Take Home Part Of Final

At the ps1 Moma Museum Trip this is one of the works that caught my attention. It is Angels Dusk 2015 by Greg Parma Smith. What the artist is communicating is how as seen by the angel faces that they are always there and particularly can be seen at dusk. This piece does not address any social issues. The artwork is innovate and especially creative due to the depiction. It makes me think about the world in a new way by helping me to see more that is not there.  Think the likes of depictions of guardian angels that people are used to seeing. Such as Charlie from all dogs go to heaven, and It's A Wonderful Life. That was a really good film the name of the guardian angel was Clarence Odbody. 

Another work that caught my attention at the PS1 Moma Museum Trip was this one by Lebbeus Woods. The name of this work is Invix Da, 1977. It is a mixed media work. The materials used were etching, gesso, graphite, oil crayon on OSB, wooden dowels, metal screws and Plexiglas. At this time Lebbeus Woods works did not tackle any social issues. In his later works from 1988-1995 and beyond however he did. Woods art is creative and especially creative because he was an architect and artist. The curators he joked were his first clients he kept pushing himself making his work bigger and bigger to fully utilize the space he was given to occupy. He recently had an exhibition at the Drawing Center in SoHo Manhattan through June 15. What the artist is comminicating is how myths take on a life of their own through different interpretations and mediums. The way this makes me think about the world in a new way is that I see since long before the 1940s artists have been drawing inspiration from the comic art style. Think Captain America, The Red Skull, World War II, the fall of the Germany. Woods investigate concepts of war, reconstruction, territorial division, and autonomy. Woods drawings strike the perfect balance between light and dark, hard and soft, old and new. Woods was “radicalized” as a result of two events: a large exhibition of his work in London in 1985 and a visit to Sao Paulo’s favelas in 1987. The exhibition drew Woods out of his New York studio and “into the milieu of postmodernist cultural and intellectual debate,” according to the 2004 publication Lebbeus Woods, Experimental Architecture, establishing his name internationally as a teacher and radical thinker. At first sight, they appear desolate, uninhabited, post-apocalyptic, and forlorn, composed of various parts of scrap metal or reassembled war machines; yet there are traces of habitation, lab towers filled with instruments, and spherical light machines for communication. Lightweight structures are connected in complex networks at various scales, along with shadowy human figures.  Woods explored Einstein’s ideas through a new lens: urban systems and cybernetics, inspired by the experiments of Heinz von Foerster. Von Foerster was an Austrian-American scientist and early architect of cybernetics in the 1950s and ’60s. Woods encountered him during his first years in architecture school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where von Foerster was a professor of electrical engineering. In these early series, Woods was very much interested in technology and cognitive science, and integrated cybernetic concepts such as self-organization and communication networks into experimental urban plans.

Oral Presentation Bibliography And Outline

William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1955. I would like to start my presentation with the clip automatic writing by Kentridge. He attended the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1973–1976), Johannesburg Art Foundation (1976–1978), and studied mime and theater at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris (1981–1982). Having witnessed first-hand one of the twentieth century’s most contentious struggles—the dissolution of apartheid—Kentridge brings the ambiguity and subtlety of personal experience to public subjects that are most often framed in narrowly defined terms. 

Using film, drawing, sculpture, animation, and performance, he transmutes sobering political events into powerful poetic allegories. In a now-signature technique, Kentridge photographs his charcoal drawings and paper collages over time, recording scenes as they evolve. Working without a script or storyboard, he plots out each animated film, preserving every addition and erasure. Aware of myriad ways in which we construct the world by looking, Kentridge uses stereoscopic viewers and creates optical illusions with anamorphic projection, to extend his drawings-in-time into three dimensions. 

His work was further influenced by artistic satirists, including Honoré Daumier(French, 1808–1879), Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828), and William Hogarth (British, 1697-1764). By the 1990s, Kentridge had established an international audience and reputation. His works have been exhibited in solo exhibitions at many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since the 1980s, Kentridge has been awarded various prizes, such as the Kaiserring Prize, the Carnegie Prize, the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, and the Red Ribbon Award for Short Fiction.

He currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.The style of his work is multi disciplinary however mainly a mix of conceptual and modernist. A progessive strategy of his particular materials charcoal pastel animation that are kind of shadowy like Kara Walker. In terms of his process as previously mentioned there is no script or storyboard. 

The common theme Kentridge works with is apartheidism. My three sources were pbs.org/art21 scholar.google.com and artnet.com/artists//william-kentridge/biography. For the video I used YouTube of course. I had other choices like Felix Listens To The World but inevitably had to cut out a few. 

 The Magic Flute

 Shadow Procession

Her Absence Filled The World

 Taming Of The Beasts 

Refusal Of Time

Anything Is Possible/Pain 

Bill Viola

The videos I saw on YouTube are Reflection Pool, Tristan's Ascension, The Passing and The Tone Of Being. Bill Viola's work is very literal because he had a near death experience at a  very young age. A family member saved him, that is why he is so fascinated with water. Sound is more important to him even if the image is still. It's just the way that the two blend together. Some of his titlted art show works include five angels of the millennium 2001, ancient of days 1979, and lansdscape cut the passing 1991. A lot of Viola's creativity came from his grandfather. The last time he saw him was in 1962 or 1963. At the time his aunt and grandfather on his mother's side were living in Florida and Viola was young living in New York. It wasn't Summer but early Spring.  Viola's grandfather taught him to listen to background sounds. The tone of the sound that is invisible to most and such.  In the passing the darkness represents the depth of the water. The figure has water flowing engulfing it. This is the trauma I suppose from when he was drowning. He went to High School and University. In the reflection pool the video moves really slow the torment of falling into the water. Viola walks, then jumps like he is going to do a cannon ball before freezing in mid air and very very slowly going into the water, you can see the ripples and then he comes out. The trauma of his young near death experience resonates in his works.

MOMA

One of the works I chose for this piece is States Of Mind 1-The Farewells by Umberto Boccioni. It is from the time period 1911 getting close to World War I. The style of this piece is futurism. Futurism is inspired by cubism in that it has no definite forms shapes or structures. It is set in a train station and, is a series of three paintings that examines the irrational dimension of modern life's temporary nature. The narrative of this piece is that in The Farewells Boccioni captures destructive movement and the combining of people who are swept away in waves. As the train's steam spirals into the sky, indirect lines clue us into the exit of those who go, in which Boccioni claimed he intended to show certain feelings. Among them being loneliness, anguish and hazy confusion. With those who stay the lines that go up and down express the weight of despair by those who had to be left behind. The size of this piece is a large oil on canvas medium painting that is twenty seven and three quarter inches by thirty seven and three eighth inches. (70.5x96.2 CM) The colors are very ominious. Swirls of pure white, shadow black, almost an orangey yellow, a deep dark red, a lower brightness lettucey green, and a really nice blue. It's like an acyclic paint ocean blue almost. There's little bits of a lighetr purple as well to break it up. The placement of the smoke coming out of the train that look almost like clouds is beautiful. The placement of the station to the train has a very real depth to it and the little orange signs on the track as well. The whole thing is a big symbolic image because you don't actually see the farewell but you can imagine how it went down. The numbers 6943 I am not entirely aware of their importance to be honest but if I had to take a stab I would say it was the number on the side of the train car.

The other work I chose for this piece is James Ensor's Masks Confronting Death. This is a surrealist piece. This work of art was done in 1888. The noses, ears, eyes and mouths are rather large. It is something that can not be but is made to be believable. This piece is another large oil on canvas medium artwork. The dimension size being thirty two by thirty nine and a half inches. (81.2x100.3 CM) The narrative of this piece is that a group of masked people confronts the figure of death. The figure of death is centrally placed and clothed in a white color that engulfs the picture. Made up of masks decorated with drapery, hats and even blue glasses. The way the figures are arranged recalls Ensor's earlier still life compositions. The universal masks in Ensor's work were likely based on those in his family's shop that was a few floors underneath his studio. He explained, "The mask means to me a burst of frsh color, splendid decoration, wild unforeseen gestures, really high pitched expressions, and remarkable turbulence. In this painting, the wondrous covered inventions seem to come to life and come up against death. which is perhaps a reflection of the artist's obsession with mortality death and the like plus his hope that he might conquer the inevitability. The colors are subdued and vivid at one, The sunshine yellow, paper white, the lightish blue of the hat, the brocolli green, the red so in contrast to who is wearing it. The juxtaposition of the white and tan really pops out. The dresses of strawberry and a muted lime green.  

