Guerrilla Girls

The Guerrilla Girls article really made me think about the artwork that is on display in the famous museums around the world. Why do most of these museums only feature males artists? It really seems like a museum could market themselves as having the largest collection of female artists. In today's society, I believe that an exhibit featuring female artists would definitely make plenty of revenue. That would not be something that the museum would have to worry about. There are so many women's rights groups out there for many different reasons and for the most part they have support from the general public. (Well I guess I am a little bias since I'm a woman...but that is just what it seems like.) A museum just needs to take a chance and be the first to showcase an entire collection of female artists and I will garentee that it will pay off.

Another group that the Guerrilla Girls strive to encourage museums to notice are artists of color. I can make the same argument from artists of color as a did for women artists. It seems like the public likes to support minorities, so why do museums not have art by them? Well I think it has to do with what someone mentioned in class. The public supports them when its easy, like in music or movies. Art has a more selective audience. If I had to pick one reason why museums don't just take the chance and put up an exhibit of female artists or artists of color it would be because of the selective audience. They aren't looking just at the general public like pop culture is.

Art in Collaboration with Electronics

After our dreamweaver session I kept thinking about how art is really interwoven with science and electronics. Website design is a cool idea but to actually make it happen you have to know something about computers, actually you have to know a lot about computers. Designing almost anything in today's society would be impossible with out computers. I watched another movie a couple weekends ago called Life as a House and a man was fired from his job as an architect because he was not using computers to make his models. Its sad to think that might actually happen, but I'm sure it does. In order to be successful in art or design, you have to have a much larger skill set than just being artistic.Its just interesting to me how soon enough todays society will be 100% dependent on electronic devices (if it isn't already...) And for anyone who likes sad movies about dyeing architects, I suggest Life as a House, its pretty good. Once again I give credit to netflix for suggesting it.

Titian and other exhibits at the High

I took this trip to the High as a time to walk around and see everything that I had not already seen in their collection. I of course started off with the Titian exhibit since that was the whole point of my trip to the High, but then I made my way back over to the main building and walked through all the exhibits I had somehow missed before. I had already seen Dali and some of the permanent collection. The parts I missed were the modern art and african art permanent collections and the photography exhibit. I now know why I missed them; they were extremely hard to find. The modern art collection was just at the very top of the building and I had never made it that far before, but the photography exhibit was downstairs and there were not really any signs about how to get there.

I really enjoyed the photography exhibit. He really highlighted the lives of the people he photographed doing what they do on a day to day basis. Everyone should go look at that exhibit before it leaves. Its not very big, so next time you go to the High go walk through it really quick. The modern art collection had some very interesting pieces. I like the piece with 5 or 6 sheets of glass that formed a mirror. But some of it I wasn't crazy about, like the giant green canvas. And I didn't understand the mustache with the two floats on it? what was with that? very odd. Art can be out of the ordinary sometimes and not everyone can understand it, and I will say that I don't understand everything sometimes.

The Titian exhibit however was a more straight forward exhibit. It consisted of very typical art. There were a mix of paintings and sketches and showed of the artists's abilities in drawing and creativity. It was a nice contrast to the modern art collection that it was connected to by a walkway.

Pollock

Pollock is a movie based on the life of the famous abstract artist Jackson Pollock. It was recommended to me by Netflix. Jackson Pollock was a major influential character in the abstract movement. When you look at his work you can see this. Especially when you also look at when his work was created. Me being who I am, and not having much knowledge of art, I hadn't really heard of Jackson Pollock much before I watched this movie. But the movie really represents his life well and gives the viewer a great deal of information about not only his life but also his work. 

I would suggest this movie to everyone to watch. If you have Netflix, its online, if not I'm sure the library might have it. His work is the type of work that you might look at and say "well I could do that" but too see some of the pieces being created was really interesting (even though it was just acting). He is a great artist and very brave to have done what he did. 

