Catch-up work UPDATE

So I am setting this blog up to verify the items Megan told me I had due when we last had class about 2 weeks ago. I was told of three posts I didn't have:

1. Chapter 2-the crit
2. Alex Bag video response
3. Gallery visit response, week of Oct 16

The chapter 2 response is on the post just before this one, so it can be read there.
The Alex Bag video response I will write in this post. Weird it never posted because I watched that the first week of class and thought i posted it then. I have the notes in my book, and will write them down.
The gallery response will be in this post as well so it can be scrolled through right away.

I have also updated some of the image annotations in earlier posts from the beginning of November and October. I initially had a comment from Gerry about using more words to describe the work, and have done so. Hope it pleases-

Alex Bag video response:
Let me start out by stating that this is perhaps one of the lamest, cheesiest, most pretentious artsy-fartsy videos I have ever been obligated to watch! Everything about an art student that I can't stand, and then some...
Devoid of any interesting content, sex talk theme, don't get any implied message.
She says, "I don't care if I ever make any money for my work,- not gonna kiss ass." Sorry, but if you want to spend your twenties and possibly longer being malnourished and living in an eff'y apartment, then sure- hold onto those inflated holier-than-thou standards. Try having kids, then your whole perspective will change!
Bunnies kill Annie CPR doll- shitty content, a waste of video film. It's as if she's teasing the viewer with such crappy work to see if we'll bite and waste even more time even talking about it. NOT!
This woman is an obvious party girl -- lives the BFA (big fucking artist) lifestyle before even having a BFA.
Barely any maturation from year 1 to 2. She even copies --almost verbatum-- an episode of the british comedy "The Young Ones" in her next video skit! Did anyone else catch this?!
By the end: mask of self-contradictions, confused all the time, but honest and real! Final video shows a graduation of content and style... Not saying that I liked the end at all, but at least a marked improvement from year one/semester one.


Gallery response:
I went to the Nancy Graves exhibit at the Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe gallery on 525 w. 22nd st in NYC. I have the cards and press release for proof: I went on October 19.
WOW!!!!! Her bronze castings beckoned me from outside the gallery space. I actually thought they were ceramics at first, but then got inside and realized they were metal sculpture. Imbalanced in a balanced manner, dynamic, colorful, and not big(I like the tabletop size-makes it seem more accessible)! They have the feel of skeletal structures: the bones of it all. The color on the work makes the individual components blend together to present a cohesive assemblage. I will post the pics in a seperate blog following this one because I can't seem to post images without them being at the top of the actual post. brilliantly executed, but terribly unfortunate that she died so young of cancer, her work is inspiring! These kind of shapes could not be made easily with clay: they are made of such a strong material yet look quite delicate. The polychrome irridescent surface treatment reinforces the delicacy in my opinion.

Make-up work : CHAPTER 2, The Crit

The questions of the chapter 1) what do artists learn at school?
2) what is an artist?
3) what makes a good one (artist)?
4)How do you become an artist?

'Par for the course' in the institutional critique and pretentiousness of art schools and people in the art world when they can't or feel insulted to answer the question: what is an artist? Thornton brings to a public forum this part of the art school/world experience that I care for the least! It's okay to not know how to define it,- as it seems nearly impossible to clearly define at all.

An important theme in the strength of the crit for artists
: demystifying the artist.
: a deep inquiry so as to expose a dialectic.
: a strategy for the production of knowledge.


What some artists/students/teachers think creativity is
: a dirty word/ lovey dovey cliche used by people not involved professionally with the art world.
: a very personal process that can't be taught.

“Perhaps creativity is not on the agenda at art school because being creative is tacitly considered the unteachable core of being an artist.” huh???


I relate to the notion that a group crit is bullshit, like Dave Hickey remarks. The idea that peopple are all gathering around to weigh and figure out the artist's intentions -- it never made sense to me. His remark is that He doesn't care about intentions, but rather the work looks like it might have some consequences. I dont need a work to possibly engage a response of sonsequence, but intentions are all interpretation.

