Hidden Treasures...

Hidden Treasure... Discovering the Tang Museum of Saratoga

I have lived in Saratoga Springs for nearly three years now and it amazes me how many interesting buildings, cool museums and historical events that I still have yet to discover around town.

Recently,I visited the Tang Museum, located on the Skidmore College Campus, and was amazed at what I found!!!The Tang museum is formally known as The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, features two major exhibition galleries, two classrooms, rooftop patio, huge atrium, and permanent storage for the Tang collection. The first aspect of the Tang that I liked was the architecture! When you park and look at the building from the lot, the building is magnificent! When I visited, there was a piece outside called "Politeness Counts" by Johnathan Sellger (2004) right outside the museum doors. The piece was a larger than life (and larger than me) grocery bag, made of aluminum and painted with auto body paint! It had a generic "thank you" painted on it! Seeing this piece outside made me excited for what the Tang actually held inside!!!!

The first exhibit I visited in the Tang was by Arlene Shechet called "Blow by Blow". It is an exhibit that is inspired by an aspect of Buddism, breathing. The exhibit is a collection of sculptures, all carefully crafted to convey breathing, and the movement of air. I think my favorite part of this exhibit is that all of the pieces had different bases.

The piece pictured on the left is called "Even and Perhaps Especially" (2007), when i first saw it I thought that it looked like a human heart that has been covered in silver. It sits on top of a wooden base. I liked this piece because it helped me to understand the purpose of her exhibit.

The second exhibit that I visited was just beyond the Arlene Shechet. It was called "The Way We Weren't" by the artist Nicole Eisenman. This exhibit was a collection of her paintings. This collection is inspired by America's attempt to make the world believe that our culture is all around happy, when really we are riddled by sadness, guilt and trouble. I really liked these paintings because they showed real emotion and tough times, but they were presented in almost cartoon like figures. My favorite piece in the collection was a painting of a flooded town, the towns residents are glum and sick looking, and at the bottom there is a cats head (presumably its swimming) with a cute little bird riding on it. The part of this painting that made it visually appealing were its colors and texture.

The piece pictured to the left is called "Biergarten at Night" (2007), it features a myriad of people, all drinking beer! Some of those depicted at visibly intoxicated, while others dance, flirt and talk! I like that the painting is a see of people and they all look different and are acting differently!

I really enjoyed my visit to the Tang, had I not taken a class in the visual arts I probably would never had know it even existed so close to my home! What a pleasant surprise!!!

Wearing Beecroft, Performance at its Peak....

Vanessa Beecroft and Gillian Wearing are both foreign born artists who utilize the public and in their artwork. Beecroft and Wearing have been featured in many galleries and exhibitions, and recognized by the Art-world for their talented, but sometimes controversial work.
Gillian Wearing was born in England in the early 1960’s. Her art is conceptual in nature, and has earned her the Turner Prize** in 1997. Upon my inquest into Wearing I had never even heard of the Turner Prize, but the Tate’s website provided this information…
”The Turner Prize is a contemporary art award that was set up in 1984 to celebrate new developments in contemporary art. The prize is awarded each year to 'a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding'.”
(More information about the Turner Prize and can be found at http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/abouttheturnerprize.shtm )

Wearing’s first major work was a series of photographs featuring members of the public that Wearing had stopped on the street and asked to write something on a sign. This series of photographs became known as “Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say”. It is interesting to me some of the things that Wearing photographed on peoples’ signs.

The man in the suit with a simple sign “I’m desperate” . There was also a photo of a police officer holding a sign that said “Help”. The title, although a bit of a mouthful, is perfect for the series because the signs say EXACTLY what the people want them to. According to Wearing “a great deal of my work is about questioning handed-down truths”. Although this series was photographed in 1992, it interesting that the signs the people are holding still resonate with me and my generation. Its true that many corporate employees typically labeled as “men in suits” are desperate these days, with the housing market, recession woes, and unethical corporate practices.

I was oddly reminded of an All American Rejects music video for their song “Dirty Little Secret”. This video features people, most likely actors and extras, hold signs and cards saying something they have kept secret or want to share. Maybe Wearing was their inspiration for the concept of their video (This video can be found on YouTube by following this link… All American Rejects "Dirty Little Secret") .

