Warhol Vision Project -
- No less than 5 images, no less than 2 of those from your photography in Shreveport supermarkets and other retail emporia.
- Theme is recognizing the artful and / or ironic images in everyday displays in prosaic sites - such as supermarkets.
- Examples: images of the Ritz Cracker box and the Cheezit box as displayed in my classroom window. Commercial art so compelling that I present it to my students.
- Google Doc presentations. No print needed. 10 pts. Due Mon, Dec 7.
From http://gothamist.com/2007/07/13/brillo_boxes.php:
Print Magazine has an article on the man behind the Brillo boxes Andy Warhol took out of the retail world and put in to the art world. As it turns out artist James Harvey created the design you see to the right, and when he walked in to Warhol's exhibit at the Stable Gallery on April 21st, 1964 - he saw it being displayed as art.
Harvey had designed the Brillo boxes when the company needed a package redesign three years prior. The abstract expressionist painter separated his commercial art work from his real art, where Warhol integrated the two. Warhol was also a commercial artist at the time, and was much sought-after in New York...by 1959 he was making an $100K a year from it!
Warhol famously recognized these consumer objects as the most elemental creations of our society. By refusing to separate fine art and commerce, Warhol, who had also been a commercial artist during the ’50s, turned Harvey’s Brillo box into Brillo Box. In the book After the End of Art, the philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto asks, “What distinguishes Warhol’s Brillo Box from the Brillo boxes in which Brillo comes?”
While Harvey laughed it off, the Graham Gallery (who represented his work) sent out a press release stating “It is galling enough for Jim Harvey, an abstract expressionist, to see that a pop artist is running away with the ball, but when the ball happens to be a box designed by Jim Harvey, and Andy Warhol gets the credit for it...What’s one man’s box, may be another man’s art.” That day at the gallery Warhol was selling the autographed Brillo Boxes for $300, a serigraph of one is on eBay right now for $1600. After the jump is a video of him being interviewed about the pop art scene, while surrounded by the boxes..
Friday, November 20, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Fine Arts Project: From Picasso to Warhol
From Picasso's Cubism to Warhol's Pop-ism -
- Entitle and place in Google Doc
- map of Manhattan
- 9 images, spaced acc to bios
- 6 artists, including
Pablo Picasso
Andy Warhol
Alexander Calder
plus 3 that may include non-representational artists (abstract expressionists)
Jasper Johns
Mark Rothko
Willem De Kooning
Franz Kline
Lee Krasner
Robert Motherwell
Robert Rauschenberg
- brief bio on each artist
- brief explanation of their contribution to modern art
15 pts. Presentations in class
Fri, Nov 20: Adcock through Carter
Mon, Nov 30: Connors through Jobe
Tues, Dec 1: Knight through Quiller
Wed, Dec 2: Runger through Andrew Smith
Th, Dec 3: Weber & Williams.
- Entitle and place in Google Doc
- map of Manhattan
- 9 images, spaced acc to bios
- 6 artists, including
Pablo Picasso
Andy Warhol
Alexander Calder
plus 3 that may include non-representational artists (abstract expressionists)
Jasper Johns
Mark Rothko
Willem De Kooning
Franz Kline
Lee Krasner
Robert Motherwell
Robert Rauschenberg
- brief bio on each artist
- brief explanation of their contribution to modern art
15 pts. Presentations in class
Fri, Nov 20: Adcock through Carter
Mon, Nov 30: Connors through Jobe
Tues, Dec 1: Knight through Quiller
Wed, Dec 2: Runger through Andrew Smith
Th, Dec 3: Weber & Williams.
Review: "Pollock" portrays an angel and a monster
"Picasso is sh**," bellowed Jackson Pollock in a pugnacious, drunken state early in the movie "Pollock." Indeed, when Pollock was a struggling but ambitious painter in the 1940's, the long-time king of the fine arts was Pablo Picasso.
"Pollock" takes viewers to Manhattan during WWII to observe the boozy struggle of this very Picasso-like painter, and his partner, the painter Lee Krasner. Pollock has the good fortune to be discovered by the collector Peggy Guggenheim and the NY Times art critic, Clement Greenberg.
Pollock experiences a couple of breakthroughs. One is to paint a non-figurative, repeating pattern in a mural for Guggenheim. he thereby becomes part of the New York-based revolution in modern art called abstract expressionism.
When he and Krassner move to a house in the country on Long Island, he lands upon a new technique: he begins his drip paintings. These astounding canvasses, also called action paintings, bring him to a pinnacle of fame. In 1949 Life magazine anointed him as the "best living American painter."
