Jeff Koons - Mastery artist

            With this installment, I wanted to mention a piece by Jeff Koons called the “Pink Panther”1988.  It is a sculpture roughly forty inches high and is of a pinup model embracing a pink panther cartoon character.  The sculpture is made of porcelain and well crafted.  Being a porcelain sculptor myself, I can see the extreme challenges that this faced in order to be intact and be a successful art piece.   The colors are pastels and soft to the eye.  This I’m sure was done with intent as to make it look cartoonish and less realistic.  The female in the piece has a big smile and with one arm embracing the pink panther and the other covering a bare breast she has exposed.    The detail is well done and the finish is glossy.   There are many opinions on this piece particularly.  The woman is seen by many to be Jayne Mansfield and the embrace symbolizes a certain masculinity that men today need more of. 

            The “Pink Panther” caught my attention because it was so disrespected in my opinion by the Stokstad text.  The author rips this piece pretty good saying that Koons’ art and especially this piece as being “openly materialistic and shallow, positively wallowing in popular culture”.  It also says that Koons enjoys the negativity and disapproval.  I think it is interesting that this has such a large negative connotation to it.  In the times that we are in, art is a form of expression of the times and societal ills that effect us.   Sounds like perhaps Stokstad is defining Koons as a avant-gardist.

         Here is a little history on Jeff Koons.  He was born in 1955 in York, Pennsylvania and currently resides in New York, NY.  He studied at the Art Instute of Chicago and received a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art.   He later worked in a museum of art as he molded his craft of sculpture and painted many pieces.

          Jeff Koons is a great sculptor in my opinion because he excels at creating very difficult sculpture using some very tempermental mediums.  Not all are fragile, but  I enjoy his outlook on the world around us and pictured here are a few of his other pieces. 

          I think his societal commentary is hilarious.... For example...

         He dabbles in shock value and takes the simple and makes it abstract enough to be seen as an extension of thought.  The majority of his work includes some amazing colors, brilliant and piercing objects that eject toward you as you look at them, especially some of the folded balloon pieces of varying reflective colors. 

        Some of his work is on the pornographic/elicit side and reference beautiful women engaged with stuffed animals and other objects.   He was married to an ex porn star, so that may explain that one.   Some of his work is loved and other bits are hated because of their offensive nature.  It is an interesting factoid that there is a video game where you can destroy Jeff Koons artwork.  Sounds like technology is catching up to the societal majority outlook of his work.  What I respect most in his work is that he has been quoted many times saying “There is absolutely no hidden meaning or agenda in my work”.  So if anyone says there is, it is obviously the thoughts of the viewer and their outlook on life changes how the work has been seen.  I think he revels in the fact that he is removed from any political discussion of his work, and that leaves him to only worry about being honest with himself and forget about what anyone else may think.

            An artist who I find impressive is Robert Smithson.  He is considered to be a minimalist installation artist, although he did produce some other work in abstract expression.  The majority of his work encompasses reflective surfaces and rock or some substrate of earth.  

             As a child he was enamored with nature and was quickly thrown in the art world with a scholarship to Art Students League in New York.  There he became a proponent of abstract art and did many paintings.

              He later married a minimalist artist who was a sculptor and he became very interested in that style.   Part of his ideals was to create an art project in nature and have it be consumed by nature.  In other words, he wanted nature to have its way with his projects.   He also styled in taking photos of landscapes and surroundings, then enlarging the photograph and then reinstalling the enlargement into the landscape.  He then would photograph the photograph within the landscape giving a sense of one referencing the other.  Robert Smithson lived from 1938-1973.  He died in an airplane crash while working on his latest project called “Amarillo Ramp” which was under survey for construction in Amarillo, TX. 

My focus today is an incredible piece of art and work for that matter known as “Spiral Jetty” by Robert Smithson 1970.  

