Thursday, December 17, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Hi yall,
First of all, I wanted to tell you sorry that you couldn't see my works on time but I still believe you can watch and comment them.
Secondly, thanks for having this wonderful class. I really enjoy having these talented classmates next to me. Your critiques and comments were important for me. I improved my art skills and english as well just because of you all.
And Hagit, I liked you as my art teacher even though I got unexpected grade. I cannot imagine another instructor but you. You helped us to look into a painting with thoughtful meanings from tiny details to painter's love. Thank you so much.
Artist Statement
I wanted to create something that I’ve never done before, so the flowers appeal to me as a subject. Hmm, flowers? We have huge diversity in the different kind of flowers, almost 260,000 species in the world. And here I was asking myself what kind of them is related to me that I could be inspired of. The tulips came to my mind - favorite flowers of my grandmother. This is how my first painting “Tulips” appeared. In my second painting “Cacti” there is the flower called Xanthium Spinosum (that is not kind of cactuses, as I learned later). However, when I looked at its picture first, it seemed to me a cactus. It attracted me by having the combination of these long sharp spines with tender green leaves that I can see in my grandmother as symbol of endurance and warmth.
The style that I used in my work “Flowers” is abstract realism. Painting the flowers, I used the different dark and light colors side by side to create depth and the technique of smooth transition from one color to another on the background to make it lighter. On my painting “Cacti” I expressed the natural color of a cactus using the green color as major on the background and partly on the flower. My painting “Tulips” expresses the love to my grandmother. The reason why I chose the orange tulips is a symbol of a perfect love.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
A Few Thoughts
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Artist's Statement
My paintings are Beautiful and timeless. They can take you back a thousand years are bring you into your present are future. It gives you an illusion of tangible touchable ornaments an array of jewels and diamonds never seen before ,it takes you to a destination of pleasure and joy My Ingenuity is something not seen everyday for l"am intrested in only the Sunny side of life and all it's hidden Beauty and Treasures.
FOR THE LOLZ
ten. one to change it, and nine to reassure him about how good it looks.
two. one to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.
"no thanks," says vincent, "i've got one 'ere."
Artist Statement
In my last class painting I am trying to convey a feeling of connectedness with positive overtones. I was casting about in my mind for something to say in a painting that would have real meaning for me. I was visiting my neighbors on their porch and it dawned on me that this experience has real meaning for me. Therefore I wanted to share this feeling in a painting.
This painting which I am naming "Porch Cocoon" is acrylic on canvas. I endeavored to use techniques I learned in class. It seems that I am drawn to unification and monochromatic aspects in paintings. I endeavored to work color and looseness into this painting.
My wish is that I have conveyed a feeling of a warm, safe and cozy place where friendships happen.
Autumn
First, because I wanted to emphasize on the leaves and mix between abstract and real life, I planned to make the background white or black. Then, I have thought about some pictures that I saw in the Rothko Chapel. I decided to paint the picture into three pieces. In each piece, the background had different colors but with the same dark tone to make the leaves more attractive. Beside the colors of the background were warm. The picture is mixing between the warm and cold. It sounds like autumn, which is the mixing between summer and winter.
Second, because of dividing the picture into three pieces, the composition of the leaves was my other consideration. I wondered how to make the picture balance. Then I thought about one piece for still living leaf, one for dead leaf and one for the tree body. I painted the picture piece by piece. Therefore, at the end, I made the adjustment for these three pieces.
Third, to show the change in colors of these leaves, I had to make the smooth transition between dark and light. As taught in class, I imaged which are dark or light small boxes and then paint from dark to light. I wanted to control the color transition. That was not an easy task. The first leaf is the most vital. Therefore, I made a half of the first leaf look more real by choosing green and light yellow. However, I painted the other half with middle dark yellow. The rest leaves are almost dead. I painted the dark yellow for these leaves. In these leaves, there were some areas already dead. I used my finger to paint those dead areas.
