Final Project Evid

I tried to create something similar to one of Blake’s “moving paintings” but I also kept myself rooted in what I am comfortable with, creating visual elements that will hopefully keep the viewer viewing.

Artists always talk about how they love what they do, but are entirely too serious sometimes, to see an artist who enjoys what he does, and wants others to enjoy what they are doing, is what I think is great, I like animating in digital media, and my viewers like what I do, It is as simple as that far as I am concerned. As long as those two ideas are reflected in a piece, I can justify it.

 

Second Project

The Barnstormers

The barnstormers piece that we watched in class, was very cool, very graphic, great color scheme, and a massive undertaking as far as I'm concerned. This is because it was group of artists working on a very large canvas, on many scenes, over a long period of time.


While im am familiar with, and accostomed to working with teams, I think its alot easier to collaborate when each artist brings something different to the table, but when all the artists are painters its not as easy to agree on, and like I said before I found it to be very pleasing graphically.

My critisism would be that fact that they use this medium to drive a political point, and they point an awful lot of fingers, and does not offer a whole lot of solutions, and art can do that just as well as show faults. Im not saying they needed to offer up an entire platform or anything, just use the art to suggest a solution

Rivers and tides

The movie rivers and tides was actually pretty interesting as far as I am concerned, the art itself was quite interesting, very geometric. As was the time lapse footage and the destruction of the pieces as part of the overall performance.

The artist definitely seems to have a fascination with water as he is constantly exploring the the meanderings of old rivers and the shifting of the tides and there influence on the surrounding environment...

The artist also has an insane amount of patience to work with some of his media, like the icicles and the stick and the stones with no adhesives  or bonding agents of any kind, but it was also sad to see some the pieces crumble before completion, making me wonder how many great pieces have been left behind?

The one thing I wish they had explained more were those stone monuments, I would have liked some more back story on those, how he came up with it, why it repeats throughout his work etc, cuz those are not easy to build I'd imagine. The one thing that bothered me however was that he seemed to be making the art smarter than it needs to be, its a bit cliche but when I hear him talking about "trying to understand how this happens and how did that river get there" (when its well established how they occur) he tries to be philosophical where I don't believe its really necessary, he almost sounds like the student returning home from his first semester of college that has been "enlightened" in the ways of the world, when personally I think his works stands just fine on its own.

 The Gates is a piece in which I don't really know how I feel, yes its interesting from an aerial view, and its not really a bother to the people in the park, however the part I don't understand is that they spent 21 million dollars on the gates, and when asked what they want people to feel when experiencing it they say "nothing, its up to the viewer, we like all true artists make the work for ourselves, and if other people like it then OK."

That's one thing if you are buying up some space in a gallery to display your work, its a whole other selfish thing to thrust your work onto millions of people in one of the biggest public parks there is and say "we dont care how you feel about it" kind of rubs me the wrong way, also their is no real artistic skill its more of an experience which is certainly what Jean Claude and Cristo are about.

as a side note however the work of Cai Guo-Qiang is very visually interesting, there could be symbolism behind it or not, but almost anyone could come into that gallery and really enjoy the experience, His work is very cool, and actually quite entertaining 

Art 21 comments Mark Dion and Janine Antoni

After having watched the Art 21 dealing with these two particular artists, there is definitely one that I am drawn to more. And that would be Mark Dion.

First of all Mark has a piece that I find more interesting in that tree ecosystem that is in the sculpture park, I have always been drawn to science and tend to use it in my own art so it was very easy for me to appreciate, I think he did a very nice job designing the housing as well which would have been no easy task especially to try and create that forced perspective. 

Another reason I prefer that piece is that anybody, man, woman, or child has the ability to walk into that room and appreciate what they are seeing weather the see it as art or not, personally it seems more like a biological experiment than a social one. But on the other hand we have Janine Antoni.

While I don't feel that either of these individuals are great traditional artists (from what was shown)  The main problem I have with Antoni's work is that if she isn't right there in the gallery telling you what its about like she is in the video, the viewer would be at a loss, and the only piece I found aesthetically interesting as a stand alone no explanation piece was the rawhide sculpture, she uses alot of completely different non traditional media and seems to have alot of different talents she tries to utilize but seems to fall into that old adage "Jack of all trades, master of none"  

Stop motion animations

Stop motion animation is one of those things that takes a huge commitment from the artist.
 Especially if they are doing the piece as an individual. But what I have noticed about stop motion artists that I have seen, seem to like messing with the viewers perception of the universe, which is probably why they choose to stop motion animation... seeing as one can do just about anything they can image with enough time and effort. Not to mention that aside from needing a camera of some sort, literally almost anything can be the artists media.

As far as a stop motion artist that appeals to me is quite easy, I have to go with William Kentridge. First of all he uses a lot of charcoal which is hands down my favorite traditional media but he also plays with text in his pieces... He is essentially doing motion graphics work with out a computer which I find very intriguing because I do motion graphics with one. As a matter of fact its what I would like to do after I graduate so it is pretty cool to see the techniques that I use quite regularly being used in a fine art sense.

Accordian book structures

This first accordion structure I chose because there is one thing in particular that I find interesting.. and that is how the images overlay across the span of the book structure.

It is slightly broken up from this angle but our eyes are still able to fill it in perfectly, not to mention that fact that if you spaced the pages correctly and moved the camera down you would see one continuous panorama which is very cool.  It the way that the artist plays with space on this one that makes it work... you need no words either to tell the story of this simple picture, a normally everyday man getting ready to read a book to his child... a simple picture that would mean alot to alot of people, including myself.

This particular book is made by Judson Mitcham of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. its 4.5"X8" 10 pages with full color illustrations. 

This second book is another one that I found to be interesting on a few different levels.
First the structure itself.. seeming to fall apart as it opens sets the tone for the entire piece. because the texture plays right into that theme. It is very grungy falling apart, it has a great fray around the outside almost like rest just enforcing the "falling apart". Also the way the text is layed out on the page is very nice and complements the overall geometry in the books structure as opposed to fighting against it. 

And lastly the subject matter, this is a book about a Hmong Shaman named and his relationship with both the french and the CIA in Laos during the Vietnam war, this is a subject that many people in the United States are still unaware of, and is very interesting. The book also contains the poems of the shaman Boua Xou Mua


Also this piece is done by an Alan Govenar of Stephens Point Wisconsin,