Anish Kapoor

 

Celebrated for his gigantic, stainless steel Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park, Anish Kapoor is changing the cultural environment with his public works.

1.Research Kapoor's work in order to discuss whether it is conceptual art or not. Explain your answer, using a definition of conceptual art 

 Firstly conceptual art is art  in which the idea presented by the artist is considered more important than the finished work. Kapoor’s works are conceptual because there are  specific personal meanings to each work.

2. Research 3 quite different works by Kapoor from countries outside New Zealand to discuss the ideas behind the work. Include images of each work on your blog.

 

 

The C-Curve(2007) is a sculpture by Kapoor. It has highly polished curves that distort and reflect it’s surroundings. It sits on a specially constructed concrete pilth on top of south downs chalk hills,Southhampton” Kapoor has said of C-Curve that he wants to encourage the viewer to reassess their relationship with the space around them.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/8029665/Anish-Kapoor-in-Kensington-Gardens-in-pictures.html?image=4

 

 

“leviathan is 35 metres high and comprised of tautly-stretched PVC over a giant metal frame”

The sculpture Leviathan was placed in Grand Palais des Champs-Elysees

Kapoor said: 'My ambition is to create a space within a space, responding to the great height and light of the nave of the Grand Palais.

'People will be invited to enter the artwork to immerse themselves in its colour and it will be I hope a contemplative, poetic experience.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385590/Anish-Kapoor-Leviathan-sculpture-unveiled-Grand-Palais-Paris.html#ixzz24Tgo5Dpq

 

 

Dirty corner: This sculpture was specifically created for fabbrica del Vapor in Millan.once you enter it, you loose perception of space because the further you go in the darker it becomes.th interior and exterior surface is circular. http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/14982/anish-kapoor-dirty-corner.html

3.Discuss the large scale 'site specific' work that has been installed on a private site in New Zealand.

4. Where is the Kapoor's work in New Zealand? What are its form and materials? What are the ideas behind the work?

The sculpture “The farm”was placed in Kaipara Bay , north Auckland. The sculpture is covered in red PVC coated polyester fabric supported by two matching red steel ellipses. The ideas behind this work are : according to the artist  “sculpture that manipulates the viewer into a specific relationship with both space and time”, - Anish Kapoor, Tate Magazine (2007).

5. Comment on which work by Kapoor is your favourite, and explain why. Are you personally attracted more by the ideas or the aesthetics of the work?

My favourite would have to be the c-curve. I like the idea of reassessing the environment around you I’ts quite interesting. I also think it is beautiful to look at.

 

Youtube has some excellent footage on Kapoor-take a look at Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/3512436040/

 

 

 

Pluralism and the Treaty of Waitangi

In teaching week 5 you will discuss pluralism and the Treaty of Waitangi in your tutorials.

Use this discussion, the notes in your ALVC book and the internet to respond to the following

questions;

 

1.       Define the term 'pluralism' using APA referencing.

“A condition in which numerous district ethnic, religious or cultural groups are present and tolerated whithin a society” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pluralism

2.       How would you describe New Zealand's current dominant culture?

New Zealand is mainly dominated by European culture and it has an impact on how New Zealanders think, learn, their behaviour and belief system but there are Maori traditions involved as well . However New zealand is accepting of other culters and religions so we can describe it using pluralism.

3.       Before 1840, what was New Zealand's dominant culture?

Before 1840  the dominant culture was the Maori culture

4.       How does the Treaty of Waitangi relate to us all as artists and designers working in New Zealand?

Art and design is part of Maori culture, I have seen a variety  of the traditional Maori carvings, tattooing (ta moko), weaving and painting however it is not purely decorative. Because the treaty’s purpose was to make sure Maori and pakeha shared the land and its resources , so  if modern artists and designers are going to make works including or off Maori culture it must be acknowledged so that we show no disrespect.

5.       How can globalization be seen as having a negative effect on 'regional diversity' that leads to a 'homogenized world culture' in New Zealand in particular? (ALVC2 handbook page 52, http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/globalization)

New Zealand is known well for its Maori culture and Maori people . other countries have for a while taken interest in the culture to the extent of taking Maori names and using them to name companies and/or products. This is quite negative because New zeland could end up loosing what it is known best for.

 

6.       Shane Cotton's paintings are said to examine the cultural landscape. Research Cotton's work 'Welcome'(2004) and 'Three quarter view ' (2005) to analyze what he is saying about colonialization and the Treaty of Waitangi.

 

Shane Cotton’s Welcome(2004) and forked tongue(2011) both portray Maori culture. However ‘forked tongue(2011) is much darker and stronger compared to ‘welcome’(2004), he is trying to communicate that Maoris own New Zealand.

