Our Presentations

Art & Nature and Technology
This chapter was Cooper's choice so he took the lead with most of our discussion and the artist's selected to show in the powerpoint. The beginning turned into a discussion that kept spiraling and tangenting, people were expressing deep opinions and it was hard to get a word in to direct the conversation (as leaders). However, we managed to start with the presentation of the chapter. This took a long time and I felt could have been skimmed a little less in-depth but it wasn't my show. I tried to keep discussion on the topics that the book was talking about, and I asked the questions I wanted. A couple times my questions weren't really discussed but that's okay. We had thorough coverage of the main ideas, including the ethics of using nature and where's the line etc. There was a lot of meaty material and I think everyone got a good education on the topic. Oh, the article wasn't discussed much at all, we tried a little but it ended up not playing a large role in the conversation.

Art & Identity
This was the chapter I took more of a role in as it is an important subject to me and my work. Coop wanted to have the opening questionnaire and I think it was a very effective way to introduce the class to a complex topic. This time we went through the presentation without as much side conversations where it was difficult to pull everyone back, but the whole time there was conversation happening on each slide/artist. A couple of times I felt tripped up when a slide came up and I was left a bit out of things to say about it... sometimes when you're thinking about something too long you lose a bit of the details. I wanted to talk about Louise Bourgeois a little more and about that method of using identity in art but it was the end of the night and everyone had pretty much checked out by then. Improvements: I think I was lacking in artist examples from outside the text, somehow those seem more interesting in all the other presentations anyway. But in general I felt we had good discussion about all the main topics and I even learned some new things from the class.

For class today

Art & Spirituality
1) Upon first reading the chapter, I was like, What's up with Trenton Doyle Hancock? How old is this guy? Was he brought up with comic book lore as well? What's the status of a created fictional marrative that is on-going in installments of his paintings? Is it art historical by formal reference? I wanted to understand his place....
Well, he's on Art 21 so apparently he does have a set place on the scene, though I still don't see why - I don't think his work is great. As I suspected he is a young artist and draws influence from childhood Sunday school stories. Also art historical formal traditions. But his narrative isn't all that stimulating, in my opinion.

Trenton Doyle Hancock

2)Fred Tomaselli's work is about transcendence, mostly through substances. Interesting: most of the effort exerted by this art and spirituality is about the transcendence of the mind visually, and Fred uses both art and substances quite literally for a visual transcendence. One thing I'm sure everyone's curious about is does he get in trouble for putting some capsuProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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s on the canvas? Technically it's possession... His work also brings up, inevitably, questions about the always-fascinating political struggle the hippies go through over illegal substances - and it's even more basic than that: the struggle of human's control over nature (and their own minds!)

Fred Tomaselli

3) Really just an observation: most of the examples are from the 80s and 90s - only two or three from this century... What's really the status of Art & Spirit today??

4) I've recently decided on my own definition of what good Art does: Art changes your thinking. When an object or artwork of any kind is viewed, it is considered, and weighed against every definition you have within yourself about reality - so by judging a work of art you judge everything that you are and hold value to as well. The article we read talked about this and stated this was why Art is the perfect vehicle with which to involve spirituality in our daily lives to make them more rich.

James Lee Byars

Mariko Mori

5) Mariko Mori suggests a different tack: that overload of technological influence and media images will lead to a sort of Buddhist enlightenment. I'm not sure if I agree - I'd like to think that were possible, but it seems to be turning out different for most people - they're all getting increasingly jaded and cynical because they don't know what's real anymore. But her spaceships are awesome though.

Art & Globalism
I have no questions on this topic - we've talked about it so much and really it goes two ways for me: 1, I feel like a nomadic artist living freely and making art without rooted associations in any specific geography. 2, all the art mentioned as examples for this topic have nothing to do with who I am as an artist and I have no access to their works as an outsider of any culture but white upper class suburbia, which I maintain is the ultimate anti-culture. So, I'll try my best to participate in discussion, but basically the issue of Globalism Art is too subjective to arrive at any answers for all the questions that are brought up.