O'Doherty

Dali Advertisement at The High

O'Doherty's piece on gallery space reminded me on a comment that was mentioned a while ago in our class. The comment was about how the way a museum chooses to set up a show can really make a huge different in the way the art in that show is seen. By simply using a different color wall or a different arrangement of the painting or sculptures the feel of an exhibit completely changes. I chose two different advertisements for the Dali exhibit to show this. The first being the advertisement for the Dali exhibit at the High. It is very simply and lets the picture convey the message. There really isn't much too it. But on the other hand I chose the advertisement from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and they chose to integrate the advertisement in with their famous steps. Different museums will always set up their shows slightly off from one another and each time a person goes to see that show at a new museum it will be a new experience. 

Dali Advertisement at The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Russian Ark

Russian Ark is in itself a work of very unique art along with advertising the works of art with in the Russian Heritage Museum. The fact that the museum is not called the Russian Heritage Museum may just be coincidental with the filming of this movie, but I find it interesting because this movie goes through the past 200 years or so of Russian history or "heritage." I haven't had a chance to watch the whole movie yet, but I want to. I really want to get a good version of the movie so I don't have to watch the youtube version. But what I have seen of the movie so far the filming is very unique which was the major selling point for the movie. The art and galleries in the movie are also highlighting since they are filming in a museum. It kind of allowing for the viewer of the movie to see museums from a different light than the normal, almost stuffy everyday atmosphere.

Philadelphia Art Museum

The only really major art museum that I have been to, besides the High, has been the art museum in Philadelphia. This art museum was huge. There was room within room of art. Everything was so over whelming and almost too much to take in. It would be better to go and look at only one section at a time and not try and see it all in one day.

The building itself is not modern like the High, it is an older more European/Greek style building. The entrance on one side is a huge staircase, which my volleyball coach at the time made us run up. (These are also the stairs featured in Rocky I believe) This building fits with the majority of the architecture in the city of Philadelphia. This art museum fits with what Duncan said about museum being modeled after palaces.

After visiting the High several times now, I am now a strong believer that in order to get the full experience of an art museum you need to visit often. Or at least a few times, because once is not enough. You won't enjoy and there will just be way too much art to look at in one visit. I wish I could have visited the Philadelphia Art Museum  couple more times before I left, but maybe next time...

Class Presentations

There were many different presentation styles used for the visual essays. Some people chose to use scripts, while other chose to go with no notes. Also what people actually talked about varied greatly and how they used the pictures to support what they were saying. Many people chose to largely talk about each individual picture, which was the method I picked for the most part. While a few others simply talked about an overall theme and just had the picture in the background enforcing that theme. I enjoyed the second method the most, but found it harder to create a presentation like that.

Old vs New seemed to be a pretty common theme along with architecture. There were many example one campus and examples from around the world. Centennial Olympic Park was also a common theme, probably because it is close to campus. I enjoyed being able to see everyone else's work and compare them to my experience.

Visual Essay

I experienced a lot more than just art while working on this visual essay. Which was the point.  I found out much more about the city of Atlanta while looking for my pieces of public art. And I learned about photography and how to take better pictures. I hope that skill shows in my essay because I tried to work on taking interesting shots of public art. I have never really seen myself as a photographer at all before this project. A couple girls, who I practiced my presentation in front of, even complimented the pictures and they didn't even know that I had taken them. I not only became a better photographer but I also worked on my public speaking skills. That maybe could have been a part of this project that I could have improved on a bit more. Maybe it could be a topic to work on in class, just a suggestion for future classes. Overall I really enjoyed this project. But I think I'm ready to get back to the High because I don't want to waste my $35 membership!

Nature as Public Art

Natural Bridge
Sewanee, TN

Nature is the perfect example of public art. Nature creates its out benches and walkways and provides us with breathtaking landscapes. Nature does not need the help of an artist to be created. A city does not have to pay money to create nature (unless they are landscaping, which in that case they do, but that isn't really true nature). Many tourist towns revolve around nature and the views it provides in order to draw in tourists. And it works. People like the views and hikes they can see and go on. Public art does not always have to be man made; it can sometimes be created naturally.

