Graffiti Art -- Reanne

http://www.banksy.co.uk/       

          Banksy is an anonymous graffiti artist whose pieces portray political and social messages. His stencil street art has been displayed in numerous cities throughout the world. 

          April 2010 marked the month of the premiere of his first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, in San Francisco and five of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city. Then in May 2010, seven new Banksy pieces appeared in Toronto and Ontario, Canada. At the same time as the premiere of Exit through the Gift Shop in Royal Oak, Banksy left his mark in several places in Detroit and Warren. Shortly after the Detroit piece showing a little boy holding a can of red paint next to the words "I remember when all this was trees" was excavated by the 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios. They claim that they do not intend to sell the work but plan to preserve it and display it at their Detroit gallery. 

          In late January 2011, Exit Through The Gift Shop was nominated for a 2010 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Banksy released a statement about the nomination, where he said, ""This is a big surprise... I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me." Leading up to the Oscars, Banksy blanketed Los Angeles with street art.

The statement on Banksy's website states: "You're welcome to download whatever you wish from this site for personal use. However, making your own art or merchandise and passing it off as ‘official’ or authentic Banksy artwork is bad and very wrong." I'm not sure if this is just an example of Banksy's sense of humor... but it seems ironic that they would scold against such a thing when most of his work consists of adding something to some other artist's work. 

http://www.banksy.co.uk/

Response on collections -- Reanne

          As we discussed in class, people collect various things for various reasons. Having a collection of certain things can serve as a way to preserve memories, to protect family heirlooms, or to make a profit some day. Those are just a few examples of the numerous reasons that people have collections.
          Popular objects for collection are rocks and stones, coins, stuffed animals, baseball cards, movies, CDs, paintings, figurines, photographs, etc… An individual really can have a collection of anything that they value and appreciate.

          As a young child, I used to collect gems and crystals from different places that I traveled. This included both rocks that I found and ones that I bought in a shop. I kept them in a clear plastic box on display because I liked their shapes and shininess. I donated them to my church when I was about 14 years old, since we were moving and I was trying to consolidate and grow up.

          More recently, in terms of collections, I guess I could say that I collect DVDs and CDs (original and mixed/burnt) since I have so many. But this isn’t a collection that holds any special meaning to me. I do, however, have about ten photo albums, two scrap books, and a huge box filled with all of the pictures I’ve ever taken. These pictures include old family photos, vacation pictures, scenery, friends, etc… My picture collection does mean a lot to me in the sense that every photograph has a different memory—each picture reminds me of a certain person, a particular event, a special moment in my history. Vacation pictures, for example, remind me of the fun experiences I’ve shared with my parents over the years. Old family photos remind me of where I came from, and allow me to see the people I’ve never met or who I have lost. There is always a story behind each photo, and it is worth remembering whether I personally recall the story, or if someone explains it to me from their point of view. 

Cousins in Sarasota, Florida- Summer 2010

Grandmother in Naples, Florida- Summer 2010

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France- Spring 2006

Beach in Florida- Summer 2010

Plane view- Summer 2010

Townhouse mates- Fall 2010-Spring 2011

My best friend of 14 years

Danto's "After the End of Art" Response- Reanne

     Danto discusses Verver's experience of art involving "...the stirring thought that beauty and truth were identical, and that 'release from the bondage of ugliness' meant release from the bondage of ignorance, and hence that exposure to beauty was equivalent to a curriculum of knowledge." He thought of art as something that both exposes and redeems the "bleakness of ordinary life." Hence, art opened doors to greater personal knowledge, one need not have any specific predetermined knowledge in order to understand a work of art.
     The author states that such experiences of art make the existence of it worth while, even if those experiences never come to be. A piece of art affects different people in different ways, and even the same person can be affected differently, at different times, by the same art. "This is why we go back and back to the great works: not because we see something new in them each time, but because we expect them to help us see something new in ourselves."
     Danto relays that the museum itself was meant to make such experiences possible for everyone. People searching for "an art of their own", or "community-based art", are in fact exemplifying the belief that art belongs to everyone. This common art is in response to the present day American life in which people are searching for meaning. The author gives an example of such a piece that has impacted his life in a grand way- by merely taking so much time contemplating his experiences of it.

Artist: Andy Warhol
Title: Brillo Box
Taken from http://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/01/art-collector-with-800-andy-warhols.htm

"The Importance of Matthew Barney" Response- Reanne

<--Taken from http://theinitiatives.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/matthew-barney/

-->Taken from http://blogundine.blogspot.com/2010/07/matthew-barneys-cremaster-cycle-1-5.html

          Matthew Barney is a very popular sculptor, a photographer and a filmaker, best know for his Cremaster films. "A mixture of the odd, attractive, and downright obscene and brutal, the Cremaster, which takes its name from the muscle in the human body in charge of lowering and raising the male genital organ, is a feat in Avant-Garde film." He focuses on visual effects (colors, shapes, and forms).
          His work "can seem ingeniously complicated or nonsensical, depending on one's inclination. Suffice it to say that it is a mix of autobiography, history and private symbolism, and it has involved him doing various death-defying acts and wearing elaborate makeup and prostheses..."
          I like the sense of ambiguity in Barney's abstract art, which is evident in most of it (for example in the films where you can't tell if the character is male or female). I also like performance art, in this case video, because it tells a more elaborate story. The article describes him as a nice and intellegent guy, unconcerned with fame and money, which is further proven by the fact that his loyal crew continues to take death-defying risks to push limits with Barney.  

