Last class

For those of you who where not at the museum last class: there is no class this week due to thanksgiving. That means that next class on December 5 is the last class, so you will present your personal project then.

We will have a final critique for the studio project and an in-progress critique for the last written assignment.

The last written assignment is a personal/artist statement. In order for you to make use of an in progress critique, the deadline for the artist statement is extended and is now on Thursday, December 10, 5pm on the blog.

*For those of you who talked to me in advance about filling up a written assignment, this will be the deadline for it as well.

Last Class Plan:

1. Critique for last studio project: come ready to present your work. I will take pictures of it and you can take it home with you.

2. In-Progress critique for the artist statement: come ready with answers to the questions we formulated last class.

This includes personal questions that were specific to your project and you can find in your notes, and three general questions for all:

a. What is the theme for the project?

b. What elements from class can you work on with this project? what are the elements not from class that you can work on in this project?

c. How is this project related to your life?

We will examine your answers in relations to the criteria you presented by your choices at the museum and in class. A personal list of those criteria will be given to each of you, so you can use it when writing your statement.

The more you prepare the easier it will be for you to write your statement later, so I recommend you spend some time preparing for it well.

3. We will watch more of the art 21 videos, so you can have a sense about the way people talk about their work.

4. You will receive ideas for writing an artist statement and artist statements samples to take with you. This can help you a lot when you are working on your own.

5. Clean up:D

Grades will be available on December 18.

Don't hesitate to send me question/comments

Enjoy your holiday:)

REMINDER - STUDENTS SHOW

Hello Painters,

This is a reminder to bring all your paintings tomorrow so we will be able to choose what goes to the students show. We will go over presentation options. You will receive cards to give to whoever you want to invite. Be aware that participating in the show is mandatory for all students in studio classes at HCC. It is also a good opportunity to show your work and see what other classes are doing.

Dates:

The show will open on the 24th.

The 14th is the last day to bring the paintings to the gallery.

Tomorrows class is the last model session this semester, so we will have group feedback/critique on the work you did with the model.

For those of you who did not attend the last critique - this critique will cover work from last session as well.

See you tomorrow

Hagit

Warhol and Duchamp 1 Moderunism

warhal and duchamp1moderunism-is a term used in the 19th centry to dWescribe theory and style of art. because photographs was decoverd painting and sculpture became unecessary postmodernism-is a term to describe away to emtrace diversity to produce your own ideas and style and expressions not to be afraid of being creative and deliver your own style.andy waehol in the content of culture he depicted celebertities and newspaper clipping in his prints he also created films and worked with a rock band name velvet underground.duchamp-in the context of postmoderism was always doing art diffrantly, his work rebellied againsted the stiff nature of the art world like the exhibite of a unmodified urinal as his sculpture. andy warholwork was mosly pop art he used everyday elements of popular culture, he was the most recongnized popartist using mass production printmakeing techique called seriagraphy to produce his commentaries on media, fame and advertising. waehols work was a little simular to dunchamp in the sense that they bith wanted and did brake away from the stiff nature of art. warhols approach to art was very popculture and duchamp was a little strange and controverscial. the audience for waehols work was a younger and more mordern society. what waehols work raised about society were the growing materialism and consumerism in society warhol enjoyed pop culture and became well knowed for it, dunchampbecamea inflential figure in american dodaism warhol and duchampsuccess says that being yourself and not betng afraid to express your own stly is what made them successful and famous. the changes in approach to their work is indivialty and humor.one only need to enjoy creativy and stly and know art history to evaluate their work .

Gwendolyn Moore
Arts 2316 Painting 1
RoomFac 205
Instructor Hagit Barkai

assignment #2

What is art? Few questions provoke such heated debate and provide so few satisfactory answers. Art was the first written language and to study the history of art is to study the history of civilizations and humankind. Art has developed, influenced, and contributed starting from the great Stone Age to the present day. Art gives an insight into the changes and evolution that man and culture have gone through to become what is today. Art is culture, art is the essence of the people who make it and the best way to appreciate art is to look at the history of it and it’s evolvement through time. Art history is more than a stream of art objects created over time.
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 .

Written Assignment #2-Duchamp & Warhol

“Modernism, Post-Modernism, Duchamp & Warhol”

Modernism has been defined as a style and theory of art from the period beginning around 1890 and ending in the 1940’s. For me Modernism means works that reflect the current era. Artists during this era expressed their freedom to create works of art that leaned toward fresh and innovative and not so traditional. They now included photography and everyday household items to provoke these thoughts and ideas. I agree with the definition of post-modernism of taking both contemporary and traditional ideas and blending them together with a mix of satire and humor. For example, Matt Groening transformed Dali’s The Persistence of Memory by using the melting heads of his cartoon family The Simpsons instead of Dali’s melting clocks. Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol were two artists that changed how the world would see traditional conceptual art.
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.

The term Modernism is used to describe the theory and style of art from roughly 1890 to 1940. You could say Modernism was the move away from the literal representation in art to a more basic fundamental representation. Modernists were concerned with serious existential themes. They believed the true artists were revolutionary and deep thinkers. Kant helped usher in the era that questioned every established law or theory. Subjectivity was the new buzz word. Modernists believed that there was no objective truth “out there”. Modernist art included dissonant and atonal music, impressionism, surrealism, and the stream of consciousness novels. An example is The Naked Lunch in 1959. Modernists thought the realists were not necessary. One of the main catalysts for Modernism was the invention of Photography
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