Out of the Ordinary Bus Stops

While at home this weekend, I started to observe more of the local art. Home for my happens to be Athens, GA. Some of the art can be UGA related, but I won't post about that. I found the bus stops that were decorated by local artists very interesting. I've seen them pretty much all my life, or at least all long as I can remember. (So that really means as long as I've be driving) Athens uses local artist to decorate public areas throughout the city. More bus stops were actually recently built with musical themes and more will be built soon. You can visit this website to see more information. I think that this is a great way to display public art in a useful way and encourage the use of public transportation.

Functional Public Art

The theme that I'm pretty positive I am going to use for my project is functional public art. I've had the best luck finding this type of art around Atlanta, and I can also understand functional art the best. Some example of functional public art I have found include picnic tables, bike racks, walkways, fences, and fountains. These things all serve a purpose and become art second. But since I was on a mission to find art, when i saw most of these items I immediately saw them as art, not functional piece. It wasn't until later when I uploaded the pictures to my computer that I realized that most of the pictures I took were of functional items. I hope to get out tomorrow and have one last day to take pictures. It just seems so hard to find art around Atlanta, at least compared to other places I have been. Atlanta is just not an artsy city. But by finding art in the things that most people would overlook I think that I will be able to come up with plenty of pictures for my project.

Animated Public Art

An example of one of the artist's walls

Here is an amazing video of a mixture of public art and graffiti. The artist uses graffiti, which can be seen as public art to some and not to others, to create images on walls that were put together to make this video. I personally agree that this is public art because he has made this available to everyone and the space used to create the art was public. This person's ability is extraordinary. How they can paint one picture then paint another and make them all cohesively flow together into a movie is beyond anything I could ever imagine doing. I hope this person continues to make public art so that onlookers can enjoy there work (or not enjoy it...everyone has their own opinions.) You can go to this person's website to view more of their work. It tends to be a bit more morbid, but they paint murals on publics walls and  more videos can be found on their site as well.

The Past Decade in Pictures

I came across this website that uses pictures to represent the major events in this past decade using pictures. I feel as though this website fits with the theme of Mirzoeff's article. Artistic views of real life events are shown using pictures. Some of the most life altering events of our lives are represented on this site such  as 9/11 and the election of Obama. It seems like at first glance that almost all the pictures are war related, but when you go back and take a closer look you realize that they really aren't. I was going to talk about how sad it was that this past decade is represented by pictures of war and terrorists, but then I found pictures of the Beijing Olympics and Michael Jackson's death. Each picture is amazing in that is can take you back to the moment when that even happened. You are right where you were when you first heard the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane, which happened to be my fourth grade classroom, or you are taken back to last summer when H1N1 broke out at your summer school program...or maybe that one is just me. I found all of these picture wonderful and sad and a great walk down memory lane and none of these events ever need to be forgotten.

And for any followers who are not in my class here is the link to the article by Mirzoeff if you wish to read it.

Photography by People Like Us

While we were on the subject of photography, I couldn't help but think about several of my very talented friends. I don't know what constitutes a professional photographer, but my friend Jackson Spencer could take my wedding pictures any day and I'm sure I would like them better than anyone else's work. He does amazing work with everyday objects and lighting. I picked two of my favorite photos by him. The first focusing on an abandoned shed. The black hole in the middle of the picture captures my attention first, and something about not knowing what's inside intrigues me. I love the color scale and how the shed seems to random in such a dense forest. Why would a shed be built there in the first place? Kind of creepy right? The photo really emphasizes this feeling for me. 

The second picture I chose to post is naturally amazing because of the clouds, but the way the lighting makes the person and trees completely black makes the contrast of the sky so much greater. The first thing you see when you look at this picture is the person, then you notice to clouds. The face that is captured in this moment is a one in a million shot. Its something a little kid dreams of seeing when they are pointing out cloud animals. Or is is something that is photoshoped in. As far as I know, this is not a photoshoped cloud. I wish I had the ability to use a camera the way Jackson did. He did complement a picture of my dog once. But for the most part, I just snap pictures whenever and don't think about what they will look like or how lighting will effect the shot. The way he can make nature look ever more beautiful and use lighting to highlight the most fascinating aspects of a scene will always continue to amaze me. 

