What is art?

This article reminded me of our puddle discussion the other day...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312504575618773234909064.html

The Flood Is Coming

It's coming.

The end of everything as we know it.

We are currently making plans to brace the oncoming change.

Find us on Ankeney in the weeks to come.
You will understand.
You will know what we mean.
You would be wise to consider similar tactics yourselves.

Peace be with you,
Flotsam and Jetsam

installation: see Kanye

check it: kanye west's short film/long music video/ hiphopera extravaganza-- a tantalizing piece of commerical art.

as i watch it, i enjoy thinking about individual still frames as being installation pieces (real life, in real time).

oh, the possibilities of unlimited budget.

http://kanyewest.com/

the film is titled "Runaway" (appx 30 min in length, don't be distracted, commit to the whole thing). Best watched with volume on LOUD.

Wrestling: formalism vs. representation, and a vent

Hey friendly fellow-sculptors,

Here I want to present my thoughts on our current Fabricated Item project and to spit out my frustration in a constructive, challengeable, and response-provoking way. These ideas are meant to be rough, and they do not support a unified thesis statement I am asserting to be true.

[I should note that I don't mind expressing my strong thoughts, even if they brazenly conflict with others'. I should also note that I know many of my thoughts might be biased, narrow-minded, or yet to be enlightened. Since we ourselves and our minds morph every single day that we live, we cannot comprehend any timeless, universal truth. This is to say: these thoughts are today's thoughts. I invite anybody to wrestle with the beliefs I will present and challenge them. Please, in the pursuit of understanding, inspire and enlighten me to see things your way!]

What is abstract, non-representational art capable of conveying? (By this I mean forms, lines, colors, and shapes that, when they are arranged, bear no discernible resemblance to a visual truth with which we are familiar. As in, a painting, sculpture, drawing, building, etc. on which people cannot agree: "That is supposed to be chair!" or "That looks like a rainbow!" or "That must be Noah's Ark!" or "That's a human!" or "It's imitating a mountain!".) When a work or part of a work is a mass of lines and colors, can it convey a complex idea? Can it convey emotion? Where does it fall short/what realm of meaning, if any, can it not access?

These are the questions I have been asking myself while trying to translate ideas for sculptures into non-representational, abstract art in my head. I have decided that this kind of art cannot convey specific, complex ideas. It is not barred from conveying generalized, simple emotions (which, I grant, are ideas), nor is it incapable of eliciting an emotional response in its viewers. However, any reaction which a viewer might have will be reactionary and basic. For instance, upon seeing a sculpture of a solid blue cube which occupies the entirety of a large room, ceiling to floor, wall to wall, a viewer might feel overwhelmed at the mass of the object. He might feel oppressed by its size, or confused at the relationship of its size to its color, but he will not be able to mine out from the piece any discernible idea. The piece could not reasonably be said to be about the French Revolution, or any aspect of gender roles, or about our mortality, or anything which requires us to use mental capacity. The positive function of this art is to engage our involuntary, animalistic responses. It can confuse us, scare us, overwhelm us with chaos, draw us in with mystery, and calm us in with its harmony of elements.

Making sure that my animalistic, level-1 thought processes are in working order is all well and good, but, as long as this is the desired goal of a piece, I don’t believe that art’s potential is being maximized. Art is capable of invoking the deepest emotions and intellectual curiosity, and for us to focus on creating pieces which don’t demand that messages are actualized in the language of the piece (as in, they don’t convey real thoughts through our manipulation of the wood and metal), is us missing the point. I understand that studying how separate components in a piece create meaning will invariably make us better artists, and I understand that this assignment forces us to develop our formalistic skills (such as woodworking and welding) more than the previous project did, but I do not think that any of our results can be meaningful. I feel more like we are practicing our construction skills so that we may, later on, make art which is richer. And, although thinking about unrealized potential makes me salivate, I am sad that I must now invest ample thought and hours of labor into a piece which cannot offer a thoughtful experience to its viewers.

all creative work is derivative!!!!!

Nina Katchadourian

This is a work by Nina Katchadourian. Her work was part of the Time Based Art Festival I attended this weekend in Portland. I love this piece, in which she actually finds spider webs and tries to "mend" them with string. The spiders are generally nonplussed by this, and immediately attempt to rid their webs of her interventions. To me it's about the tension we've been describing between nature and culture, a fraught relationship indeed!

