I would post about class but...

I happened to be at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and I just happened to notice that Takashi Murakami had two balloons in the parade. Not only that but he himself was decked out in a costume of his own design.  He was one of his psychedelic happy flower pictures personified, including matching bling.  It was quite surreal in between the ice cream cone balloon and the smurfs.  Couldn't have asked for a better thanksgiving experience.

not about exploitation

My son Josh is home for Thanksgiving, so we came downtown and visited the Art Institute today.  On the way to the Modern Wing, I noticed that there is a new Fiber exhibit, on the lower floor and we went to see that. I LOVED it.  One of the pieces by Claire Zeiss, who lived in Chicago and did these tall sculptural macrame things, was I think, responsible for the start of my love affair with fiber. I lived with my grandmother when I was in 4th grade, and my uncle gave her a book on Macrame, which was just beginning to be a fad back in the 60's.She didn't really want to bother with it, she knitted. But I loved the book and started tying up the furniture. My grandmother was short and had a footstool. I used it for a frame for macrame when she wasn't using it to hold up her feet.  The book, which I initially lost track of but bought a new one on ebay a decade or so ago, had many examples of Claire's work. I had never seen it in person before.

After we did the fiber, it was fun to walk around the Contemporary gallery.  I knew a lot of the artists and if I didn't remember their name, I knew a fun fact about each one, or the work. Josh is working on an MFA at the University of Iowa, in Intermedia, so he had a lot to say too.

Josh took a picture of me standing in front of the picture of someone standing in front of the picture of the people in Paris on a rainy day. And it was a rainy day!  too bad I didn't have an umbrella.

Appropriation and Exploitation

I think appropriation is not really a new topic in art at all. Since artists are also living in the real world,( not on an isolate planet and such) we abserve and we absorb, and the art we make  is very much affected by that.  However, I guess the general agreement is that as long as you are not copying it entirely, it is alright. Somehow the artist either mix something different new in it or there is another meaning or direction it might go, then it is OK. I just find it usually hard to appreciate those artwork that appropriate too obviously.

About Exploitation, I think it is hard to argue that it does not exist in the art world, just search the word art and exploitation, you will be able to find a lot of examples.  Exploitation in general really has existed in the world everywhere else we live in, so why not the art world? If according to the nature of art that it suppose to reflect the human culture and society itimately, I say that whatever is easily found in the culture and the society should not be hard to find in art. However, as an artist, you should think about where is your stand in this matter. Just like what other artists did in their work. I personally will try not to do it.

I might as well not even blog because I have nothing to say.
I guess a lot of art that is seen as exploitative is originally intended as critique and in order to properly critique something or to critique from an informed position the maker must, to an extent, be involved in the very thing they are critiquing. So one can't deny exploitation based purely on intention to critique because quite frequently the critique involves participation. That's all.

Exploitation.

I think the word exploitation seems to be what everyone is wrestling with, which is an issue of semantics, and is also why the question in the first place is difficult to answer. "What artists utilize exploitation," is a subjective question, with no concrete or certain terms. My point that I was trying to make in class was simply to "break" the word, pushing it to its extreme limits to try to better understand the question. The line between polemic referentiality or exploitation and constructive appropriation is a very murky channel to wade through. I think that it is impossible to do art without getting some enjoyment out of what you do, and it is impossible to receive no reward for it unless done completely anonymously. If nothing else, I think you can argue that we are exploiting the idea of "culture," selling one-of-a-kind culture goods to the rich so they have something that they feel comments on their relevancy and trendiness-(this being my answer to the question "what about abstract or conceptual work?")

I just think we all need to call a spade a spade here. We're artists. We're all taking a lot of time, energy, and money, to better perfect our craft that serves little or no need in the world. What we do (although important in many ways) doesn't help to clothe, feed, or shelter anyone. Can it do that? Of course. Does it? Better question, does any of our work do that?

I don't know about your work, but I paint and collage and do non-edible, non-sheltering works on paper or canvas. I don't think this is a bad thing and I don't lose any sleep over it. We're creating commodity goods and it makes us and other people feel better about themselves to a certain extent (even though we are exploiting those good feelings out of them, haha). Anyone who wants to make the world a better place and doesn't want to receive notoriety, fame, fortune, success, or accolade at it should probably drop out of this school immediately and begin volunteering somewhere, like a soup kitchen maybe, I don't know, instead of creating images that beg to be looked at by people (exploiting their time, acute vision, depth perception, cones AND rods). But for me, I think art can be used for good and I can benefit from it too and I don't think there's anything wrong in it. I'd argue that the best artist, in theory, would exploit or sell-out in any way possible to reach the top. That's what the best artist would do. Not the best human. Most of us, myself included, have a maybe misguided sense of morality and justice that keeps us from "might is right" and taking from whatever and whoever we want because at the end of the day we have to live with ourselves.

However, to not acknowledge that the simple act of image creation isn't a basically "me" activity, is to create a whole "us versus them" mentality, that we're some kind of high priests of art and would never sink so low as to use our work for corrupt things such as money, or fame-only "they" do that, and I'm sure we all have our ever-growing lists of bad "they"s. Also, I'm sure Jeff Koons is on most of them.

Good job Jeff.

exploit/appropriation

To exploit: to take advantage or to make the best use of .

To appropriate: to legislate or to take without consent.

Without getting too involved in dictionary meanings, I feel that both words can be interchangeable. Regardless, people are constantly learning from their surroundings by taking things and ideas. In some cases, even selfish acts of taking may contribute to a larger whole, society, country or world.

However, I find offensive and exploitative in the negative sense, when an artist emphasizes a community or peoples’ “otherness” as shown in the Vanessa Beecroft’s video. There is something so wrong about going somewhere to “document” solely to show others your own self-realization of the world around you. On the other hand, I felt that the photos shown in class proved much more genuine and sincere. The images prove that the photographer has substantial relationship with the subject and a message to be told.

exploitation and art

Is art exploitative by nature? Must an artist necessarily use his subjects and materials to their disadvantage--for purely selfish reasons? When one phrases the question this way, the answer is clearly no. The subject of a work is not always disadvantaged as a symptom of involvement in the work. And the artist does not always gain something from doing a work, unless one views the work itself, whether or not it is successful, as some sort of positive acquisition.

It is true that an artist always uses things in the process of making a work. Maybe the things are materials and some image from the world. Often images from the world include people. If an artist uses an image containing a person, then he would also use the person in the image. However, the product does not necessarily disadvantage the person in the image, nor must it yield gain for the artist. So, art is not exploitative by nature, though it can be and often is.

Ridiculous Charity Drive

Last year a skydiver did 200 dives in 12 hours in the name of charity. Apparently it was for children suffering from cancer, HIV and the make a wish foundation among other charities and diseases.
Great, as a skydiver myself I can image how awesome skydiving that much in such a short time would be. I also know how much that would cost. Taking the approximate cost how much it is to run the plan to altitude once at my own drop zone and multiplying that by 200 is $48,000. That is just to run the plane, not to mention the all of the special equipment, the multiple sky diving rigs and the people to pack them and so on.
So what good did this do? When google-ing (is that even a word?) it I found this article, and that was it.

http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/canada/article/287803--skydiver-aims-high-for-charity

Amazingly enough this is a very common idea, and not by skydivers but non-jumpers as well. Which is weird.
Wouldn’t this be better if they just gave the money to a charity or perhaps a family how can’t afford treatment and then volunteered the time?
Really, though come on, did this do any good?
This I would argue was exploitative, maybe not intentionally, but basically a guy got to skydive a bunch and didn’t have to pay for it. Granted I don’t know how much money he made but it stands to reason that if it was a significant sum that would be a part of the article.
I don’t really know what my point was in all this; it just seemed related to what we were talking about in class.