Conceptualism coming after abstract expressionism -- as a response to that aesthetic. There is too much emphasis on the thought and intelligence of artwork in the environment at CalArts.
(This school would be a bad match for me.) WAY TOO long of time spent on bullshitting about one's intentions. Feels really like talking your art and yourself stupid. And the fact that students can doze off for 45 minutes or an hour and get back up to be involved again is proof of the ridiculousness of it all.

The one positive thing I can take from this chapter is the marathon critiques? the students want it. They value it, and that school turns out some interesting artists. So it must be contributing to an integral aspect of art -- what we think about it. I just couldn't see myself ever taking a whole 12 hour day for a critique!

MFA Thesis show response

Incomplete, many labels not up on the walls. some installations not even available to view. But there was a lot that I did like. I will go through with my response in the order I walked through...

Gabbe Crodin- unimpressive beginning. Paintings draw me to the wall b/c of size, but the content lacks a certain luster.
Caetlyn Booth- double canvas large scale painting. the size makes it even more engaging- the scene is dark with bursts of sporadic light color. would have liked to have seen one more- felt like it was a story in the painting that i wanted to hear more of.
Kristin Melkin- WOW!!!! the pastels give color to the shadows- I don't know if i have ever seen that before. i stayed in front of her work, smiling, mezmerized. the barn wood and the plaster material had lovely texture, but the shadow effect was really brilliant!
"Label Here"- too many artists at this show don't have their work labeled. made me less interested in the work- you have time to hang it- you should take 2 minutes to get the sticker and label it. sorry!
Erin Dunn- overwhelms the space. too much going on in the installation! i wouldn't want to be another artist in that room. i feel like her piece dwarfed the other artists and my eyes tired too much to give them fair time.
Megan Flaherty- interesting video installation. kept my focus b/c t was the only one in the room. i preferred the framed work, it felt more finished. The unframed pieces had a darkness, rawness to them. the one thing i want to say was that the photos unframed --it fits well with the feel of the image. that cohesiveness- I really like that!!!
Guerra-on par with Melkin's work- the most interesting sculptural installation of the show! forced participation, getting to see the work from ALL angles. this spoke volumes to me about work 'in the round'. kinetic; visually dynamic! outstanding!!!

Artwork I really love: content, skill, meaning…

Ai Weiwei. 100 Bubbles. 2008, porcelain. [A Chinese ceramic artist. I love the underlying theme of abundance, forced participation of the viewer- you are supposed to walk in and around the work- and the beauty of a sea of blue bubbles.]

Ai Weiwei. Watermelons. 2007, porcelain. [Another Weiwei piece that I love for its viewer participation! A masterful expression of technical skill with respect to form and glaze. If the shine weren't obvious on the forms, one might really think they were watermelons.]

Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Untitled(Portrait of Ross in LA). 1991, multicolored candy.

[Okay, not ceramics, but this piece is exemplary of forced participation of the viewer. My sculptural work and ceramics beg for the viewer to engage with the piece using more than eyes. People being part of the experience is what excites me!] Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Untitled. 1991, transparency paper.
[Another Gonzalez-Torres work inviting the viewer to take a piece with him/her. The humble stack commands attention.]

George Ohr. Untitled (free form bowl). Circa 1906, stoneware.
[Stretches the limits of what a bowl can be. This kind of handling of the material requires masterful skill, knowing how far you can exhaust the clay and tempering its consistency to bend and stretch without falling apart. The 'Mad potter' of Biloxi has been heralded as one of the most skilled ceramists of the 20^th century. I love this piece for its organic contours- curving in and bulging out.]

more cool pots pix

a serbian potter, www.ceramicstoday.com

again, a serbian potter, www.ceramicstoday.com [i like the how the vessel cares for the surrounding space with the extra media jutting out from it.]

another malcom wright piece, a naban pillow.