A quick biography of Jackson Spencer: 

He grew up outside of Washington D.C.. At the beginning of his sophomore year of high school, he began boarding school in Sewanee, TN, which is where I met him. He is now currently enrolled in the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. 

Pottery

Pete Pinnel Fluted Cup

My favorite type of art to make is pottery. I would say that I have a pretty decent ability to make pottery. I wish I had pictures to post of some of my own work, but it is all at home. I started taking pottery classes during my freshman year of high school. I had two amazing teachers, Burki Gladstone and Claire Reishman. I started out small and very bad. Some of my first little cups are not very symmetrical, but I got better. After 2.5 years of taking pottery I was able to throw teapots and pitchers and even make replicas of more well known potters. One of my favorite potters was Pete Pinnell. I made many replicas of his pots. He is well known for his attention to detail in his designs and etchings on each piece.

I would really enjoy taking pottery classes again, but Tech is much of an art school. My high school had one of the best pottery facilities in the country; even better than most colleges, so I was very fortunate. I learned a great deal about pottery and found an art form that I am passionate about. Pottery is something that takes time. I encourage everyone to try it. Not just once, give it a while because no one is a natural. Its a great way to express yourself.

Stephen Alvarez

Stephen Alvarez is a photographer who has mainly worked for national geographic, which has provided him the opportunity to travel all over the world. He graduated from my high school and came to speak there a few years back. We had a couple of his photographs hanging in our chapel. These two photos were the first things that popped into my head when I read Barthes's piece, Camera Lucida. These pictures were taken in Uganda. Maybe its because I saw them everyday for four years, or maybe its because they are just two amazing photographs, but something about them really sticks with me. 

You can almost see hope in the picture of the man and the gun. Why? well I'm not sure. I would think that there would be fear. But the woman holding her child seems glad to see this man. He brings relief. In the second picture, there is a boy running in front of what seems to be a church. The church looks abandoned, but maybe its not. Something about both of these two pictures together really leaves a lasting impression of life in Uganda. I use to love to sit and stare and these two photographs, which is what I did most of the time during chapel services. When I gave tours of our school, these were one of my favorite things to point out. Even though they seemed out of place in a chapel, I liked them there. Why do chapels always have to be perfect and filled with pictures of Jesus? Why not filled with pictures that give you hope about the world right now? I just have to say great work Stephen Alvarez. Go to his website to see more of his work. 

Make your own abstract art...online...

I found this website that allows you to make your own abstract art in a museum type setup. It's nothing super special but it does give you a little more appreciation for making works of art look well together in a room. I tried to draw a few things, and they didn't look to great. I am definitely the type of person that says that a five year old could paint half the things in museums now a days, but I am starting to realize that it takes a little more than a five year old to make everything look good together. One painting isn't so hard to do, you just have to know when to stop really. But when you put paintings together in one room they clash and that is part of art. You have to organize pieces of art together to make them look appealing to an audience. The artist may or may not do this. It may be up to the museum to hire someone to do that, but it is interesting to think about art having to match other art. Try out the website and see for yourself what I am talking about. It's not that easy to match. Feel free to post your works of art in a comment if you'd like!

Ironic Art

Ironic art can be very interesting and puzzling. I "stumbled" upon a website that had several photos that played with several ironic concepts. I posted a couple examples here. One with a bucket pretending to be a well. The well appears to go through the bucket. Maybe since the well goes through the bucket the bucket will will automatically filled with water. The meaning of the picture can be debated from person to person, but no matter what, it is not a normal bucket and well.

Another picture I found interesting was a picture of a spoon that had a shadow of a fork. The picture was very plan, but very ironic. The message or idea behind both of these pictures both have to do with things that very ordinary looked at in a very unordinary way. The pictures make you look at them and do a double take and say "hey, that's not right..." I found looking at all of the pictures I got a very similar feeling. You can go to this link to view them. Have fun and don't get too confused!