Exploitation and Appropriation

Exploitation: To an extent, I agree with what Andrew was saying yesterday. As artists, we make art that we want to be seen. For some of us (not all of us), hope to become somewhat famous because of our art. Anything that is done in exchange for money--not just art, but other jobs and occupations--can be considered exploitative, especially when time, labor and effort are invested in it. Though, I do agree with Rachel and others that another word should be used instead of "exploitation". That word seems to hyperbolize what we do. I think the difference between what we do and exploitation is that we love what we do; art is our passion. And we thus make our passion our career, because we do indeed need to make a living and make ends meet. If artists choose to sell their art, I don't think it is exploitative, since we are not forced or coerced into making the art we make. We make art because we want to or need to.

Appropriation: This was a great addition to our list. It is very interesting how contemporary art today appropriates the art of yesterday or how it appropriates the current world around us. At first, I had some reservations about this, but now, I'm more neutral about the subject. At times, I prefer the art piece that does include appropriation. For me, it just depends on what's going on in the artwork.

Yood's not going to like this

Professor Yood said he doesn't particularily care for when they start putting stuff on the Lions. He won't like this I don't think, but at least it's somewhat sustainable.

BTW, am I appropriating this if I copy and paste it here instead of linking to it?

CHICAGO (AP) — The two bronze lions who guard the Art Institute of Chicago on Michigan Avenue will soon be wearing holiday wreaths again, but this year's wreaths will be a bit different.

For starters, they will be solar-powered. And their designers, the husband-and-wife firm of Stephanie and Bruce Tharp, have given them a different look, too. They have combined the look of traditional North American cranberry wreaths with the spirit of Buddhist and Taoist wishing trees.

The wreaths will be composed of a total of 2,011 spheres in various shades of red. And inside each sphere will be "a wish for the world in 2011" written by Chicago-area schoolchildren.

The wreaths will be placed on the lions the day after Thanksgiving.

exploitation

So, this isn't my post but the artist I was trying to remember in class was Santiago Sierra:

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/02/on-view-until-february-28.php

and here's a pretty good vanessa beecroft video:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=291_1191213747

Richard Hawkins

I found the Richard Hawkins show very interesting to say the least. The work was all over the place, showing collage, inkjet printings, fabricated houses, and for good measure some paintings up-stairs. He seems to be very representative of the contemporary in that way, being the transcendent artist without being relegated to one particular medium.

I thought the collage was funny, tongue-in-cheek, and allowed the artist to simultaneously to prove his intellect and understanding of art history while also being able to mock it-classic contemporaneity. Visually, I liked them. I thought his work was punchy and "punk rock" although considering its all coming from a now almost 50 year old artist, makes me wonder how punk rock you can be when you're about ready to get a senior citizens discount.

I thought his houses were interesting and I'm sure they would all blow Tim Burton's mind, but I thought it was heavy handed. I think that's how I feel about much of his work. Hawkins doesn't seem to allow any room for the spectator to explore the work. His imagery is arresting but easy to digest and its themes seem to be basic. Revolution. Rejection of current culture. Zombified people in terrible frames. It all adds up to a feeling that just seems to keep winding back and slapping you in the face.

He's very talented and I thought the imagery was very interesting. I almost wished that his houses would have been exhibited higher off the ground so you couldn't seen into every window. I've would've liked it a little more had it had a little more mystery, which is how I feel about the rest of the show as well.

Still liked it though.

Hawkins and Jessie

The Hawkins exhibit is intimidating to me, as I've started some work that is similarly amalgamous, but not nearly as successful. There is something about putting odd things together in a messy way that is very challenging aesthetically. One faces the difficulty of creating a rather planned and sorted messiness that is near impossible to control when using certain materials. awkins succeeds, and for that reason, I'll probably be spending quite a lot of time at this Modern Wing show.

What?

I thought I was getting a handle on Contemporary Art when I could explain Félix González-Torres' “Portrait of Ross”. (The pile of candy). But now, again, I feel like I'm back at square one. I think I'm getting it that the idea is more important than the craft that goes into the work, but now, not so much.

I thought the idea was to avoid kitch, but the collages I'm seeing are kitchy and frankly, I'm underwhelmed. When Samantha left for college, the walls on her room were covered with ads from magazine pages, Ambercrombie and Fitch and I don't know what else. I think I liked her room better, except there was an issue of it being a fire hazard.


I judged a quilt show in Florida last weekend. The other judge, Pepper Cory, is pretty much a traditional quilter, and knows much about the history of quilting. I am considered to be more of an "art quilter". (Which I now consider odd, you wouldn't say you are an "art painter" if you did portraits, but some quilters make quilts for beds, some for walls. Personally, I'm in between, my quilts don't go on beds, and they do on walls, but they aren't cutting edge. In any case, our task was to decide which quilts received monetary awards, and then to go through all of them and offer some words of critique. We had to form a consensus about each piece, whether it received an award, the comments  we made. We were each also tasked with choosing a judge's choice award.

 I chose a very traditional Baltimore Album quilt as my judge's choice. This type of quilt has a formal structure and formal content. They include a lot of careful handwork. I would not do this type of quilt, and yet I admired this one very much. So I chose it. Pepper chose a quilt that featured a landscape, at least it appeared to be a landscape, that was done by a techique called "discharging". Not a medical term in this case, it refers to a technique in which bleach is applied to black or dark colored fabric. Some fabrics discharge to pure white, others to various shades of tan. It depends more on the dye that went into making the fabric black in the first place. In this case, the maker appears to have brushed and sprayed thickened dye onto the fabric. You can do this with Sunlight dishwashing liquid. In fact, I have inadvertently done this to my t-shirts when I was cleaning the kitchen. So I now avoid cleaning the kitchen. Perhaps I should be saving my accidents for my next retrospective.

Richard Hawkins, Bad Medicine, 2008

Although there was variety of work at Richard Hawkins’ Third Mind in The Art Institute, I did not find most of it very appealing. The posterior shots and commentary of Greek and Roman sculpture were clever, but I didn’t feel the urge to stand and read the text. I felt a similar disinterest in the three dimensional works. However, I the two mixed media assemblages and the oil on paper collages towards the entrance were quite engaging. I haven’t been able to find online images, but I believe one of the works in the series is titled Bad Medicine, 2008. The assemblage is made of a stretched towel instead of canvas, and has thick oil paint in the center, applied in a circular pattern. The dried globs of oil paint are dense, rich and lustrous, making the fabric scraps and towels appear delicate in comparison. These materials suggest a tension that heightens the masculinity of the oil paint (and oil painting) versus the femininity or the associative domestic functions of the house towels and floral prints. Even though the oil paint and fabrics come together to form a new art object, it is difficult to escape the individual objects’ previous function in real life. Bad Medicine, 2008 re contextualizes many inherent relationships. Another example is the resulting confusion of having the oil paint on top of the material used to clean it. Aside from the content, the works’ tactile surface and material contrast makes it one of those pieces that I enjoy standing in front.

Mr. Hawkins

Just when I think I have a hold what contemporary art is or can be, another artist comes along and reminds me that I don't have a hold on what it is or can be. I have seen collage work before, but Hawkins' collages put me in a state of awe and confusion. Pages sliced out of the magazine, taped or pasted on another piece of paper, along with some post-its with his handwriting. His collage felt like rough drafts to future pieces. But to my disappointment, they are the final pieces.