This is Robert’s most notable work of art.  This particular piece is a fine example of “earthwork”, as it is made up of mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks and water.  The incredible structure is more than 1500 feet long in a spiral and the walls of the structure are fifteen feet in width.  Separating the spiral walls is water from Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA.  Robert saw the lake as a productive ocean killed by the Dead Sea.   This thought by Smithson, I believe had some reference to biblical plagues and death from a “God” event.   The spiral design of his mammoth sculpture was taken from the primitive use of spirals throughout many cultures.  The spiral design also appears in nature and can be seen in natural events (water storms) as well as in the biology of many creatures.

I find it very interesting how the color of the water changes as you get closer to the center of the spiral.   The enormity of the project is also very striking.  This was not something done and a few days, this was well thought out and executed with great precision.  I researched and was unable to find any of the chemistry or ecology factors that the spiral has changed.  Is the concentration of salt greater at the center of the spiral or is it less.  Might this be some technique that could be used to reduce or increase the salinity level of a watershed?   There are all kinds of questions, but one interesting thought is how the timeline of his death may have affected his work.  The rise of the environmentalist laws and regulations didn’t really start till 1973 with President Nixon.  If Smithson were alive today, would he be ridiculed for disrupting the environment, when all he was really after was showcasing how constructive and destructive forces with affect nature.  Perhaps the environmental movement would have shut down his future large scale natural art projects or may have demanded that the “Spiral Jetty” be removed for its impact at the Great Salt Lake.  Again, we see the politics of the day and art closely wound together,  as we have learned throughout our class. 

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-smithson-robert.htm

http://robertsmithson.org/biography.php

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/93345

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/01/arts/art-robert-smithson-pre-minimal-paintings.html

Rik Shifty Art Design

This week we look at quick glimpse at some of my recent art pieces.  I enjoy creating clay sculptures and painting visions in my head or transposing a photograph to canvas, while modifying it to my liking.  I also have a passion for ink art whether in the form of abstraction, detailed drawings or fanciful designs.  The art influence that I see in the majority of my work would be somewhere between realism and impressionism.     I say realism because I enjoy nature and recreating it in some media, with the express intent to make it as real as I am capable of making it.  In respect to Impressionism, this comes from the use of bright colors and my interpretation of the light and what I see in the picture of my mind.   I tend to paint the shimmers of light or recreate what my camera eye caught; similar to Claude Monet where he captured the light in small spaces and creates a beautiful picture like “On the Bank of the Sienne, Bennecort”.   This is one of the paintings I am most proud of…I call it “Amante di Acqua”, Italian for “Lover of Water”.  It is approximately 60”x34” and framed with two pieces of drift wood I found and cured over a couple of winters.  This is probably my best work that still survives to this day. 

The second piece I will show you was never titled.  I had it finished and it did not survive delivery day.  This piece was a huge time investment and it was shattered on route to the art show.  

I put approximately 40 hours into the wing itself.  Made of porcelain, and very fragile, I carefully carved out the porcelain on both sides; extravagant feathers on one side and the other side photographed.  This photo is the only proof that it existed and I wish I had more.  This was the masterpiece to date for me and ……..I just teared up…….hold on……….ok…  Back to it.

Many works of art have been made by my hands, but very few will I share with anyone.  They all have a special place to me, and of course the fact that I am my most qualified critic, I want to make sure that whatever has my name attached to it be just what I intended it to be.   I usually look back on a piece and say that really is missing something.  I shelve it and maybe come back to it later (months).  I think I approach the definition of OCD sometimes and I get completely immersed in a project, and if it isn’t turning out, I immediately forget and throw all my other eggs in the new basket for awhile.  The work that Central has seen, has been completely uninspired; which is of no one’s doing, I have just had my primary focus other places, and operating within a deadline is difficult for me sometimes.  If I feel inspired I can whip something up in a day, but otherwise months might go by.  Can you really call it “art” if you are forced to come up with something?  It may look like art but it certainly won’t have much extrinsic meaning.   

My mother was quite the artist, so sometimes I wonder if there is a genetic piece that has transferred on.  Like other abilities passed to children, perhaps art aptitude is as well.

