Hi Folks.
You can enter your paragraph of response to the second reading as a "comment" below. If you have any difficulty, just bring a hard copy to class instead on Wednesday.
Thanks
Shannon
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Class blog
Artist Links
- Chris Burden racetrack
- Ann Weber
- Allan McCollum
- Katrin Sigurdardottir
- Lee Bontecou vacuforms
- Droog Design
- Tom Friedman
- Ernesto Neto
- Motohiko Odani
- Atelier Van Lieshout
- Tom Sachs
- Gego
- Stephen Cartwright
- Tim Hawkinson
- Damian Ortega
- Do Ho Suh
- Devorah Sperber
- Marcel Wanders' knotted chair
- Ruth Asawa's tied wire sculptures
- Tara Donovan
- Maya Lin
- Clemens Weiss broken glass sculptures
- Lee Bul's cyborgs
- Eric Gjerde Origami
- Richard Sweeney
- Sarah Sze
- Olafur Eliasson
- Gay Outlaw
- Roman de Salvo
9 comments:
My take on chapter two is an eclectic description of the narrative behind artwork, which is inherently interpreted in any number of ways by the viewer. It is clear that when an artist is well understood by the viewer, then he/she becomes involved in a conversation the artist intended to have. All artists makes formal choices toward an intended statement whether they realize it or not.
In this reading, I was most struck by the concept of objectification and how the viewer can easily give way to saying, "That is some object of another, and it does not relate to me." When in fact, the viewing of that artwork is a direct invitation to relate and converse with conscious thought. Therefore involving the viewer into the artwork... as if to say all artwork is interactive art. If someone were to say that a conversation does not exist because there is no one else there, then they are denying themselves the fact that they have existing thought or internal dialogue. (In my opinion consciousness alone is a conversation)... one might argue that denial of thought, is denial of existence (I think, therefor I am). If the viewer simply looks at the work, viewing the color, pattern, forms, composition, configuration, gesture, and format; it will affect the viewer in any number of ways. Ranging from obtuse emotion to indifference, which is not always a conscious choice.
So basically, it is impossible to disconnect yourself from a piece or series of artworks that have been executed well and displayed with competence. The way I see it, objectification is the highest degree of disconnection a viewer can experience when viewing artwork.
In chapter 2 I found the writing about the "message" and story telling interesting.
"Work based on personal issues and suffering or based on a students social identity can be minefields in critique." I have to agree with this statement. I see so much art that is all based on personal experiences and when you critique the formal the artist becomes defensive. Do they actually want you to look at the art? Is it therapy for them?
"Works of art do not spring out of thin air but are the products of individuals who are themselves operating out of certain cultural and historical experiences." No one can truly separate themselves from their past. The creative leaks out from your history in color, texture and other parts of the formal. This is what makes the artist so individual.
I also thought the whole concept of "others" was interesting. Currently I am working on a "other" piece. It is a battle of what can I say about this "other" if I am not who they are? Where is the balance? We are all associated with the "other" how are we "othering" each other. I like how they used "other" as a verb.
Other than that, thats my comment :)):)
Comments and a confession:
Thomas: Hello, my name is Thomas and I am a Modernist.
Group: Hi, Thomas.
The second chapter is a somewhat obvious unwrapping of the intertwining of meaning with material use. This subject is of a large interest to me but has not always been so. While a undergrad painting major, I tried to desperately avoid any kind of discussion of the semantics of my materials, often to the dismay of the faculty I was working with. It was only after taking a materials connotations and denotations in to account in an installation project, that I realized why they were so exasperated with me. The work was simply more interesting and highly more effective as an aesthetic experience.
This quote from Tony Cragg tells it all:
"The nomination of banal objects and actio'ns as carriers of important information-the recognition that every object is accompanied by a world of associations and references-has been of great significance."
Hi, this is Julia Feld.
In the second chapter I think the most interesting topics for discussion are meaning vs. content and relationship between gender and nude representation or the role of gender in the art world. Can an artist work on a piece that has no meaning at all? I've been thinking that when an artist approaches his next artwork, in the beginning does he have a plan or an outline of his work ready to be use? I'm not talking about sketches or preliminary drawings, which is more relevant to a content. During critiques the question about the meaning obviously is the most difficult one. In many cases it's difficult to verbalize the meaning of an artwork. Sometimes it is so ambiguous that the interpretation varies from person to person.
The issue of gender is one of the hottest. What is acceptable for one is a tabu for the other. I think art could be gender-differentiated, but does it really matter if an artist is male or female, if his/her work is powerful and meaningful?
