Artist Exhibit- 100 Years at BU

The 100 Year Exhibit at BU was a collection of performance work from the 1900's up until today. It was set up in a timleine-like fashion with everything stapled to the wall, so you can take things down and put things back up. The works ranged from photographs, to actual physical pieces of art, to videos displayed on small monitors. The curator Kate talked about how all of the work is basically an archive saved onto a hard drive that  they could take anywhere and print everything out and set the show back up.

There were a lot of pieces that I liked, but there were a lot of pieces that I just didn't get or didn't care for. There were also a lot of pieces that made me uncomfortable and others that I just didn't like looking at. Although performance art is thought of as weird or there to make the viewer uncomfortable, there were many pieces that I liked. I started at the beginning of the timeline around 1911 with Serge Diaghilev's Petrouchka and 1922 Oskar Schlemmer's Triadisches Ballet and The Figural Cabnet.

All three of these pieces were ballets. Performance art back then was mainly theater and ballets. The costume designs and the movement of the body on stage were two "artistic" characteristics of plays and ballets. Whenever I think of performance art I think of more modern videos and I guess, focus on the more odd aspect of modern art today. I completely forgot that ballets and theater performances are definitely in the category of performance art. I think today though, those types of things are not necessarily but in that category because they are able to stand alone in their own categories. 

There were a couple piece where I had to ask myself, is this art? A common question with most modern art today, especially with performance art. A piece that really stuck out to me in terms of "Is this art?" was a piece titled Baby Ikki by Michael Smith. In this piece, Michael Smith is dressed as a baby and crawls around the street of Hartford, CT acting like a baby. Heres a short video that isn't the entire piece, but gives you the gist of what is going on in the video--> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oZfbCm4UeM. I know this is a performance piece, but I don't necessarily understand it. I'd like to hear someone's opinion on why this is considered art. To me, I feel like he is just this man doing some kind of odd street performance that is commonly found in cities. I don't really see the point behind it. 

One piece that I really liked was 2008- Measuring the Universe by Roman Ondak. In this piece Onadk has audience members come up to the wall where he marks their height and the their date of birth. The idea is to have the entire galley covered. There are no breaks between the measurements so the process is completely ongoing. They also measure kids and adults so there are all different heights and marks on the wall. Here is a short video where he talks about this piece and shows the piece "in action"--> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNiwsDnzFiw. 

When it comes to performance art I find that I tend to like performance work that involves the audience to make a physical piece of work. The process of creating a piece of art can be considered artwork all by itself, but to have an actual physical piece of art on top of that is awesome. I think this is why I like the Measuring the Universe piece. It such a simple idea but the process and the outcome make the idea so much bigger. 

Overall, I enjoyed this exhibit. I think that it opened my eyes to a lot of older work that I had never heard about and also newer work that I had never heard about. It also made me think a lot about performance art which is a topic that is not necessarily a common one to come across. I think now with more modern art it is something that we come across a lot more. It is good to get introduced to new ideas and new ways of thinking as far as art making goes, and I think this 100 Years exhibit did just that. 

Studio Today 2/23/12

So today in my studio I thought a lot about what the birds mean to me in the last piece that I did. Here is what I came up with: The birds are set up in a sunset-esque splotch of watercolor. They represent freedom and the idea of letting go. This is something I find beautiful in the decaying body. Our insides hold so much beauty that maybe we can only see after we let go of everything. This is the time where we can fully let go of the chaos of life.

I really like the concept of working with the birds, so I decided to do some research on birds in mythology. There is so much information to research and incorporate into my work with more meaning and context. I want to dive deeper into the meaning of birds in different cultures, incorporating them with the body. I'm going to spend more time researching and once I have almost all of it together I will blog about it!

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Be-Ca/Birds-in-Mythology.html#b

On a side note I added some carving to the piece I was working on. Still need to go back and fix some of the color and have them bleed together better.

Beauty Documentary

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/why-beauty-matters/

I found this documentary tilted "Why Beauty Matters".
It is great. I found myself agreeing with a lot of the ideas that were being said, and wanting to prove some of the things wrong. They mention how the world has turned its back on beauty and what it means for something to be considered beautiful. A quote that I did not agree with was "Those who look for beauty in the ugliness are just out of touch with modern reality". I think that people might struggle to find the beauty in things, but their mindset in trying to find something where no one else can is awesome.