 

7.       Tony Albert's installation 'Sorry' (2008) reflect the effects of colonisation on the aboriginal people of Australia. Research the work and comment on what Albert is communicating through

his work, and what he is referring to. Describe the materials that Albert uses on this installation and say what he hopes his work can achieve.

 

Albert’s ‘Sorry’(2008) installation was was a reflection on the effects of colonisation on Australians.each letter covered in images that show what the Australian Aborigines went through. This was a strong piece as it had quite a strong meaning behind it because he was hoping to show us that the Aborigines only received an apology for what they went through but they are still waiting for that apology to turn into an action.

8.       Define the term 'kitsch'.

Something of bad taste,appearance, appeal and design, especially in the arts "When money tries to buy beauty it tends to purchase a kind of courteous kitsch" (William H. Gass).

9.       Explain how the work of both artists relates to pluralism.

Both Tony Albert and Shane Cotton relate to pluralism because they both communicate culture in their works.they share cultural history with us and also get the message  of us treating and viewing each other the same no matter which country the individual is from across.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_art

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/kitsch

 

 

Kehinde Wiley

This weeks ALVC class focuses on the Postmodern theme "INTERTEXTUALITY", re-read Extract 1 The death of the author on page 44 of your ALVC books and respond to the oil paintings of Kehinde Wiley.

         Find a clear definition of Intertextuality and quote it accurately on your blog using the APA referencing system. Use your own words to explain the definition more thoroughly.

    “a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. The framing of texts by other texts has implications not only for their writers but also their readers”(Barthes 1977,1480)

Intertextuality is looking at a piece of writing or artwork and trying to compare or relate it to something familiar. It is often that we do this, critiques do this quite often as well for example art critiques constantly compare how a new artists to a previous well known artist. 

     Research Wiley's work and write a paragraph that analyzes how we might make sense of his work. Identify intertextuality in Wiley's work.

Wiley paint’s portraits based on photographs of African American men whom he sees in the streets in heroic terms. Merging between street style and postmodern painting. Intertexuality is present because in his work we start to think of segregation where it was the white man usually in the high positions. In today’s society if we see a young man dressed they way the young men are dressed in Wiley’s paintings we immediately label them as a thug/gangster. So not only does Wiley make us think in a historical context but also in a mordenr day context through his work.

       Wiley's work relates to next weeks Postmodern theme "PLURALISM" . Read page 51 and discuss how the work relates to this theme.

The post-modern belief is that we are all equal. Men from any cultural background excluding European are just as powerful and have rights just as equal to Europeans. Wiley lets us remember this in his work using pluralism.

      Comment on how Wiley's work raises questions around social/cultural hierarchies , colonisation, globalisation, stereotypes and the politics which govern a western worldview.

Wiley fades out the social hierarchies of the “white man” always being in power and the “black man” being in a lesser position. He makes stereotypical people in society realize that skin colour no longer matters. Globalism is present because other artists are following Wiley’s lead in the messages he portrays in his work through pluralism. He is also politically correct in his work , showing that in this day and age nothing is based on one’s racial background e.g. whether you deserve to die or not, these politics govern the western world.

 Add some reflective comments of your own, which may add more information that

you have read during your research.

I find Wiley’s work to be eye catching, which was the idea since his portraits are quite large and colourful. His paintings fuse history and style in a manner different to others. His models were asked to replicate poses from the paintings of renaissance masters such as Tiziano Vecellio and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Which helps portray his message across to the audience quite clearly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehinde_Wiley

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/804576/kehinde-wileys-dilemma-how-the-artist-painted-himself-into-a-corner-with-his-new-works

Hussein Chalayan

Chalayan is an artist and designer, working in film, dress and installation art. Research Chalayan’s work, and then consider these questions in some thoughtful reflective writing.

1.       Chalayan’s works in clothing, like Afterwords (2000) and Burka (1996) , are often challenging to both the viewer and the wearer. What are your personal responses to these works? Are Afterwords and Burka fashion, or are they art? What is the difference?

I think the afterwords collection (2000) was very interesting, mind blowing. There were some unexpected twists to the work but to put it simply, he made/designed wearable, portable architecture. The collection showed me how innovative and creative Chalayan can be. I was baffled when I saw burka but at the same time I understood the message Chalaya was portraying. Ideas of modesty, femininity and identity came out in the burka show (1996). Its funny how clothing at times hides a person’s identity and the burka is one of them as it covers most of a woman's face and body for the sake of modesty. Covering a woman’s face to me doesn’t really change how sexual a woman is , even when naked. In this show Chalayan presented models wearing burkas and nothing underneath them each with a different length and one model was naked except for the sandals and mask. I think both shows are a mix of both art and fashion. There is not much difference between art and fashion

Not all clothing is fashion, so what makes fashion fashion? (Research some definitions  for these terms.)