While reading this chapter about “The Inevitability of Meaning,” which talks about the most abstracted works can carry a narrative through the signification, it reminds me about a piece of work I saw at SFMOA. It was a huge painting, the size of a wall, with white background two large black rectangular shape covering most of the surface. The painting was very simple and abstract in comparison with the other works in the gallery, but it had a very long title. The title was a long sentence that expressed some political opinion. I still remember as I stood in front to the painting trying to understand the work, various people walked by and read the title after failing to understand the piece. Many of them like me still remain clueless even after reading the signification and could only walk away confused. Although even today I still don’t understand how two pieces of black rectangles carry the message in the title, I think its an interesting example about how human beings want to find meaning in things, especially works of art. By creating this gap between the work and signification, the artist made people pay careful attention to this simple painting, which most people wouldn’t normally think about much. Therefore, as artists, we need to take these meaning into consideration to help carry out our message. From the medium of the work to the gesture of the figures and the title of the work, everything can have an imply meaning that leads the audience through their own narrative.
Chapter 2 discussed several informational points about art critiques. They brought interesting points such as meaning, content and subject matter, nudity in art, political issues in art, and the meaning of color in art. These topics provided helpful information that was interesting and noteworthy. I found that the use of color as an emotion and symbol is a great use of imagery and content. The examples they provided were good points that related to the topics. The Crayola example explains the different use of meaning from one viewer to another. With careful analysis of a painting several viewers can find a meaning; however, the artist can only provided a definite answer for their piece’s meaning and content. The topics of nudity in art gave a very interesting point of what is represented as art or provocative imagery. The examples in this specific topic occur within the artist, the image, and the viewer. It is also interesting how there are different perspectives of the use of nudity in art. Overall, this specific chapter covered more detailed subjects that can be useful when analyzing art and their meaning.
This chapter brings up alot of interesting points about the way art is interpreted. All the symbols we see and acosiations we make when looking at a piece of art effect the way we interpret the piece. Everything from the colors used to the race, gender, and even appearance of the artist effects the art piece. this chapter brought up a lot of sujects and ideas people think about when critiquing art, but often do not talk about -- the boundries that are not often crossed even though art is supposed to be the ultimate freedom of expression. On such example being the way a female artist who only paints male nudes is looked at in comparrison to the male painter who does female nudes.
I found this chapter to be very intreging, though the repetative nature of the writing was a little cumbersom.
The part about how who the artist is -- race, gender, culture, build, style -- effects the way a person sees the artwork. It is amazing how much a piece of art can change when once you find out who the artist is. A painting of a rose can turn into a strong political piece, or memorial to a loved one. It is interesting how artists some use their race, or gender, and others stive their whole lives to 'overcome' those stereotypes.
This Chapter discusses the meaning behind a work of art. The meaning can always change and is never final. The meaning depends on who is speaking, where they are, who is being addressed, how the message is delivered, and other endless factors. Denotation is what can be seen and connotation is what is read. Subject matter is denotative and content is connotative. When artwork is too loaded or controvertial it becomes too much of an illustration and no longer about the quality of art. I don't understand "othering." The brief discussion of aesthetic horror interests me because of such a strong contradiction. Colors can work on our emotions. It also operates in relation to the meanings a culture has given it. Everything in a work of art contributes to the meaning. For example color, material, arrangement, content, and so on. It is important to find the right balance between what you put in front of someone and the meaning of all of it.
Catherine Kirchner
Laurie Chu
2/6/2008
Art 172
Response Paper 2
The Critique Handbook, Chap. 2
For meaning, it doesn’t have to be very exact since some things can change depending on the artist’s life, earlier works, intentions, process, or perhaps personal habits. In terms of signification, people are talking about the interpretation of meaning. When denotation is mentioned, they would try to understand the work by watching the motion from what it does, such as an axe on wheels. According to connotation, the meanings they can attach to the two things are wheels and axe. Content and subject matter are two different terms that might lead to confusion in the critique. Subject matter pertains to what the work represents visually, such as Jesus Christ and the biblical characters are sitting at the table shown from Leonardo DaVinci’s “The Last Supper”. Content refers to the meaning found in a work of art. For example, Adam and Eve are standing nearby a tree which are the two figures shown from Albrecht Durer’s “Adam and Eve” or “The Fall of Man”. Colors can show signs of emotion, symbol, and index. In general terms of color, there could be a variety of shades, tones, tints, or hues, such as black and blue, gray and yellow, white and red, and so forth. As an example of color as emotion, blue can be a signification of depression, as in American blues or Picasso’s blue period. For another example, a bullfighter realizes that a bull becomes dangerous when he waves a red cape in front of it. In color as symbol, black indicates evil, green is jealousy, yellow is cowardice, and many more. In India, weddings are brightly colored and funerals are white. For Americans, red, white, and blue stand for patriotism. Red was communism during the Cold War. In Imperial China, yellow was reserved for the Emperor, and thus a forbidden color. For color as index, colors would indicate a color key on a map which points to different topographies. Also, the blue and red states would indicate Democratic and Republican election results on television news broadcasts.
Post a Comment