Los Carpenteros

The Los Carpenteros exhibit was another exhibit at the Tang Museum that Sean, Ryan, and I viewed while we were there. This piece titled La Montana Rusa (Roller coaster) was the only installation piece at the museum during our visit. When I saw this piece it inspired so many different thoughts. Before I even knew the name of the piece the first thought was that it looked like a roller coaster. As I continued to think about it I felt that sleeping can be a lot like riding a roller coaster depending on the types of dreams you have. Or even in a sexual sense that too can be much like a roller coaster ride experience that takes place in a bed.

Fred Tomaselli at the Tang Musem

Fred Tomaselli is known for his many works that incorporates such things as real plants, pills and magazine clippings cut to perfection and arranged to create works such as the piece to the right, Octillo Nocturne. This work features pills of all different sizes and colors and are arranged in such a way that the viewer may not notice that they are pills until looking much closer. My perspective is that the pills and medications in the artwork give it a more three-dimensional aspect. I selected this particular piece because I like the colors featured in the background and that the pills are arranged to look like dream catchers. This piece reminded me of laying in the dew filled grass and looking up at the stars on a warm summer night.

Tang Museum - Fred Tomaselli

The piece of art from the Tang Museum that I found most interesting was this painting by Fred Tomaselli entitled Multiple Landscape. It was done in 1995 and incorporates saccharin, acrylic, and resin paints on top of a wooden panel. It's actually quite large in person (about as big as me) and the colors really jump out at you. The background is a picture-esque forest scene with pine trees and clear blue skies. On top of this is a random zig-zagging pattern of red, orange, blue, and yellow paint. Tomaselli admits to drawing much of his inspiration from nature, so I like to think that the forest backdrop represents his inspiration and the paint on top represents his work.

Tang Museum- Los Carpinteros

This painting was designed by a Cuban-based collective of artists known as Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) in 2008. Los Carpinteros focus on creating surrealist-inspired sculptures, large scale installations and drawings by transforming common domestic objects and urban structures into inventive, grand images. Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodriguez construct works that are structurally beautiful but often humorous in an effort to confront viewers and challenge their thinking regarding items that populate our lives. Over the years, Los Carpinteros have gradually transitioned from strictly focusing on Cuban history to incorporating a more global, peripatetic-influenced practice. Los Carpinteros are an interesting collective of artists because they aren't restricted to one particular area of art, over time they have adapted their style to include different themes in their works.

Tang Museum - Fred Tomaselli

This painting created by artist Fred Tomaselli in 2000 is a photo collage that uses acrylic paint under layers of clear epoxy resin. Tomaselli used actual pills, mushrooms, and leaves in this piece along with some other unusual materials which he then collaged into multi-layered combinations. Tomaselli draws inspiration from historical sources such as the Renaissance frescoes, 1960s Minimalism and decorative traditions including quilts and mosaics. He is well known for his baroque paintings which incorporate unusual images ranging from real, photographic to painted objects. Seeing this work first hand gave me a better sense of what went into creating this piece and allowed me to view some of the smaller details that are difficult to observe in this picture. Tomaselli used a variety of colors, shapes and images to create attractive patterns which are best understood when seen in person.

Outlet by Vik Muniz

Vik Muniz is a Brazilian artist that creates a work, photographs it, and displays the finished product as the photograph. My perspective on Vik Muniz is that his works are very creative and intuitive. This piece to the right is titled Outlet, it was dug upon a large land mass by several large construction machines, then the picture was taken by Muniz from a helicopter surrounding the landscape. Another gallery of his that I found interesting was that of his work with "junk". He created depictions such as Saturn Devouring One of his Sons. He manipulated rusted metal and other random things in a large room to recreate this image through a different medium.

Altermodernism

Altermodernism is a departure from postmodernism and is a phrase and movement created by Nicolas Bourriaud. Bourriaud coins the term as an interpretation on globalization, in his own words Bourriaud compares altermodernism to a "sort of dream catcher attempting to capture the characteristics of modernity, specific to the 21st century. The picture at the right is an image of Marcus Coates performing one of his works where he talks to the animal spirits in somewhat of a meditative, shaman-like experience. Below is a link to the video where he explains his work and how it relates to the altermodernist movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBgWtAIbRc

"Fountain" by Sherrie Levine

Appropriation art is to borrow, adopt, or recycle man-made objects for use as art. This work is titled "Fountain" after Marcel Duchamp's piece. Since Sherrie Levine is an appropriation artist much of her work is borrowed or adopted from previous works of art. I think this piece should be titled "A Copy of a Copy"; I do not think that Marcel Duchamp's (the original) version of the fountain was in any way a creative work that creates some inspiration or reaction by me, other than frustration that its price tag is worth more than my life. Seeing this piece made me even more frustrated because its the same as its predecessor just bronze, I don't understand how this kind of stuff ends up in an art museum or is sold for an outrageous amount of money.

