Conceptual Art-In Class Project-Sol LeWitt

Today in class we learned about Conceptual Art pieces. We looked at a Sol LeWitt example and carried it out in class. The project is simmilar to the one above but a little different. We made a grid of 7x4 pannals. Each person draws out of a hat a piece of paper that has a line on it. You draw the line and then hang the pannel up onto the wall. Everyone goes around the room taking cards and drawing them onto the larger pannel and hanging it onto the wall. At first this project was a little confusing and complicated as everyone tried to figure out where the pannels go. In the end we had a grid with different lines that connect with eachother to make a pattern. I found it interesting to see the end results and then to research online different examples from the actual artist himself.

Conceptual Art

Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.[1] This method was fundamental to LeWitt's definition of Conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:
“ In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. – Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art", Artforum, June 1967. ” For the layman, this quotation highlights a key difference between a conceptualist installation and a traditional work of art - that the conceptualist's work may require little or no physical craftsmanship in its execution, whereas traditional art is distinguished by requiring physical skill and the making of aesthetic choices. As Tony Godfrey has put it, after Joseph Kosuth's definition of art, conceptual art is an art which questions the very nature of what is understood as art.

Yoko Ono- YouTube Performance Art- CUT PIECE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXSjFB08C8



This is a YouTube video you can watch of a performance art by Yoko Ono. To me it is somewhat silly and I do not know what she is trying to get across to the public, but it is still interesting to watch. Check it out!!

Mirrored Mimes and In Class Performance Activity

My Performance Art Piece: Mirrored Mimes
Two people sit face to face with arms up and palms barely touching. One person starts to make gestures and the other person has to follow at the same time. Then the other person starts to make the gestures a little faster and the other participant has to keep up. If the activity is done well and practiced the effect would be very much like gestures in a mirror.

I felt that mine went pretty well considering that I thought it would not and that it would be a little ridiculous. It was a little difficult I thought for them to keep up with each other but it went really well and was fun. I participated in another students activity outside. Me and another student, Jordan, stood a few feet away from each other. Jordan threw a ball to me and then I caught it. Then I had to decide where we should move 5 paces (e.g. 5 paces to the left) the I threw him the ball and then he would decide where to move. We were both a little confused at first but then got the hang of it and it became a fun game. One of my favorite activity was that of Casey's who had two participants draw some Jewish stars on a piece of paper. At the end of 2 minutes she asked them what they were thinking about. One answer was very interesting. She stated that she was thinking how symbols can be broken down into simpler shapes. I found this response interesting since generly a responce would be simpler. I think all the activities were interesting and it was neat to see what others came up with for their activity.

Performance Art and Dadaisim

Personally I do not understand Performance art so well. Performance Art though has been around for quite some time, involving the Dadas, Nouveau Realists, Gutai, Fluxus, and even the Bauhaus in Germany. Performance Art is live and has no rules or guidelines, a way for artists to break away from society even more and express themselves. But what is it they are exactly expressing and trying to let us know is hard for me to understand through the Performance Art. What was Alan Kaprow trying to get through to his audience with his performance with the mirrors? Performance Art is called art because the artist says it is art. For that matter anyone can do anything and call it art, this perhaps is what the pioneers of Performance Art were trying to do. For example, the Dada movement began at the onset of WWI as a negative response to society and the conventional ideas of art. Dadaists went against the contemporary academic and cultural values of art. They wanted to bring art to the next level, to go against the traditional values and bring their art out onto the streets and have participation of an audiance. Dadaisim was not just confined to the visual and literary arts, it involved sound and music. A Dadaist know as Kurt Shwitters developed a Performance Art known as sound poems. Musicians collaborated and made Dada music and the members of the Dada movement performed their works at Dada gatherings. Many of the performance art that I have looked up and watched, and have know about I still don't quite get. Like Yoko Ono sitting on stage and random people come up and can cut of parts of her shirt as she just sits there and stares into space. How is this art? What is it we are supposed to get? Why is this called art? Perhaps with further knowledge on this subject I can fully understand the age old excitement and meaning of Performance Art.

Playing with Behaviors of Everyday Life: Mirror Activity

We did a performance activity today that the artist Allan Kaprow came up with. Two people stand back to back and hold mirrors so that they can see one another. You start walking away from each other but continue to hold the mirror so you can see your partner. In the mirror you make faces at each other and are supposed to mimic the other's facial expression. Allan Kaprow writes in his untitled essay "It cannot fail to delight him to stand at his mirror making faces, scowling, grinning, shedding tears, and making queer noises in quick succession." This statement and the activity we did today in class remind me of a behavior that my autistic girl I work with does to amuse herself. She can spend hours in front of a mirror making faces at herself, getting tears in her eyes and pretending to cry, smiling, frowning, and making silly noises, all for pleasure and a way to amuse herself. It is interesting to relate this piece from my everyday life to what we read and did in the activity, and to even consider that how we can apply silly behaviors in front of the mirror as an art.

