MOMA Visit. Half Final Post.

MoMa’s Visit

  After a semester learning how to look at a piece of art and its style really made me realized that visiting museum can be a very enjoyable thing. Practically, it just feels good to know myself understand art better than the ones who stand next to me and have their arms crossed on their chest. At least, most of them.

  Dada and abstract expressionism are fun to write about and important to contemporary art. First from Dada, Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel is an iconic artwork of Dadaism. Only the name itself describe half of this art piece. It is simply a bicycle wheel and a kitchen stool. The metal wheel is about 63.8cm diam., on top on a60.2cm high painted wood stool, both are common objects acquired from ordinary life of us which really help us to get a grasp of the actual size. The time span of this piece was long. Because the lost of original at 1913, Marcel Duchamp made its third version at 1951, almost 40 years later. And Dada was an art movement of the European avant-grade in the early 20^th century. Although Duchamp was not the first one bringing day to day living objects into art making, he definitely sent out the idea of Readymade. Dadaist believe many objects around people are readymade art. With a negative feeling and reaction to the horrors of world ward 1 at that time, Dadaist subverted the concept and value of art making process. On top of this idea, artwork like Bicycle Wheel can be massive produced. The selections of materials at making art became less essential very much. This piece, and similar ones are a negative, disappointment expression of the world which people were lived in at that time. Several objects were combined together, but have no use of anything. Despite the fact Dada was an informal international movement, it is the groundwork to abstract art and surrealism, even influence on pop art.

Abstract expressionism on the other hand, was an American post World War 2 art movement. Its influence made an impact internationally and located New York City as the middle of the western art world. 1944, Clyfford Still painted 1944-N NO.2. It is oil on unprimed canvas, enormous, about 8’8.25x7’3.25. with black impasto as back ground, added red and yellow only. The red color cuts almost from top to the bottom vertically as the shape of a thunder. Another 2 yellow marks lay on the red line, and leaves an empty expanse space on this painting. Because the size of this piece of work is large, the emptiness and color creates no depth feeling in space, but still as if it is making us wondering: what else is there? Clyfford Still tried to avoid any recognizable imagery appears in his work, and that was most abstract expressionists did at that time. The most they would apply were simple signs and symbols.  Color filed painting is the other name of the style of Still’s work. They were simple in shapes and colors irregularly, in favor of large scale of canvas. This painting, for example, jagged red and yellow‘s juxtaposition does not create different layers and depth, but the colors are about to torn this painting apart. This feelings are elevated without any imagery of emotion or signs and symbols.

  The abstract impressionism weights in indefinite. Vague and unknown, even unfinished. It can also be very personal, because impression is personal, within ourselves.  

PS1 Visit: Animatograph Odins Parsipark

Odins Parsipark is an installation artwork assembled in the 3^rd floor of MOMA PS1. It contains pictures, objects, stage, literature, sounds and TV shows etc. Its size about 1.000x1.000x400 cm, also called multimedia installation.

  What struck me about this piece was not about its various use of objects, but the sentiment it creates with its surroundings and sounds.

  Firstly, walking in the door of Odins’ Parsipark faces the other door which cannot be opened. A wall in front of you with unorganized images, characters, lines and drawings. But the room is too dim to let me figure out what is on the wall. After giving up of trying to interpret, and turn to the other side of the wall, it contains a plain, flat, nothing but few lamps on the floor, lightening up the place. This was where my mind made a shape turn. From a complicated map of lives, history, etc. to purely nothing. As if it wants your mind to rest after a wind blow. And prepare for a thunderstorm. Of course, I did not know what was coming after.

  Turn to the last side of the room. There is a huge cage with a revolving stage inside. Some TV sets give the room a better brightness. Pictures hanging on the wall, and several military airplane cabin parts and stairs put together on the slowly revolving stage. It is madness, and chaos. If there was a time machine, this is the one you would not wish to take. Inside its cabin, contains sexual context and topics such as German history, Nazis, Hitler. And definitely the sense of irony.

