Breaking out of the Frame

I really, genuinely enjoyed Terri’s art in lecture. To the point where I’ve been looking at similar art, scouring her website, and thinking about how to come up with a visual response for this blog for the last hour or so. I love the way her photographs show nature, as something ever present in our lives, that can push through the frame we force it into, or reclaim the traces of humanity we leave on it. Her pictures reminded me of a junkyard that sits outside of the town I’m from, that my friend lives right near. We walk through the forest on her property and sneak through the gate and wander around the old cars with broken windows that vines have started to consume. Overhead there are power lines that provide a constant and audible crackle of energy. The mood of the place is dark, eerie, and addicting. Among the junk of our culture, nature prevails. Moss grows on the seats of cars from decades ago that somehow found their way to this graveyard of humanity. The junkyard extends much further than we have been brave enough to venture (it really is eerie!) and into a vanishing point, where destroyed pieces of humanity and the nature reclaiming them merge. Oh, how I wish I could have pictures of this junk yard for my visual response! Instead, I thought about what else brings about those emotions, and I was reminded of the show Life After People on the History Channel. I also considered the theme of the show to be appropriate since Suzi Gablik is writing her book ‘before the end of time’. Now while this image is not a real one, it captures the essence of the junkyard. Nature can reclaim the things we put in it, it can destroy the structures we have covered the world in, and it can wipe our presence from the face of the earth. 

Now I realize this has focused very little on the reading and actual work Terri presented, so here we go. Most of Terri’s work showed nature as it was, manipulated by humans, but beautiful nonetheless. I feel like all of her photos of nature have the constant tone of overwhelming power, power that cannot be taken away. In the images where she had altered the surface or added color on, her intent was to show the relationship between culture and nature. Those were not hidden, they showed the process, the making, the poesis, as art was defined by Aristotle. In the pieces she showed where her primary focus was the construction and deconstruction of content, I was intrigued by the layers that can go into art; the different dimensions something flat can actually depict. One of my favorite of her portfolios is the Field Studies series. Not only are the pages from her sketchbook aesthetically pleasing, but they show the concepts of nature, the way we can attempt to understand it, but never fully control it.

Brillo Boxes, Urinals, River-Cleaning, and Photographs.

I have a few friends who have this piece of art sitting on the mantel above their fireplace. It doesn’t at all match the decor of their house; sitting among the posters of Wu Tang Clan, Tupac, and Biggie Smalls. So the first time I noticed it I asked why it was there. One of my friends said he got into a debate with his girlfriend about whether or not it was art. He debated that it was a picture of a soup can with the wrong colors and there’s no possible way that could be art. So she, as a joke, bought it for him and put it prominently on display on the mantel. This was the first thing that came to mind when I read James Hillman’s comments about Andy Warhol’s Pop Art… and I found myself completely agreeing with what he had to say. Throughout that conversation, the constant theme he stressed was the ability for both therapy and art to change the approach to something. When travelling on the subway to a therapy session, it can be a very stressful and uncomfortable experience. However after the therapy session, “the therapist’s position is that the work you do in therapy helps you live that time on the subway, as it would be if you were doing Buddhist meditation. You’d be able to remove yourself, or harmonize yourself, or detach yourself–it would have some effect on your relation to the subway trip.” The purpose of therapy is not to change the actual event that occurs, but to change a person’s approach to it and therefore change their experience. This is the same way that Andy Warhol’s Pop Art functions. It IS just a soup can with messed up colors… but showing it like that forces you to take a different approach to it. The reoccurring example of artist Dominique Mazeaud cleaning the river is then brought into a different view. If a soup can with messed up colors can be art, can cleaning a river be art? Performance art maybe? And can a urinal placed in a gallery be art?

And then the continual question. What purpose should art serve? The second conversation, with Carolyn Merchant addressed this. While she isn’t on a rant about how we should all abandon every connection to society we have and learn tracking skills, she addresses the problems with a more realistic and, I thought, positive approach. Her approach to the way art could be used to promote change in the world was a realistic one to me– art is not going to be the thing that makes everyone change, that makes us all adopt more sustainable practices, but it should reflect and support the change that needs to happen.