Fourth, I intentionally made strong highlight in my picture to bring life into leaves and the tree. Because of the dark background, my yellow leaves are standing out from the picture. Moreover, I used little white spots along the tree to create the three dimensions for it. I copied the style in one of the picture I saw in Museum of Fine Art. I used the dark background combine with the highlight color. The viewers could feel the depth of the picture, and the main points were becoming more attractive to the viewers.
I put many efforts to bring the autumn into the picture. When looking at the picture, it made me remember the article “The last leaf” that I read since I was high school. Moreover, I wanted to keep a moment about autumn in the U.S.
Artist Statement
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Written Assignment #3-The Student Statement
Quick reminders about last project:
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Gwendolyn's statement
My Paintings are Magicial in that it lets your Imagination sore to endless Heights of Infinity.It is a Table that says Reserved and Art that is only for one who trutly loves the Best that Beauty has to offer. For my Paintings will bring you Gifts from far Away and Quiz your mind to the Opilance of Stly and Grace for it will take you on a Journey of Emerils and Satfire and serve you up Beautiful and Unforgettable colors that will sooth your Soul With Intricate Detaile and Decorative Style for Beauty is l and l am Beauty.
Gwendolyn Moore
Artist Statement
Arts 2316
Painting 1
Room Fac 205
Instructor Hagit Barkai
Friday, December 4, 2009
Free trip to Forth Worth museums.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Last class
Friday, November 13, 2009
REMINDER - STUDENTS SHOW
Friday, November 6, 2009
Warhol and Duchamp 1 Moderunism
Gwendolyn Moore
Arts 2316 Painting 1
RoomFac 205
Instructor Hagit Barkai
Thursday, November 5, 2009
assignment #2
Around 1870, French artists began to change from their traditional to more modern. Modernism applied to almost all progressive or avant-garde art from the period of time of the Impressionists is to Postmodernism. Modernism is combined with nonrepresentational, officially organized the models of modern art. It meant that they focused more on leisure and middle or upper class’ activities. The more modern style was called Impressionism. “Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities… the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles” (Wikipedia). Early twentieth century, with innovation and invention in many areas in society, art is not an exception. We called this period early modern art. People were more freedom and knowledge, so were the artists. It grew with many innovations such as expressionist or abstract style in Europe.
Postmodernism seems to start in the 1970s style that dominated the art-Minimalism and Conceptualism-not equipped with a world struggling with the increasing social problems such as drugs, crime divorce and commercial greed. As a result, a majority of the style developed as a response to the situation worse. Other Postmodernists, however, expressed stronger desire to work with art that seems to have no meaningful content, and start back with three-dimensional art, and the establishment of meaning. The feelings that society seems to have become exhausted and bled of new ideas, and society appears unable to solve the problem also affected its art.
Duchamp is French artist create the most shocking Dada works. He believed that art should appeal to the intellect rather than the senses. Duchamp’s cerebral approach is exemplified in his ready-mades, produced normal objects transformed into works of art simply by the decision of the artist. “Fountain is a masterpiece of philosophical investigation, a conundrum n a tabletop that quietly explodes some of our most cherished notions” (Stokstad). L.H.O.O.Q. transforms the Mona Lisa. He added a mustache and bread on the face, make change from the female to male. The purpose is not for the beautiful art.
A leader in pop art, Warhol is preoccupied with that aspect of pop that finds its material in the most familiar clichés of the contemporary scene, including advertising art. He create memorably in many media. Marilyn Monroe, Campbell Soup cans are at once anti-art in the conventional sense. “Marilyn Monroe is one of the first in which Warhol turned from conventional painting to the assembly-line technique of silk-screening photographic images onto canvas “(Stokstad).
Art history is an evolved current through time and mark by period such as Byzantine, Baroque, Rococo or Modern period. The art world is affected by the society pretty much. The styles and objectives have been changed from restricted to free. The new style has learned from previous styles to create a better style. The art begin from imaging to real and then come back to imaging. It begins from simple to complex and then simple by using line, color, and shape.
