Architecture

Terraform, "Homeway"

Nicholas Lacey

Adam Kalkin

The City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain

Metropolitain Kansas City Preforming Arts Center

Patrick Blanc
(art and nature too)

1. How does housing mobility and recycled materials impact the longevity of the structure?

2. Do you think Daniel Buren's piece integrated well with the 17th century palace? Is it a permanent instillation?

3. How did Bauhaus change architecture and design in the United States? What was the feud about between Frank Lloyd Wright?

4. Should architecture "critique contemporary living and working enviornments....etc." (pg 322) when it is supposed to house us? Architecture is first functional, does it have to DO so much more?

Narrative and Representation

Kara Walker

Doho Sun

Marilyn daSilva

Melanie Bilenker

Questions:

1. Is it problematic to be too representational in narrative work?

2. Why ae Frida's paintings dismisses as being too personal? How has she contributed to art?

3. Discuss narratives in experiencial vs. object based art from the chapter.

4. What is the difference between allegory, pastiche and parody?

5. Look at the work in both the narrative and representation chapters. Do you see an overlap?

Deformity

Joel Peter Witkin

Diane Arbus

Laura Ferguson

Questions:

1. Is photography the best medium to express the "grotesque" as author Rachel Adams sad at the end of the chapter? What do you think about the "carte de visite" phenomenon and of the "freak" as celebrity?

2. Do you think the "freak" photography made people more comfortable with human deformities or did it objectify them as others? What was the impace of medical photography on "freak"photogaphy?

3. How has science changed opeple's view of people with deformities and subsequently how has it affected art?

4. Do you think Yayoi-Kusama's pieces are representative of "deformity" in art?

5. Is John Currin's work pastiche or parody?

Evaluation of Narrative and Deformity

Amy and I presented the chapters Narrative and Deformity. I thought the Narrative discussion went rather well. It took a while for the class to warm up, but when they finally did, the discussion was great. Class was coming to an end, and we had more material to cover, so we were well prepared. I couldn't believe it went so well, considering I raced to class from Newark.
We prepared even more for next presentation on Deformity. We met and spent hours talking about the presentation. The mistake I made was turning out the lights while we showed images. I also asked Amy if she would like to stand at the podeum with me that time. Both of these changes were spontanious and really effected the discussion. It made our talk seem more like a slide presentation and not a class discussion. So the students became really quite. We had a lot of material, but went through it much faster than the Narrative talk. I got nervous because the class was unresponsive, therefore I got quiet while Amy kept talking. So....never turn the lights out if you are going to have a class discussion.

Cry-teria

Criteria for an excellent art review:

1. A great art review is honest. The writer must speak from his/her own experience and report from the self, not influenced by larger outside agendas.

2. The review should compare the art show with previous shows. This demonstrates that the reviewer has perspective of art over a range of years, even in a region.

3. Part of being honest will give the reviewer personality. Sometimes you can pick up on sarcasm, jokes, or artist slams that make the read funny, controversial, or edgy.

4. If the reviewer has strong opinions about the show, he/she should back up the criticisum with reasons for their stance. Reviews that give a neutral overview of the event don't need such an explanation (an example would be a general review vs. a critical review).

5. The review should include artwork that the reviewer thinks is strong. The work and the artist should recieve this recongision. Work that is not strong should also be noted.

MANIFESTO - Sarah Davis

This is not a report on what I think art is today. The assignment was to research what art is today from readings and research, and to look at actual art objects. I am not so trustworthy of my opinion/judgement in assessing art objects then and categorizing them in art of today. I don't want to regurgitate what I read because it just summarizes what the established writers, critics, historians, and theorists have said. If you want to know what art is today, read the text I am wearing as my clothing and jewelry, written by those professionals. I wear their knowledge, try it on for size and weight, and carry it with me, because I am required to do this in academia. To be honest, I didn’t know much about this stuff before I came to grad school, so I am starting from square one. I am an artist, and this is where I stand in art today, in this academic setting.

5 Questions/Responses, 3/1/10

1.The second paragraph on page 80 is depressing. Today's trends in fashion and music are no longer monumental and distinct as they were in past decades. We have brought back the bell bottom, then skinny jeans, retro and vintage was in too. I wonder, have we run out of styles? Is that possible? Are we trying to name the next art movement...the 'post post modern' or 'altermodern' or whatever...but are we really just in a long, slow evolving post modern state? Can you really see a difference in the art produce and shown in the Altermodern show (the book we had in class the other day)? Are we just re categorizing what has been happening in art?

2. A question from Nietzschean: "Are you willing to relive for all eternity the moments you are experiencing right now?" Well no. This very moment, I am reading this book, and I defiantly don't want this experience for eternity. Moments worth reliving are ones when a person feels pleasure, tranquility, joy, peace, rest, or excitement.
"The era of commitment has passed." Really? Is the era of commitment modernism? Are we in a way coming back to modernism in some ways? How?

3.Page 83 "Culture is being threatened when all worldly objects and things, produced in the past and present, are treated as mere functions for the life process of society, as though they are there only to fulfill some need." How can we say that about the past objects? What about stuff made before modernism, before the enlightenment or the industrial revolution? Those makers were unaware of todays globalization. Do we hold on to those objects for information? Why do we keep them. Bourriarud mentioned that we keep museum objects to store their data...?

4. Museums as a storage of data, not for appreciating the actual object. Will art become non-physical all together? Will it exist just as conceptual ideas, since we have an abundance of materials, both used and new. Although, we will soon run out of new materials.

5. Ok, on page 92, Bourriard mentions how the precariousness on contemporary are brings us closer to modernity. "For the omnipresence of precariousness in contemporary art inevitably pushes it back toward the source of modernity: the fleeting present moment, the shifting crowd, the street, and the ephemeral."