Here is another piece of artwork that I saw at the MOMA as well that it spoke to me. Thought I would throw it in as a bonus.

Art21 Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. She lives and works in New York. She got a BA from Buffalo State College, State University of New York in 1976. Cindy did all kinds of artwork such as family snapshots where she circled herself and wrote that's me underneath. She is really organized has drawers for masks noses and the like. She is really into film. The images look really big and different than they did on the computer screen. The art is tragic nad kind of agressive but not exactly. She tries to keep itt subtle but feels it looks too much like her. She doesn't feel it anymore, the feeling of just getting lost in it is gone. The paintings just feel like such real people. The Cindy Book was one of her projects. She can't recall if she made it when she was seven or ten. She just was not sure. She forgot about her Cindy Book until college. She was trying to show her evolution. In the 50s it was about heavy make-up but in the 60s and 70s it was more about being all natural so she kind of missed the before and after transformation. She is very into clowns. She did works with clowns that looked like they were from another planet or dimension. All clowns were a possible subject. She at the time was experimenting with digital cameras. She did a piece on the rich upper east side society. It was a piece of a woman who looks doubty she had to retweak did not feel she felt old enough to be so doubty. The woman is supposed to think that she is the rock of the family. Acoording to Miss Sherman digital shooting is easier to keep with the flows. She took artistic license in selectively removing stuff so that the image looked like a head floating on a background/green screen. Other things Cindy did in school include a book of doll clothes for a film course. She wanted to bring a doll to life to tell a narrative. It was like a little figure movement and category study. She wanted her art to be mass produced but not have anything to do with art theory. The feeling she was going for was one that anyone would understand like looking at a movie. In her basement is where spent her time with her paints and projects. One of her titled works she rarely titled them some got names from others writings was fairy tales. It was a horizontal centerfold. Black Sheep was nother that was ambiguous. She was criticized for making too much fun of the HollyWood types. Some of herworks intentionally looked detached, moving and had a great sense of boredom. In one of her works on the bottom right hand corner there are big toes sticking out on huge feet from under the sheets. She purposely made big pictures that it was not a thing women artists were doing. Male artists were even the ones starting off, so she felt that it was a big egotistical thing. She purposely made people with big noses breasts that looked like half a grapefruit and such. She was not very versed in doing images of men. She was inspired by TV and Magazines because she felt that they were the one relevant thing above all else. When she would go to stores to buy props for a character she would have one particular thing in mind. In the 1980s and 1990s she gradually started taking herself out of the images. It got to the point that she was dolls and mannequins but people just assumed it was a living person, most likely herself. It was very big and up and in your face.

Dada

ImpressionismPostImpressionism

Impressionism art is art that shows contemporary life outside. Artists dared to bring their easels out. This style was constructed in 1874 after being rejected in 1873 and was inspired by what the eyes could actually see rather than what the mind can comprehend by filling in the lines or blanks if you will. Landscapes such as Hills, Mountains, and bodies of Water made up the majority of known paintings during the 18th century. These artists would have to work in varying conditions because of the rapid change of conditions throughout the day.

    During the first half of the 19th century, Western culture increasingly came across other cultures around the world.Everyone they came into contact with they tried to force their ideas on beacuse in most other cultures they are opposed. This would cause confusion of where a certain art may have began. African items were fought over by Europeans. Japan was forced to open up access of its ports in the American west. The US military was going after a policy of the extermination of the American Indians. The result of this imposement made it more accessible for artists all over the globe to find new inspiration for their works of art. The pieces also, started to move by way of showing a more industrialized lifestyle.