Ball-Playing Ceremony: the king before a goddess, possibly Hathor,   Gallery 133

I am fascinated by the connections between art, power,  religion and psychology in a large acceptation.

I’ve chosen this representation of  Hathor for the role and functions of this Egyptian goddess.  It is interesting to me to see that Hathor is the goddess of joy with political functions. She’s  the goddess of artistic creation, of fertility and she also has the power to link the two Kingdoms. She’ was sort of a mother figure to the ancient Egyptians and she was in fact often represented as a cow. 

I see in her something very important in arts in general, that is the political component. When we feel joy our power to act is stronger, whereas sadness diminishes that possibility.

In this sense joy helps the society to fight against the status quo, if this is perceived as not fulfilling. 

To me, art should have this dissident component. Of course by joy I mean I sort of playfulness that help getting things dynamic and evolving; strangely enough there can be joy is sadness.  

Discussion is open

My contemporary

AdelAbdessemed

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adel_Abdessemed)

It is a difficult task to say what ‘My contemporary’ is, in part because one should have a whole philosophy concerning the interpretation of time,  lots of self-awareness and a vast knowledge in art. I am going to talk about  ‘My contemporary’ as one precise sensation I felt some five years ago, when in Turin (http://www.fsrr.org/?lang=en ) I saw the solo exhibition of Adel Abdessemed, and in particular the screening of ‘Don’t trust me’. From that sensation I’m going to try to develop some characteristics of 'My contemporary'.

‘Don’t trust me’

In this video a series of animals is being bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer blow on the head. 

The view of this work paralyzed me. 

With some distance I can say that this was an aesthetical experience related to the most classical conception of sublime, or even delight

This sort of provocative ritual, barbaric for our western contemporary mind, linked past and present in a powerful, non-judgmental, understanding of life – of its fragility and value. 

Sometimes we think of art as a safe place, this is to me an example of how art can deal with courage, risk, the politically incorrect, and all sorts of contradictions and deep problematic of life. It is, of course, an extreme example. However, I found something necessary in this atrocious execution. I am under the impression that Abdessemed was dealing consciously with our most instinctive and original side and society’s moral constructions. How did our vision of life evolved? How do we respect and support forms of life? Our physical pain, the other’s? Justice. Fairness. Etc. 

When there’s a call to awareness concerning us as human being and members of societies, I feel there’s a call to contemporaneity. The emotions and the questions raised live in an unsorted stream of time: past, present and future display themselves simultaneously.  

‘My contemporary’ would then be that artist, or work of art, that manage to uproot my little self from a self-absorbed vision of existence.  ‘My contemporary’ pushes me to embrace all the shades, the most extreme and the most silent expressions of the “right now”; my contemporary empowers life. 

Prompt 7 - Psychic Atlas

1 the first is the last

20 twenty is the last but, as things are given, it’s actually the second number of the list. Despite being the higher number on the list, twenty is not the first number

9 is the day I was born, and it’s three times three, which, as we know, it’s an important number

3 three it’s a beautiful number cause non-native English speakers often pronounce it as TREE or FREE 

16 sixteen it’s for rituals of passage, in Mexico apparently they break piñatas with candies inside when a girl turn 16. In America 16 years old girls get a car, or not. 

19 are the candies that fall from the piñatas hitting the poor Mexican girl on the head

(82) Even if it should not be on the list, because the list goes from number 1 to number 20, 82 is lead’s number on the element’s table. Lead happens to be the candies’ material falling from the piñata on the (poor) Mexican girl turning 16. 

2 two is the biggest lie ever, the origin of every problem. The other side of the apple doesn’t exist, symmetry neither

6 six, interesting number: in Italian six is pronounced as “you are”. I’m open to discussion, but I have to remind you that six is three times two, therefore TREE or FREE (3) may not exist (see number two). 

XVII seventeen.   VIXI, Latin, I lived. If I lived, I’m dead.  17 interestingly enough is linked with number two and also number sixteen if that Mexican girl has a thin skull. 

4. Four is the crossway of three lines, or two, or one bended.  This graphical conception confirms that often one thing means another. 

11 graphically speaking, how weird is it that 9/11 was on 9/11, as if the number contained the events. 

5 five guys. Thibault eats five guys a lot and I enjoy it too sometimes. 

14 I suspect that fourteen is my mental age. At that age I enjoy pointing at a map and imagining my life in the place on which my finger hazardously fell. This thing that I used to do was surely an anticipation of what this prompt would have been.  

7 seven is the rhythm of our moods, how do you feel Sunday night? 