Mike Kelley (video segment response)- Reanne

Post 3
"Non-representational abstracts, layered acrylic paint, plexiglas and other media creating a rhythmic dimensionality."

Title: Hive #2                                                           Title: Tectonic 12
Acrylic on Linen                                                         Painted Plexiglas, Mixed Media on Maple Art PanelArtist: Mike Kelley                                                   Artist: Mike Kelley
Taken from www.mikekelleyart.com                                 Taken from www.mikekelleyart.com


Title: The Thirteen Seasons (Heavy on the Winter) #1: The Birth of the New Year (1994)
Acrylic on Wood
Artist: Mike Kelley
Taken from www.pbs.org/art21

"While music belongs to time, painting belongs to space. My art is about space and divisions of space."


Mike Kelley makes videos (356 tapes- 1 for every day of the year)

Coming from Catholicism has given him a real interest in ritual; he believes that ritual is beautiful. Therefore, his main interest in art is actually trying to develop a materialist ritual. His videos are based on high school yearbooks because they are one of the few places where one can find pictures of those sorts of rituals.

He also says that all motivation is based on suppressed feelings. His stuffed animals artwork was his way of responding to 80s commodity culture. But his viewers thought it was about child abuse, his own abuse. But he embraces all responses and runs with it- so he went with that idea. So this series was about his abuse, as well as everyone’s abuse… this shared culture. His original trauma was his student training, so he created “13 seasons”, a series of ovals with no ends (example above), eternally occurring abuse, with the missing time (the part you can't remember). Art is his way of working through things; things start simple and get more complex.

Kelley says that art must be available to both the laziest viewer, on a simple level, as well as to the most sophisticated viewer. Kelley says that his art is beautiful because it produces humor and something he calls a sublime effect. His art has narrative elements but is also visually interesting. The writing of his videos comes from his own experiences. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between real past experiences and experiences seen/felt from films, plays, etc… Therefore, Kelley makes no distinction between these experiences; his art is a type of fiction in that way.

Vernacular of Beauty

"The Beautiful is a thing. In images, beauty is the agency that cause visual pleasure in the beholder, and, since pleasure is the true occasion for looking at anything, any theory of images that is not grounded in the pleasure of the beholder begs the question of art's efficacy and dooms itself to inconsequence!" (pg 2)

After reading the the article, i have came to look at art in a total different perspective.  The quote above stuck out to me right away at the beginning when talking about beauty and out the the visual pleasure is in the beholder.  I never really looked at beauty in this way, but after a while I realized that when I do call something beautiful, it is the truth that is is in the eyes of the beholder.  Just like the picture that i have above, I typed in the view of the sky from underwater... When I saw the image, it was not something that someone had painted, but a picture that someone took and put it on the Internet.  Some people might not look at this as beautiful, but in the eye of the beholder I do believe that this image is very beautiful.  It takes a lot to make things beautiful, but the task is said that "beauty is to enfranchise the audience and acknowledge its power--- to designate a territory of shared value between the image and its beholder and then, in this territory, to advance an argument by valorizing the picture's problematic content." (pg 9)  I really like this quote also because this is lays out what it takes to make things considered to be beautiful.

"Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty" Response- Reanne

Post 2


Title: "Grevy's Zebra" (from the Endangered Species Portfolio) 1983
Artist: Andy Warhol
In 1983, Andy Warhol created a series of ten color screenprints that portrayed endangered animals from around the world. Using brilliant colors -- characteristic of his signature style -- and poignant expressions suggestive of the animal's fate, Warhol creates a dynamic tension between art and reality.
Taken from http://www.ackland.org/art/exhibitions/warhol/

          This article, "Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty", discusses the place of beauty in art, in the contexts of culture, politics, religion, the marketplace, etc.... I've included some specific quotes that I liked, also trying to summerize the main points of this article. The author describes beauty: "Beauty is not a thing. The Beautiful is a thing. In images, beauty is the agency that causes visual pleasure in the beholder, and, since pleasure is the true occasion for looking at anything, any theory of images that is not grounded in the pleasure of the beholder begs the question of art's efficacy and dooms itself to inconsequence!...The task of beauty is to enfranchise the audience and acknowledge its power--to designate a territory of shared values between the image and its beholder and then, in this territory, to advance an argument by valorizing the picture's problematic content. Without the urgent intention of reconstructing the beholder's view of things, the image has no reason to exist, much less to be beautiful." Baudelaire says, "'The beautiful is always strange'...It is always strangely familiar and vaguely surprising." Only with one's full appreciation and understanding of a piece of art can viewers "engage the argument of images that deal so intimately with trust, pain, love, and the giving up of the self" a true "visual experience".

          The author also discusses the new, liberal institution, which "is not as cavalier about appearances as the market is about meaning...The institution's curators hold a public trust. They must look attentively and genuinely care about what artists mean, and what this meaning means in a public context--and, therefore, almost of necessity, they must distrust appearances." Art created in this way "steals the institution's power". The beauty of this art is evident in the pure honesty of the art itself. And the author states that "the truth is never plain nor appearances sincere. To try to make them so is to neutralize the primary, gorgeous eccentricity of imagery in Western culture since the Reformation: the fact that it cannot be trusted, that images are always presumed to be proposing something contestable and controversial."

          "The vernacular of beauty, in its democratic appeal, remains a potent instrument for change. Mapplethorpe uses it, as does Warhol, as does Ruscha, to engage individuals within and without the cultural ghetto in arguments about what is good and what is beautiful."