Lately, I am realizing that all contemporary art, not just the art I don't get, leaves me in a conflicted state of emotion. I dislike it, but think I should appreciate it because it is indeed hanging in a gallery space. I like it, but wonder what makes it contemporary art in the first place or if it's considered "good" contemporary art within the art world. Are the pieces hanging in a gallery the pieces that made an artist famous or are they pieces created after the reputation of the artist has been established?

Viewing his work, I became cognizant of the fact that contemporary art takes two ends of a large spectrum. For example, on one end you can have a large print of a photograph that has the finest detail. On the other end, you have Hawkins' disembodied zombie prints. They are large scale prints of pixellated, severed heads. The heads are monochrome but altered to look like zombies. The floating heads are in the front of a colorful background. I feel like I was taught one way (the finer the detail, the better the photograph), but I have been exposed to the exact opposite. Contemporary art has to be at one end or the other--and never in between.

Richard Hawkins work made me question what makes his work contemporary and what makes it so revered (for it is a retrospective). I start to wonder about how much time went into to creating certain pieces and how much care was also put into the work. I wonder if others can accomplish the same reputation by using the same methods as he does. Can photo collage (just as he does) make another as renowned and famous? (I exclude Martha Rosler from this question because her collages are not done in the same way as his are. Rosler cuts to the outline and fits them together whereas Hawkins just slices out large oval-like shapes). I definitely can see the thought behind the works, and wonder if that's enough to get his work. Perhaps that was the whole idea of his work--get to the point in the quickest, simplest way possible.

I did enjoy the Doll Houses though, and I attribute this to the fact that they remind me so much of animated houses, particularly The Last Doll House (2010). They also reminded me of how I once wanted to make doll houses when I was young. Beyond these two initial thoughts, I feel like they are out of place with the rest of his retrospective.

The collage

There is something about most collage work which feels to me uninspiring. I don't mean to dismiss the long tradition of collage.  Its one good way to use an image created for one purpose and essentially rip it from its   natural surroundings and drop it into unknown territory for another sometimes completely different purpose.  You could even liken it to Frankenstein's monster.
 This being said, when I look at artwork in museums, I'm  often times searching for inspiration.  I was intrigued by the work at the AIC but not inspired.  I specifically liked the posterior series.  It seemed a part of a common theme throughout most of the pictures at the show.  I will never think of a statue in the same way again. It was less his use of the images and more his poetic but assertive rhetoric that won me over.

Richard Hawkins

I can't say that I enjoyed his work. In my opinion, the whole show looked like some high school boy's art project done after some bad sex education. In the room full of cutting out images glued together, bad photoshoped zombi heads, and bad crafted sculptures, I was a bit confused where I was.    

I escpecially disapprove the collages in the first room of the gallery. To me there is not really that depth as what the introduction says. Merely using the images of the Greek sculpture communicates nothing to me but "I cut out some Greek sculpture pictures from some history book". The same thing happened with the Japeness boy pictures too. Any google research with the key world "Greek sculpture" and "Asian fashion magazine male model" will provide images like this. I really do not think there is any value for people to pay to see this exhibit.

However, the nice white walls and the very loud alarm system that scream long before anybody get even close to the art work did help the whole show of Hawkin's work seemed extremely important.  Seeing families bring their young children walking across the show room, I just wonder what can the images of Richard Hawkins possibaly do to benifit the souls of any little ones or even the bigger ones.

To all the hippy's

There were a variety of pieces that resonated with me. perfect harmonizing, baby. Gettin' steezed out. Maybe I'm being narrow-minded because most of my work this semester has been an exploration of boys world and photographing myself. But, what I haven't managed to accomplish is a commentary about fashion advertisement, vulgarity, exploitation of resources. Well done, sir. I'd like to address the comment below about this art being "crappy". I wonder if this person enjoys work I would consider crap? probably. :) I love the subjectivity of art. No one can truly win a game without rules. But, they can make bigger splashes. Hawkins, 1: Us, 0
I enjoyed the collages, specifically SJJSS, 1993. (Suffering, Jealous, Jealous, Suffering, Suffering) In the central portion of the image is a well built, bronzed white male wearing garb meant to mimic the African clothing of the Africans standing around him. This image has the word jealous written across it. Why is the artist working with male fashion models? In my experience, the majority of fashion images depict women. Anyways, funny prose about male fashion can be found here http://fuckyeahmenswear.tumblr.com/

Eh

I get it or at least I think I do anyway. I even rather liked the analysis of the sculptures. It just feels that is what conceptual art s supposed to be. Like how during the 2008 presidential race how Tina fey just read verbatim what Sarah Palin something Sarah Palin had said. They didn’t have to change anything to turn it into a parody. I feel that if I was going to make a fact exhibit of conceptual art as a joke it would pretty much look like this. It has everything. It’s ugly, visually uninteresting, and filled with vague clues that are supposed to lead you into deep thinking and a conversation. And with the low-fy construction and the appropriation you get all of the “is it art” conversations and the legal issues over copy write infraction. Actually all that is missing is the unattractive naked man doing an uncomfortably long performance piece. I don’t even find it offensive or angering it just a bit boring. It’s a like a hardcore feminist painting her body in chocolate and screaming that she’s a consumable product. I don’t have a problem with the message but with the presentation and the physical form of the work tat makes me go “eh”.
The more I think about it though I do like those statue colleges though.

Dick Hawkins

It's just not my thing I guess.
No matter how long I attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and absorb all of it's forward thinking I don't think I'll ever get over wanting to be wowed or wooed by art. I know it's not particularly 'advanced' or 'contemporary' of me... I know I'm kind of like your grandma in that regard, but I want to be attracted. And Richard Hawkins just doesn't do that for me.
Let me be frank. It's just too fucking crappy.
I don't give a good goddamn about your magazine cut outs of hot boy/men and whether or not it's about voyeurism, or celebrity, or the sex industry or whatever, cuz you know what Dick? I don't want to look at it anymore cuz it's just too fucking crappy. And I'm allowed to decide, and I'm allowed to not like you, and that's the end of it.

A Final Thought on Eyeworks

The big festival this week was of course SOFA. I went to Eyeworks Experimental Animation Festival instead.  This event screened both classic and new experimental animation.  Each animation utilized materials not limited to paper or pen; all of them obviously experimental, a few were perhaps created while going through a bad trip.  Good thing an animators bad trip   equals entertaining cinema. Someone wins in the end.  Featured artists included some of SAIC faculty and students, including Jim Trainer, Matt Marsen, and Aaron Wendell (student).

There was a general feeling in all of the animation of a sort of extreme disconnect from reality which was both comforting at times and extremely unnerving. Jim Trainer's The Presentation Theme left everyone in a confused stupor.  The description does the animation justice: "A Peruvian prisoner of war finds himself outmaneuvered by a hematophagous priestess. Based on a true story."

Perhaps my favorite animations had to be Accumulonimbus, dwellings, The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century AD and Mermaid. You can really feel the creative mind at work in each of these films, but its a creativity that doesn't take itself too seriously.  The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century AD, by Dash Shaw, is about a man pretending to be a droid model so he can pose nude for academic figure drawing lessons in order to track down and destroy...  Mermaid is no less wondrous. It is the story of "Carl and Doris, the darlings of marine biology whose marriage becomes strained under the weight of the giant squid".
Mermaid clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDud1qTLiGA
Unclothed Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLxFegbyWwQ

Patti Smith on Fresh Air

Patti Smith was interviewed on 10/30 on NPR's Fresh Air. She talks about her relationship with Mapplethorpe. It's in iTunes.