Now, I’m completely racking my brain about how Dan’s work can be tied into Carolyn Merchant’s view of the world. I see how his photographs of things that would otherwise seem insignificant fit into James Hillman’s view of Pop Art, and that was something I found interesting. I was almost inspired to go write on photographs and alter them how he did. Another aspect of his art that I thought the reading highlighted was the constant presence of humans. His use of the human form, whether up front or hidden behind layers followed the theme that humans and their society are the reason for art and the reason the environment is at the point it is at right now. The need to make nature into things that work with our civilization and the manipulation of natural things (such as a photograph of something natural being manipulated through filters and being written upon) shows the problems with how we are trying to exist on this planet. And something needs to change, whether that idea is pushed by science, deep ecology, or even art.

A Thousand Approaches to Art…

I am an advertising major so in most things I do in this class I look for a way that art can be used in advertising, which is what I think a good modern purpose of art is (sorry if that makes anyone cringe. I really appreciated Jack Ryan’s use of humor in his projects and I thought it was interesting to see how one video can inspire such a project as Blue Skies: Thar She Blows. I also really enjoyed his Scriabin’s Mustache piece because through his work it seems like Jack finds something that is amusing or entertaining to him and turns it into a piece of art. Because of this viewing his art allows the critic to see not only something about the artist, but also about his sense of humor. This is especially fun for me to see because in advertising, humor is often used to promote a project. In fact one of MY favorite Youtube videos is an advertisement for a brand of cheese sold in Egypt:  This video also reminded me of Jack’s work because in a way (while very different from his intent) the song in the commercial sticks with the viewer, similar to the mystic sequence in Scriabin’s Mustache. As far as some of the other videos Jack showed, I had mixed feelings. I really didn’t like the video Salt because it was incredibly creepy and inhuman. And honestly I wasn’t quite sure what to think of the Sabine Hagman video nor the Walnut Economics one. I felt like the reading this week demanded I give more thought into what I really think the purpose of art is and for that reason I had a hard time reading it. Strangely enough I found I appreciated some of Hilton Kramer’s points. It was refreshing to hear from someone in this book that isn’t talking about how the world is going to end. I thought his views about the world were actually fairly valid on most points. However on another note, Mr. Kramer seems like one of the most unpleasant people in the world to talk to. Now this may be because his tone cannot be conveyed through writing, but to me he seems highly impersonal (I suppose, as his view of art is). Alternately, Satish Kumar’s view of art was also one that I appreciated. He says “the artist’s role is to create, among people, and to somehow be the bridge, or the instigator, for developing a sense of reverence and beauty” (139). I think this is a view of art that is easy to adopt because those who view art do so for that purpose, and those who create art seek to do so.

Art about Caterpillars

“Man is like a face drawn in the sand. It appeared one day, and we take it for some ultimate reality. But, just as inexplicably, a wave could break on the sand, and the face of Man could disappear…history is discontinuous.” (91). In the interview with Christopher Manes, he stresses this, along with his opinion that Man is flawed because Man “sees himself as the apex of evolution” (100). However, while Man may be able to do things other beings cannot, they can also do things HE cannot do, and this is something that Man rarely realizes. Manes says that it’s been a thousand year search, for Man to try to find something about himself that sets him above the other beings on the earth. Language was a first suggestion, however other animals can communicate. Then it was tools, but the finches Darwin discovered made tools also. So what is it that sets Man apart? Power, the power to destroy the world we live in? Personally, I feel like that might be it. With the way we’ve been destroying the environment so far, it would seem that Man is very good at that. Manes suggestion is that the role art plays today should be to reconnect us with our environment. Artists and environmentalists alike, he says, should say more about “recapturing the rich, poetic, wild ways in which we can relate to nature and ourself”(100). He gives the example of Mycenaean art which I thought was interesting. This is the “Spring Fresco” from Thera and is actually Minoan, but I thought was a more interesting example of the emphasis earlier peoples placed on the importance of nature in their daily lives. Manes goes on to suggest we should even be making art about caterpillars, since in observing one for fifteen minutes, it is apparent to a person how much there is to its life. Essentially, what I got from Colin Ives’ work, was that he was making art about caterpillars. His videos of kit foxes showed how these animals have learned to work around how we’ve influenced their habitat, and have actually thrived in it. Their collecting of trash and even playing with the video equipment showed the “wild ways in which we can relate to nature.” A similar effect was achieved in the video installation of “The Clearing.” A person viewing this would be so aware of their body getting in the way of the projection since it would result in a view of a clearcut. This provides an intimate and close relationship with the environment for the viewer. The other interview from our reading was one that I didn’t enjoy quite as much as the one with Christopher Manes because it seemed as though Rachel Dutton and Rob Olds were going to such extremes to remove themselves from society and it’s environmentally degrading flaws. To me it came off as preachy because it was just about how they were abandoning the things everyone else in the world does and going back to the earth. Which, while being a noble and brave thing to do, is not a practical solution to where we are in the world today. It might be that in doing this, they were making a final piece of art, whose message was that we need to return to the earth from which we have come, or risk dying along with it. While this would make a bold statement, to me, it still seemed excessive. And in paying someone handsomely to teach them these skills, they are not removing themselves completely from society as it is. The interview with Manes provided an interesting alternative to this, and I thought it was a refreshing change after reading that interview.