Inspired by Roy Lichtenstein

        In this installment, I wanted to bring one of my favorite artists to the limelight.  Artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923 – 1997).  His early work sprang from caricatures of artists and famous celebrities in motion or doing some task as well as abstractions of Western motifes.  The popular majority of his work is contrived from comic strips popular in the US since the 1950’s among youth.  He has a very certain style and that style is still wildly popular today.  He considered his art to be “Industrial Art”, and there appears to be many followers.  Many of his works seem simple in design, but offer the viewer a fun look at the contemporary world through the panes of comic strip boxes.  There is a stipple design called Ben-day dots that are seen in most of his paintings.  They play on the printing techniques used in newspapers and in many low resolution printings.  Throughout his collection, you will see women crying, embraced, or involved in some sort of dramatic situation, as well as parodies on advertising and the ideas of the day, which include some timely humor.  For example, he has a piece called “Portrait of a Duck” 1989, where we see a Disney figure of Donald Duck with dollar signs in the eyes and evoking from the head; by this, he seems to be making fun of the Disney Corporation and perhaps the greed associated with it.

       The focus piece today is “Kiss V” 1964 by Roy Lichtenstein.  The original piece is a drawing that was later turned into screen print and painted.  It has been duplicated and rendered in many different styles also.  This is an image of a man and woman embracing in a kiss.  It is a colorful piece and really stands out.  The man is wearing a blue shirt/sport coat, and the woman is all primped up in perfect 60’s form and a tear is being shed, as they embrace tightly and kiss.  “Kiss V” include the Ben-day dots and is compositionally very balanced, with focal points in the lips, eyes, and hair.  Critics say that this is a purely satirical look at the traditional roles of male and female in the 1960’s.  Maybe seen as a woman forcibly holding her man as if he were the only way for her to feel comfort, or that she is needing of comfort from a long day of grooming and making the house ready for the return of her man.  The tear she sheds for emotion as if all women are overly emotional, fragile and incapable of rational thought.  I think that people and critics really make too much of this piece of art.  I simply see a lonely woman who is happy enough to cry that she is after however long in time, finally in the embrace of her man and even throw in a kiss to make the moment even brighter.

Original Drawing

Replicated Piece

              I've found it is also interesting which way this work is laid out, woman above or man above.  By simply rotating the canvas you can maybe make different realizations of the intended meaning.   I really believe this to be a question of are you a pessimist or optimist?  If you are an optimist I think you see a happy situation, one that is bringing two people closer together, and if you are a pessimist, than you see this art as a travesty and intentional slight on humanity and society as a whole.  Some may say it requires more effort to be pessimistic, but I think it requires just as much thought to be positive.  And perhaps you can gain a smile.  

           That smile was most certainly attained as the original drawing in graphite and crayon, “Kiss V” was sold at Christie’s auction house New York in 2011, for $2,098,500.  I find it important to mention that the drawing was 6” x 6”, thus raising over $58,000 per square inch of paper.  That dollar figure doubled the estimates, and the previous owner received one of the heaviest grossing payouts for a drawing (per square inch) in history.    

http://www.artkuwait.org/2011/04/roy-lichtensteins-artwork-won-in-10.html

http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3542

https://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/3994/releases/MOMA_1968_Jan-June_0011_11.pdf?2010

Week 6

This week, we are looking at the “Blue Nude” by Henri Matisse, 1907.  In this painting there is a strong presence of primitivism and a sense of avant-garde.   First reaction to this painting was of initial shock at the color choices, so bold and in your face.  Then, secondly the nude figure seems to be right in your face as well.  As if zooming in on the nude was necessary for reaction.  Analyzing this, I see that this nude in comparison to older works and the “common nude” are very bold and out there.  Being honest with myself, I am not sure whether this is a male or female.  Of course the breasts are large and in your face, but the masculinity of the arms and hair and the covering of lower region kind of leave me a little confused.  There is very little detailed attention spent on the body and I think this was intentional to raise this question.  The nude also has a very muscular physique which promotes the confusion.  Female nudes otherwise were portrayed as soft and voluptuous, not hard and chiseled.  Perhaps, it was painting unisex on purpose to push the boundaries with the critiques at the time.  At first, I didn’t find this painting to be very awe inspiring.  It seems so simple that any “primitive” child could create it.  But after looking further on this painting, there are many hidden ideas.      