Pollock's emotional imbalances and alcoholism return to dog him as he experiences the pressure of fame. His peak of notoriety came in 1956 when Time magazine called him "Jack the dripper." 1956 is also the year in which he ended his life in a drunken car crash. His crash also killed a passenger.
The movie "Pollock" shows viewers a tormented, Picasso-like man who can be charming and entrancing. In one scene he almost dances as he produces a drip painting. In his alcoholic phases he is often a monster.
"Pollock," an award-winning movie, is probably best recommended to those who love art and history. R - language and brief sexual performance.
"Pollock" takes viewers to Manhattan during WWII to observe the boozy struggle of this very Picasso-like painter, and his partner, the painter Lee Krasner. Pollock has the good fortune to be discovered by the collector Peggy Guggenheim and the NY Times art critic, Clement Greenberg.
Pollock experiences a couple of breakthroughs. One is to paint a non-figurative, repeating pattern in a mural for Guggenheim. he thereby becomes part of the New York-based revolution in modern art called abstract expressionism.
When he and Krassner move to a house in the country on Long Island, he lands upon a new technique: he begins his drip paintings. These astounding canvasses, also called action paintings, bring him to a pinnacle of fame. In 1949 Life magazine anointed him as the "best living American painter."
Pollock's emotional imbalances and alcoholism return to dog him as he experiences the pressure of fame. His peak of notoriety came in 1956 when Time magazine called him "Jack the dripper." 1956 is also the year in which he ended his life in a drunken car crash. His crash also killed a passenger.
The movie "Pollock" shows viewers a tormented, Picasso-like man who can be charming and entrancing. In one scene he almost dances as he produces a drip painting. In his alcoholic phases he is often a monster.
"Pollock," an award-winning movie, is probably best recommended to those who love art and history. R - language and brief sexual performance.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Kirlian Photography captures the aura, or energy field, that surrounds you
It’s the 21st century, and we are increasingly exposed to science fiction and New Age concepts, says National Geographic.
A concept that falls in both science fiction and New Age categories is the supernatural aura, or energy fields that are emitted by living creatures. Probably, you’ve encountered the term “aura photography” or seen a feature about it on TV, where the resulting picture depicts different colored halos around the photograph’s subject. Its purpose is to make a person’s aura be visible.
It is claimed that different colors of a person’s aura reflect their health and emotions. It is also said that identifying the meanings of the different aura colors will help in diagnosing and curing a person who is sick.
kirlian photography
Associated to the concept of supernatural aura is Kirlian photography. What is Kirlian photography? It is accidentally discovered by Semyon Kirlian, a Russian inventor and electrician in 1939. He found that if you put something on a photographic plate (one of the earliest forms of photographic film), and you connect the photographic plate to a high voltage source, a strong electric field will be visible around the image of the object on the photographic plate.
Semyon Kirlian made controversial claims on capturing the aura of living objects through his method, but it has been disputed time and again.
Even his experiment on leaves, or what is called “The Leaf Phenomenon” (where Kirlian cuts a leaf and the resulting image from Kirlian photography shows a whole leaf without the cuts, and still showing the leaf’s energy field) was disputed.
A concept that falls in both science fiction and New Age categories is the supernatural aura, or energy fields that are emitted by living creatures. Probably, you’ve encountered the term “aura photography” or seen a feature about it on TV, where the resulting picture depicts different colored halos around the photograph’s subject. Its purpose is to make a person’s aura be visible.
It is claimed that different colors of a person’s aura reflect their health and emotions. It is also said that identifying the meanings of the different aura colors will help in diagnosing and curing a person who is sick.
kirlian photography
Associated to the concept of supernatural aura is Kirlian photography. What is Kirlian photography? It is accidentally discovered by Semyon Kirlian, a Russian inventor and electrician in 1939. He found that if you put something on a photographic plate (one of the earliest forms of photographic film), and you connect the photographic plate to a high voltage source, a strong electric field will be visible around the image of the object on the photographic plate.
Semyon Kirlian made controversial claims on capturing the aura of living objects through his method, but it has been disputed time and again.
Even his experiment on leaves, or what is called “The Leaf Phenomenon” (where Kirlian cuts a leaf and the resulting image from Kirlian photography shows a whole leaf without the cuts, and still showing the leaf’s energy field) was disputed.
Pardon me, but you're stepping on my Fractal
A fractal is "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,"[1] a property called self-similarity, says Wikipedia.
Roots of mathematical interest in fractals can be traced back to the late 19th Century; however, the term "fractal" was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured."
A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion.[2]
Because they appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms).
Natural objects that approximate fractals to a degree include clouds, mountain ranges, lightning bolts, coastlines and snow flakes.
Roots of mathematical interest in fractals can be traced back to the late 19th Century; however, the term "fractal" was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured."