Wearing has also created many videos to present her artwork including “Dancing in Peckham”, “Sixty Minute Silence”, and “Drunk”. The titles are very descriptive of the work. I was most interested in her 2001 piece “Broad Street”, which I was able to read about and found pictures of but could not find a link to view. This piece followed a group of teenagers as they went out on Broad Street in Birmingham, England.

Still Picture from “Broad Street” by Gillian Wearing

Vanessa Beecroft was born in Italy during the late 1960’s. Her artwork is contemporary and often features female models in a performance piece. Often her work is controversial because of her use of the female models in a nude and thought provoking situations. It has been featured at many galleries and institutions worldwide (Link to More information about Beecroft ).

”The Body” – VB35

This performance was featured at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. It was hard to find pieces of her work to post on my blog because I prefer to keep it rated “G”. This piece like many of Beecroft’s is meant to make people consider sexuality as well as the human form. It is provocative to me because of the blatant nudity.
Beecroft’s other work often features women who are meant to be extremely similar, using wigs and costumes to make them appear alike. Her zeal for the use of nude models does turn me off a bit because that is not something that I find appealing in art, especially live performances.

Thats Very Duchampion of You: An examination of Duchamp's Effect on the World of Art

Marcel Duchamp was a French artist who challenged the traditional concept of artistic processes and helped changed the way that art was marketed. He championed a new art-form called “ready-mades”. Ready-mades are found objects which are presented as art. Duchamp has had a great effect on American artists including Connor, Levine, Lawler, Wilson and Ruscha.

Bruce Connor is renowned for his work various mediums including film, drawing, sculpting, and collage. His work with film is reminiscent of Duchamp because it is like found film clip art. By taking clips of film, editing them and re-editing them to form short movies, Connor was able to create interesting works of film art. Connor describes Duchamp’s impact on the art world in an interview with Elizabeth Armstrong as “you can use Duchamp as a reference for almost all subjects as far as art is concerned”. In the interview he also described his apprehension toward talking to such a legend in the art world and how Duchamp’s work was characterized with “questioning”.

Sherrie Levine is most well known for her photography and appropriation art. Her photography artwork was somewhat controversial because she took pictures of other peoples artworks and presented them as her own. She actually recreated Duchamp’s”Fountain” in 1991, painting it bronze instead of leaving the urinal porcelain white. In an interview with Martha Buskirk, it is clear that Levine has been influenced by Duchamp. Buskirk even describes some of Levine’s processes and artworks as “very Duchampion”. Her work is also riddled with ready-mades, a term coined by Duchamp in 1915.

Louise Lawler is a photographer whose work focused on the presentation and marketing of artwork. Similar to Sherrie Levine, Lawler photographed the artwork of others. She describes her beginning in the art world in an interview with Martha Buskirk. Lawler did not fully understand the connection and relation that her art and Duchamp’s art had. Her art work involved lots of questioning and careful thought much like Duchamp and she also used odd mediums that were the same or similar to create art. Lawler even took photos of Duchamp’s artwork and used the shadows to play with the artwork as well.

Fred Wilson is an American artist who questioned the interpretation of art and artistic value because it was shaped by cultural institutions. He is most well known for examining, questioning and destructing the traditional display of art. In an interview with Buskirk, Wilson makes it clear that his work questions the way that museums and galleries display art. Wilson worked as both a museum curator and an artist so he claims to be well aware of what both parties are looking for. Wilson considers himself a “conceptual artist”, taking items from the museum and rearranging/recombining them to create a sense of surprise for visitors and viewers. This is similar to Duchamp because he wanted viewers of his art to be surprise and question the work.

Edward Ruscha came onto the art scene during the pop-art movement and became well known for his paintings, printmaking, drawing and photography. His paintings were usually focused on words and his artwork often took the form of odd mediums. In an interview with Elizabeth Armstrong, Ruscha describes his artwork and how Duchamp changed the art world. Duchamp made people think about his artwork instead of presenting them with a painting that can be enjoyed visually but does not challenge the viewer to interpret the work and its value. Ruscha describes Duchamp’s greatest contribution to the art world as that “he discovered common objects and showed you could make art out of them. He was also one of the first artists to use electric motors to create motion in art. He played with materials that were taboo to artists at the time; defying convention was one of his greatest accomplishments.” Ruscha talks a great deal about how Duchamp has changed the niche that art fills.

