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...