A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion.[2]
Because they appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms).
Natural objects that approximate fractals to a degree include clouds, mountain ranges, lightning bolts, coastlines and snow flakes.
Blue Poles close-up; one of Pollock's most famous drip paintings
Blue Poles is an abstract painting from 1952 by the American artist Jackson Pollock, more properly known as Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952, says Wikipeia.
In 1973, the work was purchased by the Australian government for the National Gallery of Australia for US$2 million. At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal.
The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and now is thought to be worth as much as $200 million, according to the latest news.
More on the Blue Poles here.
In 1973, the work was purchased by the Australian government for the National Gallery of Australia for US$2 million. At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal.
The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and now is thought to be worth as much as $200 million, according to the latest news.
More on the Blue Poles here.
Warhol's 200 Dollar Bills: $43.7 million for a seminal work
"It was the sale of the season," said the NY Times. "A seminal Warhol — one of the artist’s first silk-screen paintings — came on the block at Sotheby’s auction of contemporary art it drew a closing bid of $43.7 million."
Warhols of all ages and subjects brought strong prices. A 1965 self-portrait with a top estimate of $1.5 million sold to Laurence Graff, the London jeweler, for $5.4 million. Warhol himself gave the work to Cathy Naso, who as a teenager in the mid-1960s worked after school in his legendary Factory.
Scared that it might get stolen, she had stashed it in the closet of her Connecticut home. As a result, its purple and red background colors were as brilliant as they were when it was painted, and collectors knew that. Mr. Graff, who sat in the first row of Sotheby’s salesroom on York Avenue, was not intimidated by five competing bidders.
“It’s a gem,” he said after the sale. “I came to New York for it and for the little Dora Maar,” he added referring to a Picasso painting at Sotheby’s last week. “And I am taking both home.”
On Wednesday, a 1957 Jasper Johns painting, “Gray Numbers,” drew a lot of interest. In 2003 Richard Hedreen, a Seattle collector, bought it for $5.2 million. On Wednesday it was estimated at as much as $7 million, and brought $8.7 million.
Warhols of all ages and subjects brought strong prices. A 1965 self-portrait with a top estimate of $1.5 million sold to Laurence Graff, the London jeweler, for $5.4 million. Warhol himself gave the work to Cathy Naso, who as a teenager in the mid-1960s worked after school in his legendary Factory.
Scared that it might get stolen, she had stashed it in the closet of her Connecticut home. As a result, its purple and red background colors were as brilliant as they were when it was painted, and collectors knew that. Mr. Graff, who sat in the first row of Sotheby’s salesroom on York Avenue, was not intimidated by five competing bidders.
“It’s a gem,” he said after the sale. “I came to New York for it and for the little Dora Maar,” he added referring to a Picasso painting at Sotheby’s last week. “And I am taking both home.”
On Wednesday, a 1957 Jasper Johns painting, “Gray Numbers,” drew a lot of interest. In 2003 Richard Hedreen, a Seattle collector, bought it for $5.2 million. On Wednesday it was estimated at as much as $7 million, and brought $8.7 million.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Alexander Calder: sculptor of magical mobiles - this one in the National Gallery of Art, Wash, DC
Alexander Calder (22 July 1898 – 11 November 1976), also known as Sandy Calder, was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing the mobile, says Wikipedia. In addition to mobile and stabile sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry and jewelry.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris where he established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. At the suggestion of a Serbian toy merchant, he began to create toys with articulation. He never found the toy merchant again, but, at the urging of fellow sculptor Jose de Creeft, he submitted his toys to the Salon des Humoristes. Later that fall, Calder began to create his Cirque Calder, a miniature circus fashioned from wire, string, rubber, cloth, and other found objects. Designed to fit into suitcases (it eventually grew to fill five), the circus was portable, and allowed Calder to hold performances on both sides of the Atlantic. He gave elaborately improvised shows, recreating the performance of a real circus. Soon, his "Cirque Calder"[1][2] (usually on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. Some months Calder would charge an entrance fee to pay his rent.[3][4]
While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Joan Miró, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930 "shocked" him into embracing abstract art.
The Cirque Calder can be seen as the start of Calder's interest in both wire sculpture and kinetic art. He maintained a sharp eye with respect to the engineering balance of the sculptures and utilized these to develop the kinetic sculptures Duchamp would ultimately dub as "mobiles," a French pun meaning both "mobile" and "motive." He designed some of the characters in the circus to perform suspended from a thread. However, it was the mixture of his experiments to develop purely abstract sculpture following his visit with Mondrian that lead to his first truly kinetic sculptures, manipulated by means of cranks and pulleys.
