Saturday, March 20, 2010

Art and the Quotidian Object: Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen

Claes Oldenburg is a sculptor. He collaborates with wife, Coosje van Bruggen and creates large sculptures based on everyday objects. 

Spoonbridge and Cherry (1988)



Stainless steel and aluminum painted with polyurethane enamel
29 ft. 6 in. x 51 ft. 6 in. x 13 ft. 6 in. (9 x 15.7 x 4.1 m)
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota 

The site http://oldenburgvanbruggen.com/largescaleprojects/spoonbridge.htm contains the artist's statement. Interesting description as to why they chose that specific object at the site. 


Flying Pins, (2000)


Steel, fiber-reinforced plastic, foam, epoxy; painted with polyester gelcoat and polyurethane enamel
Ten pins, each: 24 ft. 7 in. (7.5 m) high x 7 ft. 7 in. (2.3 m) widest diameter
in an area approximately 123 ft. (37.5 m) long x 65 ft. 7 in. (20 m) wide
partially buried pins: #1: 18 ft. 5 in. (5.6 m) high; #2: 13 ft. 2 in. (4 m) high
combined pins: #3a/b: 26 ft. 7 in. (8.1 m) high; #5a/b/c: 28 ft. 7 in. (8.7 m) high
individual pins: #4: 21 ft. 8 in. (6.6 m) high; #6: 20 ft. 8 in. (6.3 m) high; #7: 17 ft. 9 in. (5.4 m) high
ball: 9 ft. 2 in. (2.8 m) high x 21 ft. 12 in. (6.7 m) diameter
Intersection of John F. Kennedylaan and Fellenoord Avenues, Eindhoven, the Netherlands 

http://oldenburgvanbruggen.com/largescaleprojects/flyingpins.htm

In public sites, our sculptures reflect both the surroundings and their context, but through our imagination and selective perception – which is what makes them also personal. We feel free to use all the approaches that come naturally to our non-monumental works: variations in scale, similes, transformations, a wide range of materials, and, of course, our use of familiar objects. We want to communicate with the public but on our own terms, even if the images are stereotypical.” - C. Oldenburg

Friday, March 19, 2010

Amanda my chosen artist is "Arman" for this weeks topic. Art and the quotidian object

Art & The Quotidian Object- ERWIN WURM

Fat Car (2001)
Styrofoam Polyester, Car.


Fat House (2003)




Truck (2005)
Mixed Media



There is a small amount of information on this artist on the MCA website, just search Erwin Wurm.
You can also find more examples of this work at the http://www.balticmill.com/ website, there is also some information about the artist.
Again just search the artists name.

"Both works transform everyday objects into sculpture with humorous investigation."
That was a small part of the information given about Wurm on the balticmill website. I thought that this small quote summarises Wurm's works, and show the relation between his works and this weeks topic, Art & The Quotidian Object.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Annotated Bibliography



Grosse K. Katharina Grosse. http://www.katharinagrosse.com/ [Accessed 12th March 2010]


Katharina Grosse's personal website is almost a database of work more so than just a portfolio or retrospective. Apart from an expanse of images you will find a list of exhibitions, Bibliography and for a small price of divulging your email address you can download short writings and interviews. Although somewhat difficult to navigate, if you have the time you are bound to find what you are looking for. The interviews and writings were especially useful for me, as this artist is still fairly up and coming the volume of useful or perhaps trustworthy information was limited.




Nickas, B. Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2009.


Painting Abstraction profiles 80 of todays abstract painters and is an overview of the most contemporary of abstract painting. Full page images of artists and put together by New York curator Bob Nikas. This book was very helpful with my research in abstraction (despite being a book on abstract painting). There was an interesting text on Katharina Grosse which mentioned how she works with sculpture and space. The bulk of information on Katharina that I came across was mostly padded out with images and it was interesting to hear an opinion from a source apart from the artist herself.



Chambers, N. Katharina Grosse: Picture Park. Queensland: Queensland Art Gallery, 2007.


This book is a brief catalog of one particular exhibition held at the Queensland art gallery in Queensland. A thin but slightly larger than A3 Full colour boasts beautiful images of the installation, a text by the curator, and an interview with Katharina. The full size images allow you to appreciate the smaller complexities of Katharinas work and an insight into how she works, with lots of images taken at various intervals of the initial set up. Most of the text in this book was irrelevant to the bigger picture of this weeks topic of art and abstraction but was interesting to hear Katharina talk about her thoughts and work.