Siena Student Art

This is a drawing done by a friend of ours named Brittney Wineinger. She completed this in her drawing class right her at Siena College. I feel this is real artwork in comparison to some of the "artworks" we viewed in class such as Damien Hirst's "Platinum Skull" or Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain". This drawing (though similar to others who had to draw the same thing as a part of the class assignment) is at least an original work created from scratch by the artist. Might I also add that this is a particularly good piece and took a lot of time and detail to complete, trust me I've witnessed her shade for hours on one drawing.

Earthworks - Vik Muniz

This work is part of Muniz's Earthworks collection which has been featured in various exhibits throughout the U.S. and also internationally. Other Earthworks pieces include a pair of scissors, pipe and footprints among others. This is an interesting piece because its actually sculpted into the natural terrain as seen from the aerial picture. The photo allows the viewer to understand the true magnitude of this work by being able to compare the size of the cars to the Key itself. There's hills and valleys surrounding the work of art which adds to the natural element aspect of Muniz's Key. Obviously it took great precision in order to create this work , it was carefully planned out because any small mistake would force Muniz to start from scratch. I like this work because its unlike most other pieces, there's no paint or art studio that was necessary the artist simply used his natural surroundings as his canvas.

The Mona Lisa Curse

In his broadcast The Mona Lisa Curse, art critic Robert Hughes presents his view on the current commercial art market and how the price of a work of art has become more significant than its meaning. Hughes argues that the price of a work has more so to do with promotion and publicity rather than the quality of the works themselves. In The Mona Lisa Curse, he traces back to the rise of the commercial art market beginning with the arrival of the Mona Lisa in New York in 1963. According to Hughes the Mona Lisa was treated like a celebrity, and as a result collectors began purchasing works primarily for financial gain. He argues that art is the largest unregulated market in the world apart from the drug market. He claims that art collectors are largely to blame because after they purchase a particular artist's work, they continue to bid up that artists' work in order to increase the value of their own holdings. The surge in prices of works in the contemporary market has led to several undesirable outcomes. First off art tends to be viewed as a commodity, its something owned as much as it's appreciated. Hughes uses artist Damien Hirst and his works as a prime example of how commercial art has transformed into a commodity rather than something intrinsically valued. Second ordinary, average people are beginning to have less access to popular works because museums and galleries are being overtaken by the wealthy who can afford them.

First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker by Valerie Hegarty

I chose this piece from the 20x200.com website because I loved the juxposition of the woodpecker onto a well-drawn yet bland wilderness landscape. The background is actually Asher B. Durand’s painting from 1855 entitled First Harvest in the Wilderness. It looks like the woodpecker is actually confused by the realism in the painting and is trying to peck holes through it because it thinks the work is real. There can be so many different interpretations of what this means, but Hegarty offers one clever explanation, which is that as industry began taking off in the northeastern U.S., the pileated woodpecker lost its habitat and faced extinction. This is its revenge on people, which I find to be hilarious!

Living Unit by Andrea Zittel

Andrea Zittel is an American installation artist who began making fuctional pieces of art in the early 1990's. Her main focus is on creating compact "living units" that provide all of a person's needs (food/water, clothing, shelter) in one, small area. Most of her works are artsy and appealing to the eye in addition to being functional for living in. In fact, as part of her exibitions, Zittel will often live in her creations for upwards of months at a time. She states that her goal is to show that perfection is not something that we actually want; instead we wish to have continuous improvement and progress in our lives.

Logorama (Part II)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7URxWTb6hE&feature=related

The second and final part to this short film continues with Ronald McDonald taking hostages (including Big Boy and the Esso mascot) inside a Wendy's restaurant. As the Michelin men swat team moves in on him a gigantic earthquake begins causing chaos in the downtown Los Angeles setting. During the commotion, Big Boy and Esso escape the crumbling city as it collapses in on itself and becomes sunken under a sea of oil. The movie ends with the camera panning out into the depths of space and eventually total blackness. I really enjoyed the parodies in this animation and was amazed at the shear amount of logos that it incorporated. I think the primary message that it was trying to convey was the dangers of our incessant desire for consumerism, oil, and money, and how these will eventually be our downfall as a society.

