Now for something new

Performance Art Piece for visual concepts, be sure to check my friend's videos to see more of the class acting


Be Well.

Performance Art and Myself

Today in visual concepts the basis for class was performance art. We paired up and went outside (and amongst the public) and performed three of Kaprow's performance pieces. the exercise was fun and an interesting mix apart from what the class has been doing. The activities included one performance where two people were to stand back to back and with mirrors look at one another with the mirrors and make faces as the partners walked away. This was interesting to do in front of a Safeway not to far from school and receive a crowd reaction. People didn't know at first what to think of what we were doing. Many people became quickly annoyed and others watched with enthusiasm. In all the exercise was a success, people were sort of put off by what we were doing, and others were spectators. I feel that they felt that it was interesting to see these two young people making faces with mirrors it was somewhat peculiar.

One More Thing!
In class it was an assignment to research performance art as developed by Fluxus, Gutai, and Nouveau Realists and Dada, here are my findings:
Fluxus: Fluxus around its conception and height was an art movement most say spawned by concepts by composer John Cage and influenced by George Maciunas. Fluxus put forth the DIY or "Do it Yourself" aesthetic. A lot of the artwork was centered on minimalism over complexity. Famous Fluxus artist was Robert Filliou. One other thing Fluxus art differed greatly from Dadaism in the way that Dada had a more verbose set of accomplishments and aspirations around its artwork.
Gutai: Gutai was an artistic movement in the 1950s founded by an individual by the name of Jiro Yoshihara. There is a manifesto of the Gutai movement written by Yoshihara and all of its beliefs and what the movement stands for. Gutai can be looked at hand in hand with the Fluxus movement for the artist has the same influences such as prosperity and minimalism.
Nouveau Realists: Nouveau Realists or New Realists is an artistic movement from the 1960s founded by an art critic by the name of Pierre Restany and a painter Yves Klien. It is said that an American concept of this art movement was the ever-popular Pop Art. The conceptions of New Realism are: the struggle to bring art and life closer together, the artist saw the world as one singular image and felt that through their artwork they would uses pieces of that image to bring art and life closer.
Dada: Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in neutral Zürich, Switzerland, and peaked from 1916 to 1920. Dada was a quite large and informal movement that brought artist participants from Europe and North America. Around the time of its inception World War I was being fought, and as a protest against what the artist felt was barbarism of war Dadaism was spawned. The movement spanned across the globe during the 1920s. Participants were known to be from Paris, The Netherlands, America (New York) also home to the readymades, Germany and Zurich.
All of the information was compiled from www.wikipedia.com
Be Well.

Well I don't do I?

But perhaps I do?
In an article written by Joel Garreau, an idea is elaborated upon, the "virtual Museums." Museums where
one could access over the internet. Museums where a person could log onto a website and "virtually tour"
a museum space, quite realisticlly too!

In another article written by Blake Gopnik, the idea of museum expansion and openings was discussed. What
Gopnik was actually discussing is the overall the intake of art and massive crowds. Discussing how the large crowd gathering to view art will ruin the overall feeling of going to see art, also how more museum goers will cause galleries to show more "less than stellar works" so says Gopnik.

Both these articles produce some points that create a great deal of thinking. If Museums expand that must mean more artwork is beinng shown off so more people come, so is more crowded and my experience is ruined. This point might inevitably be true, but also not. With the amount of art work for the need of an expansion would out weight the massive crowds. The logic though is the virtual museums. These like the problem with museum expansion and underacheiving artwork could pose more problems to musuems. What would even be the point of going to a museum? Well everyone knows that when you experience something in person it becomes that much better. Although the virtual museums could also benefit those not as fortunate to make the trip to see a museum. The pro about virual museums is the fact that it allows more people to have the museum experience. In all though much like whether museum expansion will bring in insuffiencent art along with massive crowds or a wholesome museum experience while viewing great work, or the virtual museums allowing everyone to view art all around or the fact that no one would go to actual museums in person nobody has a single answer and only time can tell.
Be Well.

Duchamp and His Work

Taking a look at Marcel Duchamp's The Large Glass I feel a couple different things. Looking at it and thinking back to when he first unveiled this piece I feel that everyone would have been floored. The material the idea the execution, everything about this particular Duchamp piece made people fall in love with it but also objectify it. In essence make it stand out. When I think about this now I feel that the piece is awesome and artistically innovative, I feel almost the same way as people back then, but not quite. In that particular era when the piece was first shown not alot of artwork being coming out looked like this. Duchamp's usage of space and how he represented space is classic, as well as brilliant. The way he used the materials to illustrate line and create a sense of space is interesting as well. Infact The Large Glass might be the first of its kind as a working sculpture. I do feel though that looking at it now takes away from its flair, and how I preceive it because it has like everything else been done before. Duchamp's usage of space and how he represented space is classic, as well as brilliant. The way he used the materials to illustrate line and create a sense of space is interesting as well.