First Week of Class

When I first started doing the reading I was rolling my eyes about it because it seemed to be over-analyzing something I thought was really simple: People make art to make art. Art for art’s sake. When I personally make art it’s  because I want to make something that looks cool. However as I made my way through the first few pages and came across the subject of “dialogue” and what its purpose is, I became more interested. I really liked the way David Bohm viewed the importance of dialogue and what purpose it actually serves: “for people to realize what is on each other’s minds without coming to any conclusions or judgments” (25). I really appreciated this definition of dialogue because I think it is a tactful approach to learning more about a subject. If a person were to be more open to different views as they conversed with someone else, they would end up learning far more than than he could believe possible. Because in not striving to “win” an argument but instead striving to gain more knowledge and thus a stronger viewpoint, you are able to better understand not only the subject but also the person you are speaking with. I think in the future I will attempt to be more open to this concept and do as Bohm advised, “to listen to each other and open up to all the different opinions so that the whole structure of defensiveness and attack can change to one of participation and sharing”.  And as I continued to read I gradually became more open to the “over-analyzing” of art. I don’t like things about art because sometimes I feel like there’s pressure to try to express something profound through it. Whenever I’ve made something in school and been asked to title it, I generally get a little annoyed because I want whatever I make to stand on its own, whether that means actually speaking for itself, or not needing to speak and just simply being a nice thing to look at. Since this is my view, I really appreciated the analysis Ellen Dissanayake gave for art because I think it can explain not only why humans have made art for so long, but also why it has the place in society today that it does. I thought that it explained why art has the value it does today because not only do humans have a need to “make special” but to “appreciate special”. So when a person buys a piece of art and displays it in their home, they are showing their appreciation for the “making special”. I also actually put thought into this after I saw something in my history of Japanese art class. After seeing the deep bowls early people made just for cooking and seeing the immense detail that was put in them (http://www.jayneshatzpottery.com/Jomon_12000-1_500BPE.jpg) , even though the function was likely just for cooking and the decoration served no real purpose, I began to agree with Dissanayake more and more.

Seeing Ty’s art in class was a very interesting experience for me because I’ve never really seen any sort of digital art. I really liked the cleverness of the “Distinct spirits for discriminative tastes” wine label and different ways of expression through untraditional media. I noticed that the video of the push ups did indeed make me tense and uncomfortable and I tried to count at first but couldn’t focus on the number as much as the actual pain going into each push up. Now imagine my reaction to doing push up exercises in “Gentle Yoga” immediately after this class. It was not exactly a relaxing class as I’d hoped. I also thought the studio walls covered in years of obsession over a body was a different take on art. I did genuinely enjoy seeing examples of digital art, even if they did make me uncomfortable. They also ended up making me feel guilt for not working out. Probably the most interesting part was how much I learned about my instructor through this presentation, which may be what made me most uncomfortable. One thing I actually kind of hoped to see was an example of Ty’s screen printing since that’s something I really enjoy (I mean who doesn’t want custom, awesome shirts?)