2.       Chalayan has strong links to industry. Pieces like The Level Tunnel (2006) and Repose (2006) are made in collaboration with, and paid for by, commercial business; in these cases, a vodka company and a crystal manufacturer. How does this impact on the nature of Chalayan’s work? Does the meaning of art change when it is used to sell products? Is it still art?

Chalayan has an industrial background which has an impact on his work , so it is safe to say that his experiments go beyond fashion ideas.i don’t think art is really changed when it is being used to sell products, instead of the art being made and used for the sake of art, it is used for commercial reasons. So there isn’t much difference to change the meaning of art. art wouldn’t be a success if it did not sell.

3.       Chalayan’s film Absent Presence screened at the 2005 Venice Biennale. It features the process of caring for worn clothes, and retrieving and analysing the traces of the wearer, in the form of DNA. This work has been influenced by many different art movements; can you think of some, and in what ways they might have inspired Chalayan’s approach?

Science is an influence in his work because of the technology used in his work accompanied by industrialism; because of the fashion in the film are influences for this work. In the film the issue of identity is present, he shoes how some identities can or can’t adapt to new environments (this train of thought shows Humanism).

4.       Many of Chalayan’s pieces are physically designed and constructed by someone else; for example, sculptor Lone Sigurdsson made some works from Chalayan’s Echoform (1999) and Before Minus Now (2000) fashion ranges. In fashion design this is standard practice, but in art it remains unexpected. Work by artists such as Jackson Pollock hold their value in the fact that he personally made the painting. Contrastingly, Andy Warhol’s pop art was largely produced in a New York collective called The Factory, and many of his silk-screened works were produced by assistants. Contemporarily, Damien Hirst doesn’t personally build his vitrines or preserve the sharks himself. So when and why is it important that the artist personally made the piece?

During the Renaissance period artists were also known to not personally make all their work, their apprentices helped them produce the work. However the artists/designers do come up with the ideas so it isn’t important anymore that they haven’t personally made the works. If the artists and designers did not have help producing their work then some of it wouldn’t exists. But I think if the artist personally makes the work then it gains a bit more value.

http://www.kunstaspekte.de/index.php?tid=40009&action=termin

              http://vimeo.com/7686397

POST-MODERNISM

     

1.       Define Post-Modernism using 8-10 bullet points that include short quotes.

·         Post modernism refers to a art movement which marked the end of modernism “the term postmodernism is used in a variety of confusing ways. For some it means anti-modern; for others it means it means a revision of modernist premises (Witcombe, C 2000)

·         The difference between pop culture and sophisticated culture was blurred during this era, "Many artists turned with visible distress to the present and focused their attention on contemporary popular culture". (Witcombe, C 2000)

·         During this era people were kind of rejecting the notion of absolute truth “postmodernism is associated with relativism. Relativism is the idea that “anything goes”” ( Saugstad, A. 2001)

·         Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the certainity of efforts to explain reality  "Reality is created by social reality. But the main idea is that there is no objective knowledge or absolute representation of reality. Many of our concepts and catigories are based on the social reality, and not because we can represent physical reality". (Saugstad, A. 2001 )

·         Postmodernism is a wide-ranging term that is applied to many areas including literature, art, economics, philosophy, architecture, fiction etc. “ different postmodern thinkers have different opinions, and people from different fields may have somewhat different definitions of postmodernism” (Saugstad, A. 2001)

·         Postmodernism is quite difficult to pin point "Postmodernism is not easy to define. The term is used in philosophy, literature, social sciences and architecture" (Saugstad, A. 2001)

·         "Nature does actually precede culture,not the other way around". (Saugstad, A. 2001) postmodernists also explore that we don’t control nature, which was also believed before this era.

·         There was however a negative side to the postmodernist way of thinking. "Some postmodernists do not seem to take logical reasoning seriously, and instead of listening to reason and arguments, they may tend to focus on relativism and constructivism " (Saugstad, A. 2001)

2.       Use a quote by Witcombe (2000) to define the Post-Modern artist.(page 24)

The post-modern artist is "reflexive" in that he/she is self-aware and consciously involved in a process of thinking him/herself and society in a deconstructive manner, "demasking" pretensions, becoming aware of his/her cultural self in history and accelerating the process of self-consciousness.  

3.       Use the table on pages 47 and 48 in your ALVC handbook to summarize the list of the features of Post-Modernity.

Through postmodernity people started substituting reality for reality television shows and simulation. The dominance of high culture has been replaced by pop culture. Art was used as a way of recycling culture authenticated by audience and validated in subcultures sharing identity with the artist.