High Museum: Take Two

When I ventured to the High Museum for the second time, to find my piece of art for our project, I found myself looking at the art differently. I couldn't really appreciate the art the same way I did before. I would look at something and just think "there is no way I could write about that" or "I don't know what the author's purpose for that is!" I couldn't just look at something and think "that's neat" like I did last time I went to the High. I was on a mission this time. If I thought something was neat, I then had to ask myself could I write about it? And most of the time the answer was no. I did, however, leave the High Museum with two works of art still lingering in my mind.

These two works of art are on two completely opposite ends of the art spectrum. One piece was a painting by Dali and the other was a walkway in the building. So a highly none functional piece that isn't even lifelike and then a completely functional piece that drew me too it because it was so functional.

In the end, I decided to use the Dali painting because it would be a challenge and something out of the ordinary for me. I think that I was so drawn to the walkway because it was familiar. The Dali painting is far beyond familiar, but I can still understand it, at least I think that I can understand it. I can make an argument for my understanding of it which is that Dali wants the viewer to see that position does matter. Different positions can create different images. If you stand really close to this painting all you see are random abstract paintings. If you stand back a little you can see three faces. If you stand back even further you can see a large tiger. So Dali is making the argument that one's position greatly influences what they see in an image. And their position can be referencing their physical position or mental position in my personal opinion. I want to further explore these topics in my analysis of this painting.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

After reading Foucault's article, I realized that pictures and words are no where near synonymous. No matter how many words you use, there is no way that an image can be captured by those words. Every detail of a painting or image cannot be described in a set amount of words. You can always describe more. There will always be something missing, or something scene by someone else that you missed.

When I read the text in Foucault's article, I pictured the painting completely differently than the actually painting at the end of the article. I have scene that painting before (especial since it was in the last article we read) but for some reason the way it was described by this author did not paint the same picture in my mind as what the actual painting looks like. The visual images and words compute with tow separate parts of our minds and for some people those parts can be easily connected, but for others like myself connecting words and images is not quite as easy.

Symbols

After reading Bal and Bryson's piece, "Semiotics and Art History" the topic of symbols would leave my mind. I thought about my senior religion class and our definition of a symbol. We described symbols as finite objects that pointed to something beyond the finite. Bal and Bryson described a symbol as being a sign that has to have an interpretant to have meaning. Therefore a symbol has to be interpreted by a person and a connection must be made between the symbol and that symbol's meaning for the symbol to actually have meaning. This definition relates back to my definition of a symbol. A simple picture alone cannot be a symbol, a further meaning must be found behind that picture. The picture points to something beyond itself. 

Symbols and religion can be a little easier to relate to for most people. An example can be a cross. Crosses are everywhere, and they are symbols that point to a higher power. They themselves are just two pieces of wood or metal stuck together, but when interpreted a strong meaning can be found. The same thing can happen with paintings or any other art form. But symbols are not meant to be overly complicated. There needs to be a logical connection between the physical object and the meaning behind that object. 

Our final assignment in senior religion was to create a symbol that defined our lives. Basically a symbol that we lived for and describe how that symbol pointed to our ultimate concern. I chose a book as my symbol. And that book pointed towards knowledge. I know I spent a large amount of time thinking about my symbol and how I would connect it, logically, to my ultimate concern of knowledge. A large amount of effort went into making that connection, so maybe it takes that much effort each time you want to make a connection between a symbol and a meaning. Maybe a painting really does take time. Maybe I just haven't given one my time for it to show me its true meaning, for me to see what the symbol is actually pointing towards. 

Sontag

Sontag was an interesting read for me because she brought up many ideas that I strongly agree with, like the idea that there is such a thing as over interpretation a piece of art. I believe that some art may not have a strong meaning behind it. Maybe the artist was just bored that day and wanted to draw something happy or sad and didn’t mean anything else by that piece of art. Modern society reads way too much into almost everything. Nothing can be just what it is. And Sontag mentions this and she gives the example of modern novelist.