Third Time to SOFA

The first two times I came to SOFA was with a group of art students from my previous university in Missouri, 2007 and 2008. This time, it is nice that I do not have to take an eight hours train and pay for an expensive hotel.

For the most part, SOFA is very similar from what I remembered.  Countless booths and people everywhere in a room the size of a football field. There was mostly scupltural objects in there, very decorative. Seldomly I saw some paintings behind all the pedistools. There are some fiber pieces here and there too. Jewreys are very rasy to find too. Withi the sculptures, many of them are made out of glass with appealing colors. However, I did feel those objects are very familiar looking compare to previous SOFA events. I bet I can almost say that I even recognice few of them from 2008.

The artwork that left me the stongest imperssion are some crayon picture pieces by Christian Faur. They are not paintings even though from far away they read like paintings. They basically are made out of crayon heads. Depends on the different color of the heads, they are placed in a wood frame to make images of little children. The images are very realisitic accurate from a distance. Usually they have limited colors on each one, creating some sort of narrative with the picture of a child.

MFA Open Studios: Sharp (Building) Style

I went to go see the open MFA studios in the Sharp Building. I probably saw about 20 individual studios, and then the one big Viscom studio. Needless to say, I was not all that impressed. There were a few students' work that stood out in my mind, but the rest who participated either just pushed aside their curtain so people could come in, and set up nothing, or laid out a few pieces willy-nilly.

There was this one student though that did a performance piece where she did a head-stand for about thirty minutes, while balancing a lit birthday cake on her feet. You could hear her moaning in pain from down the hall, and the doorway to her studio was jammed with people. As a voyeur to this piece, I was actually uncomfortable watching her go through this pain. It was as if she was a performing monkey, especially since there were all these people standing around, laughing, pointing, and taking pictures of her. I couldn't find anything to read about that piece, but perhaps she was making a commentary on the MFA event itself?

On another note, I found it interesting how the owners of each studio either were nowhere to be found in the space, or stood in the space observing you, observe their work. I experienced the latter quite a few times, and wow did it make me uncomfortable. It made me think of what Yood says about an artist's relationship with auctions and galleries. I wonder if collectors ever get nervous meticulously looking over a piece of art, while the artist stands nearby in silence?

Crunknasty

Attended the MFA open studios. El Jame Lin, the man who read poetry and stripped gave me aesthetically pleasing, amusing art to mentally devour. Can be found at www.vimeo.com/linmiao The first piece consisted of a collaboration between him and Miao to create porn projects that were live-feeds on a porn website. Then the users comments while the video was streaming were used as part of the project. Finally, stills were taken from the video and made into photographs. This work was stimulating because it was beautifully executed, challenged the porn watchers, and presented the SAIC community with a full range of performance/photo/video.
In the lineup for mind-blowing installation piece from Ji Youn Hong. http://hongjiyoun.com/ Her piece started from 4 photographs depicting four disparate scenes. There were objects in the photograph which became the central, starting points for the sculptural installation. The piece exemplifies the highly experimental and confusing standards by which I think art should be made. Everything looks confusing, but there are hidden gems that allow the rare double-take.
Overall, I only made it to the Sullivan galleries, but it was great to see friends and what the graduate students are exploring. I can't help but wonder if the feeling is similar for the rich folks when they go to gallery openings and get to chit-chat with their fellow men/women. In one of the galleries, Guerremo (sp) was selling his housewares. haha. Was this the piece or not? Does it matter?

Moving in Place at the Miami Art Museum

Susan Rothenberg’s Moving in Place exhibition at the Miami Art Museum was indeed moving. Rothenberg magnifies the in-between space that separates opposing ideas through recurring motifs. Within her self-referential horse paintings such as Cabin Fever, 1976, she depicts a faceless horse in the middle than life canvas. The animal confuses by viewer by moving in place, suspended between gallops with its front and back legs in the air. Although there is an implied motion as seen within the horse’s body position, and the lack of details (the horse is faceless), the image is simultaneously frozen in time. Along with the figure, the paint handling also implies a static motion. The all over paint application struggles to describe something through layers of paint. The result is an ephemeral background that suggests depth while also reminding the viewer of the flat picture plane.

Among other works, I was drawn to Rothenberg’s animal chase series. Dogs Killing Rabbit, 1991-92, depicts longs legs, presumably belonging to the dog next to its prey’s red remains. The white of the snow is a striking ground to the red hues and the scene is poetically shocking but not explicit. In fact, the viewer is denied access to the animals’ faces, in a way preventing any humanization and presenting only its instinctual drive to kill.

Other works such as The Chase, 1999, imply more overt movement illuminated by a painterly white background. The Chase illustrates blurred shapes to represent dogs running after a clever rabbit, which has escaped action and left the dogs to chase themselves. As within Cabin Fever, The Chase suggests something larger. By slowing down the frenzy and suspending the motion of gallops, Rothenberg invites the viewer to catch a glimpse into otherwise inaccessible moments. This new gaze stabilizes the invisible transitions within continual moment thereby reframing the movement and deconstructing/ reconstructing the scene.

MFA Open Studios!

Just a question… What exactly is the school policy on alcohol on campus?

On Friday I went to the MFA open studios and because what I really wanted to see was the photography and that was the last on the list, I stayed all the way through which was a really long time. It was interesting to visit each department, as they are so drastically different from each other. And I was not disappointed by the amount of “art school awesomeness” that was taking place. By that I am referring to the two guys gogo dancing really slowly in the windows of Sharp and Wabash and being filmed from across the street and then projected on the wall, or the student who was stripping and reading poetry (It seems likely that he too everything off at then end considering the sudden blast of cheers) not to mention the girl on the 12th floor of Sharp standing on her head and balancing a cake on her feet.
What struck me as strange was the amount of unfinished work there seems to be, as well as the seeming lack of focus. I guess from the other side this shows how open the programs are to experimentation and that students are really given the freedom to branch out and find themselves. For example I spoke to a second year photography major and he said that he hasn’t made an exposure since he got here, which really says something about the program, plus he had a wiping post in his studio, so how can you argue with that? It was a long night but as someone who really wants to go to the masters program it was great, I feel that I know now far more what I would be getting myself into and I think I’d like it quiet a lot.

Senior Citizen Ditch Day

I was in Houston, Texas last week for Quilt Festival, an event that draws 55,000 people, mostly women, from all over the world to look at quilts, take classes in making quilts, shop for stuff that goes into quilts, and then there is eating, drinking and shopping for other stuff.

Quilting is the biggest "hobby" industry in the US, and this is the biggest event. I was there to teach three days of classes. Wednesday, I had 35 students and taught them to make quilt tops, using a technique called "fusing" and using designs I created. (Go to my website, robbieklow.com if you'd like, it's easier to see than to describe). I did the same on Thursday, with another 35 students, then on Friday, I had 25 students in a free motion quilting class, with sewing machines.  There was a vendors mall (with about 1000 vendors) and a quilt exhibition (about 1000 quilts). I saw some of the quilts and bought some of the stuff and spent a lot of time networking. For me, networking means shopping and talking to the vendors and manufacturers, because they supply me with stuff for my quilts and loan me equipment.

