Friday 2 September 2011

Week 6- Anish Kapoor Sculpture

1.Research Kapoor's work in order to discuss whether it is conceptual art or not. Explain your answer, using a definition of conceptual art.

Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. Relate to Kapoor's work it is a kind of conceptual art because his ideas goes wild and it was based on the concept nore than the real work. His one famous work Cloud Gate sculpture which can be linked to one Amercian Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, he says:"A work of art my be understood as a conductor from the artists' mind to the viewers. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artists' mind."

2. Research 3 quite different works by Kapoor from countries outside New Zealand to discuss the ideas behind the work. Include images of each work on your blog.

Sky Mirror

The sculpture is called "Sky Mirror," and it's essentially a large, convex piece of highly polished stainless steel, roughly in the shape of a contact lens. Minimalism came of age in the 1960s, and was displaced somewhat by postmodernism and conceptual art, though it never really went away. For the most part I tend to prefer more congenial, conversational art, but a number of Kapoor's pieces do something for me that Donald Judd's roomfuls of black cubes don't really do. Kapoor's best works clearly are social objects, even if they operate in the same general mode as minimalism does.

Anish Kapoor , Void 1991-92

Kapoor's sculpture is primarily concerned with metaphysical dualities: the play of opposing concepts such as presence and absence, inside and outside, light and dark.

In Void 1991-92, Kapoor has covered a deep concave shape with a dense blue pigment. The blue is highly evocative and has spiritual meaning in both Hindu and Christian beliefs.

Projecting outward into space and simultaneously drawing the viewer in, it is a work that invites the viewer to contemplate its dark interior while remaining aware of its overall form. With sustained viewing, the play of inside and outside generates a profound optical effect.

Ishi's Light 2003, Anish Kapoor

Ishi’s Light is over three metres tall and two and a half metres in diameter at its widest part. The light entering the structure creates a strip of brightness that looks as if you can almost touch it. The wide opening in its egg-shaped shell invites you to step into its glossy, deep red interior, and on accepting the invitation you can lose yourself in the highly-polished reflective surface. Visually and aurally immersive, it gives you both the disorientating feeling of being between different realms, and a comforting enveloping security.

Anish Kapoor explains: ‘As you’re entering the work, the column of light is like a virtual object, it’s a physical object. It isn’t simply on the surface. I think something is occurring there with the reflections, which is what is important to me.’

3.Discuss the large scale 'site specific' work that has been installed on a private site in New Zealand.

Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork.

Kapoor created two new works: a large site-specific work entitled ‘The Dismemberment of Jeanne d’Arc’ and a performance based installation entitled ‘Imagined Monochrome’. The public response was so overwhelming that police had to re-divert traffic around C Curve at the Chattri and exercise crowd control.

Kapoor has also completed the massive Dismemberment Site 1, installed in New Zealand on the private "art park" known as "The Farm" and owned by New Zealand businessman and art patron Alan Gibbs.

4. Where is the Kapoor's work in New Zealand? What are its form and materials? What are the ideas behind the work?

Anish Kapoor. Dismemberment Site 1

Created in New Zealand, Dismemberment Site I is explicitly Land Art, as underscored by its title and the term "site". Its anchoring in the landscape is both spectacular and supernatural; will the artwork "dismembers" the hill to appear as a shape oscillating between fleshless muscle and ancestral trumpet. As is often the case with Anish Kapoor, it is also a "passage work", giving the singular impression we can enter it to discover an unknown "elsewhere".

5. Comment on which work by Kapoor is your favourite, and explain why. Are you personally attracted more by the ideas or the aesthetics of the work?

Cabachon trilliant tourmaline and facetted pink garnet 18k white gold ring

This white gold ring which is my favourite, This ring was inspired by the cabachon trilliant tourmaline. Its opposite side is the inverse, textured, recessed, dirty, like a dish of frogs spawn. Anish Kapoor does these dishes very well, they’re always very sensual and sometimes quite sexual. I do appreciated his amazing conceptual art and ideas, due to his wild imagination we can see and know this person very well with deep enjoy his work.

Reference:

http://blog.tate.org.uk/?p=558

http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/08/anish-kapoor-rockefeller-center.html

http://www.robgarrettcfa.com/thefarm.htm
http://www.billslater.com/cloudgate/

Monday 29 August 2011

Week 2 Post-Modernism, Ai Weiwei and Banksy

1. Define Post-Modernism using 8-10 bullet points that include short quotes.

* Postmodernism is a philosophical movement away from the viewpoint of modernism.

* Postmodernism is used in philosophy, literature, social sciences and architecture.

*postmodern thinkers may have differentopinions, and people from different fields may have somewhat different definitions of "postmodernism".

* "Postmodern" is of course composed by two parts "post" and "modern".