Duchamp & Warhol
Modernism – the art direction of the 20th century, characterized by: a break with the historical experience of artistic creativity, the desire to adopt the new beginning of art, a conventional style, continuous updating of artistic forms. Modernism incorporates a variety of relatively independent of ideological and artistic currents: expressionism, cubism, constructivism, Imagism, Surrealism, abstract art, pop art. The majority of artists of the 20 century have moved away from the image of the world such as we see it. The world seemed distorted, sometimes beyond recognition, because the artists were guided more by their imagination. The artists wanted to say: the world is not such as we see it: it is inherently meaningless and absurd; it is as we show on paintings.
Postmodernism - a set of structurally similar phenomena in the social life and culture of the industrialized countries, ages 20-21. In architecture and the visual arts for the 1970-1980 period of post-modernism is characterized by the union under a single work styles, figurative motifs and artistic techniques borrowed from the arsenals of different ages, regions and subcultures. Postmodernism refers to an artistic approach which surfaced in the late twentieth century to counter the ideologies and persuasion of its predecessor 'modernism '. Postmodern art departs from the conventions of structure and organization central to modernism , and instead welcomes and incorporates chaos , clutter , and disorder as key elements of its formation. Although the term is also widely used in areas such as culture and philosophy, postmodernism in the arts runs evident in the works of artists along the lines of Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol.
Marcel Duchamp - French painter and art theorist. Thanks to the originality of his ideas, Duchamp is considered one of the most influential figures in the art of 20 century. Experimenting with shapes and colors, the artist created one of the most controversial of his works, “Nude, running down the stairs”, where the motion passed with the following one after another, intersecting planes. The author explained the concept of painting as "the organization of kinetic elements, the transfer time and space through the abstract image of the movement." No later, he coined the term "Ready-Made" ("finished product"), which consisted in the fact that any ordinary object, selected from among their number or group of items, signed and exhibited by the artist can be called a work of art. Duchamp believed that the only factor that determines a particular object as a work of art, the act of perception. That proves us his presented a urinal entitled "Fountain". Ironic name of this object gave it the status of "art". "Ready-Made" Duchamp is often questioned the existence of the concept of "taste." Nevertheless, the work of Duchamp had a tremendous impact on such trends in art, like surrealism and, later, conceptualism.
Moreover, Duchamp's artistic theories have been very influential on other artists and are sometimes seen as anticipating postmodernism. Pop artists, such as Andy Warhol, have been particularly influenced by Duchamp's provocative questioning of the nature of art, particularly the relationships between an original and a copy and between utilitarian objects and works labeled art. Andy Warhol is best remembered as the avatar of Pop Art. Pop art instantly gaining a reputation of its availability. Using real objects, pictures, advertisements, packaging products, etc., taken out of the natural existence of pop art created reinterpreted, ironic images. His famous works are – “Merilyn” and “200 cans of soup”. Andy's work is inseparable from such a thing as "mass culture". He did much to ensure that art has become the most popular masses, which people have learned to see the beauty of everyday things, realizing that everything that surrounds man, well in its essence. For Warhol's art was a way to love the superficial nature of things. It is this insight helped him to understand that this is what makes art unlimited.
Duchamp and Warhol’s artworks share the characteristics of a collage effect, mixed media type of art in what appears to be a number of appropriated materials meshed together to form a medley of colors, chaos, deviance and irony beautifully combined .Postmodernism covers a great extent of other art movements which rose under its influence among them , Dadaism , abstract expressionism , pop art , and so on .