Patterns

This project was difficult for me in the beginning. I did not quite understand how to do it, instructions at the beginning were vague. But with better understanding it became quite easy and not so nerve racking.

Patterns In Our World

Patterns can be found everywhere in our lives. There are patterns on the architecture of religious sites like mosques churches, and temples. Patterns can also be found in homes on floors and walls. They also adorn our clothing and jewelry. For hundreds of year humans have been using patterns for adorning, communicating, and expressing themselves. Patterns can be as simple as a repeated clover design or as complicated as an Islamic floral wall tile. The Islamic patterns are very unique as art forms. They are considered to represent the unchanging laws of God. In this way the patterns are a construction of geometric patterns that provide a visual analogy to religious rules of behavior. Muslims believe that the contemplation of creating the patterns 9the creative skills) lead to an understanding of the perfections of a Universal Nature. The Islamic patterns begin with a circle, which is the symbol of one God, and the center of Islam. The circle also has always been considered to represent a symbol of eternity - without a begging and without an end.

Gestalt

The Gestalt theorists were the first group of psychologists to systematically study perceptual organisation around the 1920’s, in Germany. Gestalt is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain with self-organizing tendencies. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves.

Value

We created a value scale in class using pencil. It is very important to have a value scale so you can see the different gradation of your colors. Then we drew a design and used our value scale to help us create contrasting shades in our design. I enjoyed this project a lot. I found it very helpful too because it is important to understand the different shades and value of colors. I am able to use my value scale when I am drawing at home and in other drawing classes.

Value Drawing

Line, Shape, and the String Thing

I enjoyed making the line and shape project. It was interesting to do and fun to have them all end up connected in a mass design. I first made one line and shape project and then decided to do it all over again and make it better and neater. So now there are two.
The string project was fun. I wanted to create an actual spider web design, but it did not work so well. We were not allowed to cut the string so I could not cut off pieces and tie them together, which was a little frustrating. I had a good time though, but in the end when we had to take it all apart and everything got all knotted, that was not fun. I got very frustrated and hated the string then. In all, the activities were fun and I especially liked the line and shape project and how it turned out.

Line or Shape?

1. Which of the images a, b, c, or d are lines?
I think that both a and b can be considered lines.


2. Which of the images a, b, c, or d are shapes?
I think that c and d can be considered shapes.


3. What makes a line?
A line can be continuous, it can be straight or squiggly, it can go up or down and it can be thin or slightly thick.

4. What makes a shape?
A shape is something that is contained with in its self. It can be and organic form or a geometric form.

Venus of Urbino

In the foreground of the painting "Venus of Urbino", painted by Titian in 1538, a large nude female sprawls gracefully upon a bed of white linen. In one hand the woman holds a batch of flowers, while her other hand covers her pubic area. Asleep at her tiny feet is an equally small brown and white lap dog. The background of the painting is divided into two equal halves. A solid dark panel takes up the left and the right panel opens up to a scene of two figures in a luxurious spacious room. Both figures are female. One kneels at a trunk and the other stands watching over, holding garments.

The woman in the foreground is the subject of Titian's painting. She lounges in a graceful yet provocative manner with her head slightly turned, eyes gazing at the viewer. She engages and seduces the viewer with her coy expression and erotic pose. The woman seems unconcerned about her nudity. Although her expression is frank and she bares all, there is a feeling of mystery about her. In the woman's right hand is a bouquet of red flowers which she clasps gently and half heartedly. Her left hand rests upon her pubic area, hiding it from view, but Titian has placed the line from the wall directly above, drawing our eyes directly to the forbidden area. The placement of the woman's pubic area is placed provocatively right in the center of the work. The women in the background seem to be searching for Venus's clothing to cover her and keep her modest. Asleep at her feet is the docile lap dog which signifies fidelity. Both the women in the background and the dog give a sense of domestic life. Titian's "Venus of Urbino", although provocative, is alluring and not harshly portrayed; the woman is warm and inviting.

A few hundred years later Manet chose to paint a similar painting but with a hard cold quality. The painting "Olympia," painted in 1863, shows a woman lounging in the same pose as Venus. In contrast, Olympia is shown rigid, angular, and flat. With her head straight and eyes staring directly at the viewer, she does not seduce us or look at us lovingly. Unlike Venus who gazes affectionately up at the viewer, Olympia looks down with cold eyes, daring us to come to her, showing that she is the one in power. This is paired with the reaction of her black cat that bares its teeth at us instead of Venus's passive dog. There is no warmth and affection in Manet's "Olympia" which parodies Titian's "Venus".

Venus of Urbino is a great painting from art in 16th century Europe. This painting does not have much of a philosophical subject that many paintings in the Renaissance had, but it still engages the viewer. I like this painting and others by Titian; he was a master at creating vibrant images and female nudes. This painting is a great example of his rendering the nude female body.