* The term "postmodernism" comes from its critique of the "modernist" scientific mentality of objectivity and progress associated with the Enlightenment.

* These movements and postmodernism, are understood as cultural projects or as a set of perspectives.

* "Post" is latin for "after", and "modernism" refers to the modern period.

* The term postmodernism is used in a confusing variety of ways. For some it means anti-modern; for others it means the revision of modernist premoses.

2. Use a quote by Witcombe (2000) to define the Post-Modern artist.

Quote:
The post-modern artist is "reflexive" in that he/she is self-aware and consciously involved in a process of thinking about him/herself and society in a deconstructive manner, "demasking" pretrnsions, becoming aware of his/her culture self in history, and accelerating the process of self-consciousness. Deconstructive postmodernism seeks to overcome the ........intellectual constructions.

3. Use the grid on pages 42 and 43 to summarize the list of the features of Post-
Modernity.

Summarize the list: Social and cultural pluralism/disunity/national/ethnic unity.
                                  Attention to play of surfaces, images
                                  Culture adapting to simulation, visual media becoming undifferentiated
                                  Hyper-reality, image saturation
                                  Disruption of the dominance of high culture by popular culture.
                                  Art as process, performance, production, intertextuality
                                  Play, irony, challenge to official seriousness

4/5. Use this summary to answer the next two questions.
Research Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's 'Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola logo'(1994)
in order to say what features of the work are Post-Modern.

Ai Weiwei (born 18 May 1957) is a Chinese artist and political activist, who is also active in architecture, curating, photography, film, and social and cultural criticism. The work he did above was a coca-cola logo and relate to the features of summize the work are Post-Modern because Postmodernism is a philosophical movement away from the viewpoint of modernism. We can see Ai Weiwei's work involved this idea and created a special artwork.

6. Research British artist Banksy's street art, and analyze the following two works by the artist todiscuss how each work can be defined at Post-Modern.

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Same like Ai Weiwei's work they both postmodern artwork and made viewers enjoyed a lot with these visual arts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/world/asia/23artist.html?pagewanted=all

http://theworldsbestever.com/2008/02/new_banksy_pieces_surface_in_l.php
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/03/11/how-china-conquered-the-art-world.html

Week 4 - Kehinde Wiley and inter-textuality

1. Find a clear definition of Intertextuality and quote it accurately on your blog using the APA referencing system. Use your own words to explain the definition more thoroughly.

Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The concept of intertextuality is an important issue in postmodern theory. Many postmodern visual communicatiors discuss the notion of intertextuality itself or are expliclity intertextual in nature.

2. Research Wiley's work and write a paragraph that analyzes how we might make sense of his work. Identify intertextuality in Wiley's work.

For most of Kehinde Wiley’s very successful career, he has created large, vibrant, highly patterned paintings of young African American men wearing the latest in hip hop street fashion. His painting realised classical combine hip hop modern style which gives viewers strong visual effect and appreciate his talent. Intertextuality is an important issue in postmodern theory, back to Wiley's work we make sense that he created melds a fluid concept of modern culture, ranging from French Rococo to today’s urban landscape.

3. Wiley's work relates to next weeks Postmodern theme "PLURALISM" . Read page 46 and discuss how the work relates to this theme.

Pluralism is used, often in different ways, across a wide range of topics to denote a diversity of views. After read page 46 the example of New Zealand Maori and British I kown what is pluralism and relate to Wiley's work that the theatrical poses and objects in the portraits are based on well-known images of powerful figures drawn from seventeenth- through nineteenth-century Western art. Pictorially, Wiley gives the authority of those historical sitters to his twenty-first-century subjects. He conbain mixed different medias and created new style which other artist never think about before.

4. Comment on how Wiley's work raises questions around social/cultural hierarchies , colonisation, globalisation, stereotypes and the politics which govern a western worldview.

Kehinde Wiley is an artist known for his big, flashy paintings of young African-American men recast as the kings, dandies, prophets and saints of European portraiture. His portraits initially depicted African-American men against rich textile or wallpaper backgrounds whose patterns he has likened to abstractions of sperm. Kehinde Wiley’s works reference specific paintings by Titian and Tiepolo, but he incorporates a range of art historical and vernacular styles in his paintings, from the French Rococo to the contemporary urban street. Wiley collapses history and style into a uniquely contemporary vision.

5. Add some reflective comments of your own, which may add more information that
you have read during your research.
Los Angeles native and New York-based visual artist Kehinde Wiley has firmly situated himself within art history's portrait painting tradition. As a contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists--including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, and others--Wiley engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic, and sublime in his representation of urban black and brown men found throughout the world.

By applying the visual vocabulary and conventions of glorification, wealth, prestige, and history to subject matter drawn from the urban fabric, Wiley makes his subjects and their stylistic references juxtaposed inversions of each other, forcing ambiguity and provocative perplexity to pervade his imagery.