  The artist, in my opinion, is trying to use a dark, negative tone of color and sound sending a message that our world has always been a filthy place. He also trying to say that people looked for brightness under lights, but ended up on a stage of cruelness infinitely. The spinning stage makes us wonder if we had ever gotten out of this circle before, or if we ever will. And it is a disturbing thought to have in mind.

Bill Viola

"Bill Viola - Artists - James Cohan Gallery." Bill Viola - Artists - James Cohan Gallery. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.

"Bill Viola ARTIST BIOGRAPHY." Http://www.billviola.com/. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.

"Bill Viola - Artists - James Cohan Gallery." Bill Viola - Artists - James Cohan Gallery. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.

1.       The presentation will directly unfold the qualities of this artist’s artwork. Avoid excessive introduction of the artist himself.

2.       Display shorten footage of bill viola’s work. At least 2 different kinds: videotapes and architectural video installations.

3.       Analyze Bill viola’s work at the angels of their materials, influences, backgrounds, themes etc.

PS:

Site-specific or Environmental art refers to an artist's intervention in a specific locale, creating a work that is integrated with its surroundings and that explores its relationship to the topography of its locale, whether indoors or out, urban, desert, marine, or otherwise.

ART THOUGHTZ: Performance Art

In Hernnesse Youngman’s youtube video, Performance art, his satire of the content of performance art since the 1900 helps us rethink, even redefine the ideas of what is performance art and how to make one. His satire strikes us at three points. First, performance art’s origin versus its definition. Second, art created in different times and affected by historical events. Lastly, the internet alternates the meaning of performance art.

  Hernnesse believes explaining an art form’s origin only complicates the matter, he posts some pictures that enough to make people laugh to tears in order to demonstrate that people’s actions and materials they use in an artwork would do better explaining what is actually happening.

  The world has been in a series of political turbulence and it has always been. Performance art can sometimes being very time-sensitive, or territorial, reflects certain social events. Or simply a kind of unsatisfactory from civilians. Mostly anger and depression. To Hernnesse, creating performance art becomes easier than flipping your own hand, because what you have to do is to act out unreasonably. Crazier than what is already crazy.

  He constantly talking and posting pictures of people acting hilariously in front of their computer’s webcam. He criticize the misuse of the internet has blurry the line of performance art and performance on a screen. However, it also means the distance between professional artists and ordinary people in creating arts is alternated. Maybe, we just have to add the word “piece” to all of our batty, disturbing ideas and make it an art.

Collage

Dada and jacob

 hannah hoch c. 1920 Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany. Collage of pasted papaers.

  Hannah Hoch c was the tip of spear of this particular art form known as photomontage. After World War one started, several continents were in the states of chaos. In protest against this chaos of interwar period, Dada was introduced to overturn the conventional arts, redefine values in arts, and create meaningless arts as new art. As one of the most important Dadaists of Dada movement in Berlin, Hoch’s photomontages addressed many social phenomenon critically at that time. In this artwork particularly, Weimar New Woman’s liberation and disconnected levels of societies in Weimar Germany.

  Hoch placed one of her images on the left corner below with a map of Europe, shows a progress of woman’s liberty revolution. This is her statement of vision that women, as well as Dada, has to become an impact of modern society. Combining images from magazines, newspapers, cutting them apart and reordering them. Hoch sardonically reflected the various, but disconnected societies broken down in Weimar Germany. 

  Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series is also related to World War 1.  In this painting, a unity was created through the use of similar shapes and colors. Repetition of lines on the floor, same colors of worker’s uniforms, rectangle shapes of all tools all together and serve the purpose of bringing a sense of unity. The figures of workers becomes larger from left to right, this creates a small directional force in vision.

  Jacob Lawrence received numbers of significant recognitions through his life. Not only he was the most celebrated African-American painters in 20^th-century, more importantly, his legacies are able to be found in many museums near us, and continuously, influence us through his artworks and history within them.