I will be attending grad school. Not right after this is over though. I have done a brief search for interesting programs.
1. Iv herd from stephen westfall that it is a great school for painting so looked into that one.
http://www.bard.edu/mfa/school/
2. http://www.location1.org/ this is a residency i found. 3 to 9 months you get a studio in NY emerging artists welcome. This seems more like what i am going to be looking for once by bfa has been achieved.
3. i recently herd about the very competitive Skowhegan school of painting and sculpture. This is a 9 week program in Maine. Hosts provide room board studio and working materials.
http://www.skowheganart.org/
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Fair "quotes"
1. "When you first start collecting, you're intensely competitive, but eventually you learn two things....First, if an artist is only going to make on good work, then there is no reason to fight over it. Second, a collection is a personal vision. No one can steal your vision." pg 82-83
2. "...it's not just about buying a piece. It's about buying into somebody's life and where there going with it. It's a mutual commitment, which is pretty intense." pg 84
3. "When gallerists are confident about demand for an artist's work they wouldn't dream of surrendering to the first comer or the highest bidder. They compile a list of interested parties so they can place the work in the most prestigious home." pg 88
4. "hurry hurry collectors who go to hurry hurry galleries to buy hurry hurry artists" he likes artists "who are on a slow burn, very good, very serious, not in the fast track, but persuing their own artistic interests with tenacity, quirkiness, and confindence." pg 90
5. "An artist entering an art fair is like a teenager barging into his parents bedroom while there having sex." pg 94
2. "...it's not just about buying a piece. It's about buying into somebody's life and where there going with it. It's a mutual commitment, which is pretty intense." pg 84
3. "When gallerists are confident about demand for an artist's work they wouldn't dream of surrendering to the first comer or the highest bidder. They compile a list of interested parties so they can place the work in the most prestigious home." pg 88
4. "hurry hurry collectors who go to hurry hurry galleries to buy hurry hurry artists" he likes artists "who are on a slow burn, very good, very serious, not in the fast track, but persuing their own artistic interests with tenacity, quirkiness, and confindence." pg 90
5. "An artist entering an art fair is like a teenager barging into his parents bedroom while there having sex." pg 94
The Kandinsky Show
I went to see the Wassily Kandinsky retrospective at the Guggenheim. I chose this show because i enjoy Kandinsky's work, not that it has any influence on my own, or not that i know of. However, after the third or fourth circle i realized that i couldn't fully get behind what he was doing. This i found very amusing, because it seemed to reflect some of my thoughts towards making work. Iv seen his work before and have admired it, however it was only one or two at a time at like the met or something. I have never been exposed to such a massive amount of Kandinsky. His later work couldn't help but be reminded of art hung at a department store entrance.
This show sort of reinforced my reluctance towards working abstractly. I had made abstract art in the past and my work was basically trying to find a way for me to unite that with representation, but recently i have found myself working only representationally and also responding more to representation. I have read his book "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" and sort of understand what he was doing, in terms of trying to use music as a sort of visual language. I think the problem for me is here. Music is naturally more abstract then any sort of 2D visual expression. It exists in a time and space while painting exists in a 2D space manifested by the artist so music in its creation is subject to natural order of our physical world. This allows there to be more standards and structure in music then in painting, which means there is less room for interpretation at the basic level of music (tones notes chords) so they cant be equated to basic levels of picture making (line form color) because every mark can be interpreted differently.
I went to this show thinking cool, massive Kandinsky show and the Guggenheim (awful museum btw) is free, its gunna be a good day. I was expecting to get blown away by tons of abstract paintings and it turned out that it was his early representational stuff done on dark paper or canvas is what i really wanted to see. I left a little disappointed but after a while of thinking about the shows affect on me i realize how important of a show it was.
There was also an awesome site specific Anish Kapoor sculpture installation thing called Memory. It was a gigantic iron eggish form that was stuffed into a room and the only way to view it was through 3 different doorways.
This show sort of reinforced my reluctance towards working abstractly. I had made abstract art in the past and my work was basically trying to find a way for me to unite that with representation, but recently i have found myself working only representationally and also responding more to representation. I have read his book "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" and sort of understand what he was doing, in terms of trying to use music as a sort of visual language. I think the problem for me is here. Music is naturally more abstract then any sort of 2D visual expression. It exists in a time and space while painting exists in a 2D space manifested by the artist so music in its creation is subject to natural order of our physical world. This allows there to be more standards and structure in music then in painting, which means there is less room for interpretation at the basic level of music (tones notes chords) so they cant be equated to basic levels of picture making (line form color) because every mark can be interpreted differently.
I went to this show thinking cool, massive Kandinsky show and the Guggenheim (awful museum btw) is free, its gunna be a good day. I was expecting to get blown away by tons of abstract paintings and it turned out that it was his early representational stuff done on dark paper or canvas is what i really wanted to see. I left a little disappointed but after a while of thinking about the shows affect on me i realize how important of a show it was.