In June 1969, Calder attended the dedication of his monumental stabile “La Grande Vitesse” located in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. This sculpture is notable for being the first public work of art in the United States to be funded with federal monies; acquired with funds granted from the then new National Endowment for the Arts under its “Art for Public Places” program.
Calder created a sculpture called WTC Stabile (also known as Bent Propeller), which in 1971 was installed at the entrance of the World Trade Center's North Tower. When Battery Park City opened, the sculpture was moved to Vesey and Church Streets.[12] It stood in front of 7 World Trade Center when it was destroyed on September 11, 2001.[13]
In 1973, Calder was commissioned by Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size DC-8-62 as a "flying canvas," In 1975, Calder completed a second plane, this time a Boeing 727-227, as a tribute to the U.S. Bicentennial.
In 1975, Calder was commissioned by BMW to paint the a BMW 3.0 CSL which would come to be the first vehicle in the BMW Art Car Project.
This 76 foot long mobile (Untitled, 1976) is installed in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Originally planned to be built of steel, this 920 pound sculpture was instead constructed of lighter aluminum honeycomb panels, hollow aluminum tubes, and very little steel. This mobile, Alexander Calder's last major work of art, was installed in this new museum on November 18, 1977, one year after his death.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris where he established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. At the suggestion of a Serbian toy merchant, he began to create toys with articulation. He never found the toy merchant again, but, at the urging of fellow sculptor Jose de Creeft, he submitted his toys to the Salon des Humoristes. Later that fall, Calder began to create his Cirque Calder, a miniature circus fashioned from wire, string, rubber, cloth, and other found objects. Designed to fit into suitcases (it eventually grew to fill five), the circus was portable, and allowed Calder to hold performances on both sides of the Atlantic. He gave elaborately improvised shows, recreating the performance of a real circus. Soon, his "Cirque Calder"[1][2] (usually on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. Some months Calder would charge an entrance fee to pay his rent.[3][4]
While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Joan Miró, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930 "shocked" him into embracing abstract art.
The Cirque Calder can be seen as the start of Calder's interest in both wire sculpture and kinetic art. He maintained a sharp eye with respect to the engineering balance of the sculptures and utilized these to develop the kinetic sculptures Duchamp would ultimately dub as "mobiles," a French pun meaning both "mobile" and "motive." He designed some of the characters in the circus to perform suspended from a thread. However, it was the mixture of his experiments to develop purely abstract sculpture following his visit with Mondrian that lead to his first truly kinetic sculptures, manipulated by means of cranks and pulleys.
In June 1969, Calder attended the dedication of his monumental stabile “La Grande Vitesse” located in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. This sculpture is notable for being the first public work of art in the United States to be funded with federal monies; acquired with funds granted from the then new National Endowment for the Arts under its “Art for Public Places” program.
Calder created a sculpture called WTC Stabile (also known as Bent Propeller), which in 1971 was installed at the entrance of the World Trade Center's North Tower. When Battery Park City opened, the sculpture was moved to Vesey and Church Streets.[12] It stood in front of 7 World Trade Center when it was destroyed on September 11, 2001.[13]
In 1973, Calder was commissioned by Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size DC-8-62 as a "flying canvas," In 1975, Calder completed a second plane, this time a Boeing 727-227, as a tribute to the U.S. Bicentennial.
In 1975, Calder was commissioned by BMW to paint the a BMW 3.0 CSL which would come to be the first vehicle in the BMW Art Car Project.
This 76 foot long mobile (Untitled, 1976) is installed in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Originally planned to be built of steel, this 920 pound sculpture was instead constructed of lighter aluminum honeycomb panels, hollow aluminum tubes, and very little steel. This mobile, Alexander Calder's last major work of art, was installed in this new museum on November 18, 1977, one year after his death.
Willem De Kooning, friend and competitor to Jackson Pollock
Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was an abstract expressionist artist, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, says Wikipedia.
In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to variously as Abstract expressionism, Action painting, and the New York School.
Other painters that developed this school of painting include Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston and Clyfford Still among others.
He was famously a hard-drinking buddy and competitor of Pollock's in the Manhattan years.
In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to variously as Abstract expressionism, Action painting, and the New York School.
Other painters that developed this school of painting include Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston and Clyfford Still among others.
He was famously a hard-drinking buddy and competitor of Pollock's in the Manhattan years.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
A terrific perspective on Picasso by Lisa Ekshyyan, Shreveport
A quartet of half nude females standing against a wall on a canvas pervade the eye. With their African themed faces and sharp lines the 1907 piece of art is perhaps the most important work of Picasso. Le Demoiselled D’Avingon sounds like a painting of young women, sophisticated and fresh in beauty, but instead it is a sharp cut painting of prostitutes before a brothel. The work seems to carry much of Picasso’s spirit and much of his view of women.
