Module 13 & 14

These videos were quite interesting and had similar themes and topics for each video. It was about museums and curators. How ironic since we have to make our own museums and become a curator ourselves. This is quite thrilling and nerve racking since I don't know where to begin. These videos painted a picture and brought ideas to my mind. As I was watching the videos I wasn't only taking notes but definitely blanking out and day dreaming about how my museum would become.

Tate modern exhibits correspond directly with the chronology of our course which is 1900 to the present. This is called International Modern Art era. Theres a collection which is relatively traditional in terms of its focus on NATO Alliance, Western European, North American Art, emphasizing the canonical movements, surrealism, abstract expressionism, constructivism and pop.

A history embodied in a collection which principally excludes non-western discourses principally excludes art that is politically engaged and consistently ignores the contribution of women artists throughout 20th century so there is a very partial collection.

The way that we look at modern art is partly shaped by art historical concerns. Museums of modern art have played no less a role in framing our values and judgements.

MOMA which is the Museum of Modern Art in New York is powerful and prestigiou institution that pioneered a new form of display that was to dominate the exhibition of modern art for over half a century. This system for exhibiting what we were recent artistic tendencies was largely the product of museums first director Alfred H. Barr, Jr.

Barr's view of art was in significant ways a response to artistic modernism, the form that he used to display come to be seen as the characteristic type of modern exhibition. Barr displayed artworks that are primarily other responses of art and it traveled on a direct path to the present. Barr believed that art was ultimately self contained and bore little relation to social, political or intellectual history.

Art movements evolved from one another with experience we can see time based work like performance and video, ephemeral works that do not resemble the museum's commodity the museum usually housed.

There are four themes that curator use to organize the museum which is landscape, still life, history and the nude.

Video Reviews

The first video that I watched was the Modernity and art. The second video was mostly about Andy Warhol's method of printing. The first video made me reflect on how far our civilization have came. There were much centuries ago where painting was very different from what we call painting today.

Even in the Greek times shapes of men they were reflecting was a man , an idealized version of themselves which have the spark of divinity within themselves. Art has its own memory in itself. It has its own psychic strata. For example, you can see human consciousness changing a civilization altering itself. We see higher realm being, idealized versions of what we could be if we were better than ourselves.

There's some kind of spine-chilling if we connect art to the past. We sense some awesome and unquestionable set of values being carried on through art, but then art changes because everything changes. For example, during Industrialization man is separated from nature. Machines took over and they were the rule work. Science challenges religion. What eventually rises is modern life. The old illusions shattered and the new ones rule us. Our new freedoms pictures to us in advertising. Art describes us when we have freedom to be whatever we want it to be.

Present life is in the uncertain present. There is no single code for living. The burning issue right now is the uncertainty. The future will look back and look at us as a society defined by change, living constantly with oddness. Now art is about questions. For example, bricks piled up are about form. You don't have to make a cut into the sculpture to make it a sculpture but the bricks make a cut into the world. It shows different theories and points of view what the brick is really presenting about.

Andy Warhol gives such a great quote in the beginning of the video. He says department stores are modern day museums. This is somewhat true! Department stores and clothing lines use so much advertisement. These include manicans which act as sculptures. Andy Warhol is one of the famous artists who is integrated in the advertisement world. He is most famous for silk screen shots of Marilyn Monroe. The one that is most popular is the Cambell Soup.

Art Gallery Visit #2

The title of the exhibit was Burchfield Exhibit! This gallery was way different from the first one that I went to at Albright-Knox art gallery. It was more open and very spacious compared to the other one. This one also had concerts and shows with auditoriums. At the Albright-Knox it was mostly paintings but REALLY colorful. One thing that stood out in this exhibit was the music. It was this eerie, gloomy music that played pretty well with the theme.

It was mostly all the same colors and layout. The floor was very spacious. Sometimes there would be random sculptures or paintings in the middle of the floor that you have to be careful about. The lighting was dim, of coarse so it wouldn't ruin the paintings. At this one there was no security guards that would yell at your or constantly breathe behind your neck. They politely asked us to take pictures without flash. One of my favorite and VERY unique thing was on the top floor there was this machine that was made of motion sensors and every time you move, it controls the water dripping down. I am really into technology and was fascinated by this. I had most of my fun in this machine.

The artwork was properly organized according to the exhibits. There were several but I forgot to take pictures. There were similar to watercolors and acrylic paintings but very different from Albright-Knox. I realized at Albright-Knox it was VERY colorful with bright colors and the paintings would stand out at you. Another unique thing about the Burchfield was that there were some comments box or places you can write about how you were thinking at that specific spot or painting.

The first one that stood out for me was Ultima Cena by Stephen F Saracino. Now this was clearly similar to the Last Supper with Jesus. But it was really interesting how it depicted the Last Summer with these animal. There was balance in this picture and shows quite a symmetry. The next artwork I selected was this wonderful photo from Patti Ambrogi. This was a photo made up of many small photos. I thought this was very neat! It shows contrast and was remarkable! The final artwork was The Forest Through the Trees from Hillary Fayle. This is a great example of proportion. It depicts a forest through a small leaf. I thought it was fantastic yet ironic.