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Written Assignment #2-Duchamp & Warhol
Marcel Duchamp started the readymade movement of modernism. He took every day objects, changed them slightly and put them on display as works of art. For example, he took a urinal, put a title on it and called it a fountain. That alone really opened my eyes of what art can be. The fact that I could be inspired to take a toilet seat cover, put my name on it and call it a hat is pretty awesome. His art was more controversial where it questioned the nature of art itself. He has said “Art may be good or bad, or indifferent, but whatever the adjective, we must call it art and bad art is still art in the same way that a bad emotion is still an emotion”. I’m sure there were a lot of questions like “Why a urinal?” or “Is that your urinal?”. I admire his way of being playful and funny because art isn’t suppose to be so serious, well unless it’s expressing victims of war or crime.
Andy Warhol took readymade a step further. He used silkscreens and photographs of pop culture icons like Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Campbell Soup cans added colors and put them on display. Where Duchamp used somewhat “boring” items, Warhol added fun to his items to make them more visually appealing. His reasoning for this was basically because he liked Marilyn and Jackie and he had soup for lunch everyday and his art was a demonstration of how these things in his life somewhat dominated him. His approach was to make people see a reflection of his personality. I think his audience was people who were rich and eccentric like he was.
In conclusion, every art movement is like a generation. There are artists in it that were influenced to a point by the artists of the previous generation and set out to make their art different from the next generation. Like Raphael of the Old Masters era to set the stage of traditional art for Cezanne, who used those images and created a new way of seeing them (i.e. cubism), and now we have Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol using items that are popular at the time to in fact remember the time.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Post Modernists like Modernists are all about subjectivity. They believe that there is no truth “out there” to be discovered. Post Modernists take this further and believe that there is no truth “in there” either. Truth is only your interpretation because of your cultural upbringing. Nietzsche, the first true Post Modernist philosopher, said that there are no facts, only interpretations. Post Modernists claim that truth, beauty, and morality are all subjective.
I really like the following statement by Keith Martin-Smith. “Truth and beauty and morality are something merely constructed, bounded by culture, hemmed in by psychology, framed by gender, driven by the powerful, warped by language, distorted by the powerful, tied to the patriarchy and the domination of nature, and totally relative always”.
Postmodernism exposed institutional racism, sexism, ageism, and many more isms. These new thinkers showed how truth is subjective. A good example is how White Europeans and American Indians view the westward expansion of the White man.
Marcel Duchamp: I can not say this important idea any better than Keith Martin-Smith. “ Post Modern art’s real power comes from forcing the receiver of the art to question their assumptions about what art is, about who and what and how art is created, and how it is received. Beauty and truth are left to antiquity, to the naïve who still believe in cross cultural truths. In that sense Fountain can be said to have achieved success-it forced viewers to question, and often angrily dismiss, the work because it challenged their assumptions, destroyed their sacred cows, and so doing influenced the next generations of artists profoundly. And in this Duchamp’s brilliance is simply without question. The question remains, though, is it art, or is it something else? Duchamp was an artist of ideas, he did not think of art as purely visual. He played with our assumptions with his readymade and readymade aided art. He also used movement and the creation of space in his art to challenge us.
Andy Warhol: Warhol was an illustrator who turned his illustrators’ bent to create artwork which we now label as “POP”. Warhol said “The reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do”. To Warhol, style was not important in fact he saw style as a trap. He believed that POP art was basically a U-turn back to representational visual communication. He thought that his art was death to smuggery and the preconceived notion of what art is. I love this quote from Warhol; His art was walking young for the moment without 4 thousand years of art history on its shoulders. He also said that his detractors were the grey brains in high places well arrayed and hot for the kill.
Marcel limited the output of his art and Warhol didn’t. Marcel was not popular until late in life and after his death. Warhol was a mega star for most of his life and he thought he and his art would not last (it being a fad).
Warhol, Duchamp, Einstein, Nietzsche, Max Freud, Heisenberg, and others pushed the meaning of objectivity to its limits and made arguments for its removal as a basis of thinking and acting.
