Chapter 5 Judging Art

Chapter 5 was an interesting look in comparison with Chapter 4. I was surprised to learn just how similar interpreting and judging art can be when it comes to being correct on your findings or opinions. It seems as though it just comes down to being a good enough writer and having persuasive argument skills to have the "right" take on a piece of art. I'm not sure I like this method of judging art, but I think its the best one available. Like the Churchill quote on government, "Democracy is the worst form of government... except for all the rest."
I think it is inevitable that we will and all judge art for how good it is them moment we see it. We all have different taste, and I think that we are all entitled to our own opinions about each work we see. What I found to be so interesting about this chapter is that the main artist of focus is Frida Kahlo, a woman whose work I have never really liked, or thought was particularly "good." Both sides of the argument were raised, for and against her work, but one idea that I really identified was that people should not like an artist for his or her personal (sometimes tragic) life stories, but for their work alone. I think that is a valid position, and regardless of whether or not you enjoy Kahlo's work, it should be for her work, not her.

Contemporary Artists

This week we were asked to come up with a list of contemporary artists that are currently living and/or emerging into the art world presently. I then realized how very few names I could come up with. This seems odd to me. If I were a music student, I feel like I would be up to date on latest performers, both famous and obscure. Our culture promotes the music industry through mass media continuously, but rarely the visual arts. Maybe this is because there is more money to be made in working with the music industry, but in general, I feel like there are not many ways to become well versed with the current art scene unless you are working directly in it. Whereas contemporary music seems to be readily available to any avid enthusiast, current visual art seems to be the deceptive "cat person" of the arts. Many times I feel like it is a secret society that you must be invited into in order to have a depth of knowledge of its current on-goings.
So then I thought to myself what do people do these days when they are unsure about something? They google it. So I did too, searching with phrases like, "top artists of last 20 years," and "current famous artists." To be honest I wasn't all that impressed with the results that I found. I was familiar with some of their names and work, but for the most part wasn't thrilled by any of it. The artists I came up with are people that I know from home, who have been fairly successful and whose work I enjoy and respect. I have heard of them by word of mouth, and talked with them in aisle 4 of my local grocery store. So where is the portal to discover all of the other great artists out there?

performance art

Well, I suppose I have seen quite a bit of this type of performance art during my time at UNH.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/arts/design/22candahar.html?ref=design

Thomas Paiement Lecture

Last week I attended a lecture by artist, Thomas Paiement. He was an interesting fellow, and his voice instantly reminded me of Christopher Walkin's, so let's just say this speaker demanded my attention from the start. His lecture began as somewhat of an autobiographical account of his artistic life. Originally studying as an engineer, Paiement did not always envision himself as an artist. However, one day while viewing art at a gallery, one piece struck him so profoundly that he knew, at that moment, that he wanted to create art for his life. He then called the artist who made the inspiring piece and asked him if he meet with him.
Some of Paiement's work currently hangs in the university's Art Museum, and he discussed the ideas behind it during his lecture. He described a triptych (two of three of these paintings are in the museum) and how the were inspired by the laws of science. This was something that I thoroughly enjoyed about the lecture and the artist himself. He merged his ideas and knowledge from his scientific background with a visual imagery. Using laws like "energy is neither created or destroyed," and the disorganization behind entropy, he was able to create a beautiful paintings that were inspired by some of the most basic principles in our world.

While reading the assignment on "Interpreting Art," I was struck by a quote interpreting the photography of William Wegman, a contemporary artist, who is best known for his photographs of his dogs. Art critic D. A. Robbins states that in Wegman's work, "Questions are posed, but answers are not given." This specific statement is meant to explain how the series of photos in Wegman's diptychs do not seem to logically follow one another. However, to me, Robbins' quote seems to apply to a larger theme in interpreting art, than just this one example of photography.

If there was any way to generalize the way I feel about interpreting art, that would be it. In every good piece of art that I have seen, questions really are posed, but answers are not given. That's what keeps me looking at it; I want to know its secret. It is as if the artist is a magician that just played a very good trick on me, and I have to figure out how they did it. Whether it is a certain texture in a sculpture, a flash of light in a photo, or a well placed swatch of color in a painting a good piece of art allows for questions to arise in the mind, without a straightforward resolution about it. That intrigue is what keeps us hooked, wondering what the artist was trying to do with a piece, what its message is etc. I have many questions.

Image 1

Here I see a portrait of a young woman, who appears to be dressed in clothing from the a past time. Her eyes are covered by a dark blue sash of paint that prevents the viewer from getting an accurate emotional reading from the subject's face. A similar mark of paint seems to be pulling from the subject's neck as if it were a scarf. Whether or not the two marks are meant to be inferred as the same, continuous form is not known. However this mark seems to objectify the subject, without her eyes, it is difficult to connect to her.

Image 2

This sculpture represents a pregnant woman, whose body is displayed in two drastically different sections. One side of her displays her skin and how she would appear to the outer world, whereas the other side of her shows her internal musculature and her unborn fetus. This seems to represent both the inner and outer world for the pregnant female, allowing the viewer to see her inner workings, the secret life that she carries within. This sculpture gives the impression of a strong, stoic woman.