200x20 Art

This piece is titled "Filter Samples" by Jessica Eaton. I chose this work from the 200x20 website because I like all the colors and creativity that went into the work and it really caught my eye while I was browsing the other works. Jessica created this work by arranging Lee Filter sample packs by color to create a rainbow. Lee Filters are a type of filter used in high resolution photography cameras. I really enjoy the arrangement of colors and the textures that the different filters patched together create.

The Babe in the Negro Leagues (www.20x200.com)

This painting titled The Babe in the Negro Leagues is purely hypothetical but yet still a very interesting work of art. The original was created through the use of acrylic on canvas but as for the prints, they were created using archival pigment inks on 100% cotton rag paper with a luster finish. The main reason why I was attracted to this piece is because I enjoy sports and played baseball for many years up through high school. Babe Ruth is considered the greatest baseball player in the history of MLB and ironically in this painting he is presented as a member of the Negro Leagues. Signs that date back to the period of the Negro Leagues are included in the background which is cool to see because no longer do stadiums have various advertisements appearing on their walls. I also found it interesting that while the majority of Ruth's body is large his hands and lower legs are quite small compared to the rest of his body. Not sure about the artist's reasoning behind that but nonetheless the image is very detailed especially when it comes to Ruth's facial features.

LOGORAMA (Part I)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmGnlxXL5s

This short, animated movie begins by showing various companies/organizational logos almost like one giant billboard ad. There is a wide range of companies on display including retail (Best Buy and K-Mart), lodging (Comfort Inn) and even the automobile industry (GMC Truck). Characters include such recognizable figures as the Michelin Man, Mr. Clean and Ronald McDonald. In this case Mr. Clean serves as a gay tour guide while Ronald McDonald plays the role of the criminal. The Jolly Green Giant also makes an appearance and immediately is one of the more imposing characters for obvious reasons. The Planters Peanut guy and the familiar Pringles mustache man are included as is the Pillsbury Doughboy. Ronald McDonald is certainly portrayed much differently in this movie compared to his real life image. Hes involved in a high speed police chase and eventually takes a hostage and opens fire on the police, just a slight stretch of character I'd say. Overall the animated movie is rather entertaining because of the characters involved and due to the fact that their personalities and behaviors have been drastically altered.

Art critic Dave Hickey podcast

http://www.friezefoundation.org/talks/detail/custodians_of_culture_dave_hickey/

Art critic Dave Hickey opens his keynote lecture by discussing the object of money and how some artists are more attracted towards money than artwork. He states that you can be an icon of virtue by behaving well, right, and/or correct. According to Hickey being wrong entails selling something for too much money which is known as primary practice. Hickey says that art dealers today are creating value but not real value which is resulting in higher prices for works of art. In the 80s and 90s public funding began declining which affected museums. He also mentions the presence of art bubbles which "suck money into the art world but actually hurt greedy artists and stupid collectors". Hickey comments on non-commercial art as being essentially art that doesn't sell in galleries but yet the artists that created these particular works are still getting paid. He reverts back to public funding and discusses how the government overtook the community and became the primary source of funding for museums. Museums then responded by separating themselves from the community. During certain moments throughout the lecture Hickey tends to drift a bit off topic but he is able to maintain the audience's attention through his use of humor.

Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas by Otto Dix

Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas is one of the most famous anti-war paintings created by German-born Otto Dix. Dix served in the German army during WWI, fighting on first the Western front then later the Eastern front until the end of the war. He was wounded several times, and the trauma of war stayed with him long after he left the armed services. In a 1963 interview he is quoted as saying:

"As a young man you don’t notice at all that you were, after all, badly affected. For years afterwards, at least ten years, I kept getting these dreams, in which I had to crawl through ruined houses, along passages I could hardly get through… "

These horrors of war are depicted in this painting in which German soldiers, wearing gas masks and weilding grenades, are advancing toward the enemy. The dark dark hues and faceless figures create a dark, almost cartoonishly nightmarish, atmosphere that is the reality of war.