There was also an awesome site specific Anish Kapoor sculpture installation thing called Memory. It was a gigantic iron eggish form that was stuffed into a room and the only way to view it was through 3 different doorways.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Zimmerly wood cut show
Yesterday i went to see the new show of woodcut prints at the Zimmerly museum. I liked looking at the range of woodcuts uses in making an image. The applications of the medium have a very wide range, depending on the artist's hand, which make it an excellent medium for any style of working. This has to do with woods physical properties. It is very hard and has a grain so very precise and hard edged images can be made, like Donald Judd's minimal abstractions. Woods hardness and grain can also produce very expressive gestures if the artist decides to fight its physical properties. This was a trademark of the German expressionists.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Chelsea Visit
Enoc Perez
Enoc Perez did several paintings of modern architecture. He uses some method that takes the glossiness out of his paint. It makes the paint look dry matte and kind of caked on. I think this helps relay his view of the false optimism of this kind of architecture. I like his use of stark teal blue for a night sky and piss yellow for mid-day sun.
Maya Lin
Lin had three big installations, two of wood and one of wire. The biggest one is a large hill made of two by four standing on end. They increase in high from the outer edge to the center. The other wooden installation consisted of multiple wooden panels placed standing up one after another. These also indicate increase and decrease in level or degree. The panels are cut into square bases and placed in a grid formation. The wire installation gives the same sensation of increasing and decreasing depth but it is a gradual, linear increase or decrease using bent wire suspended above the viewer's head. She seems to be inspired by topographical maps.
Barthelemy Tuguo
This show contained a wide range of mediums, he had inks, photos, a video, an instillation and a performance. His work seems to be charged with some type anger. His drawings consist of contorted red and black figures. His video shows him flipping a log or something like that across a city. His installation creates a bizarre living space of beds with suitcases on them. The floor was also lines with card board boxes that are used to ship fruit. All of his works seem to have the feel of a performance. There were photos on the wall with stories behind each one. One was a picture of three wooden suitcases that he traveled with one day because he was tired of being "randomly" searched while trying to fly. All of his work also seem to have this dark sense of humor.
Enoc Perez did several paintings of modern architecture. He uses some method that takes the glossiness out of his paint. It makes the paint look dry matte and kind of caked on. I think this helps relay his view of the false optimism of this kind of architecture. I like his use of stark teal blue for a night sky and piss yellow for mid-day sun.
Maya Lin
Lin had three big installations, two of wood and one of wire. The biggest one is a large hill made of two by four standing on end. They increase in high from the outer edge to the center. The other wooden installation consisted of multiple wooden panels placed standing up one after another. These also indicate increase and decrease in level or degree. The panels are cut into square bases and placed in a grid formation. The wire installation gives the same sensation of increasing and decreasing depth but it is a gradual, linear increase or decrease using bent wire suspended above the viewer's head. She seems to be inspired by topographical maps.
Barthelemy Tuguo
This show contained a wide range of mediums, he had inks, photos, a video, an instillation and a performance. His work seems to be charged with some type anger. His drawings consist of contorted red and black figures. His video shows him flipping a log or something like that across a city. His installation creates a bizarre living space of beds with suitcases on them. The floor was also lines with card board boxes that are used to ship fruit. All of his works seem to have the feel of a performance. There were photos on the wall with stories behind each one. One was a picture of three wooden suitcases that he traveled with one day because he was tired of being "randomly" searched while trying to fly. All of his work also seem to have this dark sense of humor.
Seven Days in the Art World
The Auction
This first chapter was a little too much. The author started the book off with intensity of a christie's auction. It seems that once you go high enough the art world is moved by a relativly small group of people. I have always thought it was this way but i have never read a first hand account. The world of famous art and artist is suprisingly fluid and the reputation and price of an artist's work can deminish because of something like a rumor. I suppose its something that must be put up with if you are fortunate enough to gain that kind of notoriaty.
The Crit
This chapter shows the reader what grad school for the arts is like. She talks about the crit, which is an 8 hour event where each grad student displays his or her work in front of the rest of the class. It gives the student a chance to explain his or her work. I think this is a good practice if you are getting good responses from your peers which is not always so. I like the way she decribed the students as they were ariving and getting into thier poses. This was a good chapter for students in our position as we are about to graduate. It shed some like, for me atleast on what grad school will be like.
This first chapter was a little too much. The author started the book off with intensity of a christie's auction. It seems that once you go high enough the art world is moved by a relativly small group of people. I have always thought it was this way but i have never read a first hand account. The world of famous art and artist is suprisingly fluid and the reputation and price of an artist's work can deminish because of something like a rumor. I suppose its something that must be put up with if you are fortunate enough to gain that kind of notoriaty.
The Crit
This chapter shows the reader what grad school for the arts is like. She talks about the crit, which is an 8 hour event where each grad student displays his or her work in front of the rest of the class. It gives the student a chance to explain his or her work. I think this is a good practice if you are getting good responses from your peers which is not always so. I like the way she decribed the students as they were ariving and getting into thier poses. This was a good chapter for students in our position as we are about to graduate. It shed some like, for me atleast on what grad school will be like.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Alex Bagg's video
I thought that Alex Bag was a great performer. The movie consisted of eight video journal entries separated by these surreal videos. The movie has a lot to do with the notion of being bored and easily distracted and how it might effect an art student. I think she touches on a real problem my generation has. Which is a severely damaged ability to pay attention to anything for a substantial amount of time. I think that information has become too readily available and people have lost the ability to retain it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)