Picasso has been considered one of the greatest artists of the modern age. With his promiscuous lifestyle Picasso has been described as “immoral”, and his work has been both inspiring and horrifying. It is easy to imagine Pablo Picasso as a man at the height of power in the art world with women draping themselves over him. He could be seen at the beach with a girl forty tears younger then him, such as Maria Therese Walter, and later spending his evening drawing with a wife by his side. Having over ten relationships, Pablo Picasso was not a man to be tied down. His love for beauty and constant need for change led to his numerous flirtations and numerous deaths and suicides of his lovers, as well as his many styles of art. It is hard not to see him as a playboy, using his fame for his own pleasures, disregarding the hearts and emotions of others. In fact it is perhaps that description of him that led to at least a fraction of his fame.
Having started his art at his father’s studio painting doves that exceeded his father’s best work, he studied classic works and tried his hand at realistic painting, but his cup of tea was always the strange, abstract, almost childish drawings. His most famous painting “Guernica” does not posses the exquisite skill of shadows, perfect lines, and eye catching design. It is large and dramatic, but the work perhaps could have been drawn by anyone.
Still in many ways it seems wrong to say that Picasso was not truly talented. He has been recognized as an extremely influential artist, thus his works, although perhaps not the most favorite of some, must have some merit. It was of course Picasso that along with Georges Braque advanced cubism to its then height.
Picasso has been considered one of the greatest artists of the modern age. With his promiscuous lifestyle Picasso has been described as “immoral”, and his work has been both inspiring and horrifying. It is easy to imagine Pablo Picasso as a man at the height of power in the art world with women draping themselves over him. He could be seen at the beach with a girl forty tears younger then him, such as Maria Therese Walter, and later spending his evening drawing with a wife by his side. Having over ten relationships, Pablo Picasso was not a man to be tied down. His love for beauty and constant need for change led to his numerous flirtations and numerous deaths and suicides of his lovers, as well as his many styles of art. It is hard not to see him as a playboy, using his fame for his own pleasures, disregarding the hearts and emotions of others. In fact it is perhaps that description of him that led to at least a fraction of his fame.
Having started his art at his father’s studio painting doves that exceeded his father’s best work, he studied classic works and tried his hand at realistic painting, but his cup of tea was always the strange, abstract, almost childish drawings. His most famous painting “Guernica” does not posses the exquisite skill of shadows, perfect lines, and eye catching design. It is large and dramatic, but the work perhaps could have been drawn by anyone.
Still in many ways it seems wrong to say that Picasso was not truly talented. He has been recognized as an extremely influential artist, thus his works, although perhaps not the most favorite of some, must have some merit. It was of course Picasso that along with Georges Braque advanced cubism to its then height.
Monday, November 9, 2009
NYC - MoMA: Jackson Pollock's One: Number 31, 1950
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety, notes Wikipedia.
He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life.
In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.[1]
He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash.
In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London.[2]
In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life.
In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.[1]
He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash.
In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London.[2]
In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Friday, November 6, 2009
warhol's Sedgwick screen test
Watch one of Warhol's screen tests. This youtube edition includes cheesy music, which you can enjoy or omit. This subject is Edie Sedgwick.
Edith Minturn "Edie" Sedgwick (April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971) was an American actress, socialite, model, and heiress, says Wikipedia.
She is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's Muses. Sedgwick became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Andy Warhol's short films, in the 1960s.[1] Dubbed an "It Girl",[2] Vogue magazine also named her a "Youthquaker".[3]
She died of an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates at age 28, some years after leaving the Warhol orbit. Her death - in California - was listed as "undetermined/accident/suicide."
Edith Minturn "Edie" Sedgwick (April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971) was an American actress, socialite, model, and heiress, says Wikipedia.
She is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's Muses. Sedgwick became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Andy Warhol's short films, in the 1960s.[1] Dubbed an "It Girl",[2] Vogue magazine also named her a "Youthquaker".[3]
She died of an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates at age 28, some years after leaving the Warhol orbit. Her death - in California - was listed as "undetermined/accident/suicide."
Art films, including Warhol's screen tests, were shot on 16 mm film, not video tape
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical (for instance, industrial) film making.
16 mm refers to the width of the film. Other common film gauges include 8 mm and 35 mm.
16 mm film was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1923 as an inexpensive amateur alternative to the conventional 35 mm film format.
It was extensively used for television production in countries where television economics made the use of 35 mm too expensive. Digital video tape has made significant inroads in television production use, even to the extent that in some countries, 16 mm (as well as 35 mm) is considered obsolete as a TV production format by broadcasters.