You may see more of her work at her website here: http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/

"The Representation of Man"

This piece interests me both for what it symbolizes and for its aesthetic qualities. It is called "The Representation of Man", carved from wood by Rudolf Steiner almost 100 years ago. The prominant figure in this sculpture represents humankind. He is taking part in a constant balancing act in which he must resist the demon (Ahriman) beneath him, who constantly urges him to fall into a total and inescapable despair, while simultaneously resisting the temptations of the figure above him (Lucifer) who means to convince him to live so lightly and freely that all earthly affairs cease to hold any amount of importance to him. I am intrigued by this reminder of the fragility of our states of being on a day to day basis, and at the same time the display of humanity's utter strength of will, and humanity as a bearer of a potential so strong that we hardly realize it within ourselves. On a more technical and physical level I am impressed by the ways in which Steiner manipulated layer upon layer of flat wooden boards, giving the material an incredible amount of fluidity and three dimensionality while still retaining some of its original woodblock-like qualities. This piece is about as tall as a two story house, so I also have a lot of respect for how much time and effort he put into it.

The images I used came from this page:

http://www.rudolfsteinerweb.com/galleries/Steiner_Sculpture/index.html

3-D printing makes Sculpture class easier?!?!?

anselm kiefer "tannhauser"

this is just one of many, many works by Kiefer, both sculptural and two-dimensional, that i've been devouring over the past week. this one "tannhauser" struck me particularly with respect to the trip we took on thursday, a sort of interface with discarded objects, natural progressions of growth and decay. i am continually fascinated by this idea of human "self-exile" from the natural cycles, and the implications of an exile that seems to result in pain and alienated confusion far more than anything else. alienation. i don't mean to insinuate Kiefer's own intention with the piece, but my own visual read is one of human inconsequentiality in the face of massive, natural processes that exist far beyond the scope of human rationale, an aspect i see as integral to the whole discussion of artificial and natural intersection.

Int./Adv. Sculpture "fieldtrip" to the old/new, functional/dysfuntional, demolished/newly built blue Mountain Mall and nearby Shopko. A local monument to the joys and sorrows of capitalism.

Damien Hirst's Anatomical Man, Hymn

I'm posting a few things in response to today's discussion of possible project materials and topics with regard to the Nature and Artifice project. This work is made of bronze, up-scaled from a small plastic toy model. The artist, Damien Hirst had to agree to donate money to charities specified by the toy company that makes the item, in order to avoid a copyright lawsuit. The second image is by the artist Karen Rudd. In her words,

“My art has focused on tree stumps and, most often, recreating the form from reclaimed corrugated cardboard boxes. I am not only reconstructing the organic form from its original material, but drawing connections between past and present by creating a historical subject in a ubiquitous and contemporary material. These sculptures, like much of my work, is a commentary on consumerism and natural resource use."

Continuing the Journey

This picture is of a piece I made for the last assignment in Beginning Sculpture in the fall of 2009. The tree is made out of single ply plastic sheeting that I melted together with a heat gun. The sculpture is inflated by a fan at its base that is enclosed in a white wooden housing (not visible in the photo). I chose to post about this piece because it very much relates to the topic the Intermediate/Advance Sculpture class is focusing on for our first piece: “Nature and Artifice.” When creating this piece my mind was very much full of thoughts revolving around the natural and the artificial. The tree itself is a very natural form, while the plastic material profoundly relates to a world that is artificial and fabricated. I wanted the meaning of this piece to come purely from the full-bodied experience of the viewer. I wanted to explore the effect such a natural form would have when fully extracted from nature. Would a complete artificial recreation still embody the same meaning as its natural counterpart? Would the associations made with the form in nature remain intact, or would such meaning fall away and create room for a completely new interpretation?

Nature has always been one of my biggest influences, and I may go as far as saying it IS my biggest influence. Trees especially affect me in a unique way. In a sense I feel overpowered by them. Not a forceful overpowering that I try to resist, but one that brings with it a sort of comforting warmth and sense of security. The thing I like most about the tree is the fact that through the slow process of persistent and steady growth, using only water, sunlight, and soil, a tree can reach a magnitude that challenges and even overtakes structures created by humans. To me the tree is a very tangible representation of nature's unyielding power.

Needless to say, I am excited to continue where I left off a year ago, and further explore the relationships between nature and artifice.

Blanket Fort

Such childhood performance art pieces were a favorite of mine growing up. Not only does this image represent my interested in physical texture (child as the audience- soft, inviting sheets juxtaposed against the hard, cold wood of the floor) but the image also calls forth the memory of texture (viewer as the audience- remembered warmth and comfort of childhood blanket forts). The latter can be harnessed by the artist to evoke a variety of emotion responses from audience members (in this case warmth, nostalgia, sense of escape or security, etc).

Additionally, the child's captured pose as he carefully parts the opening sheet to see the interior of the fort as well as his hidden face both function to create a sense of mystery surrounding the image. Personally, it feeds into my curiosity and provokes a slew of questions (What's inside the fort? Who built it? Who is this kid? Why isn't he at school?). All these questions keep me focused on and interested in the image.