It's interesting to me that I missed the lecture on Feminist art. The quilting industry is very woman based, both the consumers and the creators, I'd guess its about 90% women. It's a very good place to start a business, as I did, because the industry is women based in the first place, and you don't have to discount the needs of a family. I was able to start slow, teaching at different places around the county, my husband traveled too, and we took turns being in town. As the kids got older, I traveled more. My income helped them through college, and now I can take college classes again myself. I have an engineering degree, but in the construction industry, where I worked, there was so much chauvanism that when I got pregnant, I was fired, and then decided the hell with it, I'd just stay home and find my own way. That was ironic, because I went to engineering school to make sure I'd never have to depend on a man for anything.


I didn't take pictures of quilts to show you, the special exhibitions, which were more like what you would expect to be art, did not allow photography. There were all kinds of quilts though, the kind that are on beds, as bedcovering, and then those done as works of art.

Not many pieces of conceptual art, but a few Mary Fisher has a conceptual body of work and she was there with a special exhibition.

http://www.maryfisher.com/index.htm

I'll be gone again this week, judging and teaching at a show in Florida.

Robbi

wild and crazy nights in the studios

On friday night I went to the MFA open studios. It was an interesting experience because it was just so overwhelming. there were so many studios and not enough cookies. However, there was some art that stuck in my head. These studios were very different from gallery openings or art fairs because of the space and how many people there were. I felt myself getting claustrophobic as the night went on. I like the fact that each space was a space where you didn't have to completely carefully watch where you stepped. It was raw and all over the place; sound from other people's studios flooded into other cubicles.

This cubicle was probably the most interesting in the Columbus building. the entrance was blocked off by chicken wire therefore you had to climb up a ladder. However, we were at the wrong place at the wrong time because there was booze in there so everyone in there automatically got busted. even though that was part of the art and experience school authority felt it necessary to shut it down. honestly I'm not sure where i stand on this issue because I am constantly reminded of how this school says that they welcome freedom of what kind of art you make and how there are no boundaries...but as long as you follow the rules.

but then again, i was looking around for the artist, and gee, he was nowhere to be found. how convenient.

i just wanted to climb a wall.

hey look! we can be art buyers too!

just dont eat those cupcakes.

this was neat.

and then there were these guys...

sun clouds ceiling (shoes floor hell)

After going through the Luc Tuymans show and trying to figure out which one would be my favorite painting I realized i had come to a point where i just couldnt do it. I couldnt force it. Yes, I am saying that I didnt like the Tuymans show. It was too flat for me. the subject matter had to elevation to it. the style of which all the paintings were done in i wasnt too fond of either. it felt sloppy and I dont like the fact that i can tell it was done just over a course of one day. maybe it's not my style, maybe I'm missing something, but I just couldnt get into it. I think I was more interested in this sign:

As a painter I tend look at paintings with a technical approach as well with a metaphoric. So, technically these paintings are not pleasing, they reminded me of the paintings I saw of beginning students back in community college and I remember cringing a little. Now, I am not saying that just because I didn't like the technique that it's a horrible painting...there's just something about these surfacy paintings that bugs me. I just cant fully figure out why. But when I do, I'll get back to you.

But if i were to choose one that was even remotely interesting, and Im going to say that I'm stretching it here, but I would chose Der Architekt.

Why? you ask...

Well, I was very drawn towards the pallet and I like the ambiguity of the subject matter but to a point where you can still tell what it is....

So yeh, thats about it.

Luc, I am your Father

Disclaimer: my title has nothing to do with what I wrote.

I’ll admit that I was late they day we went to the MCA and was unable to appropriately explore the Luc Tuymans show (I got off the bus early and therefore had to walk forever). However, the little I did get to see was enough to bring me back to further explore the exhibition. There were many pieces I was struck by, several I wanted to write about and one element that I decided to focus on. This element, that was very apparent through out all of Tuymans’ work, was the source material also on display.

His mock-ups of images, the Polaroid photographs he takes and even the Disney movies he saw as a child and documentaries that spurred his work as an adult, were all directly visible in the pieces he created. Although Tuymans turns the magic of the Disney animation into an imposing and dark series of paintings that speak directly about the twisted mentality underlying the Disney Empire, the influence of the fluid movement of the animation is distinguishable in his horizontal brush strokes and blending of colors. The image of Walt Disney, himself, hardly distinguishable from the focus of the painting, was taken from the iconic image of Disney standing with the plans for the Epcot park. Our inability to immediately recognize the image of Walt Disney gives the piece an eerie sense of the uncanny.

The Polaroid photographs turn into beautifully crafted images, slight abstractions of the original that create a specific feeling and become emotionally and in some cases, politically charged. The lighting of his series of paintings of random objects and moments that struck his interest appear to have been lit by a flash, the image of his wife’s arms in black elbow length gloves with hands cradling white chalk is displayed as a Polaroid image and as a painting, allowing the viewer to experience Tuymans’ process as well. The images of illnesses retain the gritty lighting and angles of medical documentation, but are softened in his use of color and painting techniques, connecting them to the portraits that surround them. I really enjoyed being able to draw connections between his source material and the completed paintings and I wish that this part of the exhibition were included in more shows.

Der diagnostische Blick, 1992

Luc Tuyman’s paintings create an evocative, seductive surface through a strangely objective lens. The works embody interesting dichotomies. Most poignantly, the paint handling suggests a sense of immediacy in an intentional way. The brush strokes are wispy and quick, carrying traces of thick and thin paint, racing to create a certain scene or person. This urgency accurately represents his belief that one’s general mind-frame shifts daily.

The paintings’ relationship to photography, a media typically used as a form of real life documentation, might have something to do with Tuyman’s objective point of view. The subjects are mostly centered images inspired by photography, movie stills and television. The compositions are cinematic, cropping into the particular subject while implying a much larger context. From a formal perspective, it is interesting to see how the cinematic framing translates into different canvas sizes. The subjects are also rather varied, as Tuymans explores inner pathos, politics, portraiture, and other cultural issues.

I was drawn to the Der diagnostische Blick, 1992, the title meaning “The Diagnostic View”, which refers to German physicians’ guides to diseases. This body of work dehumanizes various human illnesses by cropping into the affected body parts. The images do not mimic sterile photography from a science book, as the paint application is very rich. Paint marks are thick and thin, quick and drawn out, wispy and elongated. However, despite the surface’s seduction, the paint is also matte and impenetrable.

I am particularly interested in the two portraits within the series. Although the faces occupy the entire pictorial image in a very confrontational manner, their eyes are matted and stripped of any gloss, completely obliterating any insight into their personhood and individuality. I found the tensions within those paintings to be very telling of Tuymans’ work in general.

Recherches (Investigations) 1998

The painting recherches was just so subtle but really sublime and really beautiful. With Tuymans' usual subdued color palette, using only cools such as blues and greens, Tuymans has painted what appears to be an interior scene. Shown so simply, the bright color and the one tone darks implies a bright eery light illuminating from behind the scene like the intense light of an atom bomb.

The scene, made up of only a few black marks, implies the wall meeting the floor at a diagonal and a window. Inside the window, there appears to be a plant of some kind, maybe a desk or a book, perhaps something hanging on the wall. All detail is bleached out by what gives the illusion of an intense light, when in actuality its a very dull bluish-green.

I was really impressed by all of Tuymans work. I've only ever seen one or at the most two Tuymans paintings at a time and to see so many together made an incredible effect. They exhibited together so powerfully, all creating such a sublime feeling to the large MCA rooms they were shown in.