Why can’t a book just be read for pure enjoyment? I like reading, and I like reading and not having to analyze why the author chose a certain word choice or what symbolism the author was using. Why can’t what’s on the page really be what’s meant to be read? Why does society have to always read further when sometimes the artist doesn’t want them too? 

My First Visit to the High Museum

My first visit to the High Museum was also my first ride on MARTA. Both experiences were quite unique to say the least. Before taking the Tech Trolley to the MARTA station Catherine, my roommate, and I had researched the route we needed to take to get to the High Museum. Google Maps made the whole process seem simple enough. All we had to do was get on MARTA and go to the Arts Center stop, right? Well when we got there we realized it wasn’t that simple.

At the station, we saw that there were so many different routes that we could take, and none of the maps were making any sense. So we just picked up the assistance phone and asked, “What is the fastest route to the Arts Center?” The woman on the other end of the phone was very helpful and simplified our situation by telling us all we had to do was get on the northbound train and go up one stop to the Arts Center. But while getting the ticket to get on the MARTA train I was a nickel short for my ticket -- just one nickel short and all I hard were pennies and a twenty dollar bill. Of course the MARTA machines don’t take pennies. Luckily my roommate, Catherine, found a dollar somewhere in the depths of her purse. (And to this moment I owe her a dollar.)  

The train ride was fairly uneventful compared to the rest of our day at the High. We did notice, however, that you do not have much time for dilly-dallying when getting on or off a train.

The Arts Center stop had two exits, and I picked the wrong one to exit through. Catherine wanted to go out of the other exit, and that exit would have been much quicker. But my way worked, and we got to the High Museum eventually. We just had to walk around the MARTA station and up a giant hill.

Once in the High Museum, I learned that I couldn’t correctly navigate revolving doors. Only one person is supposed to go in each section, not two.  The exhibit itself was interesting. I liked the large range of art the stretched from very practical to highly non-functional. Although I greatly wished that they had let you sit in the chairs. I really wanted to know if they were comfortable or not. My favorite chair on exhibit, and there was a very large selection, was probably the metal chair that was made out of sheets of metal. Of all the chairs on display, maybe only half could have actually functioned in a normal household. I don’t understand why a person would make a chair that couldn’t function as a normal chair. What is the purpose?

There were many interesting items in the exhibit. I especially liked the lamp fixtures. There was one shaped like a cloud that moved, and another that would inflate and deflate with heat as the light was turned on or off. The lamps were probably my most liked items out of the whole exhibit.

Other items that I found puzzling were the Dyson vacuum cleaner, a toaster, a can of motor oil, and some grill tools. I don’t understand why these everyday items are in an art exhibit. The vacuum cleaner looks cool, but I’m pretty sure it was designed to clean, not be put on display. The can of motor oil was most baffling to me so I even took a picture to prove that it wasn’t anything special. But maybe to someone somewhere it is special, but to an auto mechanic it is just annoying because it doesn’t fit with all of the other cans of motor oil. The can is more inefficient than anything else. There were water bottle on display with the motor oil and I have actually had that water before. It’s a cool bottle, but not environmentally friendly because it does efficiently hold water.

Many things that I saw on exhibit at the High puzzled my mind. By far the gift shop prices may have been most challenging. A $700 mini replica of a chair would never be worth it. Many of the items that were on display could be found in the gift show for very outrageous prices. But there were no vacuum cleaners or toasters, sadly.

I’m looking forward to lots of visits to the high, now that I know where it is and how to get there. I will make sure I always have my $4.50 with me or I may even invest in a Breeze Card. 

My Definition of Art

Art is anything that expresses meaning. The meaning expressed by a piece of art, however, can be widely debated. Meaning can range from representing a feeling to an idea to practical use. I chose this picture to help represent my definition of art because it encompasses meaning by having a practical use and aesthetic beauty.  This piece also shows great talent and craftsmanship, which pleases ones mind intellectually giving it meaning in another sense. This piece can also be found at the High Museum until Sunday August 29, 2010.