13 Thirteen it’s absurd. I never think about thirteen. Now that I think about it I feel like I neglected it. 

8 Eight o’clock in two hours. One hour and fifty minutes to be precise. 

10 ten are the places I could have tought of living, all at the same time, if I only used all my fingers to point on the map that I used to play with as child . That would have been confusing.

12 twelve on the clock points to the sky, are the numbers on the clock positioned as the sun ? OMG. Western movies

(15/18)  Between me and me, what is my work? To create microenvironments that seem autonomous, that have their own language, and that, hopefully, reveal a form of necessity. To contaminate thoughts, to shift identities.  

Reflection

Eye and Idea really helped me sharpen my senses when approaching art. Before, when viewing an artwork, I would try to think more than purely to "look." For the first presentation, I was surprised that this is actually a non-spoken presentation, and that we have to simply show our works by itself. Without saying anything, I showed my works one by one, and while doing that I realized that the works can "speak" by itself. I got to say I really enjoyed doing the presentations. Since I have only taken art history classes in the past, giving talks about my favorite artist, as well as my own artwork (mini artist-talk :)) was truly fresh and delightful. I also learned a great deal from doing the weekly prompts. One of the most inspiring ones was "When there is nothing to see, you look." I realized then, that there is real beauty in the ordinary things around us if we pay attention carefully. The gallery walks and field trips to artists' studios were also inspiring and fascinating! I remember when we visited Michael's studio he talked about his art- making process. He said that while making art, all the people and the things he has heard and seen flash through his mind, and that at the end, it is "him" who is left. This touched and inspired me. I know as an artist that one has to put his heart and mind into his work. There is countless inspirations among us that we can retrieve, and we (artists) have the capacity to transform what is ordinary (things existing around us) to something new and wonderful. The particular exhibit that I was drawn into was William Kentridge's show at the Met. (Emma's piece for the Met Marathon) This semester was the first time I learned about William Kentridge, and I was blown away when I saw the exhibit. (I actually got inspiration from William Kentridge for my Final Project for Drawing II class) This class was amazing. Thank you Mary for organizing everything! I really hope to see all of you in the future.

Reflection

Well, I am starting this post a bit late because I was not sure what to do. I wanted to make a piece, but to be honest all my work for this class has been made not because of the prompt but from my own motivation before the assignment that I have fit to be within the parameters of the topic through a written justification. I could have done the same thing for this assignment but I didn't really find a fit. I could say how the Kentridge shows have inspired my films, but that wouldn't be true. He inspired my films but I had those ideas way before I saw those shows and I changed nothing after seeing them. I could talk about how my other pieces have been inspired by the trip to the Morgan Library as they are text based works, but that would be off as well. I made them because of a need to make them. Nothing more, nothing less. I make work because I have to get something out. Working for a prompt just doesn't suit me and this class has made that clear to me. Which in and of itself is an interesting discovery on my work.
In terms of then writing about a particular show or exhibition or talk, that would also be insincere. I have enjoyed all the different talks and have taken bits and pieces from everyone, but not one in particular really stands out as a major  influence in my practice. There are moments like the use of the flower presses as a pedestal from Virginia Poundstone to the funny timer in that video of yellow objects in that LES gallery, but nothing I could dedicate paragraphs to. Perhaps its simply the way I function in regards to art. I like fragments. I don't take references as a whole. Even the artists I most admire, I tend to really only gravitate to a detail (Matisse's gestures of the spine, the feet on greek statues, or Picasso's hair on his minatour sketches). The detail surpasses the whole to the point where speaking to a whole does not make sense to my logic.
I guess what I can say is that I have learned the most not from the field trips or talks, but y'all. Hearing different perspectives on the exhibitions, prompts, and then seeing your responses in the context of y'all's work has really pushed me to think about different ways in which art discussion relates to practice, and how many different ways there are to approach an idea, so thank you for that. Learning about everyone through art was really cool. You forget how much your art says about you until you see other people's work that you know. That really has changed my awareness to my own work and how I need to approach aspects of pieces in the future.
Sorry to say that I slept through the party tonight, I do feel terrible that I did not get see everyone for one more class. Hopefully I'll see y'all soon (perhaps at the undergrad show on friday yay advertising). Good luck in the future. Y'all are a talented bunch. 

Considering Poundstone's Total Meltdown (Prompt 9)

     Ironically, Virginia Poundstone’s September show invite makes the same sentimental gesture she examines. Flower arrangement artfully posed atop a pedestal, the shows title Total Meltdown appears across the front and is ready for hand delivery. Just like the subject she explores, a subtle gesture meant to engage the viewer personally on a deeper level. Poundstone’s show, Total Meltdown, seems to do just that.