some more nice ceramic pics

nice piece by malcom wright: interesting dynamic shape. engaging abstract brushwork on top surface. thick slab: looks heavy, weighty, -- has some real substance to it.
nice pot on the potters guild of NJ site: i couldn't locate the potter's name, but the skill with glaze is notable and shows a mastery of technical skill in application and formulation. The off-center detail zigzag line is similar to some of the work I have done recently (maybe why i like it).
another nice pot on the guild website: wonderful brushwork! large ginger jar makes evident the potter's proficience at wheel throwing. The intricate detail in the trees and branches, and the shadows of the trees in the snowcovered ground plane on the surface shows that a lot of time and care went into making this piece.
done by a serbian potter, http://www.ceramicstoday.com/: this piece has depth-- clear visual texture and appears as thought it is a mix of different colored clays rather than glaze, underglaze, or any other color treatment of that kind. The assymetrical lip of each bowl reinforces the angular and dynamic feel of the surface design.

some pics of what I liked at Newark museum

these are just a handful of the pots that I found intriguing, technically challenging, and just beautiful to look at! I have to scan the other images from the catalog I bought and add them, too.

Seven Days... Chapter 3: THE FAIR

ten statements i enjoyed reading and felt compelled to share:

1. (p.104) "The mount of art in the world is a bit depressing. The worst of it looks like art, but it's not. It is stuff cynically made for a certain kind of collector."

2. (p.103) "A great dealer does a good job for the collector, but a great job for artists. A great advisor does good job for the artists but a great job for the collector."

3. (p.100) "He [Teiger] enjoys being a player in the power game of art, prticularly at this level, where patronage can have an effect on public consciousness...'My goal is to acquire work that great museums letch after.'"

4. (p.99) [Teiger]" I'm just an ordinary rich person....I don't know if I have a collection. I have a load of stuff."

5. (p.97) To be a good dealer- "You have to have an eye- a savantish ability to recognize work that is symptomatic of an artist with real intelligence, originality, and drive."

6. (p.94) "One of Baldessari's oft-repeated jokes is that an artist entering an art fair is like a teenager barging into his parents' room while they're having sex. 'At fairs, gllerists are reduced to merchants, a role in which they'd rather not be seen by their artists. The alarmed expressions on the parents' faces say,'what re you doing here!'"

7. (p.91) [The two paragraphs on the page discuss the various types of gallerists, dealers, speculators, and trawlers]

8. (p.85) On being at the fair: "It's like being whore in Amsterdam," she says. "You're trapped in these little rooms nd there is no privacy whatsoever."

9. (p.84) On Barbara Gldstone: "An art collector once told me, 'Barbara is one of my compass points. There is north, south, east, and Barbara."

10. (p.79) "It is a joy to snoop around an art fair before the feeding frenzy begins."

grad schools investigation

So, even though I don't see myself going to grad school anytime soon, I did look up a number of them so that if I could live my dream life (gracefully juggling my family, work, and school with time to spare for a nap once a week), I would consider applying to these schools.... No order of importance, mind you- this is really a fantasy for me until my kids are at a more independent chapter in their lives. Anyhow, here goes:

1. Alfred School of Art & Design http://art.alfred.edu/graduate/mfa-ceramics.html Voted #1 of the best grad schools by U.S. News. This would totally be my top choice if I could live my dream life- but it's way out in west NY state. Unrealistic for me to say the least, but I like what the faculty is making and I was impressed with the online photos of the studios.

2. Rhode Island School of Design www.risd.edu/graduate/ceramics/Default.aspx Also in the list of best grad schools by U.S. News at #3, this is also a really fine school! I know a few people who went there- financially it is WAY out of my league! The field work in other major cities would present travel and family issues for me. What I heard from my friends, it is a really intense and challenging program, but I would be up for all that!

3. Ohio School of Fine Arts www.finearts.ohio.edu/art/programs/grad-mfa-ma/ceramics Another school with high rankings in the 'best grad schools' list. I would never move my family all the way to Ohio for the sake of my education, but this school also interested me. I liked the faculty statements and their work was very unique. I like the approach to graduate education. But Ohio???? Na- I live, work, and have my family cemented here for long time to come.