Tom Friedman

For class today

Identity and body images

David Hammons

Tamy Ben-Tor

Robert Colescott

Lorna Simpson

Chris Burden

art & identity and art & the body

1. When the author talked about critics saying any art specifically aligned with any particular biographical indicator was inferior art, I got to thinking - Is there any art that is completely without any references to identity markers? Even Abstract Experssionism was all about machismo. By their own definition then, those art critics would have to call Da Vinvi an inferior artist as he perpetrated the portrayal of the ideal female and male form. After a few days of thinking about this I came up with couple non identity artists: Monet and Rothko. Both mostly devoid of human figures and not about themselves in any way, just studies about light and perception.
2. Humor was brought up to be the great universalizer, bringing everyone from every background to a common perspective. I've always found this device to be the most pleasant for addressing important points, and many agree with me - that's why Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert are so popular. Shows like Family Guy also emphasize really really wrong stereotypes but everyone (of liberal demeanor) loves it because they know they're just joking but making a good point. I dunno, everyone enjoys a laugh it is true, but there's also a thing called taste that divides us all again, once again another marker of personal identity, forged in our upbringing.
3. A big DUH!!! moment: Cinema assumed a male viewer -> so did all Western Art --> DUH!!! Big realization for the feminists!! "The female nude flatters men by reinforcing their dominance while relegating women to the role of fantasy objects." So the feminists eliminated the female figure and/or replaced the male gaze with a female one.
4. NEA critics said they supported the X Portfolio as evidence that it supported porn - who are these critics of the NEA? Artists who don't get the grants? Traditionalists? Churchies?
5. Did the feminists start everything that changed Modern Art? They apparently started Body Art and Performance, and Identity art too.....

For today: Art & Nature and Technology, Art & Deformation

Art & Nature and Technology:
1) Okay, this chapter was much different than what I anticipated. It started out with the artists I was expecting, including Andy Goldsworthy and such, but then it became not about nature but the politics surrounding how humans are screwing with nature. (I suppose I wasn't reading the title of the chapter correctly, forgetting the "and technology") But I suppose the discrepancy I experienced is sort of a point the author was trying to make - before art and nature was about making art with nature, and since Postmodernism it's now become using nature for art that has a political message.
2) There's Eco-Art and Bio-Art. I think both these categories are poor and can summarize my feelings thus: Eco-Art is really environmental activism and can't really be called Art, Bio-Art is mostly "artists" who were once nerdy kids creating their own science fiction. True, both the central issues these both address are important - man destroying nature and himself and the whole "Slippery Slope" with both of those - but somehow putting these serious issues under the term Art somehow makes it less serious to me, almost hypocritical.

Art & Deformation
3) Interesting: the increased rejection of the idealized body in art happened right alongside society's increasing demand for physical perfection in the media. The explanation for this is that artists have always made art that rejects the current trends of society. Always questioning we are...
4) Our fascination with portraying deformation is it's function: grotesque and abjections "subvert the idealized representation and bring us closer to the truth of being human." A basic process, compare and contrast two opposites to arrive and the definition of what's in the middle (a mathematical principle, the average.)
5) This chapter had more to do with Identity than the Art & Identity chapter - that one was mostly about Art & Stereotypes.

Suck It

Suck It: a cynicist’s manifesto

· 1. Cynicism is our biggest virtue. We question everyone’s motives and we laugh at all forms of genuine belief or sincerity of expression. Political issues are always up for criticism, as are religion and the environmentalists.

· 2. Exploitation is key – we exploit the un-artucated*, for it is what allows our livelihood to function in the Art world. You have no idea what sawing a horse into sections and putting them in a glass case could possibly have to do with Art, but it DOES because we tell you it does, and you buy it. You buy it because we wear designer eyewear and dark clothing and therefore we know what we are talking about, and what’s best for you.

*Sub-point: we also make up words to further our purposes of making you believe anything we say about Art so that you will think it’s important and buy it.

· 3. Exploitation of other cultures has become a major tool. The aesthetic of the rich white aristocrat is no longer very… flavorful. It’s boring and passé. But the culture of others is much more spicy – literally, it smells like curry! So we’ll use their motifs and designs as our own to make it more worldly and exciting.

· 4. Acrylic is the best medium. After all, is it not true that Art represents the trends of its own contemporary society? And today’s society is all about mass-production and consumption of genetically altered and machine-made products, so why wouldn’t we make paintings that look like the neon glow of Times Square? Slather on that day-glow pink shiny resin, all over that canvas, until it’s thick like the Pepto Bismal signs on the subways!

· 5. Abstract is never passé. Who says Modernism is dead? We can still get away with painting indistinct lines on a black background and call it meaningful, just make it a little shinier.

· 6. Sculpture is still perfectly acceptable, but it has to make even less sense than a black and pink shiny painting. And it can’t be made in any historic media, like clay or bronze – it must be mostly found objects that most people see as trash before they take a closer look to discover its true meaning.

· 7. Going digital – the whole world is pretty much there already. No longer are we interested in what marks humans can make but what humans can make with machines and computers – after all, we made them to think better than we can. So use your machines to sculpt some blue bulbous animal-like aliens and place them in a stark white environment that exists nowhere and then have a huge printer recreate it in 1,000dpi for a nice wall piece. The White Cube could probably get $15,000 for it.

· 8. Making to sell is paramount, as always, but don’t think that there aren’t those who still prefer spiritual Art. Like we said, Modernism isn’t dead – acrylic coated candy wrappers smeared to some plywood will take you to a simpler childhood time. And no one gets tired of flowers, even though they might say so.