Tuymans and Me

The first time I saw the Luc Tuymans show I had an immediate favorite. It is called Hands. The second time, I changed my preference. Interestingly, the subject matter was more distilled and less ambiguous. Titled Chalk, it features hands, as did my original favorite. However, this composition was, as I mentioned, distilled in the sense that it consisted only only of a pair of hands, whereas the work to which I first gravitated only emphasizzed that part of the body. In regard to composition, this first attractive piece was simply a bust, though both its title and area designate hands as the focus.

I don't know why Tuyman's work in which hands became significant appealed to me. I think it has something to do with his general aesthetic. There is something very personal and dark about his style that lends itself to intimate depictions of people and parts of the body. The work I favored on my second viewing actually features the hands of Tuymans' wife. She is wearing a pair of long black gloves and a piece of broken chalk rests in her palms. That is all. And I think that's all Tuymans intended us to see. A portrait of his wife, almost, but disguised as something otherwise unrecognizable, and indicative of a situation completely remote to that which it truly represents. Tuymans is a master of ambiguity and of uncomfortably stark weirdness. His choice of subject matter reflects this. and, in my opinion, his best work centers around objects and situations that have a very personal root, either for Tuymans himself or for someone else.

cool hand luc

I haven't had the chance to go back to the Luc Tuymans exhibition but deadlines are deadlines so I will go ahead and write this thing regardless. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised. I expected to be underwhelmed. Having only seen his paintings via the internet I expected to be left wanting more. I do not often encounter small scale paintings that can convey emotion as well as his did (and sometimes more effectively than his larger works ).
I am a fan of bright colors but was more than satisfied with Tuymans' muted dreamlike color palette. It gave a feeling of faded photographs and faded memories. Certain compositions reminded me of the types of photographs we don't often encounter in this digital age where we can easily discard an accidental picture of an empty living room or an underexposed photo of a relative by simply pushing the delete button.
I did not take note of specific titles because it was my intention to have the pleasure of a more leisurely visit before having to write about the work, but I do remember enjoying the small paintings of single objects in his grayed out colors (his grays are never really gray just deafeningly muted browns reds greens blues etc.) Those pieces felt like stolen moments of dreams or quick flashes of fading memories.
Several of the paintings in the "the architect" series were quieting in a curious way. They felt heavy with mood and when contextualized by their background information/source material were deeply chilling.
Overall I liked the exhibition very much and am looking forward to going back.

One Day Paintings

It is still very hard for me to say whether I like Luc Tuymans' paintings or dislike them. The context he has in his painting, which is one's personhood is only steady in a single day, is quite interesting too me. I found it is very easy to relate to for a lot of people. However, if only looking at his paintings, I probably wouldn't think he would be as famous an artist as he is right now.

It is also pretty hard for me to specifically say that there is any one painting that I really liked in his show in MCA. They all are little too grey for my personal taste. The sizes vary very differently, which remind me of what young art school students would do. There is almost a lack of development in his paintings. I always find myself somehow wanting to see some more in his paintings. But it seems like there is just not much there.  Though I am aware of the special moods those colors in the paintings are creating, which is not totally irrelevant. I just can't say I was really that into them.

However, I do notice that his paintings are holding a very special style--very European to me. There is this kind of European seriousness about life in there, since it held so much histories adn culture. It is not quite like the paintings that are done by American artists who are usually more relaxed, expressive and humrous in my opinion.  There is this very ambigious feeling that generate from his paintings. If there is anything I like among the qualities in the paintings, this might be it.

Tuymans at the MCA

I know that I will regret saying this, and that most of my peers and art world collaborators would definitely disagree, but I wasn't exactly moved, or even interested, in the Luc Tuymans exhibit at the MCA. With the exception of a few pieces, (Peter and Raindrops to mention two), I floated in and out of the exhibition, letting the muted paintings blend together into a memory blur that I don't care to recollect.

I am not a painter, and perhaps some of the allure of Tuymans is his technique, but as a viewer, I just wasn't engaged. I did enjoy, on the other hand, seeing his process work. Having heard about how he works from photographs, it was interesting to see his original inspiration, and how it manifested itself into a final product.

Between the Chris Ofili exhibit, and the Luc Tuymans, I prefer the latter. I can much better identify with drawing, and found Ofili's subject matter to be more engaging.

The MCA Show

Unable to make it on thursday, I wandered into the MCA early halloween morning to view the Luc Tuymans.  The exhibition works span a number of years and subjects though the dull color scheme never faded further than recent memory.  I found myself drawn to two paintings in the whole exhibition, the Demolition 2005 and The Parc 2005.

The first thing that drew me to these paintings was the particularly beautiful color, layout and technique used to create them.  As was mentioned in class, Tuymans uses news pictures as reference, however the paintings really take on their own identity through the way the thin layers of paint become a haunting image.   I might describe the colors he uses in both works as almost ghosts (I guess its the spirit of the season) of a former photograph.

Over all, the most enjoyable thing about the exhibition was the way that individual paintings were only snapshots of a greater story.  In order to understand the entire meaning behind each work you had to contemplate all of the works in the room.  An emotionally drained newsreel faded even further by the time they were buried.

Superstition and general paranoia

Without question my favorite was “Superstition” It has completely taken over my mind. It also links into this strange feeling I have that the uncanny is following me. I mean that the concept has become sentient and is following me. Which is the kind of paranoia that is part of the uncanny. See?
I have never seen something so unsettling and yet so simple. The modeled white torso and the mostly flat black insect like object over top of it, its terrifying, like a succubus. I read a bit about it, they discussed the fact that the most painterly aspects of the painting are the background and the torso while the main portion of the image, is black and with out detail. It seems like a black hole, and then with the two legs that move off of the creature that point so much to some sort of insect.
It interesting to look at this image and think about his technique of painting one image in a day, and that the image is specific to that day. I keep wondering what the day was like that he painted that.
There is such casualness to the painting. The lack of precision and the informality of the design makes me think of a doodle, something that was done while daydreaming, the release of a repressed memory. This is something that I would like to incorporate into my own work. His ability to take something so unsettling and then amakes it into an everyday event which makes the image terrifying. I really liked this exhibit and found that his work, while painting, is really linked to photography and the instantaneous moment.

Cardboard?

After looking at the paintings themselves,  I started looking at the sides of the paintings and found myself fascinated with the staples and tacks he used to stretch the canvas, and then there were four paintings on cardboard. (Die Zeit). Almost makes me want to go find my stapler and staple into something for a while.

When I looked at "Diorama", I was underwhelmed by it except for the size. Later, when I was talking to Carrie, I looked over and saw that it was perfectly framed by the openings of the doors in the gallery.

It looked more interesting in person. Which is probably why I'm not a highly regarded photographer.

La Correspondance

When I rushed into the Luc Tuymans exhibition in the MCA, my first impression was a bit of confusion and awe. Although we viewed some of his work in class and discussion, I am not super familiar with his work. With 15 minutes to view his exhibition (it was closing soon), it was interesting to feel like I was viewing all of his work through cloudy color filters. I realize that this is a characteristic of a Luc Tuymans painting. After viewing all of his work, I went for a second cycle through the exhibition a bit slower to closely examine his paintings.