4. University of Oregon http://art-uo.uoregon.edu/index.cfm?mode=areas+page=ceramics-courses Also on the 'best grad schools' list, but it is a 3 year program. I like the educational philosophy that the school has and I would totally love Oregon (having been there a few times), but 3 years is too long for me,- other schools have 2 year programs. If my kids were at school all day, I would consider a progrm like this. I love school- so I could really wrp my head around this if circumstances permitted...

5. New Paltz School, Part of SUNY http://www.newpaltz.edu/ceramics/overview_grad.html Having lived near New Paltz, and knowing I could make the 90 minute drive there at least twice a week, I think this is the most realistic option for me. I also liked the fculty statements, their work and the style of the program. All in all, this is the most feasible for me and my current life.

chapter 6 "the studio visit"

points of interest/quotes from the book that I thought I would like to share:

1. "A living artist's first living retrospective is a time of reckoning, not just for critics, curators, and collectors, but for the artist himself and his dealers." (p. 185)

2. "Dealers and editors are conspirators."

3. "Murakami is unusual among artists in acknowledging the collective labor inscribed in his work." -a statement that expresses his humble attitude.

4. "I used to assume that they didn't have anything substantial to offer and that their main goal was to surround themselves with fame and fortune. But Takashi's got bigger ambitions."

5. "Murakami admits that even in japanese, he had 'no power to communicate in words. That is why I twist to the painting."

6. "Operating the people oand working on the art are completely different. Every morning, I upset people" -on murakami's work attitude and position being the boss running the show.

7. "Takashi's practice makes Warhol's look like a lemonade stand or school play."

Kristina Centore interview follow-up images

Here are the links to a couple of videos Kristina posted on Youtube. They're interesting representations of her work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFiGpBTRcqY
This is the one I made as a collaborative project last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMGccAKLxQc&feature=channel_page
This is a sculpture project I made Freshman year.

"choose your own" visit- Newark Museum

This was a great idea! The works presented in this exhibit "100 Masterpieces of Art Pottery, 1880-1930" brilliantly straddled the fence between the vessel shape as sculpture and the vessel surface as canvas. 100 years ago, pots were considered art, and potters were making pieces that were exhibited and sold as art, not meant for food and flowers but for appreciation. www.newarkmuseum.org
I have bought the catalog for the exhibit, and I can say without a doubt that the inspiration and content from this show will be a cornerstone of information and ideas for my thesis!! I will be posting pics of the pots I liked best tonight or tomorrow, but for now a baby is crying to be fed, a four year old is itching to get outside, and my 'dance card' is full for the next few hours..... ugh!- parenting 2 kids and school is a tough juggling act!

neat ceramic artist

while searching the artspan website, i came across an ceramist, Joy Kreeves.

http://www.joykreeves.com/

beautiful work. dynamic shapes, wide range of treatments to the material. nature themes. excellent handbuilding vessels,- both functional and non functional.

Student peer interview with Kristina Centore

Amy: I noticed that much of your work entails figural concepts. Is this a theme in most of your work? Is it a current theme that you're sort of investigating and exploring?

Kristina: I guess I feel like it's um… more of a theme that I've always had, so I just decided to like, commit to it and start doing like, mostly figural work, since it's sort of at a point in class where we get to choose what we want to do. But, I don't know, now I feel like these days I'm starting to be more influenced by like, shapes. From being in Gary's class it's kind of like, very about formal objects.

Amy: Formal design.

Kristina: Yeah. So I feel like I'm starting to be influenced by that too. So, I'm going through a variety of ideas right now. But my main project is to build this life-sized figure.

Amy: What propelled you into the field of visual arts? Did you take art as a high school student? Did you always have sculpture as your field of study, in mind, when you came to Mason Gross?

Kristina: Well, I guess I've always done art, ever since I was a kid. I just liked drawing, and I liked playing with clay a lot. I've always like, I don't know, when I was a kind I liked to make like, claymation movies and stuff like that. I would just like, always like to do it. So then, when I came to school… I didn't go to Mason Gross right away, I just started taking art classes as a Rutgers student and then eventually applied for my B.A. And I just took like, mostly every kind of art class until I took sculpture and decided I liked the process of making things with my hands.