Maman by Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois is a French artist and sculptor who was born in 1924. Most of her works deal with the life cycle from birth to rebirth and the fragility and vunerability of mankind. Spiders have remained a constant image in several of her works throughout her career. In this sculpture, entitled "Maman" (which is French for "mother") she depicts a giant, 30 foot tall bronze and stainless steel female spider. On her back she has a sac containing several marble eggs. The sculpture is located outside the Tate Modern Museum in London. It provides a sharp contrast to the the typical city landscape, which is probably what Bourgeois was going for. Despite its massive size, the spider is supported by extremely thin legs which make it seem fragile yet overwhelming all at once.

Wiggenstein in New York by Eduardo Paolozzi

Paolozzi was a Scottish artist and sculptor who was a prominent member of the international art community during the 20th century. This piece, entitled "Wiggenstein in New York" was completed in 1965 and is part Paolozzi's collection called "As is when." It is a color/photo screenprint that contains many abstract and seemingly unrelated images. In doing so, Paolozzi attempts to create the sense of fragmentation that exists within our society. The bright colors also act to make the painting stand out, with the more earthly colored human figures appearing in front of a background of bright blue and orange skyscrapers. Along with Andy Warhol, Paolozzi helped spearhead the pop art movement in Britain and America in the 1950's.

Saturn Devouring His Children - Goya

Saturn Devouring His Children is the title for this work done by Spanish painter Goya. This piece like many of Goya's works incorporates themes of human bestiality and madness. These themes became prevalent in his works because of the first hand experiences he had such as with Napoleon's brutality towards the Spanish people. He was one of the first artists to focus on the irrational aspect of human nature which he then translated into art. Goya had a tendency to look at the ugly side of society, the inhumanity that existed among men.

All of the Above by Judy Pfaff

Judy Pfaff is an artist well known for her installation works. She is a very hands on artist using many tools to create her artwork. This particular piece, titled "all the above" shows her creativity through the use of many different materials, tools and contrasting colors, white and black in this case, possible signifying light and dark. There is also the very subtle appearance of other brighter colors such as light greens, yellows, and reds that are enhanced through the use of black lights.

Eye of the Storm by Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin is an artist who is famous for his use of signature colors, plays on other artists previous works as well as his own, and his play on words in his artwork. This piece titled "Eye of the Storm" is one display of his use of daily objects, objects that he has also used in previous works of his. The handcuffs, table fan, pitchfork and light bulb were all objects found in some of his more well known pieces. Also in this painting are the groups of signature colors that he is known and famous for.

Lavender Mist by Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock's Lavender Mist is an abstract piece of work that relies heavily on texture and contrast in order to create an earthy appearance. The texture feature of the painting creates multiple layers which allows for a 3-D like appearance. Pollock also uses different shades and colors which attracts the viewer's attention over the entire image. This painting incorporates Pollock's infamous drip paint technique which heavily influenced the works of later artists. Lavender Mist is a quite popular piece but I don't view it as an amazing work of art. Its three dimensional appearance is interesting but the colors are not appealing with this piece. Although I personally don't care much for the painting, the process that is necessary to create this work is not simplistic. Pollock didn't simply splatter paint on a canvas, he is a talented artist that carefully planned out his approach and through using his drip technique he was able to design this painting.

Rabbit - Jeff Koons

An interesting concept with Koon's Rabbit is that it began as an inflatable toy which was then manipulated and made out of stainless steel. At initial glance the rabbit appears to be lightweight and almost fragile but in reality its quite heavy and tough. This piece has a reflective aspect to it similar to a mirror and in a way is like jewelry because of its shininess. The stainless steel characteristic draws a lot of attention from viewers especially when featured in galleries and exhibits. This work of art has a uniqueness like that of Hirst's Platinum Skull because they both are very luxurious looking pieces that feature bright surfaces that attract lots of attention and high selling prices.

Platinum Skull by Damien Hirst

Hirst's platinum skull also known as For the Love of God is an interesting piece that features more than 8,000 diamonds encrusted into it. This work was sold for roughly $89 million but unlike most artists, Hirst chose to sell this piece through auction rather than through a gallery. This piece is very unique as are many of Hirst's work due to his provocative nature as an artist.

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain

Marcel Duchamp was influential in helping to eliminate traditional constraints on what was deemed "art" through his readymade concept. By choosing existing objects that were aesthetically neutral, Duchamp was able to create art with normal objects as he did with his infamous Fountain work. I personally don't consider this urinal to be a work of art although it appears to feature an image representing the Virgin Mary. If I were to see this work in a gallery or museum I wouldn't be too drawn towards it because for me its not appealing.