            In regard to the primitivism that the painting holds, Matisse paints with broad strokes and very little details.  The nude being surrounded by a jungle of sorts shows that this has a jungle roots idea, that we came from the jungle and this is a return in some fashion our roots.  There is also the idea that in primitivism, females are generally depicted as primitive, working in the fields or being put in nature settings to show their status.  Matisse’s “Blue Nude” follows this critique and also exemplifies another.  The apparent connection to simplicity and disconnection to complexity.  My thoughts here directly correlate to the works by Gauguin.  The majority of what I have seen by Gauguin lacks any detail, seems to be nearly finger paintings, but the ideas and concepts within them are definitely present.  The “Blue Nude” is also very subjective.  I believe this work by Matisse exaggerates and distorts lines, colors, and forms to be more subjective.  It leaves the viewer to decide on his own what he sees.  I think that this was done to be thought provoking and a cause for uproar of emotion and discussions at the well (water cooler of the time).   This nude to me is not considered as an object at all, but rather as a statement of something.  I’m not too sure what that statement is, but it is definitely not the “in the box” style.   And as I recall, this is a definition of what it is to be avant-garde.  To me, the political statement isn’t too clear, but the pushing forward into new envelopes of societal and artistic acceptance is there.  

Throughout the majority of Caillebotte’s paintings, there is an impressionist influence and they have modernity. Being from a wealthy family allowed Caillebotte to be progressive and paint to his liking. He is labeled as an impressionist, but throughout his work, he did not follow all the conventions of the impressionist. In his life, Caillebotte suffered enormous loss that left him feeling isolated and alone. This theme is represented in his paintings. They show scenes of isolation and tension with quiet suffering from those within. From people walking in Paris streets assumeably just passing from point A to point B without any care for the surroundings to workers suffering work and maximum effort while feeling isolated. This isolation is however depicted in a time where the rebuilding of Paris is happening and the modernity of actions by the subjects. As exampled by the “Nude on a Couch”, 1882, the figure of a nude woman slung out over a couch appears to be crying or suffering in some way. The placement of the arm over her breast I believe was an attempt to not be completely obscene. An argument can be made that this was a voyeuristic look at someone, where I would contend, that the woman is nude because Caillebotte wanted to show complete exposure. As if the being exposed reflected the complete unhidden suffering of being alone, even in the nice apartment/home on fine furniture. I see the fine furniture as a symbol that this woman is successful and even she still is isolated and alone in her modern, upper class surroundings. In other paintings, Caillebotte shows certain genders performing tasks and other duties that were thought of as only for a woman or man. He was pushing the envelope in the sense of what was known and accepted. His paintings depict the regular man and do not glorify any of the subjects leaving the absence of idealization. Caillebotte uses perspective to further add drama and tension to his works, as well as making sure he pointed out the modern lifestyle and what was expected and encountered by the modern man. He was more focused on changing the ideas and hearts of those who viewed his paintings. So much so that he hosted several impressionist shows and until his death in 1894. He pushed for the acceptance from the academy of paintings by other artists in the impressionist movement.

I believe that Caillebotte's paintings were a critique on the life of modern man. I believe he depicted most his subjects in their current situation and the hard work that all had to make to be valued in the society. I think that he suffered greatly and was having family issues and with the money he had, I think that he may have been pulled greatly by the societal leaders. This however had advantages as having money gave him influence and that helped him push forth modernity and impressionism. Even if it was only after his death, the fact that he pushed for the acceptance of others and their station in life, shows me that he is the definition of what we consider modernity.