One artist whom I identified is Jorge Campos (aka Pixel). His artwork is unlike most of the artwork I am normally attracted to. Campos specializes in mosaics. He is a Santiago based "street artist" who places mosaics into neighborhoods in Chile. His artwork focuses on the relationships between art, technology, and social media. Frankly, it's really cool, and his work is often portrait based even if it is not done in a typical fashion. Another artist I found recently is Diego Fazio. He is an Italian contemporary artist who was born in 1989. Fazio is a photorealistic artist, and his intensely hyper-realistic work makes me shudder. They look, if possible, more realistic than photographs. His use of chiaroscuro is remarkable. I wish I had half the talent and patience to create artwork like that. However, although his work is technically beautiful, it reminded me of the dilemma with photorealistic art: it sometimes can seem less impressive because it can be mistaken for a photograph.
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This marking period, my art class took a "field trip" to see the gallery in which the Senior Show will be exhibited. Conveniently, this trip, specifically for the benefit of the seniors, occurred on senior skip day. However, it was very helpful to see the space. I am actually pretty nervous about the senior show next year, and not just because the number of seniors in the Art 4-5 class will be tremendous. I don't know if I have enough artwork, or at least enough coherent artwork, to fill my section of the wall. Anyway. The senior show this year will be amazing! The space is much larger than I expected, until I remembered how big certain student's artwork is. I think it will be very exciting. Here is a picture of Halle next to a mosaic of beer out of beer bottle caps that was exhibited when we visited.
This marking period, we were assigned a reading titled Talking Politics 2008. The reading, published in the midst of a vitriolic and brutally competitive year in American politics, interviewed a series of artists/activists regarding "the relationship between art and politics." (162) The artists selected were Adel Abidin, Laylah Ali, Mel Chin, Enrique Chagoya, Daniel Joseph Martinez, and Martha Rosler, all of whom create work that is to some extent politically charged or influenced.
I must admit, the first question, about whether art should bear witness or foment change, struck me as somewhat nonsensical; art should do whatever the artist wants it to do, and, perhaps more importantly, should affect the viewer in whatever way it affects the viewer. Art, in my opinion, which corresponds most closely to that of Laylah Ali in this passage, seems currently to bear witness, but it is not my place or the place of anyone to generalize as to what art is most suited for. Furthermore, there were some quotes that particularly struck me in this reading, particularly a quote by Mel Chin in which he stated that, "Old-school formal aesthetics can be excellent partners in social commentary. Formal design has been underutilized in favor of more predictable (and now historical) and acceptable agit-prop styles." (164) As an artist myself who primarily utilizes classic or formal esthetics, I found it reassuring to be told that not only were formal design principles appropriate for political commentary and generating change, but excellent. Personally, I use solely aesthetic with very little political commentary or message, although I hope to change that. Directly contrasted from my own work is the type of art discussed by Adel Abidin (which I have seen at a number of VCU art shows) that "position themselves as political but neglect aesthetic considerations."(164) The article also brought up the role of media and technology in modern political art: not only how it effects the formation of art, but how it effects the artist (166). This importance of media and technology seems related, if not directly, to the influx in political artwork. Chagoya mentioned that there have been "many more artists dealing with political content since 9/11...just look at how many issues are making us anxious in our country and in the world: political and economical corruption...the rise of xenophobia, ethnic cleansing wars, discrimination towards women..." (165). All of these examples are true justifications and inspirations for political art. However, corruption, nativism, racism, and sexism have been rampant for hundreds of years; the rise of the media and how technology works with the media has created an atmosphere to raise awareness, and this has effected artists. The reading has some connections to the Connect post written by Alex Norman about Soviet Realism Propaganda. She discussed the complexities of commissioned art, propagandists, and the connection between art and history: "art and history are so deeply rooted in one another that attempting to segregate the two only takes away from the experience and interaction one could have with the art -- an evaluation of now and then." This applies to art now, except instead of history, modern times are irrevocably tied to art, and modern times are irrevocably tied to politics. This Wednesday, our class went to see the VCU Show at the Depot Gallery. The show was the MFA Thesis for the VCU School of Fine Arts. There were a variety of different types of pieces, such as film, installation, sculpture, fashion/textile, weaving, and more. I was very curious about the personalities and individual backgrounds of the different artists, especially in some of the film/semi-performance art pieces. Frankly, some of the pieces struck me as very pretentious and stereotypically "art school"; however, as a pretentious person who is interested in art schools, I found them particularly interesting, especially one piece using glitter and what appeared to be aluminum foil to delve into kitsch. My favorite, however, was work done to create historically accurate costumes for women; I do not know what period the costumes were from, but the fashion illustrations and subsequent gowns were stunning.
Recently, I looked up an artist Coach mentioned in my sketchbook, Tracey Emin. After some quick research, I realized that I had seen Emin's artwork everywhere: primarily on Tumblr, if I'm being completely honest, but I had also heard of her infamous "My Bed" installation, although I had not connected the name to that piece before. Although she is not an unknown or particularly new artist, coming to fame in Britain in the 1980s and 90s, she is a contemporary artist and very new to me. I fell in love with her emotionally and sexually charged confessional artwork. Her artwork is often text based, but she uses a variety of media and different techniques, including mono-prints, painting, sculpture, neon, and drawing. Her artwork encapsulates the emotion and rawness that I want to transfer into my own. The pain and feelings she depicts or describes are relatable to nearly every human, and while often cliched, makes for powerful art. Another artist I found was Brendan Fowler, a thirty-eight-year-old Los Angeles-based artist. While he is also a musician and works with his own record label, he is also a sculptor, photographer, and visual artist. His current exhibit in New York is portraits of musicians using industrial embroidery. Although it is not a medium I would select, I think that it is fascinating and am extremely intrigued by his creativity. Additionally, portraiture is difficult enough using traditional media such as pencil/charcoal/paint, so the skill it needs to create portraits using an industrial embroidery machine astounds me. |
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June 2017
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