Wiley's larger than life figures disturb and interrupt tropes of portrait painting, often blurring the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation and the critical portrayal of masculinity and physicality as it pertains to the view of black and brown young men.
Initially, Wiley's portraits were based on photographs taken of young men found on the streets of Harlem. As his practice grew, his eye led him toward an international view, including models found in urban landscapes throughout the world--such as Senegal, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro, among others--accumulating to a vast body of work called, "The World Stage."

http://www.skny.com/artists/kehinde-wiley/http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/w/kehinde_wiley/index.html
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize/paintings.html

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Week 5 - Pluralism and the Treat of Waitangi

1. Define the term 'pluralism' using APA referencing.

Pluralism in art refers to the nature of artforms and artistsas diverse. The cultural context of art is all encompassing in its respect for the art of the world's cultures. Inclusion of individuals of differing ethnicities, genders, ideologies, abilities, ages, religions, economic status and educational levels is valued. Pluralism honours differences within and between equitable groups while seeing their commonalities.

2. How would you describe New Zealand's current dominant culture?

There can be marked differences between Maori and NZ European (Pakeha) societies and culture.Due to colonisation and tribal differences, there can also be subtle but important variations in protocols. New Zealand is getting more connections to the word, especially Auckland becomes more international meropolis. At the mean time New Zealand still leading their own country culture (Maori) and put it as for dominant culture. Nowadays New Zealand becomes better due to their fast develop and popular Maori culture.

3. Before 1840, what was New Zealand's dominant culture?

By the time the Treaty was signed in 1840, British and Maori were no strangers to each other. Before 1840 Maori culture was New Zealand domiant culture, this was a small country that only Maori people lives, after time goes by some traders had become permanent residents on the coast, and had begun to live in Maori villages and marry Maori people. After that New Zealand's dominant culture turns changed and share their space with white people.

4. How does the Treaty of Waitangi relate to us all as artists and designers workingin New Zealand?

Based on Treaty of Waitangi British chose to enter into a contract with Maori people and they started mix art culture. New Zealand exchanges with other countries such like artists and designers, they've got more chance to learn and create new art works. British art culture has a long history more than Maori so that after the Treaty of Waitangi artists which was in New Zeanland relate to different art area.

5. How can globalization be seen as having a negative effect on regional diversity in New Zealand in particular?

Globalization is the tendency of businesses, technologies, or philosophies to spread throughout the world, or the process of making this happen. In my perspective that globalization be seen as having a negative effect on regional diversity in New Zealand in particular because of it geographical position remote, also New Zealand is not a strong economic power country so there was kind of negative effect influnence happened.

6. Shane Cotton's paintings are said to examine the cultural landscape. Research Cotton's work 'Welcome'(2004) and 'Forked Tongue' (2011) to analyze what he is saying about colonialization and the Treaty of Waitangi.

'Welcome' (2004) Shane Cotton

'Forked Tongue'(2011) Shane Cotton

In paintings such as “Forked Tongue”,he is saying about which features a cliff face, a fantail, some Maori designs and a tracery of red lines these symbols or metaphors become starting points for an elaboration on the links between the physical, historical and spiritual landscapes. All the works in the exhibition seem aged and fractured with an almost medieval feel to them. However, they also contain images which seem to provide hope with the images of natural images and lines which trace over these them suggesting links to the past and the future.

7. Sorry commemorates the apology on 13 February 2008 by the former Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, to Indigenous Australians who have suffered as a result of ‘past mistreatment’ by the Government of Australia. Yet, Tony Albert is neither championing hopeless blind optimism nor pessimism through his work. Aboriginal people have been offered many broken promises. Here, Albert and his army of kitsch faces, has taken this word on face value until real change is observed.

kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value.

'Tony Albert 'Sorry' (2008)

8. Explain how the work of both artists relates to pluralism.

Pluralism in art refers to the nature of artforms and artists as diverse. The cultural context of art is all encompassing in its respect for the art of the world's cultures. Inclusion of individuals of differing ethnicities, genders, ideologies, abilities, ages, religions, economic status and educational levels is valued. Pluralism honors differences within and between equitable groups while seeing their commonalities.

http://www.design.iastate.edu/NAB/about/thinkingskills/cultural_context/pluralism.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/new-zealand.html
http://qag.qld.gov.au/collection/indigenous_australian_art/tony_albert

Tuesday 23 August 2011

Week 3- Hussein Chalayan

Chalayan, Burka, 1996

Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 2000

1.In my opinion，I really like Hussein Chalayan's clothing and appreciate his bold originality. He's clothing are often challenging to both the viewer and the wearer, especially Burka(1996). As everyone knows the custom of Muslim is more special because women cannot revealing too much skin in the public, bachelorette protect their face to avoid strangers can see it. Hussein Chalayan break the rules, he created wild thinking and put his ideas into effect. His idea gives the viwers strong culture shock, he used his own way to express's feeling about what is fashion mean.