After slowly viewing his work, I am not a huge fan of his work. I enjoy his work, but not to the extent I thought I would be. I wasn't exactly floored by his paintings, though I can appreciate them. However, I was struck by one in particular: La Correspondance (1985). Out of all of his paintings, I felt like this painting in particular demanded my attention. The background appeared to me to be a wallpaper pattern. The color scheme matched that of the rest of the exhibition, but what caught my eye was the room "behind" the wallpaper pattern, especially the red X on one of the tables. All tables are deserted and the one table with the X looks marked, as if something was to happen with that table and whoever sat there.

When I got home, I googled the piece and read an interview with Luc Tuymans. He claims it to be one of his most conceptual pieces. The anecdotal story linked to it is this: a Dutch writer in the early 20th century was stationed in Berlin. Because he didn't have enough money to bring his wife to Berlin, everytime he went to a cafe, he would send her a postcard with a sketch and a red X to mark where he ate--whcih is why it is called correspondence. He proceeded to do this for the five years he was stationed in Berlin. Tuymans wanted to get across the idea of homesickness. (Glisdorf, Daily Serving,"Luc Tuymans: In His Own Words", 2010)

Afrotaslinear!

I was amazed at the amount of control and detail Chris Ofili showed in his Afrotaslinear exhibit. while walking alongside the walls i was wondering how he did them. the watercolor paintings are amazing because of the way he bleeds the pigment and then creates tie dye designs in the clothing. i was also amazed at the vast amount of images there are. i can only imagine how long all these would take. especially the ones where they are just graphite on paper or ink on paper. they were all so clean i would imagine it is hard to keep the paper as white as possible.

as for the images, i loved. i loved the abstraction of the hair and all the different variations. i think i may be a sucker for good watercolor drawings but these ones are truly exceptional.

too bad we couldnt take photographs in there...good thing we have the internet.

Chris Ofili

I really enjoyed Ofili's Seven Brides for Seven Bros. I feel like the series of seven drawings really summed up the show in a nice way and included a lot of the messages of the other work within it.

The work itself is of seven African women, drawn exaggerated with great gesture and an almost comedic rendering, using the individual afro sporting faces that he based most of the show off of. Each woman is a seeming stereotype of an african woman-curvacious, sassy, bending forward with backs out, hips and lips large. They immediately recalled Lisa Yuskavage, pushing it a step conceptually forward by commenting not just on the male gaze toward women, but on society as a whole's gaze toward African women.

The drawings are so indicative of his work. The skill level is simultaneously high and low brow, clean and deserving of the light of a well lit gallery, while child-like. Even in their childlike nature of the drawings, there reads an ironic disdain from an insider looking out. The laugh of an intellectual who is playing a long with society's game only to show how stupid it is.

Meh

I wasn't exactly thrilled. I sort of feel like if it wasn't Chris Ofili nobody would give a damn.
I don't know if I need to adjust my expectations for a "drawing" show. Maybe I should not hope to be wowed or awed or wooed or anything of the things I like to be... but I don't think so.

A lot of times more is more. A lot of times seeing many examples of the same or similar type of thing helps to create a specific impression or define the individual pieces. I feel like that is not what happened. For me, it seemed like since most of the drawings were done in such similar styles with such similar techniques that they all just blurred together, the same thing with the water colors. I started to feel like: seen one seen 'em all.

I DID like the water colors more. I enjoyed the bright colors he used and the way they were allowed to bleed together. I liked his illustration of different types of dress, different hairstyles, and his explorations of different skin tones. I almost felt like there were too many of them though.

The two drawings I like the most were "brooklyn" and the "afromatrix". They each seemed like refreshing moments in the show. "Afromatrix" had a different treatment and size for every head. I also thought the way they were displayed was an interesting reference to specimens or the idea of a collection.

Afromatrix

        Child-like and humor are worrds that I would use to describe Chris Ofili's work I saw in the Art Club last Friday. I was more attracted to mostly the big drawing papers with little skinny lines and a lot of white space. What special about them is the little drawing details or you may call the composing element of the drawings that looks like many heads with afro.

        My favorite piece out of all in the show is the No. 20 Afromatrix. It is basically 112 drawings framed in one big mat board and frame that is 41.5 in. x 61.5 in. It is done by Chris Ofili around 2000 to 2007. Again it is composed with many little afro heads. There are many variations in the piece. The afroes appear in different shapes. Some look like animal shapes, and some look just like crazy hair. Though enerally the piece lookd very geomecial. However, every individual little piece of paper inside of each mat frame has tiered up. I really enjoyed how detail the work is and the variations in the whole unity.

        The idea of haing little afro heards is very clever, however, I think on the level of the entire show, it is a little bit over used. It is a probelm I think many artists face when dealing with a whole body of art. You want them to be unified but you do not what people to be bored with it. I found it not easy to decide especially when dealing with my own work. There are many requirements go into a good body of work show. First it needs to be originally. They it needs to hold down to the direction but willing to explore the suprise of it. Then everything needs to be pulled together so it looks like from the same body. I say that Chris Ofili's show definitly fulfilled most of the requirements, but I just hope there is a little bit more suprise.

Are those Afro heads?

I had never heard of or seen the work of Chris Ofili until Carrie and Yood started mentioning this show that was held a few years ago that was found rather controversial apparently. I think it was called "Sensation?" The opportunity, however, to see the work of a great and controversial artist in-person was an experience I'm glad to have had.

I think what struck me the most about Ofili's work at the Arts Club of Chicago was that it was mostly made up of this collection of what looked like just pencil sketches, but on a larger scale. It is amazing what some artists can do with the simplest of materials, such as graphite, paper, and watercolor. My favorite piece was one that used both white and black Afro heads to make a sort-of optical art piece. (The heads were grouped in two opposing semi-circle shapes.)

Not to compare myself to a great artist or anything, but I think I especially enjoyed this exhibit because it affirmed a way of working that is present in my own art. I employ repetition with lines and patterns a lot in my work, similar to Ofili. Seeing this exhibit gave me ideas both in how I can progress with my own style, and what kind of art pieces I should attempt next.

Chris Ofili--he's a genius with elephant dung and pencil

Chris Ofili's show at the Chicago Arts Club was a surprise to me. Familiar with some Ofili's past work, I never expected to find such beautifully abstracted compositions, such as that in Afroeverlasting.

At first glance the work appears as a circle constructed of some fragile, intricate material. Upon further investigation, the viewer realizes that this fragile, intricate material is a very abundant series of afro heads. Yes. Afro. Heads. These are the heads of men with voluptuous, blooming craniums of quintessentially African-American/British hair. These tiny heads ostensibly contribute a satirical aspect to the overall effect of Afroeverlasting, as does its title.

The title Afroeverlasting is absolutely hilarious. It is an undeniable fact of which Chris Ofili was obviously aware. Humor in juxtaposition with truly austere and gorgeous composition--the stark and stoic or resistant use of mark and color--creates a sort of work that I cannot describe. I feel that I have viewed two pieces as I recall my reaction to Afroeverlasting--the one I aw as I approaced the work from afar, which was a delicate circle, and the other.

The other was a playful collage of one image that carries considerable weight--the afro head.

Ofili at the Arts Club of Chicago

Chris Ofili’s Afrotranslinear show was amazing. Although I assume everyone hoped to see some of his infamous elephant dung works, I was pleasantly surprised with the pencil renderings and watercolor works on exhibition at the Arts Club of Chicago. The entire show was seamlessly displayed, as his afro-delineated pencil drawings led to a room of small watercolor paintings and drawings that depicted afro-muses.

One element that unified most of the works was the bulbous afro shapes also seen in the pornographic butts and the elephant dung of his previous paintings. In one drawing, the form was enlarged and delineated using small afro heads. The small shapes are beautifully drawn and meticulously crafted, calling for a very intimate viewing.