     By looking closely at something as simple as the personal sentiment attached to a flower arrangement (micro level), Poundstone then expands her discussion to include complex topics such as global economy (macro level). In the process, she transforms her original subject, flower arrangements, into something other than their original form, for better or worse. Cast with negative parts left behind, photographed and framed, and reassembled dissected flowers and packaging are all used to full effect to bring into question not only Poundstones concept, but the dubious appeal of the subjects themselves.

The Tao of Emma

One of the more original acts I witnessed in this class was Emma's response to "there's nothing to see so you look." Whereas most of us followed Charline von Heyl into the outdoors -- me, included -- Emma described how a visual thinker such as herself often fails to *see* with her other senses. Her other senses are muffled when there is literally nothing in front of her to look at.

I love this sentiment. While my case is not as extreme as the experience Emma describes, I relate. Certain outdoorsy scents transport me immediately to Camp Michigania, a touchstone of my youth, and certain songs transport me to a specific slice of life. But these intense experiences of my non-visual senses are fleeting and rare.

Visuals, on the other hand, are saturated and reminiscent and constantly collaging upon themselves and one another. Visuals fit my framework, and I include words seen on the page, or on screen, in this category.

But back to Emma. I admire how she came at this prompt from an entirely different direction, and it totally worked. That is the essence of original thinking, and I aspire to it.

In the Met: Prompt #8

"Outburst" by Judit Reigl (1956), Gallery 921 if interested 

Every time I find myself in the modern galleries at the Met, it is a nice, secluded moment. The lively sculpture galleries and special exhibits have the undeniable external energy of the crowd, but the "surge" of the modern, in works like this one by Judit Reigl, radiate from within the work. Reigl experimented with automatic writing in Paris (though born in Hungary and studied in Italy) and began to produce works that were both additive and subtractive, scraping the industrial paint vigorously with different metal devices. The physicality of her labor radiates through, the result of her task being works that seem to at once absorb and reflect the light. I have read a description that likens these bursts to "forcefields," which wasn't my initial reaction, though I desperately wish it had been because it is so accurate. Each mark feels suspended, as though it exists in both this temporal realm and an unconceivable universe. The tension aroused by the combination of the static and kinetic is captivating, as though it exists somewhere between a frozen still and take-off (... into outer space, in my opinion). 

I'm drawn to these moments of in-between, when "reality" or some visual principle lacks clarity because there is no simple, "really. The "in-between" is like the uncanny, which finds a home in my framework of visual and thematic preferences. With visual engagement, I recently tend to like to feel like I don't know where I'm existing, or that I don't at all (...there's an optical, circular piece in a gallery near this one that I cannot remember name of that makes you lose your mind a bit in a good way when you move around it). 

Prompt #8: Met Marathon

Odysseus, Athena, Aphrodite, Hera, Zeus... 

Since I was in elementary school, I became fascinated with the Greek-Roman myth/ theology. 

The enchanting tales of the gods and goddesses, as well as humans were thrilling to me. As I was wondering around the Met, I came across a very familiar scene from the Greek-Roman myth stories I have read when I was young: Perseus with the Head of Medusa. Here, Perseus is holding the severed head of Medusa, one of the Gorgons in his triumphant pose, armed with winged cap, sword, and Mercury's sandal. The tale of Perseus was indeed one of my most favorite from the Greek-Roman mythology; although he was abandoned from the royal family and was raised in a poor setting, Perseus nevertheless became the nation's hero by killing the ferocious monster Medusa. The heroic, grandiose quality of this statue is further strengthened by Antonio Canova's use of marble; the stone yields brilliant effects, being both pristine and sensual at the same time. 

Met Piece

I love egyptian art. I was obsessed with Egypt as a small child. As every other child was probably watching saturday morning cartoons I was tuned into PBS's special with Dr. Zahi Hawass as he explored the artifacts in the Egyptian tombs. I loved the rituals as a child. This world of mythology with such clear picture...really the fact that there could be a language of pictures. The idea of hieroglyphs was incredible to me. 

Now I have come to appreciate the timelessness of the art. Egyptian art is sort of amazing in the fact that it is so incredibly static. For several thousands of years (minus the reign of Akhenaten) the style did not change. It remained in a way where time just never passed. Much like how the afterlife worked to create a timelessness for these people. 

Maybe its my own fear and obsession with time passing that drives me so much to stillness. To remain the same seems so appealing. Maybe its just nostalgia. 