"Cast Paper Sculpture"

My Dad introduced me to this collection of sculptures depicting Native American scenes made entirely out of paper. This craft is nothing like paper mache, rather the artists pour paper pulp into clay molds, pressurize them to make them dry and hard, then carve away at them with specialized tools. The pieces range from life-size to 1/6 life size. I think that this type of craft (really focused on extreme detail and often not overwhelmingly large) relates to the way that Malia Jensen described her pieces as "anti-stadium art." These pieces are meant to be examined for their minute details, and to have an intimate interaction with their viewers, rather than a large scale exhibition.
Here's another pic:

Untitled

The idea for the overall structure of this piece came from a documentary we watched in beginning sculpture about Ursula von Rydingsvard, but the ideas that I was thinking about in designing my own work had to do with the clash between the analog age and the digital age. This struggle is something I have a tendency to worry about and dwell on, probably extremely hypocritically, in terms of music, access to information, record-keeping, etc. The plywood was glued together and, despite my best efforts to plan, required a lot of adaptation in fitting each piece and maintaining balance. The wood was left unstained and unvarnished. I painted the metal cubes a super-artificial color and wedged them into the gaps in the already-glued wood.

"Shantytown Arbor" (permanent working title)

This piece was an idea I began to explore near the end of last year in Alison McNulty's class. I created a bench (of sorts) and installed it in a secluded corner of a lot just across Mill Creek from the art building. Though its meaning and purpose were largely a product of my intensive

reading of Walden by H. D. Thoreau, the overall goal of the piece was to create an interesting object and space—one that would attract attention while simultaneously remaining secluded enough to offer privacy for quiet contemplation.

The bench was large enough to accommodate only one person at a time (or perhaps a pair of intimate friends). I constructed it from scavenged wood and metal and included holders for markers, pens and crayons for passersby to contribute their reflections and, slowly but surely, bestow the piece with a new meaning, both personal and collective. I added a few of my own thoughts to get the ball rolling and returned frequently to see the new contributions. It was an exciting experiment, but unexpectedly brief; it only lasted about three weeks before it was destroyed. Alison was kind enough to take some pictures before returning it to the scrapyard whence many of the materials came to begin with. If you're interested, check them out on my website.

This year I hope to continue working with this idea, to collaborate, to create anonymous pieces for public spaces, and to make them strong enough to bear the weight of our overburdened collective emotional domain.

Venus of the Rags

This summer, I studied abroad in London. I went to a lot of art museums while I was there. I learned that there are a lot of naked statues in art museums, but this statue, in the Tate Modern, poked fun at all those statutes. It's called 'Venus of the Rags', after the famous 'Venus de Milo' in the Louvre, and is placed in front of a large pile of clothing. Even though art should express some idea and not just look nice, that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be fun too. It's a really cool experience to feel, as a viewer, like you're in on the artist's joke. I hope that some of the projects I make this semester are meaningful as well as enjoyable, or even funny, for the viewer.

punk rock

okay, okay, okay. before i get pinned as another goldsworthy/smithson copycat, allow me to .defend myself. The meandering spiral motif found in Goldsworthy's film Rivers and Tides is a form i (and an annoying number of Other people) find entrancing and contemplative. Even a couple of years after seeing the film, i was incited to immulate, in part for the sake of re-creating an image for my own aesthetic pleasure, and in part to experience the process: the labor, challenge, and satisfaction of digging up a bunch of rocks in the woods, arranging them just-so (emphasis here), re-adjusting angles, feeling my back get tight from bending over, picking the dirt from under my fingernails, sweating, deciding where to start and when to quit... in short, spending several hours in Spiral Meditation, and then to feel the freedom of ephemerality (read: sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach) as a force of nature known as John from Mississippi (who loves to throw objects at other objects and shake young trees and swear) happily destroys (ahem, dismantles) the piece in a matter of minutes, restoring the Gila forest to an un-earth-arted state.

Aesthetics of Catastrophe

Aesthetics of Catastrophe from Aric Mayer on Vimeo.

this video, and the one entitled Home and Wildness, present an interesting version of the nature/culture tension we're exploring in 260/360. enjoy!

welcome!!!!

This is a blog designed to put Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Sculpture students into conversation with each other about anything and everything of interest to you sculpturally. Please take some time to sign up and post an image here as a way to get to know the space and format. The image you select should function as a kind of self-portrait. My image is from a piece I built a few years ago, consisting of plywood lines I cut out and then attached to each other in a kind of endless web or tangle. To me it is both a complex and simple form. It does not touch the ground, but rather kind of hovers. I like to think that this is what the inside of my head looks like, but in reality, I should be so lucky!!!!