Week Ten: Post #9

I think that my artwork which consists primarily of painting and drawing is influenced most heavily by pop art in particular. I think my artwork is influenced also by modernism particularly modern architecture. My artwork consists of appropriated images from popular culture throughout the sixties, seventies, and nineteen eighties. I focus primarily on bohemian surf culture and modernism. I think that if in the nineteen fifties artists were beginning to create work out of appropriated imagery because the world was so flooded with pictures. How much more appropriate is it then now to create work from recognizable images? We now have the ability to add so much meaning beyond just the figure on the canvas because of all the preconceived ideas that are attached to so many images of the past.

Indirectly I can also see how the work of Pablo Picaso  has influenced my work allowing a certain level of abstraction that without his influence would not have been accepted; particularly the painting Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon in its abstraction and multiple views. The way that an image can be suggested with gesture and seen from multiple perspectives on a two dimensional surface has influenced art in general allowing me to be able to mix two dimensional art with three dimensional representation. I also see that the work of Dada and Constructivism have influenced my work through the collage process creating one image out a compilation of images to charge the picture with meaning or even meaninglessness, also with the use of text in an image. This influence can be seen best in the work of John Heartfield in War and Corpses- Last Hope of the Rich and Hannah Hock, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany in their use of collage to charge meaning. Finally I can indirectly see the influence of surrealism in the work that I create, not so much in the interest in dreams but in the social and cultural values critiqued and explored through images that could not possibly exist on this world but are yet inspired by earthly objects and things.

Without these artist’s first creating their works of art I do not think that my art would appear the way it does today. I work heavily off of the influence of other artists to create my own work; I need inspiration in order to create. I love to look at other artists work to see how I can expand on what they have created in a different way. I would love to work towards creating images that are completely free of reference but right now being so heavily influenced by pop art and certain time periods I do not see that coming in the near future. I hope that my own work can continue to evolve though, as we have learned that it constantly does. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn more about these specific art movements and the ability to see how my art has been influenced. I hope to continue to expound on these influence now that I have a better understanding of where my inspiration lies.

Alan Kaprow week- 9

I chose Alan Kaprow specifically focusing on the piece An Apple Shrine. It is hard to talk about the work of Alan Kaprow without first acknowledging that he studied under John Cage who insisted on the idea of Zen and integration of art and everyday activity. Kaprow’s work was also heavily influenced by the painting of Jackson Pollock. Kaprow marveled at the way Pollock interacted with the painting as almost dance and performance. “Pollocks’s method of painting was choreographic, and the viewers themselves must feel the physical impact of his markings, allowing them to entangle and assault us, in form, technique and reception.” This is what Kaprow set out to do in his own work through the exploration of new ways of creating art.

Alan Kaprow’s work was a new type of art “Installation Art” or in Kaprow’s own language and term of the day “Happenings”. This new type of art had to be interacted with and experienced to fully understand or even view the piece. The idea behind this type of art was to invoke something in the viewer, to perhaps see the world or the piece in a different light a way. Kaprow was an extremely brash and passionate character he once said “I am convinced that painting is a bore. So is music and literature. What doesn’t bore me is the total destruction of ideas that have any discipline. Instead of painting, move your arms; instead of music, make noise. I’m giving up painting and all the arts by doing everything and anything.” Just like John Cage Alan Kaprow wanted artists to change and break down the walls that separated art and the rest of the world. Because this new type of art was experienced in the moment, he scoffed at the idea of creating something that should be so permanent as sculpture and painting. Because of this the only way that Kaprow’s work can be experienced now is by reproduction and thus the experience or happening can never be reproduced as it was when he first installed the work. One of the best ways to experience the works of Kaprow’s work today is through his compiled writings and the writings of first hand participants in the original happenings. This can be seen in the book The Blurring of Art and Life a compilation of essays written throughout his life. Alan Kaprow was once asked if the transience of his work concerned him he said, “No. If the work is of value it will stimulate the creation of related works later on… and thus the tradition will stay alive that way.”

In An Apple Shrine the viewer moved through a maze of clutter consisting of boards and wire built up with tar paper, newspaper and rags. This lead to a quieter and emptier space at the center of the room described by one viewer as having “the stillness… of a ghost town evacuated at the moment before an avalanche- where apples were suspended from a tray and signs read Apples, apples, apples.” The photos of the happening show that the viewer became almost lost in the clutter filling the extremely busy and grungy old house. Kaprow taught art until 1993 and died in 2006 while working on a major retrospective. Alan Kaprow’s work continues to be recreated and changed and shaped the way we view and define art as installation and performance as well as art in general.

Bishop, Claire. Installation Art: A Critical History. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.

Kaprow, Allan, and Jeff Kelley. Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life. Berkeley: University of California, 1996. Print.