Wednesday, March 17, 2010

FYI Katharina Grosse


Her work is currently on exhibition at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art as part of the UTOPIA series:

http://www.arken.dk/content/us/exhibitions/utopia/read_more_about_utopia


"UTOPIA is a three-year project with shows by three international artists creating total installations for ARKEN’s Art Axis. Each installation examines, and adds facets, to the concept of utopia today. The focus of the UTOPIA exhibitions, and the events and educational efforts under the UTOPIA project, is on the “good life” and developing the museum of the future. "

ART & ...

A gentle reminder - the BLOG postings that do not relate to the weeks discussion topic cannot be counted for assessment- this ultimately means you will need to make more than one posting.

Thank you for those who are making contributions on a weekly basis - the weekly discussions are all the more interesting if you are thinking about the topic area and making considered contributions. At the very least read the ART & Today chapter and post your thoughts.

For those who haven't 'appeared' online yet - next week will be the 3rd week for contributions. 3 is the magic number, as they say, after 3 missed contributions you will begin to have marks deducted from your overall participation mark.

So get active - it is ultimately your responsibility to engage with the material.


ALSO, the Annotated Bibliography needs to be posted by the end of the presentation week. For those presenting next week - you need to indicate which artist you will be focusing on. Email me this information or post it here.

A.

Jason de Caires Taylor


Man on Fire

Taylor is a artist I found a couple of weeks ago, I found his works amazing and i hope some of you do as well. I dont know how many people would have seen these i hope not many.
Taylor created the world's first underwater sculpture park in Grenada, WestIndies. He creates his sculptures so they engourage marine life to grow and live near by. Over time some of his sculptures blend in with nature.


Grace Reef
More of his works can be found on this website- www.underwatersculpture.com there are also some videos on youtube of his works so you can see nearly a full 360 degree view of the works. There are also a couple of videos that just show photos of the works from when there where first placed underwater then like 6 months later and so on. It is really cool to see how they change.

I guess this artist could relate to the subject ART & TIME, or maybe ART & NATURE AND TECHNOLOGY. I couldnt wait till a related subject to blog about this artist I just think he is so cool that everyone had to see his works. :D


Enjoy.







Marina Abramovic


Marina Abramovic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1946.
Marina Abramovic was instrumental in the genesis of Performance Art in the 1970's and is particularly known for addressing pain and bodily endurance. She both pioneered Performance Art and completely redefined it, collapsing its barrier with reality through genuine pain and bodily harm.






"Exploring the physical and mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in the quest for emotional and spiritual transformation"


This video has images of Marina Abramovic's artworks in another language. IF YOU HAVE 10:15MIN THEN CLICK ONTO THE WEB AND WATCH IT.







Tuesday, March 16, 2010

www.judyhintzcox.com/



'Second Lives' at the Museum of Arts & Design


Robeta Smith writes:

In "Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary" at the Museum of Arts and Design, masses of plastic utensils and combs, vinyl LPs, dangling eyeglasses, syringes, ladies' pumps, pieces of crockery and spools of thread are marshaled into works of art or design, most of them derivative and gimmicky.

Photo: Hiroko Masuike for the New York Times




art and abstraction - lee bul


LEE BUL (b.1962, korea)
Untitled (After Bruno Taut series), 2008
crystal, glass and acrylic beads on stainless-steel amature,
aluminum and copper mesh, PVS, steel and aluminum chains
274.3x 294.6x 213.4 cm


Lee Bul's recent works, unlike her earlier works in concern with environmental issues and people+technology development, explore the "failed modernist dream of perfectibility" in architecture.
After Bruno Taut series, an homage to the architect Bruno taut, constitute various mid-air or anchored to the floor installation/sculptures suspended from its surroundings. The work above, looking almost like a phantom chandelier manifests the disintegrated rationalism of modernists architectures.

To be honest, i find Bul's previous works a lot more audience interactive and approachable with its raised issues, therefore much preferable, but her use of materials with such utopian aspirations are very inspiring.


http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/#/artists/lee-bul/

Christo


This is the best I could do. Really not a fan of most abstraction... I just though Cristo is a nice little spin of the notion of abstraction because the space its self is abstracted rather then being rendered as a abstract interpretation in a mediated form. Also the overall site is pretty interesting.

http://www.kaldorartprojects.org.au/projects/pastproject.asp?idExhibition=1094

Elizabeth.C- Ernesto Neto

Ernesto Neto was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1964).


