Street Art & Graffiti - A New Type of Art

Class Date: March 28th, 2011

During class on March 28, 2011 we first discussed street art and graffiti art.  This has been one of my favorite discussions so far because you can literally go anywhere and find this type of art.  Even though there are laws against it, people are always going to create street and graffiti art.  These artists take art to the street and place a "tag" on a certain area.  Graffiti has always been seen as vandalism but today it is much more accepted.  There are many programs that allow street artists to create works on buildings and it definitely brings communities together.

I personally like to see graffiti because it is usually very unique and unlike any other type of art.  Normally one will see graffiti or tags that they will never have seen before and I think that is the best part.  Graffiti from one area can be completely different from other graffiti 1 mile down the road.  As the public, we have the ability to respond to the art anyway we choose to.  Street artists can also work as a community and collaborate on a certain piece that may take months or even years to create.  The community feeling is a cool idea because I have seen graffiti leaving things open at times but I never realized how everyone lets other try to change it.  These artists take the risk of having their art covered up by the community but they have the freedom to put whatever they want. I think the best thing these artists don't need to worry about is they are free from gallery rules and copyright rules.

The World Wide Wide....and the Effects it has had on Museums

This is a work from contemporary artist Richard Prince

Class Date: March 23, 2011

In class we continued our discussion about museums and gallery space.  This discussion took a different turn, however.  We discussed the impact the world wide wide has had on museums and how this impact has been mostly negative.  The first big area the world wide wide approaches is copyright laws.  A copyright is defined as a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work.  Artists obtain these copyrights to make sure that their work isn't duplicated by another artist and to make sure their art is always their property.  An artist that plays with the fine line of copyrights is Richard Prince.  Prince is a contemporary artists that appropriates images and is very non-chalant about stealing others images.  he also uses technology to customize these paintings into his own work.  There has been a large number of law suits because of technology and there will be many more to come as technology expands.

The second half of class we began the movie "Mona Lisa Curse."  This documentary is written and narrated by Robert Hughes and discusses the journey of the Mona Lisa, arguably the world's most famous painting, and the impact it had on the art industry, especially in the United States.  He begins the documentary with a quote from Andy Warhol saying "good business is the best art."  This means that business is an art and the best kind of art.  If one can master good business, he has mastered the best kind of art.  The Mona Lisa came over to the United States from France in the 1960s and has changed the art industry forever.  It created all new expectations for art and these expectations were set higher than before.  Since it was the most famous painting, every gallery in the United States wanted it for some period because people were coming from all over to see it.  This is where the idea of sending copies of paintings came about.  I think it is wrong to send copies of paintings because people are paying money to see the actual painting and if I was in the position to see the world's most famous painting I would want it to be real!

Museums and Gallery Space

Class Date: March 21st

Today we discussed the actual areas in which visual arts are put on display. We learned that galleries are in fact different from museums because you can buy the artwork at galleries, while museums are display only. Many of these incredible buildings are so beautifully built, they are artworks in themselves in terms of the brilliance of the architecture.

Andy Warhol was an American painter and filmmaker who saw an attachment of mass consumption to museums. The analogy was drawn between museums and the layouts of a supermarket. Some high end stores such as bergdoff goodman have become like museums in that you cannot touch the product, while museums have become focused on making money off displaying the arts.

Damien Hirst is an art collector most famous for "shark at the Met". A preserved shark was put on display in the metropolitan museum of art. This powerful work of art was put on display in an area usually reserved for more tranquil works. It was very controversial because of the overbearing nature of the preserved shark that grasps audience attention.

Systems Art

Class Date: March 9th

The simplest way of describing systems art is filling a space with various artist's works. It is not as simple as just putting paintings or sculptures into a museum hall, the actual way in which you fill the space is part of the beauty of systems art. We discussed the work of two systems artists. One of the most famous systems arts gallery is Turbine Hall in London, England. As a viewer enters through the main entrance, they enter an enormous space which makes the viewer feel diminutive. Artists are paid commission to fill this enormous space.

"Sunflower Seed" is one of the many works in Turbine Hall. It was created by Ai Weiwei, a political artist known for anti government feelings portrayed in his works. The actual piece of work is a gigantic number of reproduced over sized sunflower seeds made out of porcelain. The seeds seemingly create an infinite landscape. When the exhibit opened, health concerns became a problem as the constant grinding of the seeds formed a cloud of dust which was deemed unsafe to inhale. Eventually it was decided to not allow guests to walk on the seeds.

Another artist we looked at in detail in this genre was Alan Mcquillan. Alan focused his efforts on the art behind mass production of items. He has tried many different types of production of different products. Alan stated whenever he designed projects he was always thinking about how to show other people on how to mass produce it. One example is him discovering mkany new ways to design and create cookie cutters.

Performance Art and Installation Art

Class Dates: March 2nd

Today we continued our discussion on performance art, and looked into a a few subcategories of performance art. Post performance artists do not get paid for their work, until they gain enough recognition to perform in front of large crowds. Performance art is meant to be extremely unconventional and challenges the way people think. So even in controversy, performance artists are having their work viewed by many people. There are usually 4 criteria to identify performance art: 1)time (long or short) 2)act takes place in space 3)a body 4)some type of interaction with the audience.

One of the first "forms" of performance art was Jackson Pollock's abstract expressionist paintings. He created these works of arts with dripping and splattering paint on canvases that were not necessarily on an easel like traditional paintings. We discussed other performance artist's works including Marina Abramovic, whose career is always shrouded in controversy. When asked about the difference between her work and theater, Marina replied "theater is fake, performance art is entirely real." And nothing can prove this more than Marina's masochistic works such as nailing herself to a cross or being lit on fire in front of an audience.

Performance Art: A Different Type of Art

Class Date: February 28, 2011

Lady Gaga always puts on some type of performance

In class we discussed the difference between performance art and performance arts.  There is a difference between the two and I am sure that not many people are aware of the difference.  Performance art is a type of art in which a performance is presented to an audience.  This can be a range of acts such as eating an apple or doing a sort of dance. Lady Gaga performs some aspects of performance art.  People never see her outside of a costume and she always has to be seen in the same persona, even when she goes out to run errands.

We watched a couple of videos in class that included one artist in particular who created performance art.  The artists name is Matthew Barney and he was in the process of working on a video that was filmed at Saratoga Race Track in Saratoga Springs, New York.  I personally found the video to be weird at first because I didn't see how the difference scenes were supposed to be brought together.  I couldn't really put together the pieces and figure out the meaning behind the video.  This type of work is definitely new to me and I never considered it to be art in the past.  I guess it could be said that directors are artists as well when they direct a movie.  After seeing this video I now feel that all types of directors are artists when they create a film.

Lastly we talked about Joaquin Phoenix's type of performance art he pursued when he was on David Letterman's show.  He came out with a documentary called "I'm Still Here" where he pursued a rap career.  It later came out that this documentary was actually false and Phoenix was acting the entire movie.  He was just living in the idea that he was someone or something different then he actually was.