It is used in television, such as for the Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology series and "The O.C." in the US. In the UK, the format is exceedingly popular for dramas and commercials.
16 mm refers to the width of the film. Other common film gauges include 8 mm and 35 mm.
16 mm film was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1923 as an inexpensive amateur alternative to the conventional 35 mm film format.
It was extensively used for television production in countries where television economics made the use of 35 mm too expensive. Digital video tape has made significant inroads in television production use, even to the extent that in some countries, 16 mm (as well as 35 mm) is considered obsolete as a TV production format by broadcasters.
It is used in television, such as for the Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology series and "The O.C." in the US. In the UK, the format is exceedingly popular for dramas and commercials.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Pop artist who became an organic artist: Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg (born Milton Ernst Rauschenberg; (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art.
Rauschenberg is perhaps most famous for his "Combines" of the 1950s, says Wikipedia, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. While the Combines are both painting and sculpture, Rauschenberg also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance.[1][2]
Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called "Neo-Dada," a label he shared with the painter Jasper Johns.[20] Rauschenberg's oft-repeated quote that he wanted to work "in the gap between art and life" suggested a questioning of the distinction between art objects and everyday objects, reminiscent of the issues raised by the notorious "Fountain," by Dada pioneer, Marcel Duchamp. At the same time, Johns' paintings of numerals, flags, and the like, were reprising Duchamp's message of the role of the observer in creating art's meaning.
Robert Rauschenberg, untitled "combine," 1963.
In 1951 Rauschenberg created his "White Paintings," in the tradition of monochromatic painting, whose purpose was to reduce painting to its most essential nature, and to subsequently lead to the possibility of pure experience.[25] The "White Paintings" were shown at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York during October 1953.
They appear at first to be essentially blank, white canvas. However, one commentator said that "…rather than thinking of them as destructive reductions, it might be more productive to see them, as John Cage did, as hypersensitive screens – what Cage suggestively described as ‘airports of the lights, shadows and particles.’ In front of them, the smallest adjustments in lighting and atmosphere might be registered on their surface.[citation needed] Rauschenberg himself said that they were affected by ambient conditions, "so you could almost tell how many people are in the room."
The Black Paintings of 1951 like the White Paintings were executed on multiple panels and were single colour works. Here Rauschenberg incorporated pieces of newspaper into the painting working the paper into the paint so that sometimes newspaper could be seen and in other places could not.
By 1953-1954 Rauschenberg had moved from the monochromatic paintings of the White Painting and Black Painting series, to the Red Painting series. These paintings were created with diverse kinds of paint applications of red paint, and with the addition of materials such as wood, nails, newsprint and other materials to the canvas created complex painting surfaces, and were forerunners of Rauschenberg's well-known Combine series.
Combines served as instances in which the delineated boundaries between art and sculpture were broken down so that both were present in a single work of art. Technically "Combines" refers to Rauschenberg's work from 1954 to 1962, but the artist had begun collaging newsprint and photographic materials in his work and the impetus to combine both painting materials and everyday objects such as clothing, urban debris, and taxidermied animals such as in Monogram[5] continued throughout his artistic life.
Rauschenberg is perhaps most famous for his "Combines" of the 1950s, says Wikipedia, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. While the Combines are both painting and sculpture, Rauschenberg also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance.[1][2]
Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called "Neo-Dada," a label he shared with the painter Jasper Johns.[20] Rauschenberg's oft-repeated quote that he wanted to work "in the gap between art and life" suggested a questioning of the distinction between art objects and everyday objects, reminiscent of the issues raised by the notorious "Fountain," by Dada pioneer, Marcel Duchamp. At the same time, Johns' paintings of numerals, flags, and the like, were reprising Duchamp's message of the role of the observer in creating art's meaning.
Robert Rauschenberg, untitled "combine," 1963.
In 1951 Rauschenberg created his "White Paintings," in the tradition of monochromatic painting, whose purpose was to reduce painting to its most essential nature, and to subsequently lead to the possibility of pure experience.[25] The "White Paintings" were shown at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York during October 1953.
They appear at first to be essentially blank, white canvas. However, one commentator said that "…rather than thinking of them as destructive reductions, it might be more productive to see them, as John Cage did, as hypersensitive screens – what Cage suggestively described as ‘airports of the lights, shadows and particles.’ In front of them, the smallest adjustments in lighting and atmosphere might be registered on their surface.[citation needed] Rauschenberg himself said that they were affected by ambient conditions, "so you could almost tell how many people are in the room."