I really enjoyed this exercise because I got an insight into these artist thought processes. I also learned about some history and how not just artists but other disciplines were all exploring new territories. Winn Becton
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Written assignment questions and EXTENSION
Hi all, there will be an extension on this assignment. It is due on November 5 instead of October 29.
Duchamp and Warhol:
Define modernism and postmodernism, to the best of your ability and in your own words. To do so, use these instructions:
1. 1. Consider what does each movement stand against? What does it posit? / What does it say yes/no to? / What are the cultural “sins” or mistakes that it tries to reveal? Whose mistakes are they?
2. 2. What would be a modernist/postmodernist novel, building, artwork or movie? What else can ‘be modern/postmodern?
3. 3. What are the criticism each movement has against its predecessor?
Analyze Duchamp and Warhol in the context of postmodernism. To do so use these instructions:
Questions for Duchamp:
1. 1. Describe Duchamp’s works: their physical attributes and the debates they evoked
2. 2. Why is Duchamp’s artwork not modernist?
3. 3. What are the questions Duchamp’s works raise about art?
4. 4. What are the questions and observations the work raise about society that they were presented in? Why are these questions new? Why are they significant? To who?
1. 1. Describe Warhol’s works: their physical attributes and the debates they evoked
2. 2. What does Warhol’s work take from Duchamp?
3. 3. What are the differences in Warhol’s approach to art comparing to Duchamp’s?
4. 4. Who is the audience for Warhol’s works?
5. 5. What are the questions and observations the artwork raise about society that they were presented in? Why are these questions new? Why are they significant? To who?
Questions for comparative analysis:
1. What is the difference in the approach each artist has towards: (a)repetition in the process of making art? (b)Towards popularity? (c)Towards history of art?
2. Given that Warhol and Duchamp are two of the most influential artists in the twentieth century, what does their success show about the culture they lived in?
3. What are the changes in approaches to art that are manifested in the works?
4. What does one need to know in order to evaluate their work?
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Pop Art
Pop Art made commentary on contemporary society and culture, particularly consumerism, by using popular images and icons and incorporating and re-defining them in the art world. Often subjects were derived from advertising and product packaging, celebrities, and comic strips. The images are presented with a combination of humor, criticism and irony. In doing this, the movement put art into terms of everyday, contemporary life. It also helped to decrease the gap between "high art" and "low art" and eliminated the distinction between fine art and commercial art methods".
From World Wide Art Recourses, Art History Data Base. http://wwar.com
WHAT IS POP ART - Interviews
ANDY WARHOL
Someone said that Brecht wanted everybody to think alike. I want everybody to think alike. But Brecht wanted to do it through Communism, in a way. Russia is doing it under government. It's happening here all by itself without being under a strict government; so if it's working without trying, why can't it work without being Communist? Everybody looks alike and acts alike, and we're getting more and more that way.
I think everybody should be a machine.
I think everybody should like everybody.
Is that what Pop Art is all about?
Yes. It's liking things.
And liking things is like being a machine?
Yes, because you do the same thing every time. You do it over and over again.
And you approve of that?
Yes, because it's all fantasy. It's hard to be creative and it's also hard not to think what you do is creative or hard not to be called creative because everybody is always talking about that and individuality. Everybody's always being creative. And it's so funny when you say things aren't, like the shoe I would draw for an advertisement was called a "creation" but the drawing of it was not. But I guess I believe in both ways. All these people who aren't very good should be really good. Everybody is too good now, really. Like, how many actors are there? There are millions of actors. They're all pretty good. And how many painters are there? Millions of painters and all pretty good. How can you say one style is better than another? You ought to be able to be an Abstract-Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you've given up something. I think the artists who aren't very good should become like everybody else so that people would like things that aren't very good. It's already happening. All you have to do is read the magazines and the catalogues. It's this style or that style, this or that image of man - but that really doesn't make any difference. Some artists get left out that way, and why should they?
