing the art of certain artists that is considered “controversial” or “offensive” is suppressing that person’s right to expression, and potentially keeping them from inspiring future artists. For example, in the article “Censorship at Many Levels,” G. Wayne Clough, head of the Smithsonian, ordered a video by Wojnarowicz to be removed just because the video contained an 11-second segment showing ants crawling on a crucifix. This work was an anguished tribute to his partner who died from AIDS in 1987, but he did not end up getting to share that grief through his art because of this censorship. However, it is also easy for me to see the other side of the story. For example, the article “The Art of Controversy,” talks about the controversy surrounding the show “Sensation” which opened at New York’s Brooklyn Museum of Art. One specific piece, the most controversial, was “The Holy Virgin Mary” by Chris Ofili. This work was a depiction of a black Madonna “adorned with elephant dung and sexually-explicit photos — that was deemed by New York’s Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ‘anti-Catholic.’” I agree that some of the works we’ve been reading about in these articles and that we’ve been discussing in class can be offensive and even rude, depending on how they are interpreted. I don’t think that any of these artists should be stopped from making this type of art, but the question is, should Americans be spending their federal tax dollars on this art? I can see why Americans would be upset about personally paying to fund art that offends their faith. However, I can also see the other side of the story, that America needs to fund artists as a whole, no matter what art people are making. While I don’t have an answer to all the questions that have risen as we have been reading and discussing, it has allowed me to broaden my views on modern art and understand different ways of looking at and interpreting art. One piece that could be considered offensive by one spectator could be considered simply an exploratory piece by another spectator. I do think it is always important to keep an open mind when making and viewing art. "I’m very interested in surrounding myself with the stuff that inspires me. I’m an artist who gets a lot from things, and in that way I’m very much a sculptor. I really love the world of stuff. I know a lot of artists who prefer to have very Spartan lives. Their inspiration is very much in their heads. They like clean, white, empty New York kinds of spaces. But I really like the surprising juxtapositions when you put things together on the bookshelf and when you start to collect things."
- Mark Dion I really liked some of Mark Dion's art and I really disliked some of it. Some of the pieces that aren't my favorite of his are the ones with trash in giant stacks. I don't find it visually appealing and it doesn't take very much artistic skill and is not very thoughtful in my opinion. I do like this particular piece because it looks like a tree that someone has turned into their home. There are books, baskets, pictures on the trunk, etc. and it feels very homey. It reminds me of being young and making tree houses. It is inspirational because he takes ordinary objects and makes them into something that can evoke emotion. When I see that tree, it makes me want to be there and read the books and sit by the trunk. The goal for my art is to have the same type of appeal, where people see it and want to be there. "Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. He was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Theater Academy, and his work has since crossed multiple mediums within art, including drawing, installation, video and performance art. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, he explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale and to the development of his signature explosion events. Drawing upon Eastern philosophy and contemporary social issues as a conceptual basis, these projects and events aim to establish an exchange between viewers and the larger universe around them, utilizing a site-specific approach to culture and history. He currently lives and works in New York.Cai was awarded the Japan Cultural Design Prize in 1995 and the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999. In the following years, he has received the 7th Hiroshima Art Prize (2007), the 20thFukuoka Asian Culture Prize (2009), and AICA’s first place for Best Project in a Public Space for Cai Guo-Qiang: Fallen Blossoms (2010). He also curated the first China Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, 2005, and held the distinguished position as Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In 2012, Cai was honored as one of five Laureates for the prestigious Praemium Imperiale, an award that recognizes lifetime achievement in the arts in categories not covered by the Nobel Prize. Additionally, he was also among the five artists who received the first U.S. Department of State - Medal of Arts award for his outstanding commitment to international cultural exchange.
Among his many solo exhibitions and projects include Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent Monument, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006 and his retrospective I Want to Believe, which opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in February 2008 before traveling to the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in August 2008 and then to the Guggenheim Bilbao in March 2009. In 2011, Cai appeared in the solo exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Saraab at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, his first ever in a Middle Eastern country. In 2012, the artist appeared in three solo exhibitions: Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), Cai Guo-Qiang: Spring (Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, China), and A Clan of Boats (Faurschou Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark). His first-ever solo exhibition in Brazil, Cai Guo-Qiang: Da Vincis do Povo, went on a three-city tour around the country in 2013. Traveling from Brasilia to São Paulo before reaching its final destination in Rio de Janeiro, it was the most visited exhibition by a living artist worldwide that year with over one million visitors. In October 2013, Cai created One Night Stand (Aventure d’un Soir), an explosion event for Nuit Blanche, a citywide art and culture festival organized by the city of Paris. In November 2013, his solo exhibition Falling Back to Earth opened at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art in Australia. His most recent exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: The Ninth Wave opened in August 2014 at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai. He currently lives and works in New York." http://www.caiguoqiang.com/artists-bio Wow, I checked out Cai Guo-Qiang like Coach Hall suggested, and I really think his art is amazing. I've never seen anything like it before. My favorite pieces were the ones he made with animals because he did an amazing job of recreating the movement and unity of nature and animal life. I focused on his exhibit "Falling Back to Earth," which showcased the artwork "Heritage." 99 replicas of animals are in this piece, all gathered around, drinking from what Cai says is reminiscent of the islands that make up Brisbane's Moreton bay. I think it is especially interesting because there are animals here that would eat some of the others if they were actually that close, but they are all drawn to the water instead. It shows Today I worked a little bit more on the street, the floor and the chair. I've realized this painting is going to take a really long time if I want to achieve what I'm imagining in my head.
|
AuthorMy Name is Willa King, I am a sophomore at Maggie Walker Governor's school, and I am an Art 3 Student. Archives
June 2016
Categories |