The Black Paintings of 1951 like the White Paintings were executed on multiple panels and were single colour works. Here Rauschenberg incorporated pieces of newspaper into the painting working the paper into the paint so that sometimes newspaper could be seen and in other places could not.
By 1953-1954 Rauschenberg had moved from the monochromatic paintings of the White Painting and Black Painting series, to the Red Painting series. These paintings were created with diverse kinds of paint applications of red paint, and with the addition of materials such as wood, nails, newsprint and other materials to the canvas created complex painting surfaces, and were forerunners of Rauschenberg's well-known Combine series.
Combines served as instances in which the delineated boundaries between art and sculpture were broken down so that both were present in a single work of art. Technically "Combines" refers to Rauschenberg's work from 1954 to 1962, but the artist had begun collaging newsprint and photographic materials in his work and the impetus to combine both painting materials and everyday objects such as clothing, urban debris, and taxidermied animals such as in Monogram[5] continued throughout his artistic life.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
4' 33" - conceptual sonic art from radical composer John Cage
4′33″ is a three-movement composition[2][3] by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992), says Wikipedia.
It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements (the first being thirty seconds, the second being two minutes and twenty-three seconds, and the third being one minute and forty seconds).
Although commonly perceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence",[4][5] the piece actually consists of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed.[6] Over the years, 4′33″ became Cage's most famous and most controversial composition.[2]
Conceived around 1947–1948, while the composer was working on Sonatas and Interludes,[2] 4′33″ became for Cage the epitome of his idea that any sounds constitute, or may constitute, music.
A cited influence[11] for this piece came from the field of the visual arts. Cage's friend and sometimes colleague Robert Rauschenberg had produced, in 1951, a series of white paintings, seemingly "blank" canvases (though painted with white house paint) that in fact change according to varying light conditions in the rooms in which they were hung, the shadows of people in the room and so on. This inspired Cage to use a similar idea, as he later stated, "Actually what pushed me into it was not guts but the example of Robert Rauschenberg. His white paintings… when I saw those, I said, 'Oh yes, I must. Otherwise I'm lagging, otherwise music is lagging'."
Cage's musical equivalent to the Rauschenberg paintings uses the "silence" of the piece as an aural "blank canvas" to reflect the dynamic flux of ambient sounds surrounding each performance; the music of the piece is natural sounds of the players, the audience, the building, and the outside environment.
It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements (the first being thirty seconds, the second being two minutes and twenty-three seconds, and the third being one minute and forty seconds).
Although commonly perceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence",[4][5] the piece actually consists of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed.[6] Over the years, 4′33″ became Cage's most famous and most controversial composition.[2]
Conceived around 1947–1948, while the composer was working on Sonatas and Interludes,[2] 4′33″ became for Cage the epitome of his idea that any sounds constitute, or may constitute, music.
A cited influence[11] for this piece came from the field of the visual arts. Cage's friend and sometimes colleague Robert Rauschenberg had produced, in 1951, a series of white paintings, seemingly "blank" canvases (though painted with white house paint) that in fact change according to varying light conditions in the rooms in which they were hung, the shadows of people in the room and so on. This inspired Cage to use a similar idea, as he later stated, "Actually what pushed me into it was not guts but the example of Robert Rauschenberg. His white paintings… when I saw those, I said, 'Oh yes, I must. Otherwise I'm lagging, otherwise music is lagging'."
Cage's musical equivalent to the Rauschenberg paintings uses the "silence" of the piece as an aural "blank canvas" to reflect the dynamic flux of ambient sounds surrounding each performance; the music of the piece is natural sounds of the players, the audience, the building, and the outside environment.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Diego Rivera: European-educated Mexican muralist of the Picasso era
Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was born Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez in Guanajuato, Gto, says Wikipedia.
He was a world-famous Mexican painter, an active Communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo, 1929–1939 and 1940–1954 (her death).
Rivera's large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City.[1] In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
He went to Paris, France, to live and work with the great gathering of artists in Montparnasse, especially at La Ruche, where his friend Amedeo Modigliani painted his portrait in 1914.
In those years, Paris was witnessing the beginning of cubism in paintings by such eminent painters as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. From 1913 to 1917, Rivera enthusiastically embraced this new school of art.
After a great deal of success in painting murals in prestigious locations across the US, Rivera went to NYC to paint for the Rockefellers. His mural Man at the Crossroads, begun in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, was removed after a furor erupted in the press over a portrait of Vladimir Lenin it contained.
In December 1933, Rivera returned to Mexico, and he repainted Man at the Crossroads in 1934 in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. This surviving version was called Man, Controller of the Universe.
He was a world-famous Mexican painter, an active Communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo, 1929–1939 and 1940–1954 (her death).