Phase II Proposal

For phase two I plan on continuing with the idea of finding beauty in the ugly as I just began to explore that topic in phase one.

I came across the quote "The construction of self is conceptual rather than natural." I want to focus on bringing the two together--the natural bones and muscles and decaying of the human body with the concept of bringing beauty to something that is seen as grotesque and connected with death. I think that people struggle to find beauty in things that aren't meant to be beautiful, but it all depends on your perspective.

I want to create some sort of narrative that runs through out my pieces, possibly having to do with the birds, but I am not sure yet.
The questions that I proposed for research are:

1. What is beauty? What characteristics make something beautiful?
2. What causes decay, that can ultimately lead to death? Can it be beautiful?
3. What is a narrative?
4. What is a myth?
5. Are there any myths that have to do with the body and human anatomy?
6. Are there any myths that have to do with death? With beauty?

I have a bunch of books, websites and videos that I have found to help answer these questions. I am definitely going to continue working on wood with a wood burner, also thinking more about color and using watercolor. 

Phase I: After Critque

I really enjoy the way my second piece came out. Its a piece that I am really proud of, although it still needs a little work. I really enjoyed the feedback that I received in class today. It gave me so many new ideas and opened my mind up to things I didn't think of focusing on.
Here's a couple notes:

• Spraying the wood so that the colors bleed better.
• Adding some carving to tie it together with the fist piece. 
• Try zooming in on a specific part.
• Maybe use one color or no color and just have the wood burning stand alone.
• Play around with more 3D materials to add to the body. 
• Great tension with the birds- find a meaning behind them.
• Connect a narrative or myth. 

I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of the birds in this piece and trying to connect that to my idea for phase two. I can't decide if I want to continue with this sort of narrative for the birds throughout all my pieces or have each piece take on their own narrative. I really can't decide. I'm going to continue with  some research on beauty, death, and narratives/myths that involve the human body. 

Update Phase I: February 15, 2012

I have finished my first piece with the spine, although I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I think that I was just getting a hang of the wood burning closer to the end, so I'm not entirely happy with how it came out. I also don't know how I feel about the carving. I think it looks messier than I wanted it too.

I started a new piece on a piece of plywood which I like so much better. The plywood just burns so much better and the grain in the wood is beautiful. I also have much more space with this piece of wood than I did before. I think the size of the wood limited what I could put on it. This bigger piece allows me to make the figure bigger. I decided to leave the carving out of the figure in this one. I'm really happy with the way that the burning is coming out. I've gotten the hang of it and am able to play around with different values. I think it adds a lot more dimension to the figure as well. I am still going to add watercolor and a background to it, like the last one, but here is a picture so far.

Update Phase I: February 8, 2012

Here are updated photos of my piece over the last week or so:

The wood burning has been very tedious and frustrating. It's difficult to get a full range of value and have all of the marks flow together cohesively. I've learned that it takes a lot of time and practice. Patience has been key with this part of the piece. The carving was difficult in some areas because the details were so small and the tools are only a certain size. Overall, I like the way the carvings have turned out. Watercolor on wood is possibly one of my new favorite things. It was so much fun to explore because the wood absorbs the color so much differently than paper. The contrast and the strokes where made so unpredictable by the surface of the wood, but that kind of randomness was what I was going for. I practiced all 3 of these methods and ideas on scrap pieces of wood before hand, which helped and really payed off in the end.

Here are some photos of those:

Update Phase I: February 2, 2012

Here is a more detailed sketch of my idea and the wood that I have gathered. Today I plan on drawing everything out on the wood, getting all the proportions right.

I plan on using the piece of wood on the right because there is more space for what I want to do. I'm going to focus on the carving of the muscle tissue first, because it is the center part of the piece.

I've also decided the muscle tissue is going to be carved out while the rest of the body is wood burned. Some questions that have come up is exactly how I'm going to do that.
I don't know if I should carve out the entire area and then the small details of the muscle, or if I should just do the muscles. I have been experimenting with the tools on the back of the wood to see which style I like better.