Interestingly, Ofili’s work is as intentional as it is gestural. The show’s press release accurately describes the paintings and drawings as simultaneously “crude” and “purposeful”. This juxtaposition is particularly striking in the 7 brides for 7 bros, 2006 series, one of my favorites. From afar, the drawings look like loose Picasso-esque contours of naked women in erotic poses but from close-up, each line is composed of small afro-head drawings.

Afrotranslinear

On entering the show, I must say I was a little disappointed. After discussing the YBA show in our class and the uproar his elephant dung images had caused, I was expecting something a little more, well, controversial. At first glance the show was bland and felt like an exhibition of work I had seen before. On a closer observation of the work, his line drawings of people were made up of tiny smiling Afro heads ranging in detail and size. The portraits on the walls were done very delicately, the intense colors forming tie-dye patterns and aiding in separating each individual from the others, creating what appears to be a sort of typography. The show carried an overt sense of humor from the titling of his images to the imagery presented.
The images that most struck me were from the series 7 Brides for 7 Bros whose title is borrowed from the musical, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The women in the piece are in actuality based on one woman, Ofili’s wife (her favorite musical happens to be Seven Brides for Seven Brothers), and are depicted in a highly sexualized, if not fetishized, manner. Again, the graphite drawings are made up of small Afro heads- not excluding her genitalia and pubic hair. Each individual drawing is titled after the lead male characters of the musical- it seems as if he has given up his wife to these unknown men.
The sexual content of the images seems out of place with the other, more considerately humorous, images in the show. However, if we consider the others as explorations of Black identity, these seem more an exploration of Black sexual identity, an aspect that cannot be neglected when considering an individual, much less an entire group. After circling the exhibition several times, I kept returning to these drawings. Perhaps it was the seeming displacement of the images that originally drew me to the series, but it was the consideration of their inclusion that kept me engaged.

Chris Offili


It is strange to look at the body of work at the Arts Club and think that it was the same artist who incited the Mayor of New York City to try and force-ably take down a work of art from a gallery, though, it was an election year as it was pointed out in one of the hand outs, so I’m sure that had something to do with it. The paintings and drawings seem playful, even those of the slightly pornographic women with their mild stereotypes, the hair, the nails and so on are not offensive. They are pretty and light. By looking through them you get a sense of culture and a sense a people. The portraits made up of tiny afro-ed heads hint back to the traditional portraits of the European nobility as well as the placement of the water color images, all hung in rows, in matching frames and with matching compositions.

After seeing the Chris Offili show I went to the Luc Tuymens retrospective at the MCA. The similarities between these tow artists are interesting to note. Both complete the images with in one sitting. They both look back to the culture in which the artist is living and both deal with a certain color palette. Though that would be where the similarities stop, for these are two very different artists. Tuymens work is in drab, desaturated and unsettling colors, while Offili is bright, rich and dense. The work its self can be seen as in much the same light as the color palettes, though I would not call Tuymens work drab, but it is as unsettling as Offili’s is bright and humorous. It seems more like a comparison of the two cultures, Belgium and Trinidad, than of the two artists.

Offili takes what is personal to him and is able to form it into something that is accessible to the audience at whole as well as giving insight into himself. I find that the balance he has struck is one of great precision and it is functioning very well. This is something that I am looking for in my own work. The correct balance between the personal and the universal in the message. When is to much of the artist in the work as well as when is there not enough of the artist in the work? You can feel Offili in the works but they are not necessarily about him, he is just the missing piece that transforms the work.

the background patterns

I was delighted to find the background penciled filler patterns on the pieces on the East wall of the exhibit. I particularily liked #4, Cumaca, 2006. He used a pattern that was like shells, the lines of the shells, over and over.

I use a similar pattern in my free motion quilting on my quilts. One of the differences is that Ofili can lift his pencil whenever he wants, when I'm adding lines with a sewing machine, I don't want to stop the line of stitching unless I have to. So my shapes tend to grow out of each other. Plus, my lines aren't as close together as his. It takes me about an hour to fill a square foot, and that's moving pretty quickly, he must have spent hours and hours on his drawings.


I'm teaching a free motion quilting class at a quilt show next week. It would be amusing to use some of Ofili's images as samples, not mentioning his controversy, and seeing if anyone recognizes his work.

Incidently, I did see one of his controversial painting at the Walker in Minneapolis a little over a decade ago. The painting was gorgeous. The dung was like a decoration, if you didn't know what it was, you wouldn't guess. I don't remember which painting it was, I don't remember the butts, but I was going through the museum quickly, lots to see, too little time.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

AfroOfili

The Chris Ofili show at the Arts Club of Chicago was a rather relaxing look at an artist who is known by many for controversy.  The lack of ponographic clippings was somewhat disappointing however there were specific aspects of the apparently simple drawing work displayed.
In our recent essay assignment, I chose to look into the work and philosophy behind Roger Brown's style.  In his words "there has to be a complexity in painting but to make things instantly readable is very important...reducing a certain form so that you can repeat it over and over" while then continually add more complexity is a key aspect of Brown's work. At the Ofili show, it was apparent how the process described is not painting specific but spans other forms of representational art. Chris Ofili's pencil drawings are a prime example of the usage of a single symbol to create a complex image. 

I was most interested in his series 7 brides for 7 bros created in the period between 2004 and 2006.  Each depicts a woman posed erotically open and welcome.  At first glance it looks like a simple line drawing but a closer look will tell you that each woman is in fact made of tinny afro-ed heads of almost uniform size and shape.  I was impressed by the way with which Ofili has taken this one iconic shape and used it obsessively to create complex forms and shapes.

Rockin My Socks!

You know that feeling of accomplishment you get when you just finished something you have been working hard on--that is the feeling I got when I looked at Chris Ofili's artwork. Even though I did not do anything but view and take in his work, the appreciation I had for the work he did corresponded to a feeling of pride & accomplishment that we get when we finish something. It felt as if I participated in finishing his work, just by receiving his work, and thus I felt this feeling of accomplishment.

In addition to that feeling, I also was amazed by Ofili's work, particularly the Afrotranslinear pieces. From afar, the pieces appear to be drawings of women or couples or other geometrical shapes composed of darkened circles or translucent circles. His depiction of the human figure is extremely stylistic--characteristic of Ofili. But when you get up close, those circles are actually afros of smiling faces! It was amazing how tiny the afroed faces could get, without losing their form or shape! It was great to realize what I was looking at when I got closer.

Though I am really intrigued by all of the Afrotranslinear pieces, I was drawn to Afro Reap and Sow. This piece has two hands, released from a clasp, sprinkle seeds to the land below. As you can guess, the seeds were afroed smiley faces as well as the outlines of the hands. I enjoyed this piece more so than the others because it gave me some insight on how Ofili chooses between dark fros and light fros. The way he chooses comes down to lighting and shading. The dark fros represented shaded areas and the albino fros represented lit areas. I loved the use of straight lines, without the faces, that reinforced the ideas of light and shade. I also loved how fluffy the afros appeared. They weren't simply darkened half-moons, they were carefully detailed to appear dense and freshly picked.

If we were still talking about our involuntary positive responses, I had one here at this exhibit. The moment I realized they were all composed of tiny faces with fluffy afros, I just became really happy and appreciative of the work Chris Ofili was doing. I enjoyed his paintings as well, but his drawings blew my mind!