(E o Bicho!-2001, Lycra, poliamid tubes, hooks, tumeric, black pepper, and clove Dimensions variable)

Ernesto Neto's distinctive fabric sculptures and participatory environments continually push the boundaries of art, architecture and the sensorial experience. Emphasizing, the importance of the viewer's active participation in his work.....work in the 1960s sought to expand the aesthetic experience beyond the purely visual, encouraging visitors to TOUCH, SMELL, and WALK inside the artworks.




Abstraction

So I'm sure you have all heard of this one, but hey why not state the obvious.

Robert Klippel

My most favourite of his works is held in the Art gallery of nsw, so if you havn't seen it its definatly worth a geeze.It's a sculpture with about 40 little toy looking things, similar to the image below, but many more.

Robert Klippel

Group of works from the series

No title (No. 1232) 1980

Private collection, Sydney©

Courtesy of Andrew Klippel

Accessed: 16.3.10
site: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/klippel/



He's also Australian, which always seems to be important.

"Robert Klippel is regarded as Australia’s most important sculptor of the post-war 20th century period. Known for his abstract assemblages created from found objects he is a distinguished figure in the history of Australian art."
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/klippel/

Art and Abstraction- NICK EDMONDS

Nick Edmonds in mainly a sculptor, a large proportion of his more recent works are wood carved sculptures that are then painted, he also does some drawings, prints and commission work. Examples of Edmonds works can be found at this website-

http://www.nickedmondssculptor.com/




Mountain View November, 2008

Acrylic and mixed media, carved wood

34 x 18 x 15 Inches

Colour seems to be a important aspect in Edmonds sculptures, he uses bright colours in most of his recent works, but is a few of his older works he used different colours of wood to create a colour contrast. Edmonds works are abstract. Edmonds seems to base this works around landscapes and nature.

I like his works because they remind me of loose child-like drawings, which could represent that nature can't be formed and structured like the "man-made" world.

Didn't really know what to write. I did type something a little bit different in word but then i couldn't paste so that stuffed up that plan.

Art and Abstraction: Trevor J. Askin

Spin doctor
Height:460mm


Trevor J. Askin, is a New Zealand artist who has a unique style which he has called ‘curvilinear’ as his works are flowing with curves - no hard lines.
Each piece is inimitable - there is no master mould, Askin create his own bronze upholding control of his work from start to finish. Many of Askins earlier pieces are figurative forms representing birds and peolpe, his more recent works are of a more free- flowing style and can fall category to abstraction.

Askin has used bronze, a man made material commonly associated with machinery and the rigid repetitive motions of industrial factories, in a way that is in fact opposite. Askin's 'curvilinear' style represents the organic and natural motions of water and wind it is inviting, the smooth reflective surface temps the audience to touch and run their hands along the smooth surfaces.

Inner Circle
Height: 410mm

Art and Abstraction: Olafur Eliasson

Definition of Abstraction in Art:
"A work of art, esp. a nonrepresentational one, stressing formal relationships."

Dictionary.com Unabridged

Based on the Random House Dictionary,

© Random House, Inc. 2010.



An art work by Olafur Eliasson from an exhibition, currently featuring at the MCA.

It is titled:

"Take your Time: A Conversation"
Olafur Eliasson, ‘One-way colour tunnel’ (2007).

Stainless steel, color-effect acrylic, and acrylic mirrors;

100 3/4 x 70 7/8 x 413 3/8 in.; Courtesy the artist;

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York;

and neugerriemschneider, Berlin;

© 2007 Olafur Eliasson

The installation, 'one-way colour tunnel', Being non-representational falls into the category of abstract art.

I went to the exhibition and came to the conclusion that a lot Eliasson's work is about the experience of seeing colour and being immersed in it. The artist uses the idea that every person's eye processes light and colour in a slightly different way, meaning that no two people can ever really see the same artwork.

With abstract art, it is more often than not about the viewing of the work, the reaction one has to it.

Abstract art is art in it's most subjective form.