Duchamp was also an avid designer, one of his most revered creations
were the aptly titled readymades:
Early in his career, Duchamp became intrigued by the Dada movement, which he called "antiart." He explained, "[Dadaism] was principally a matter of questioning the artist's behavior as people envisaged it." This affinity to the absurd would become central to perhaps the most lasting part of Duchamp's legacy—his "readymades."

In 1913, Duchamp brought a bicycle wheel into his Paris studio and placed it on a stool because he enjoyed watching it spin. The following year, he bought a bottle rack. In 1915, he came to America, where he collected a snow shovel, birdcage, and urinal, to name a few items. In a letter to his sister Suzanne, he wrote that these sculptures were "already made." For several years following the initial innovation, Duchamp collected ubiquitous mass-produced commodities, his readymades.

Duchamp wanted the readymades to prove that any object can be a work of art. Some readymades were "assisted"—that is, the artist admitted to manipulating them. But many, such as the bottle rack, snow shovel, and urinal, were unassisted readymades. (Source: http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxvii/1999.04.02/opinion/p09mduchamp.html)

History of Islamic Mosaic Tile

While looking around on the internet for this history of Islamic Mosiac Tile,
and the history of tile art found this website:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mandalaart.com.au/images/MOSAIC%2520GALLERY%2520ICON.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mandalaart.com.au/history.html&h=474&w=486&sz=107&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=N6PN7-Caoy66-M:&tbnh=126&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhistory%2Bof%2Bmosaic%2Btiles%2Bin%2Bislamic%2Barchitecture%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DG

From that same website I was able to gather this:
Mosaic tile art dates back almost 4000 years into
ancient history. Sources say that around eigth century b.c. mosaic
tiles were used to create different patterns and actually used
as an art form. In ancient Greece the artists there used the mosaic
tiles to depict different images and patterns. Islamic
mosaic pieces can be seen as extremely geometric and
mathmatical. The pieces contain very intricate
patterns and complex placement of tiles. Overall once
fully done the design is an astonsihing one wheredifferent shapes and patterns can be seen.

Gestalt And what it means

Dictionary.com defines Gestalt such as:

Gestalt- 1. a configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts; a unified whole.
2. an instance or example of such a unified whole.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Be Well.

Scale of Values

Values and You

Today in class we had an indepth disscussion about art and values. What it came down to was how one values the art that is done, and supply and demand. A graph was drawn to show the relationship between quanity demanded and the price of the work of art. I believe that art and value go hand in hand. Sure the lights have to be kept on and food provided and for some art is the only way to do that but does that make them sell outs? That makes them no different than different than a person working a steady paycheck. What also was brought up was the artist valuing their work. When the benchmark was hit between art and an artist found a place in between the money and the master piece then and only then may ones life be at peace, maybe.

Labryinth of String

In Class just now the students explored the range and boundries of using strin to design.
My own opinion of the excercise is a bit deferred. I felt that if everyone goes off into the class and does their own thing and at the end of the excercise we connect everyones string and connect the whole class. In reality all we did was create a big mess but the overall aspect of the whole class contribting to make one large mess and conecting to everything was amusing. As a whole I sense that the overall feeling of colaboration and singularity, among all the chaos of the mess is interesting.

http://www.helptronica.com/courseware/file.php/19/line-shape_image.gif
1. I feel that the figure for d is a line. This is so because of the
shape in which moves along and flows as an image.
2. The images ot of a,b,c, and d are a and c. This is so because the lines they create seem to show
perimeter.
3. A ray a simple streak that has no beginning or end point
4. What makes a shape a shape is the feeling of being boxed in, a perimeter.
Shapes are left up so intrepretation and these are some of mines

Analyze This!

Description: For this analyzation I choose the modern black and white piece. At first it seems quite disoriented and messy, but a few moments a viewer can see composure and organization. The lines compliment the spects and shapes and this piece. Also the simple reds are a fine touch; along with the instances of geo-metric shapes.

Intrepret: To be put simply to me what the artist is trying to say is that through chaos order and harmony can be found. At first glance this piece looks bunched together and a splash of elements were brought together without any apparent purpose. A smooth jaggedness can almost be felt with the makeup of the shapes and lines. The purpose of bringing all these elements together was to show that through all the din and noise that peacefullness and harmony can be discovered. The overall tone presents a feeling of stress and unorganization, but also a sense of composure and thoughtfulness.

Evaluate: Overall I really enjoy looking at this piece. I would definately purchase this if I was myself an art collector. The value and tone are easy on the eyes can have the view entrapped in whatever the point the artist is trying to convey. The piece is clean and eventhough alot is happening it is very subtle. Overall this is a great modern piece.

The First Day of It All

Hello World,
Mel Harrison is my main chica
Maggie Coolidge is my business partner
High rimes is cooler than you
Have a great day!
P.S. Nic P is qute a cool guy
--Joel Foster