Use this summary to answer the next two questions.

4. Research Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's 'Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola logo'(1994)

in order to say what features of the work could be considered Post-Modern.

Popular culture is shown in the Ai Weiwei’s Han Dynasty urn with Coca-Cola logo piece. Weiwei put a Coca-Cola logo on a very valuable urn so that his work could relate to a wide audience, since coke is very popular around the globe. Something as common and materialistic as the coke logo put on a valuable Chinese urn turning it into contemporary art. This piece was a universal metaphor for the collision between the preservation of historical artefacts and consumer driven progress

6. Research British artist Banksy's street art, and analyze the following two works by the artist

to discuss how each work can be defined at Post-Modern.(Use your list from question 3.)

Banksy has taken an image from a violent riot and twisted it... Instead of the rioter typically throwing an explosive, he is instead holding a pretty bouquet of flowers. Banksy makes his audience stop and this about what the world and what is happening in it by using current affairs, controversial issues and altering them. This is Banksy’s post-modern approach and it is quite effective too.

In another piece he played with the idea of evolution and fast food. Trying to make u notice the major difference between how life is nowadays and how it used to be long ago, the way he marries common images  and issues like these makes his work post-modern.

http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/78/DevastatingHistory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Nathalie Djurberg 'Claymations’

1. What do you understand by the word 'Claymation'?

Claymation in my understanding is a way of making animation but instead of using graphics or drawing the characters are made of deformable clay and filmed using stop-motion photography. The word Claymation was made up by Will Vinton in 1978 to describe his clay animated films ,Claymation is very time consuming though which is why it isn’t as popular nowadays.

2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?

The term surrealistic Garden of Eden means Nathalie’s garden does not look like how a garden is meant to look … its aesthetically odd. The flowers are quite large and the shapes are exotic but scary at the same time and the garden is quite dark. Nathalie did the opposite of how we would imagine the Garden of Eden, the garden is very gloomy and creepy in a creative way.

3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?

The garden is quite scary, unnerving and confusing. The music produced by Hans berg contributed to the unnerving feel. There are 3 screens within the garden showing Claymation, one tells a story of a puppet who has a battle with its own violent limbs, the second is about puppets who try escaping from a hostile forest environment and end up becoming brutish and the third is about sexual foreplay of several puppets , some of them catholic , to highlight perverse games of power and submission. The claymation also adds to the confusion and element of fear in the garden.

4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?

Djurberg uses the image of an innocent looking girl being attacked by villains

5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?

Well, turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing shocks and confuses people. In doing this the artist/designers become more popular

6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?

I think Djurberg’s work was chosen because her work was quite unexpected and shocking. Quite different from the artworks we usually see. Djurberg’s work takes the view on a enjoyable nightmare with the terrifying plant sculptures and the violent and sexual Claymation.

7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.

I think her work is disturbing and bizarre but in saying that the presentation of her work is quite interesting because there is a mix of innocence and violence..

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_claymation

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/10/nathalie-djurberg-who-won-the.php

Industrialisation in the late 1800s, and today.

Industrial revolution started during the late 1700s, were mechanization was beginning to become huge in helping to manufacture things like textile and agriculture. The industrial revolution started in Great Britain and quickly spread across the world. During the industrial revolution, workers were coming to cities in search for employment in the new factories. There were no experienced workers because the industrial system was new so everyone had a good chance of finding employment.

The  City Rises by Umberto Boccioni is a painting about the construction of a new modern building. The colours in this painting are quite bright which really caught my eye and I like the balance between the detail in the building on the top right and the movement of the straining men in the bottom left. To me this painting celebrates urbanism.

Dynamism of a dog on a Leash by Giacomo Balla is a painting of a woman walking her dog. This painting shows a lot of movement with the multiple limps drawn, to show fast movement. I like how the background is plain because it makes me focus on the woman and her dog.

RMB City by Cao Fei shows the rapid urbanization  of China because of the clutter of the urban buildings. I think that Fei is concerned about the rate at which China is developing because there is a building on fire in the image and some strange objects around the buildings. Utopia means a imagined place where everything is perfect and dystopia is the complete opposite were the imagined place everything is unpleasant, this shows in her work because there are some lovely urban buildings but at the same time it’s crowded with strange objects around the island.

The paintings and the digital work are similar because they all show movement , in a way to celebrate machinery and urbanization.

  www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/cafeintopia.asp

http://futuravanguardie.blogspot.co.nz

http://suite101.com/article/futurism-and-umberto-boccionis-the-city-rises-a280519

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/industrial-revolution.asp#axzz1w8Y5tKcF