For example if an artist creates an abstract form with a particular animal in mind, let's say, a dog. It does not look like a dog, but to the artist it will feel like a dog, it will have "the essence" of a dog. An audience member may then look upon the created form and feel it has the presence of an axolotl. And another may feel it is a cake or even the embodiment of a non-tangiable thought.

It is the experience of and reaction to abstract art which makes it significant.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Darren Knight Gallery - Object Memory and Self

I went to the Darren Knight Gallery and saw the Object, Memory and Self exhibition. on Saturday and found a really intriguing work by Kenzee Patterson.


PATTERSON.Type702010e_000.jpg


Kenzee Patterson

Type 70

2010

aluminium spirit levels, two pack paint

58.5 x 58.5 x 58.5 cm

"It is regarded alternately as an expression of the individual psych and a set of conventions that mock true individuality." - 2nd paragraph of the Chapter for this week (Page 66, Art & Today). It is an interesting phrase to apply to abstract art and this work in particular. And Type 70 reflects, perhaps almost in an abstract way, the notions of geometric forms used in early abstract art..?

Art and Time


Nothing too fancy, but defiantly worth checking out these site specific installations at Rookwood, (largest cemetery in southern hemisphere). These works were all made from biodegradable materials and will only be viewable for the first 2 weeks. 
This exhibition relates the theme of art and time as even the works are 'finished' in a sense as they are on display- they continue to change and dissolve over time through thier 'un-permanent nature'. 


Tim Olsen Gallery - Robert hague

Robery Hagues bronze sculptures seems to fit the catagory quite well. Even though this collection is recent it seems capture the feeling that surrounded abstraction as it was emerging as a major movement, the conflicting ideas about weather art at the time should be based around organic or geometric forms. I like that he combines hammers with something natural like a willow here, it makes the two join in a way that seems compleatly natural even though they couldn't be more opposite. This is similar to the idea of 'impurity' that is seen in some sculptures metioned in Art and Today like Richard Deacon and Martin Puryear.


a little inofrmation on Abstraction :)


Well while i was searching Abstraction in art i happen to fall upon an artist that i found highly interesting and quite cool. and a comment to sums up to me what is abstraction from my brief reading "Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable".
Frank Stella (work pictured) is an artist i found that shows this very well.
He uses to works to show that a picture, his picture is nothing more that "a flat surface with paint on it" rather than a picture portraying something of his emotional state in life or something happening in the world around etc
he bought it down and shows us that total abstraction doesn't have to be all that but can be less.



Sunday, March 14, 2010

SPI Studio Theory WEDNESDAY 2pm

Don't forget...

Amanda!

Hi. I know this is not what this page is for but I cant get an email through to Amanda, does anyone know her gmail address?

Len Lye

I became intrigued by this artist when i read an article about him ( dont hate me ) Vice magazine A Film Issue. His name is Len Lye and I have no idea how to post a link to You Tube but if you punch in his name his film clips will be the first thing that comes up. Although he is also famous for his kinetic sculpture, I am more interested in his film work, the time he was creating it and his apparent isolation when he was birthng the ideas which lead to these works.

http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n9/htdocs/motion-from-across-the-ocean-156.php

I hope that link works...I'm not so good with the computer. Please do look, he was a fracking genius and a total dude!

Abstraction as the Invisible Structure of the Cosmos?

II. The Movement of the Triangle (From Concerning the Spiritual in Art By Wassily Kandinsky)

The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.

The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.

[Well thats the word on the street from the abstract-expressionists...how curious]

thoughts?

Art and Abstraction: Gretchen Albrecht

Gretchen Albrecht is a New Zealand artist. Her art includes both paintings and sculptures, both of which are considered abstract. She first became recognized through her paintings which involved pouring acrylic on canvases, eventually evolving her own signature oval-shaped canvas. She has recently started doing large scale stainless steel sculptures.


M e a s u r e  -  L i k e  A  D a n c e r,  2004
80 x 163.5 x 45 cm,
stainless steel with stainless steel mesh.



R o s e  G a r d e n  ( P a u l  R i c a u l t ),  2008.

acrylic & oil on canvas.
120 x 190 cm


Source: http://www.gretchenalbrecht.com/

MCA exhibition

I haven't seen the Olafur Eliasson exhibition at the MCA yet, but it looks wonderful. Has anyone else seen it? What did you think?

examples of his work: www.olafureliasson.net/works