 "Allan Kaprow–Art as Life." Allan Kaprow–Art as Life. Web. 23 May 2012. <http://www.moca.org/kaprow/>.

Week Eight: Post #7 (The Effect of War on Art)

In my opinion both Dada and Surrealism changed the form, content, and concept of art. I see these movements as the shifts that made everything I love in art to be possible. While I do not think what Marcel Duchamp did in art can ever be produced with the same impact or meaning I do think his “readymade” sculptures led to a new way of talking and thinking about art. I believe that Dada led to more, loose and better compositions in graphic design and opened up two dimensional arts in to more of a sculptural realm. The way that paintings could be constructed and composed out of simple layered shapes in Dadaism brought the elements of construction and sculpting an image into the world of two dimensional art. Surrealism also influenced further than just the fine art world and into graphic design allowing images to be compiled to create something other than what it was originally. Surrealism also took art into a new realm by moving past the figurative way of depicting things or even the abstraction of literal things into a whole new world that exists only in the imagination or in these works of art.

In the composition Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer- Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany by Hannah Hoch many points are made and construed in a way that would not have been possible through the creation of a singular image. Hoch uses what feels like one hundred different images to create her composition and make her point. While Dada is a commentary and meant at times to be meaningless and humors I find Hoch’s composition to be extremely charged and filled with social statements. She seems to be making a statement about women and there place in Germany post war as well as commentating on the state of Germany specifically the Weimar Republic post war. I love the ability to address multiple issues through Dadaism I also find this work to be extremely visually pleasing in a new way that I did not find in art prior to this movement.

For surrealism I will be looking at Salvador Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus. I can see how it could be easy to say that this sets art back toward more bourgeois ideals and compositionally can be kitsch; however I do not agree. I think that depicting what might be lurking in the subconscious is just as noble a pursuit as painting a still life or any other figurative subject. I love the dreamlike way that Dali composed this image through making a new world out of things recognizable to us yet arranged in a different way. I love to see the influence of this type of work in contemporary artwork. It reminds me of collage yet is somehow a higher art in my mind because it is painted on one surface.

I appreciate both of these sections of art and love the influence that both movements continue to have on contemporary art today. I believe that sculpture and graphic design and painting were all pushed forward in a huge way by the work of these artists and these movements.

Week Six: Post #6 (Gauguin and Primitivism)

Paul Gauguin’s painting The Yellow Christ, 1889 is in my opinion an avant-garde piece of art. The post impressionist artist Paul Gauguin painted The Yellow Christ in 1889. It has been thought of by some as a self portrait. If this is true I do not agree with the artist opinion of himself as a superior being or a “courageous ‘independent’ struggling against a philistine public”. Based on what we learned about Gauguin in the lecture he wanted to think of himself as a primitive man, yet missed the boat from time to time on what it means to actually be primitive. When he was living in among actual primitive people he would eat canned food as opposed to the local cuisine. However I do see how referencing Christ and historical painting in general does show an awareness of what is going on in the art world in terms of artistic traditions and conventions. This is according to Griselda Pollock’s concept of reference, deference and difference. As far as Deference is concerned I think that Gauguin is definitely giving reference here to the works and techniques of Vincent Van Gogh with the play between the contrasting and complementary oranges and blues as well as in the bottom part of the composition green and violet on the female figures hat. This seems very much to be giving reverence and respect to the latest and most radical developments of another artist who he did in fact know. Concerning difference he is flying in the face of historical painting as a genera by putting the crucifixion into a modern setting as well as taking the scene out of its correct place and setting. It is also a definite advancement on current issues regarding aesthetics and style because it is a clear departure from impressionist painting. He seems to be capturing a brief moment in an outdoor setting. However Gauguin takes it a step beyond capturing a moment, and obscures and simplifies things to the point of abstraction. I would say that Paul Gauguin is aware of the references that he is making both stylistically and in terms of subject matter both in relationship to art of the past and radical new art that is happening in the same time-frame. Gauguin composed the body of Christ or himself with dark outlines as if the composition was constructed of stained glass. This would have challenged the modern painting techniques of the day. In simple terms of line and color Gauguin is challenging authority and displaying unconventional techniques with modern subject matter juxtaposed with historic subject matter. Another way in which Paul Gauguin’s Yellow Christ embodies avant-gardism is the way in which it evokes thought as opposed to simply a beautiful scene as in impressionist painting. At first glance one might see just another depiction of the crucifixion. However Gauguin placed this into modern times as seen in the female figures and the dramatically simplified man climbing over the fence. Why is this man included? What is Gauguin saying with this composition? To me he is saying is that there is more to be communicated through art in a composition than beauty and references to the past. Through this new way of painting Paul Gauguin embodied avant-gardism in 1889 with the painting of The Yellow Christ.