Anywho, while there are a lot of great pieces to chose from I've always been drawn most to the funerary objects. I chose the Singer of Amun Nany's Funerary Papyrus in gallery 126 for my piece as it also shows not only the stillness of the images but the amazing preservation of the papyrus. Such a fragile document to survive so long, its just incredible. 

Alberto Giacometti: Deconstructing and Reinventing Traditional Figurative Sculpture (Prompt 8)

          In 1945, coinciding with the end of World War II, Swiss born painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti returned to Paris from Geneva where he had spent the war years. Already having established himself as a well-respected surrealist artist in the early 1930’s, Giacometti returned to Paris with a different way of perceiving the world. Roman Jacobson points out in his book On Realism in Art, “that [just one year later] Giacometti suggested that the aesthetic framework within which he was experiencing the outside world had become transformed.”¹ In other words, this pivotal moment in history not only affected the way that Giacometti perceived the world, but also the way this was visually articulated through his work. Not surprisingly, the end of World War II became a reference point in history and art textbooks alike, sharply defining the pre- and postwar periods. To summarize the thoughts of many scholars, this date marks a defining moment in art. In his book, The Anxious Object: Art Today and Its Audience, art historian Harold Rosenberg reminds us that W. H. Auden once called the period after World War II "the age of anxiety," while art became "the anxious object."² Consistent with these observations were the sculptural works of Alberto Giacometti after his move to Paris. In his works, Giacometti reduced the use of materials and formal language providing his figures with the highest level of expression. He transformed the idealized human figure into a semi-abstract human form to commemorate lives lost to war and to serve as a symbol of recovery from the fear and anxiety felt by a post war society. 

                             Image: Three Men Walking, II 1949, Bronze

                                                  Bibliography

1. Alexander, Jeffrey C. “Iconic Experience in Art and Life, Surface/Depth Beginning with Giacometti    Standing Woman,” Theory, Culture and Society 25, no.5 (2008) pg. 2 http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/25/5/1

2. Auden,Wystan Hugh. The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (United Kingdom, 1947), quoted in Harold Rosenberg, The Anxious Object: Art Today and Its Audience (New American Library, 1969)

Feeling Meh about the Met

Who goes to the Met and feels uninspired? Who goes to the Met on a class assignment to choose one piece to talk about, and comes out empty-handed? Who returns to the Met for a second look, for the same assignment, in a desperate attempt to find something, anything, to discuss in front of her class, and still feels the void?

The place only has some 14,000 objects spanning some 5,000 years. How is it possible for anybody but a lame-brain to fail to find one measly thing to muddle through?

During both visits, I couldn't stop thinking about Jerry Saltz's observation on the country's most comprehensive and highly respected museum, which I am going to paraphrase here: The Met gets 5,000 years of art right. It had better stop sucking at the last 70.

Isn't that the truth?

The special exhibitions are what typically draw me to the Met. Ken Price, Impressionism and Fashion, Matisse -- all examples of sublime, world-class excellence within the past year. Right now, though, the special exhibitions are blah blah blah. Balthus? A pedophile with totally uninteresting fantasies. The textile trade, medieval treasures, baseball cards -- these are not for me. Of course, William Kentridge is the bomb. But he is Emily's. Rightfully.

I'm not going to bore you with all the machinations to justify myriad artworks, from Philip Guston to Claude Monet to the Temple of Dendur (no joke I was desperate enough to contemplate a tongue-in-cheek speech on cultural piracy and the Jewish slaves who built ancient Egyptian monuments, which resulted in Passover, the worst holiday ever, and -- and, oh wait, I promised no taking-the-reader-through-my-process filler -- cut).

So who swooped in and saved me? Monsieur Cézanne, bien sûr. As everybody in this class knows, I cannot paint and who is a better painter than Cézanne? Nobody. Maybe I was too stuck seeking out a contemporary, or a mentor, for my own narrative-driven art-making. But maybe it's enough for us to look together at something that simply makes me swoon. Maybe it's enough that my favorite art-history class at Michigan culminated in a comprehensive study of Cézanne. Maybe it's enough that a small Cézanne exhibition at the Palais du Luxembourg inspired my return to school.

And now, here I am.

Merci à vous, M Cézanne.

Gallery 825.

Uppers and Downers

Could anything be nerdier than procrastinating (my Met entry) by posting about something that was never assigned? Or maybe it's just a case of inspiration (what I am about to post) versus flatlining (the Met). Whatever the case, I need to tell you guys about my totally awesome art encounter. And then a little bit of a letdown.