Video for Module 11

I watched videos for Matisse and Picasso. The second video that I watched was about the Mystical North for Spanish art. It's ideal how the world's famous cathedrals and buildings actually was influenced by art and great artists.

Drawing is painting with less materials according to Matisse. Paris was a great place for Matisse for his painting that is to say for his life was a man who needed to take risks. Matisse has two passions, the female node and fabrics the silks and velvets. For Matisse painting always meant, panic, struggle and fear. He used to try to deliberately instigate the struggle by setting up little visual tableaux. Matisse always had a model. He would be on the model, in the model and very inspired by models. It gives you a very particular vision of the model if you are so close. In fact it's a deformation almost like a fish eye vision. When you literally draw something from your lap, your vision is different from how it would be if you just took a few steps back from it. Matisse needs models because it serves to fix his attention and it has a relay action.

Picasso comes across this and makes fun of Matisse to provoke him. He was actually awarded Nobel Peace Prize. He doesn't travel or need tourism like Matisse. Picasso says "To me to paint a picture is to engage in a dramatic action in the course of which reality will be disengaged." He also says that dramatic action need solitude. Perhaps it happens at night as close as possible to the unconscious mind. Picasso does not use palettes or easels which is very interesting. He uses newspapers that are laid out on the floor. Lots of paintings from Picasso are objects that never existed. Picasso's inspiration comes from first and foremost life, women are the engine that drives him. Female mystery is the greatest subject.

After Goya finished the black paintings, his sight deteriorated to the point he could barely see. Within five years he was dead. He may have lit the fuse of modern art. It wasn't till t he start of 20th century that Spain became one of the power houses for modern art. Spanish modern art would be forced out of the friction between two opposites. This includes modern Atheism and ancient religion. Antoni Gaudi's style is organic and sinous and it was inspired by God's Natural World. Gaudi was a man who clung to Spain's Catholic past. He created the Cathedral in Barcelona. It is called Sagrada Familia. Gaudi saw himself as God's architect. It was God that he looked for inspiratio.

Dia De Los Muertos

In the beginning before I started to brainstorm ideas and find out how I can make a mask, I thought wow it must take really a miracle to come up with an idea. Every time I work on these projects I expand my limitations more and more, above what I think. I started off with the theme of Halloween and I'm pretty sure people started exactly the same place as me. When I thought of Halloween it automatically reminded me of the Day of the Dead. It is very popular and people should've heard of it. It the day when you celebrate the deceased. It is a really cool part of the Latin culture.

I started to google some pictures of the day of the dead, and automatically a mask pops up and I realized this was my project. I started to look at youtube videos and more images to start constructing my mask. I came up with these images from google which I downloaded. There are lots of pictures with flowers and flower petals with crosses. All the masks seemed pretty friendly to me and very comical. It wasn't too scary. I had to begin with the outline of a skull and that's where I started to work up the foundation.

I implied elements of texture and color and the principle of balance. It is nicely symmetrically designed. I used acrylic paint, leftover from previous projects. I tried to imply almost a similar theme with flowers and crosses with a skull. It then end it came out great! I had a really good experience with this mask, but I wish I worked on it earlier so I could've taken it around during Halloween. 

African Art

I watched both videos on African Art. It was very interesting. There were so many similarities between African Art and art from other countries. I liked both of these presentations because it let me feel I was in the museum looking at the statues and sculptures the way these people were describing it. You usually think African Art as static but a specific sculpture had a twisted back, turned all around and you could feel the notches of his spine and the tongue that was sticking out. African art that affected the west is more abstract, simple and dramatic, startling and exaggerated. Above all African Art packed an emotional wallop. It gives a way of psychological form to the human form or to any other figures or to a scene they wish to depict. Most common magical art objects were masks. For example there is a mask with two sides: white and black. The white side depicts a healthy person. The black side is the side of illness, we can see small posts which are victims of small pox. Masks were designed to scare us, but some didn't work and the Boas stopped making them. One of the groups that were made to scare is the Westerners. Rubber and Ivory was popular at the time in Congo when King Leopold was in power. The king wanted it out fast and sent soldiers to make sure that it happens. At the time bullets were very expensive and every time soldiers used it, the king wanted proof that it was used properly. The only time when bullets were used was when the slaves had a deadly disease and bullets were use to prevent from extending the disease any further. The soldiers would sometimes miss and hit another animal. Then these soldiers would sever the right hand off of natives in order to compensate for the bullet that was used. The nature of existence is what Art is about. Art is part of daily life in African culture. This is similar in our culture also. A strong aesthetic sense is revealed in the decoration of traditional homes and in the making of everyday utensils. It finds expressions in dress, hairstyles and other forms of ornamentation. Art was always important in traditional rituals. Many masks in museums were once used in ceremonies that combined artistic creations with sounds of music and dynamic power of dance.