Amy: You talked about claymation movies that you did as a kid. Do you find that you like using video in your mature work?

Kristina: Yeah. Um, I'll show you later, there's a movie I made as like, a collaborative video project. I really like multimedia.

Amy: What do you find is your greatest challenge this senior year with your thesis work?

Kristina: Well I guess I just wish I could spend all of my time in my studio, but I can't. And also just narrowing down all of my interests to produce one really important project, is something that I know like, everyone has to do and something that I'll always have to do, but it's kind of hard to cut some things out just to work on other things.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah, I feel that too. Um, trying to think of another question… Do you see yourself, when you graduate school next year, working towards being a working artist, or are you looking to use these skills that you've developed over the past four years to teaching art? Where do you plan to go with the techniques and skills you've learned at Mason Gross?

Kristina: I think I'm just gonna try to be more of a working artist. My plan is that I… don't really have a plan, except to try and provide space to do art and try to get it into shows, and just be involved in it as much as I can. And I'll probably just have to work some stupid job. And I'll just see where it takes me, at least for a few years. And if it doesn't take me anywhere then maybe I'll go for an MFA or something like that.

Amy: Sounds like a good plan. Hold off on the MFA for a while. Your work sounds very ambitious. I really enjoyed last semester watching the building up of your projects. […] I really enjoyed watching the tape over the wire armature piece develop over time. Just watching the whole process of it growing was neat, and seeing how light plays with the shapes… your in-the-round work, your three-dimensional work is really gripping and it's got a punctum that kind of holds me to it, […] that grabs my eye and holds my gaze, which I've seen in your work and I really appreciate. I find that we're sort of pidgeonholed at Mason Gross to develop art that is avante-garde, or more art and less craft, and you took materials that I wouldn't have expected to turn out that way, and they turned into something really interesting. I never would have thought, in a million years, masking tape, and to build it up and then to glaze the outside, and it becomes something that's this amazing, three-dimensional sort of ghostly translucent figure. So I really liked that.

Kristina: Cool!

Amy: I was stuck on that for a long time. And the repetitive motion had to be sort of cathartic or soothing in a way. Taking little pieces and little pieces, and ripping it.

Kristina: Yeah. I really enjoyed doing that project. Just 'cause, it's kind of like working with clay where you have to keep bulking it up and eventually the surface has a certain texture that you can just leave and it'll show that something weird happened when you were building it. It wasn't just like, perfectly smooth.

Amy: And it wasn't necessarily planned, it seems. You had this armature and you just kind of went with it.

Kristina: Yeah, it was like, sort of planned to look sort of like, human but… when I built the armature I like, I had that in my mind that I wanted it to be sort of anthropomorphic but it didn't look like it, so when I started putting tape on it I kind of figured it out as I was going but… it ended up looking kind of like I thought it would. But yeah… the resin on it is kind of weird. It's like, shiny… I don't know if I like that it's shiny.

Amy: I can see how in some way it might distract somebody because the light hitting the different surfaces removes my eye from the detail of the tape initially but I also kinda like it 'cause I think anything with a shine kind of adds to it's idea of special… even if you don't look at it right away your eye catches the glimmer and that kind of brings you to it. So I really like that. I guess that's probably it. Those are my questions.

 

ceramics gallery in NYC

http://www.artspan.com/ceramics
The Dai Ichi Gallery.


http://www.hpgrpgallery.com/artist_3a.html
Kenjiro Kitade, japanese ceramist.

please look at these websites: NOT AT ALL craft-y!