Image 3

This series of photos depicts four african men and women who appear to be from the past. The photos catch your attention, as they are tinted in red, and framed circularly. On each photo there is a phrase that completes the sentence, "You became a scientific profile, and anthropological debate, a negroid type, and a photographic subject." This message seems to ask the view a question as to what they are looking at.

Image 4

This photo is of a young woman dressed in a red patterned shirt, with her head turned away from the camera. There is an air of beauty surrounding her, yet she remains a mystery. Her face is hidden, so the viewer cannot fully know her. Because of this composition the viewer is further intrigued by her, wanting to know her story, and keep looking at the photo. The background is relatively unremarkable, which allows the viewer to focus fully on the subject. All eyes are on her.

Criticizing Art

Chapter 3, “Describing Art,” was a great synopsis of how to look at and analyze works of art. It begins with a introduction about how art critics aim to convey a description of the piece of art itself without a necessarily negative connotation attached to it. I think that this is a good idea to be reminded of because my general impression of art critics is generally, well, negative.
However, maybe they have a harder job then I would give them credit for. Art critics can state the facts about a painting: its size, the media or mediums that it was created with, the form …etc; these are all finite features. What happens after that seems to be a great deal of guess work, and hopefully educated guesswork. Hard as they try to understand the content of the work, they can never really know what its main intention is (and to further the point, does even the artist know what the main intention of his or work is all the time).
What it seems to me is that, in this unclear process of deciphering art, where we do not have the strongholds of the finite to stand upon, our emotions inevitably come into play, and I don’t think that it can be helped. I know when I look at a piece of work, no matter what it is, I tend to feel something, which seems to be automatic. That split second of immediate face value is my initial emotion, and it comes out even before I ask it to. If I can’t stop my own feelings about a piece of art to surface, why should I expect the art critics to do the same?

Last week when our class met at the Portsmouth Museum Of Fine Arts, I was happily surprised to see a large variety of work. However, I was very surprised to see how confusing the overall layout of the museum. I couldn't find my way around in an organized matter, and I think I missed some of the exhibit because of this.
This got me thinking how the space can effect the way that your work is viewed and understood. I know in many of my paintings, I don't feel like they make any sense until you are about 10 feet away from them. That is when I feel they look the best. If my work were exhibited in some of the smaller rooms located in the Portsmouth Museum Of Fine Art, I don't think that it would be doing them justice.
I have often wondered if this gallery space conundrum is why I have so often disliked Mark Rothko's work. It has bee said to me on many occasion that I would understand his work more fully if I had viewed it in the circular, cathedral- like space he envisioned it being shown in. I am still not convinced, but at least a bit more open to the suggestion that one day I could grow to respect his work more than I do now... until then I suppose.

Art Talk: Artists in Residency

I just went to the Art Talk lecture that was centered upon residency programs for artists. Although the speaker herself was a musician, she focused on residencies that geared for visual artists. I found her description of the various places and programs of residency to be very informative. She stressed the importance of finding the right residency to the audience, speaking about residency location, program size, amount of community interaction, and funding. I began to think about the type of residency that I would be interested in attending. Ideally I would like to go to a fairly rural place for a few months with many different artists enrolled in the program. I was also interested in the programs that were environmentally and artistically focused at the same time. I think that this would be a excellent living situation for me, and in effect, a creatively nourishing environment for me to create.
Before this lecture, I had little knowledge of the quantity of programs existed. I was under the impression that residency opportunities were mainly geared to artists who were well established in their careers, and candidly, a bit elitist. During the lecture I was proved wrong. Many of the images shown depicted a harmonious social, creative place for for artists to work, and many of the photos showed young people. I especially liked the Art Farm residency in Nebraska. The speaker mentioned that it was 19th century living and 21st century art making. She also mentioned that this residency had a picture of a local tornado on the main page of its website.
...sign me up.

Art to Heart: The Struggle for Human Rights in Spirit, Song, Poetry and Art

Last Sunday I attended "Art to Heart: The Struggle for Human Rights in Spirit, Song, Poetry and Art," an event at St. George's Episcopal Church. This event was meant to commemorate the life and message of Martin Luther King Jr. and showcased various artistic venues that related to him. The program's main focus described art the process of a struggle followed by an exultation, and I think that was shown in several different parts of the program. There was an African Dance, Yiddish Song, short play, and What I liked about this program was that the leaders of several different religious institutions came together to promote the ideas of Martin Luther King in unity. I think that coming together like that was a great example of MLK's desire to have equality among the human race.
The keynote speaker of this program was Marta Sanchez, an artist who focuses on creating peace through poetry and art. She described her artistic process as holding on to a bit of history with each color she painted. Through creating her color worlds she could represent form and different aspects of her life, capturing moments in a type of visual immortality. I liked her speech right away because what she was saying reminded me of reminded me of a favorite passage of mine, by Rainer Rilke, an Austrian philosopher who once was an apprentice for the great sculptor, Rodin. Although this is surely not a direct quotation of his writing, Rilke described the artist's job as a "saving" of our material and internal worlds. I think that this is my purpose in creating art, and I found it very moving that she shared my vision. The program exuded a powerful message to the audience and left me with a lot to think about.