Rivera's large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City.[1] In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
He went to Paris, France, to live and work with the great gathering of artists in Montparnasse, especially at La Ruche, where his friend Amedeo Modigliani painted his portrait in 1914.
In those years, Paris was witnessing the beginning of cubism in paintings by such eminent painters as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. From 1913 to 1917, Rivera enthusiastically embraced this new school of art.
After a great deal of success in painting murals in prestigious locations across the US, Rivera went to NYC to paint for the Rockefellers. His mural Man at the Crossroads, begun in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, was removed after a furor erupted in the press over a portrait of Vladimir Lenin it contained.
In December 1933, Rivera returned to Mexico, and he repainted Man at the Crossroads in 1934 in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. This surviving version was called Man, Controller of the Universe.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Flag: pop artist and neo-dadaist painter Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns studied at the University of South Carolina from 1947 to 1948, a total of three semesters.[2] He then moved to New York City and studied briefly at the Parsons School of Design in 1949, says Wikipedia.[2]
While in New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he had a relationship,[3] as well as Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art.
In 1958, gallery owner Leo Castelli discovered Johns while visiting Rauschenberg's studio.[2] Castelli gave him his first solo show. It was here that Alfred Barr, the founding director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, purchased four works from his exhibition.[1]
He is best known for his painting Flag (1954-55), which he painted after having a dream of the American flag.
His work is often described as a Neo-Dadaist, as opposed to pop art, even though his subject matter often includes images and objects from popular culture. Still, many compilations on pop art include Jasper Johns as a pop artist because of his artistic use of classical iconography.
Early works were composed using simple schema such as flags, maps, targets, letters and numbers. Johns' treatment of the surface is often lush and painterly; he is famous for incorporating such media as encaustic and plaster relief in his paintings.
Johns played with and presented opposites, contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies, much like Marcel Duchamp (who was associated with the Dada movement).
Johns' breakthrough move, which was to inform much later work by others, was to appropriate popular iconography for painting, thus allowing a set of familiar associations to answer the need for subject.
Though the Abstract Expressionists disdained subject matter, it could be argued that in the end, they had simply changed subjects. Johns neutralized the subject, so that something like a pure painted surface could declare itself.
For twenty years after Johns painted Flag, the surface could suffice - for example, in Andy Warhol's silkscreens, or in Robert Irwin's illuminated ambient works.
While in New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he had a relationship,[3] as well as Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art.
In 1958, gallery owner Leo Castelli discovered Johns while visiting Rauschenberg's studio.[2] Castelli gave him his first solo show. It was here that Alfred Barr, the founding director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, purchased four works from his exhibition.[1]
He is best known for his painting Flag (1954-55), which he painted after having a dream of the American flag.
His work is often described as a Neo-Dadaist, as opposed to pop art, even though his subject matter often includes images and objects from popular culture. Still, many compilations on pop art include Jasper Johns as a pop artist because of his artistic use of classical iconography.
Early works were composed using simple schema such as flags, maps, targets, letters and numbers. Johns' treatment of the surface is often lush and painterly; he is famous for incorporating such media as encaustic and plaster relief in his paintings.
Johns played with and presented opposites, contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies, much like Marcel Duchamp (who was associated with the Dada movement).
Johns' breakthrough move, which was to inform much later work by others, was to appropriate popular iconography for painting, thus allowing a set of familiar associations to answer the need for subject.
Though the Abstract Expressionists disdained subject matter, it could be argued that in the end, they had simply changed subjects. Johns neutralized the subject, so that something like a pure painted surface could declare itself.
For twenty years after Johns painted Flag, the surface could suffice - for example, in Andy Warhol's silkscreens, or in Robert Irwin's illuminated ambient works.
Pop Art: kitsch, irony and the mass market
Pop art is a visual art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States, says Wikipedia.[1]
Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art. Numerous artists turned the comics of the day, movie posters and other forms of cartoons into canvases and hung them in galleries.
Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation.[1][2] The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.[2]
Pop art is an art movement of the twentieth century. Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects, pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism (Jackson Pollock, et al), as well as an expansion upon them.[3]
Pop art, aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony.[2] Does this sound familiar to the work of today's graffiti artists? The impact of pop art - its importance - has lasted for several generations.
Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art. Numerous artists turned the comics of the day, movie posters and other forms of cartoons into canvases and hung them in galleries.
Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation.[1][2] The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.[2]
Pop art is an art movement of the twentieth century. Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects, pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism (Jackson Pollock, et al), as well as an expansion upon them.[3]
Pop art, aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of irony.[2] Does this sound familiar to the work of today's graffiti artists? The impact of pop art - its importance - has lasted for several generations.
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