It is clear by reading these artist interviews that Duchamp has had a great effect on the creation and interpretation of art and artists. He not only effected mediums of art but also how people thought about and marketed art. His innovation in the area of ready-mades created a new type of art for future artists to replicate and build on.

Performing Art Can Be Fun Tooo!

"They're Not Pigs"

By: Allison Rae Pillans

After recent events in my life I came to realize that men aren’t pigs… they are predators. This is the theme of my performance art piece. I have decided to re-create a recent Trojan condom commercial that is on television; the commercial shows a bar full of pigs and one beautiful lady, when the pig gets a condom he turns into a man and scores the pretty lady. This commercial was funny to me when I first saw it, but recently I had an epiphany. Men aren’t pigs, they are predators on the prowl; deceptive and inviting in their ways, working hard to score a “kill”.
To make the performance my own, I have decided to dress up the “men” as wolves in “sheep’s clothing”. This is to depict them as dangerous and predators but also that men are tricksters. I describe men as “tricksters” because they seem willing and eager to deceive girls into being intimate with them.
I would perform this piece in an actual bar. This bar would be lit dimly but not dark. The piece would be most effective if there were no customers in the bar just the performers. Ideally every seat in the bar would have a wolf sitting on it, for effect. To make the piece more relatable to the audience who viewed the commercial I would love to use the actual music from the commercial. I would use one of my friends to depict the beautiful woman because I want to film this piece so it can be sent out over social media networking sites such as youtube.com to get extra exposure and feedback from the public at large as well.
Ideally the performance piece will begin with the wolves dressed as sheep filing into the bar area with the music playing. Then the beautiful woman will enter the bar and go get a drink, while all the “sheep” stare at her with gaping mouths (some of them can whisper to each other to indicate they are talking about the woman). Next one sheep will go up to the woman who will entertain his conversion for a moment before sending him on his way. This sheep will then go to the condom machine in the bar and get a condom before returning to the woman (just as the commercial shows except he does not change from a sheep to a wolf before seeing the woman). The woman and the sheep leave the bar together and as they exit the sheep looks back across the bar over his shoulder and takes off the hood of his costume, exposing himself as a wolf to the other men but not to the woman.







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6krr40mdHM <-- Link to Trojan Commercial on YouTube.com

Coyote Makes Things Happen!!

As an accounting major I work well with facts, figures and manipulations of numbers… so it is really difficult for me to thoughtfully respond to essays that are more abstract and philosophic. I read the “Nature of Beauty in Contemporary Art” by Suzi Gablik, reread it and reread it again before it even began to make any sense what-so-ever to me. I really loved the opening line which describes the radical turnover of what is popular on the American art scene: “If you’re out, you’re out – you simply don’t count” - Sandro Cho.
Gablik goes on to describe the changing social definition of art away from galleries and wall hangings to more engaging and less structured art. On my first read through of the article, I agreed with art critic Hilton Kramer who said that “things with no relation to art were now being legitimized and accepted as art” I thought about his belief in relation to the art program the author describes called “The Great Cleansing of the Rio Grande River” by Dominique Mazeaud. I didn’t understand how the group of people picking up trash from the river and its surroundings was a piece of art. I get it that they were beautifying the planet by removing the miscellaneous cans, bottles and trash.
But where is the ART? James Hillman asked the same question of Mazeaud’s work in a conversation with Gablik saying “what gets metaphorized into her work”. I could understand if the bottles and trash were collected and made into an elaborate or simple piece of recycled found object art, but simply throwing the bags of trash away made the project seem more like community service than art. But I feel like Gablik included quotes from other critics and artists that made the traditional definition of art seem too restricted. Almost to make it seem like that could never be the definition of art unless we were completely closed minded to advances made in visual entertainment and intrigue.
The second article made me more confused about what is considered art because it described a performance piece or “action” created by Joseph Beuys. This piece featured Beuys sitting in a room with a coyotes for three days at the Rene Block Gallery in New York City. Not only did they stay in the room together, Beuy created a sequence of actions that were to be repeated for the three days. I was kind of in awe about how much though had been put into Beuy’s choice of subject: the coyote. Why a coyote? Apparently coyotes are the ultimate survivor according to mythological and evolutionary tales. They symbolize a couple of things to people in the United States including wildness and fierce instincts. In the Christianity the coyote is a satanic symbol according to David Levi Strauss in his essay “I Like America and America likes me”. It gets its satanic symbolism because of the threat it poses to shepherds and their flock. In Native American coyotes tales it is clear that the coyote is an “agent of change bringing order to chaos”. Was Beuys trying to create a show of order for the people?
But what must the public have thought when they viewed this action art piece?? How could someone walk off the street and understand the intense amount of thought that Beuys had to exert to create such a strong show of symbolism? If I had actually witnessed this live art I probably would have thought that Beuys was crazy. First, he was in a small room with a coyote. Second, I would not have understood the thought process behind the sequence of actions that Beuys repeated in the room.
I am not sure if I am too rules based to understand and appreciate art or if I am just confused by the flowing, flowery language utilized in art essays as compared to the dry, straightforward content of an accounting article. I think art should be displayable, that there must be an end product of some sort to show viewers but, besides that, what other criteria can we create for art without totally hampering new styles and interpretations of art.????