Good stuff first.

On Saturday, I got to join a small tour of the unfinished portion of the Highline, between 30th and 34th Streets, where Carol Bove has installed five or six surprisingly smallish sculptures (all are new except one, which appeared in Documenta). Madame Bo-vay was present, and she is so cool, so smart, so articulate -- she blew me away. Besides the fact of the sculptures, which work with the same vocabulary as the MoMA installation we saw together last class, I dig how she takes her work seriously but not so much herself. She can laugh at the randomness of decision-making in art-making ("We put this piece here because it was the only place we could crane it up hahaha") while employing, without pause or irony, serious art words ("I wanted to work in this particular syntax"). I have never heard "syntax" used in this context but I am going to take CB's word for it, despite the Merriam-Webster sitting next to me. (Nor have I ever heard "crane" used as a verb but again, I am feeling lots of love and trust for CB's brains at the moment.)

I was also surprised to learn that an artist of CB's stature doesn't necessarily always get what she wants in terms of her art. To back up, CB's sculptures will remain on the Highline for the next 12 months, and then they will be returned to her. She really wants to see them all installed afterward in a white cube, just to see. "But it's just not gonna happen. I wish but probably not."

Why?

Shoulder shrug. Smile.

Lacking the chutzpah to brownnose by telling her how much I loooooved her MoMA installation, I instead got in her face with a million pictures. Here are a few.

After all that awesomeness, I got ready for more. I rode my bike up the Hudson to Columbia for an event with Eleanor Antin, the artist I chose as my contemporary. While I don't regret aligning myself with her, I was bummed about the afternoon. I imagined a panel discussion but when I arrived, there was a screening of one of her long, live-action movies that don't speak to me. Reader, I dozed. Not surprisingly, I overheard the curator, Emily Liebert, admitting that she had never seen this particular film. No wonder. The good stuff is up at the Wallach.

When Antin got up to speak, I was saddened by her appearance. Ghoulish. The questions sucked, I wished EL had taken the lead. The PBS show on EA was so much better. Wah wah wah.

But hooray -- Carol Bove is sustaining me.

And I get to further delay my Met entry because it is time for French class woo woo woo.

There's nothing to see, so you look (out to sea)

"There's nothing to see, so you look"

There is nothing to see. Nothing to understand. So you look. 

The horizon is something that is almost impossible to wrap our minds around. The concept that we can see so far that the sky and the earth meet at one straight horizontal line is a humbling reminder of human scale.

The horizon is the visual equivalent of infinity. 

When we look out to the horizon, there is nothing to see. There is no action, no content, no narrative, just the sky and the sun and the sea. The natural elements. Life at its most elemental. 

Such seemingly basic foundations withholding such complex systems of life. 

Perhaps this is the key to the human fascination with the horizon. This attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, this vast blue space. The reality of it. People pay incredible amounts of money for ocean views- for nothing? 

This infinite nothingness has a calming effect, and is recognized as a sign of bliss. At least is did and was for me, until I examined it in this post.

The classic looking, gazing, searching stare out to sea is not a passive recognition, but an active search for understanding, an acknowledgement of the void. Such infinite emptiness, yet filled with so many elements of life, reduced to hues of blue meeting in a horizontal line.  

Psychic Atlas

What is my work?


What is my work though?

A moment? A moment. Not a controversial statement. Not a demonstration. Not a criticism.


A moment. Captured before it wisps away. A moment of beauty. Youth. Sentiment. Would have inevitably faded as memories do.

A constant struggle. Time. Trying to claw back what was.
Mortality.


"That was then and this is now" How about that was then and this is then?
The Impossible Preservation.

Prompt #7: My Physics Atlas

I make work from my personal experiences. Experiences that have shaped me as who I am now. For one of my works, I worked from my recollection/ memory of fireworks I went to see in 2011 winter. The way the fireworks scattered away at the end of the splendid show strongly moved my heart; it was the moment when everything ended and disappeared like the wind.

In order to capture this moment as faithfully as possible, I put great deal of effort in painting the sky; the hue of the sky was deep and mysterious at the same time! I put various (I used all color in the palette) colors to make the sky profound. Then, I tried to remember the marvelous, fantastic way in which the firework particles scattered away, and put endless marks of these on canvas. The process is shown below.

The final product of the work: 

As I intended, I was able to vividly capture the sparkling, splendid particles of the fireworks all scattering away in the deep, fantastic blue sky. This was the one of the most significant moments in my life that moved my heart. *