I think these two works are genuine fashion, Chalayan's clothing not only can give people eye effect, they also utility in the real word. Afterwords(2000) was an amazing fashion because he used different textures which was nobody else used before, he created kind of new trend -Metal style. Whatever his clothing nice look or not, he successed of his show on the stage of people it amazed.

Not all clothing is fashion, so what makes Chalayans fashion fashion? I think his works are often express a concept. He always keep consistent design style and develop clothing that others don't sectors, relative to fashion, he chose pragmatic, relative to luxury, he chose to design. Therefore I do think his clothing can be called fashion.

2.Chalayan has strong links to industry. He put his wild idea associated with business and balance up, creating market clothes which has hit the market trend and so popular. He through the experiment many times and put the creative clothing to everybody by Clothing stores. I do not think the meaning of art change when it is used to sell products. It is still can be called art because he bring beautiful fashion to people and give our hope that concept can be real and perfect.

3. About his film also different express his concept, It features the process of caring for worn clothes, and retrieving and analysing the traces of the wearer, in the form of DNA. He was concerned with almost exists in the imagination of the future generation, fundamental for the society now difficult to understand. He is to belong to next even after next era of designers.

The ways they might have inspired Chalayan’s approach which was his project for venice biennale last year was a strong experience. the one before that called place to passage, which he toured with, was a film. His collections are always challenging and

he get a lot out of them. all the projects have a different impact on him. He make a real effort to push himself as far as possible with each one.

Before Minus Now (2000)

Pink tulle dress"

Repose (2006)

Many of Chalayan’s pieces are physically designed and constructed by someone else; for example, sculptor Lone Sigurdsson made some works from Chalayan’s Echoform (1999) and Before Minus Now (2000) fashion ranges. In fashion design this is standard practice, but in art it remains unexpected. 'The Tangent Flows' was a concepet based on his experiment, it is important that the artist personally made the piece like Chalayan's experiment, after that his design concept have tremendous influence. His success due to his full of emotions, every time he create clothing, he does not happy only finish the standrad practice, for him is a huge mankind step and he do the works by himself completely.

Reference:

http://www.5umagazine.com/vogue/1221.html

http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan.html
http://www.husseinchalayan.com/blog/

http://www.arts.org.cn/alm%20files/Hussein%20Chalayan.htm

Saturday 30 July 2011

Week 1 Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.

Nathalie Djurberg

1. What do you understand by the word 'claymation'?

Claymation is the generalized term for clay animation, a form of stop animation using clay. Claymation involves using objects or characters sculpted from clay or other moldable material, and then taking a series of still pictures that are replayed in rapid succession to create the illusion of movement.

2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?

Nathalie Djurberg Creates a Surrealistic Garden of Eden

These flowers confront viewers with the complex nature of emotions in a terrifying and artistic way. Check out the flower exhibition, called ‘experiment,’

Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg was the darling of the Venice Biennale and the Art Basel fair. She makes claymation videos that at once horrify and intrigue the viewer with figures ripping limbs off one another with jovial expressions. What begins as consentual fun takes an ugly turn towards the violent and scary. The videos are screened in a created environment of porcelain flowers, asurrealistic Garden of Eden.

Nathalie Djurberg 'still from video'

3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?

Through these minutely composed sequences of stop-motion animations, Djurberg toys with society’s perceptions of right and wrong, exposing our own innate fears of what we do not understand and illustrating the complexity that arises when we are confronted with these emotions.

4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?

(Kids & Dogs), 2007

Djurberg's stories have a lot incommon with traditional folktales. They deal with archetypical themes and involve traditional roles as the good, the bad and the kind helper. The films also have animals as characters e.g. the wolf, the bear and the tiger. As in tales strange and magical things happen in Djurberg's films; animals speak, trees walk and humans fly and talk with animals.

5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?

It is a good way to make a new art trend, designers experimented with all kinds of styles and materials and this time they put innocent and sweet into something disturbing which is make the viewers eye-catching. Artists use new approaches to show their works to gain more fans and good practice for themselves.

6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?

Venice Biennale said: I'll spare you the details and just mention that i fell head over heels for Djurberg's videos. Her animated vignettes depict a bitter-sweet world of handmade plasticine puppets, shot with the old-fashion stop-motion technique. Don't be fooled by the little girls singing and playing with daddy, by the cute tiger in the girl's bedroom or by the fat mama. The works speak about abuses, perverted sexual behaviours, and cruel impulses of human beings who just "can't help it."

In my opinion I totally agree with Biennale because Djurberg's work just so amazing, she is the first artist that let me kown what is Claymation and how it created. Her works sample but eye-catching, she lead the trend about the new way to represent the works.

7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.