Unusual Art (Assignment #2)

I had to scour art websites to find a contemporary artwork that I “find unusual, take issue with or don’t quite understand” as our second assignment required. Finally I resorted to a Google search of “unusual contemporary art”…my last resort! I stumbled across an article titled “Recycled Cigarette Art by Tom Deininger” on EnvironmentalGraffiti.com.

I was drawn in by pictures of a rabbit and I didn’t really understand where the cigarettes were in the artwork. I scrolled down the page and looked at another artwork made entirely of cigarette butts in the image of a large seashell. I returned to the top to actually read the article and was blown away!

Deininger created the unidentified rabbit piece using cigarette butts he found in beach parking lots. To make the rabbit appear furry he cut up the filters, which gave the rabbit a realistic looking fur coat. The shell piece was also really cool because the shape was really precise. Deininger also used different colored cigarette butts which gives the shell extra detail and shape. It reminded me of being at the beach this summer.

I visited the artist’s webpage at http://www.tomdeiningerart.com/ to find out more about him. His bio page was bland and short, but his artwork said a lot about him. I really liked another piece he created titled “Stroking Monet”. This piece was a recreation of “Japanese foot-bridge over the water-lily pond in Giverny” by Claude Monet. Deininger used “found objects” and from afar the picture looks like a loose painted interpretation rather than a collection of precisely arranged knick-knacks and random objects.

I think that the rabbit and the shell while visually appealing are a little stomach turning for me. I am glad I picked those as my piece because I found Deininger’s other artwork really interesting up close and beautiful from afar!

I guess it grew on me...

Feathered Edge

Installation by Ball-Nogues Studio

at MOCA Pacific Design Center

I was looking at pieces on Contemporary Art Museum Websites and when I came across Feathered Edge (pictured above) I didn't even see the actual piece. I was looking at thumbnails, so all I could make out was the gallery space, which is the real reason that I looked into the piece at all. When I finally took in the whole picture, I was kinda impressed. This surprised me because I am not the most open-minded person to art beyond paintings and sculptures. I enjoyed the colors the most at first. Taking them in I wondered if the string was colored before it was hung or if it was painted or dyed while in position. While my eyes followed the colors I noticed that Feathered Edge was composed of probably hundreds of draped loops of string. I didn't even notice the pictures of the piece hung on the wall in the background for like five minutes because I was entranced by the hanging strings. The pictures add a whole new dimesnsion to the piece that I had to take in, one by one. I liked the piece more after seeing them because the colors seem more intense in the pictures.

Upon further research I learned that this piece is composed of over 21 miles of colored string!!! The gallery I found the piece on also features a video on the "making of" Feathered Edge (http://www.moca.org/audio/#ballnogues) by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues. Ball and Nogues are also responsible for intallation art pieces in Venice and Las Vegas. I look forward to viewing more installation art pieces in the future, because this one really intrigued me... I only wish I could have it at home!