Chelsea Gallery trip

I really quite enjoyed my Sunday in the city gallery hopping with my mom and 3 month old baby.
I went to all of the suggested galleries, and many more. The nature as artifice exhibit was exhausting: too much of the same thing; too much of the same media per artist.
The Maya Lin was -in content and style- so much more than every other suggested gallery! Even suspended from the walls and ceilings, her art gives off such an earthly grounded feeling.
The holographic exhibit was mildly entertaining- after about 4 or 5 I felt as if I had seen it all.
The Richard Tuttle exhibit at Andrea Rosen Gallery was wonderfully colorful,- but I just didn't 'get it'. Furthermore, the artist's statement seemed more like a round of "20 questions" than an actual statement, but I enjoyed the fact that the statement made me think about his work beyond its surface value.
I found myself depressed at the sight of Barthelemy Toguo's Pregnant Mountain exhibit. Nice paintings, but they exude an subdued gruesomeness that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I couldn't understand how the name of the exhibit correlated to the work...
Off the suggested list- and definitely more interesting- was the Will Ryman work in the Marlborough Gallery. Wonderful sculpture!!!! Large flowers and bugs made out of mesh wire, resin, paint, and pipes. Oversized 'litter' cigarette butts, golf balls, even a starbucks cup and potato chip bag. People were entering and leaving with smiles on their faces-- art that is fun! That was most certainly a highlight of my trip!
The Gagosian Gallery also harbored a spectacular luster that delighted my senses: Anselm Reye's Monochrome Age. The playful straw bales covered in silver paint, the shiny and seductive purple piece, and the chrome monolith: all wonderfully playful and engaging works. The reflective surfaces make the person who is looking at it part of the work.
I must have walked into about 15 to 20 galleries over the course of the day, and although I didn't find even one work of ceramics, I will keep looking. This is the east coast where ceramics has little to no clout in the fabricated clique of the art world (if only I were in California- then I probably would have come across a bunch of them). My old ceramics teacher will be able to tip me off to some good ceramics galleries... I'll have to contact her!
Some photos will follow- but I didn't get business cards. I got press releases and glossy postcards which I want to keep. But I will photocopy the ones I went to if you want us to hand in some proof.

My basement studio: this is where the magic happens! ;)

On the left is me, 5 months pregnant in 2005, firing my work in a raku kiln. Below is a plate and goblet set that has an electric glaze I developed in 2007. I painted the asian style babmoo motif with underglaze.

So my visit to the New Museum was quite interesting! And it only took 40 minutes to find a parking spot because the San Gennaro festival was going on at the same time. I took the elevator to the fifth floor and walked my way down.
The fifth floor exhibit with the 5 speaker audio set-up was particulary engaging: I like that you had to go all the way up to hear what was coming out...
The David Goldblatt imagery was haunting: The lack of men with their children in the photographs was a painful reminder of the absence of paternal figures in the lives of the children in black South Africa. I also liked the way the images were hung on the walls: one smaller framed in black next to one larger hung with clips and nails. The stairway installation was also engaging.
The Emory Douglass work was bare bones, old school, newspaper style. An interesting juxtaposition of Goldblatt and Douglass in the building since they both showed content of a people oppressed by racism, and both VERY politically charged! Good colors though, in the emory paintings.
What I found most intriguing to me personally was the Iannone exhibit on the first floor, not for the art (which I thought was mediocre) but for her lack of education: this means to me her work is craft. Reading her bio on the wall, it stated she was self taught and self trained. What?! You mean a craftswoman can get an exhibit at the New Museum?
I was told this semester that my work should be more"art" and less "craft". With this request, I take issue: if I spend nine years in school learning the ins and outs of ceramics, does that not make my work more art than craft? I was always under the impression that art separated itself from craft when there is an education behind the work.
Why is it, then, that I am asked to tailor the aesthetic of my work to someone else's expectation/ interpretation so that they are satisfied to think it is art and not craft?
My education separates my work as art and less craft! My full and thorough knowledge in my specialty makes it art and not craft! My style is my own: I am expressive with clay, yet I always remain conscious of the fact that since ancient time, clay has been the material for a vessel.

Just taking it out for a spin

So I just wanted to try out the initial posting process... This is my first time operating a blog. These are my two boys, Aydan (almost 4) and Desmond (brand new). And now that I have tinkered with the image uploading and text insertion/layout, I'm heading back to bfathesis.blogspot.com to watch the assigned video and read some Donald Judd reviews. kinda cool!