Pop is everything art hasn't been for the last two decades. It is basically a U-turn back to a representational visual communication, moving at a break-away speed in several sharp late models. It is an abrupt return to Father after an abstract 15-year exploration of the Womb. Pop is a re-enlistment in the world. It is shuck the Bomb. It is the American Dream, optimistic, generous and naive ...
Pop is love in that it accepts all ... all the meaner aspects of life, which, for various esthetic and moral considerations, other schools of painting have rejected or ignored. Everything is possible in Pop. Pop is still pro-art, but surely not art for art's sake. Nor is it any Neo-Dada anti-art manifestation: its participants are not intellectual, social and artistic malcontents with furrowed brows and fur-lined skulls.
Yes. America is very much at the core of every Pop work. British Pop, the first-born, came about due to the influence of America. The generating issue is Americasm [sic], that phenomenon that is sweeping every continent. French Pop is only slightly Frenchified; Asiatic Pop is sure to come (remember Hong Kong). The pattern will not be far from the Coke, the Car, the Hamburger, the Jukebox. It is the American Myth. For this is the best of all possible worlds.
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
What is Pop Art?
I don't know - the use of commercial art as subject matter in painting, I suppose. It was hard to get a painting that was despicable enough so that no one would hang it everybody was hanging everything. It was almost acceptable to hang a dripping paint rag, everybody was accustomed to this. The one thing everyone hated was commercial art; apparently they didn't hate that enough either.
Is Pop Art despicable?
That doesn't sound so good, does it? Well, it is an involvement with what I think to be the most brazen and threatening characteristics of our culture, things we hate, but which are also powerful in their impingement on us. I think art since Cézanne has become extremely romantic and unrealistic, feeding on art; it is utopian. It has had less and less to do with the world, it looks inward - neo-Zen and all that. This is not so much a criticism as an obvious observation. Outside is the world; it's there. Pop Art looks out into the world; it appears to accept its environment, which is not good or bad, but different - another state of mind. 'How can you like exploitation?' 'How can you like the complete mechanization of work? How can you like bad art?' I have to answer that I accept it as being there, in the world.
Are you anti-experimental?
I think so, and anti-contemplative, anti-nuance, anti-getting-away-from-the-tyranny-of-the-rectangle, anti-movement-and-light, anti-mystery, anti-paint-quality, anti-Zen, and anti all of those brilliant ideas of preceding movements which everyone understands so thoroughly. We like to think of industrialization as being despicable. I don't really know what to make of it. There's something terribly brittle about it. I suppose I would still prefer to sit under a tree with a picnic basket rather than under a gas pump, but signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter. There are certain things that are usable, forceful and vital about commercial art. We're using those things - but we're not really advocating stupidity, international teenagerism and terrorism.
I don't feel very pure that in that respect. I don't deal exclusively with the popular image. I'm more concerned with it as a part of my landscape. I'm sure everyone has always been aware of that landscape, the artistic landscape, the artist's vocabulary, the artist's dictionary.
You once said that your audience tends to concentrate too much on the subject matter in your work.
They can't get past it? Well, that's their tough luck. I was talking about the big audience. The smaller audience gets through it and lives with it and deals with it, just like things coming up all day - in a shooting gallery, you know, things keep popping up to shoot at. And some guys can't shoot, that's all; they can only stand there with a gun in their hands. I'm interested in shooting and knocking them all down - seeing everything ... But the statement about bridging the gap between art and life is, I think, a very nice metaphor or image, if that's what you'd call it, but I don't believe it. Everybody's using it now. I think it misleads. It's like the magic step, like - "Oh, that's beautiful, it bridges art and life." Well, that's not so. If you can make it in life - and I don't say that's easy to do - then you can make it with art; but even then that's just like saying if you make it with life then you can make it as a race-car driver. That's assuming art and life can be the same thing, those two poles. I make art. Other people make other things. There's art and there's life. I think life comes to art but if the object is used, then people say the object is used to bridge that gap - it's crazy. The object is used to make art, just like paint is used to make art.