art and institutions -blogging style

From a social sciences site i get this:
Commonly, experts officially recognize five major social institutions that have been evident in some way in every civilization in history:

• government
• religion
  
• education
  
• economics
• family

i note that art is not part of this list, nor is language. common experts eh!
what i've noticed so far and this is no disrespect to anybody in particular is that blogging seems to be a one way discourse with pictures. This concerns me because i feel like i'm writting to a vacuum that represents the latest global communication tool.
Are we scared to comment or does it just take to much time?
might a comment offend or is a comment just a comment?
Is language inherently dangerous in the wrong hands.
Who decides and who owns these words ? me or you or the corporation that is google.
oh did i mention the seductive black background that has been thoughtfully provided to make the images and text look more interesting.

Art & its Institutions: Blu

If, within this train of thought, we are critiquing the gallery/museum as the space for art then why not look at artists who bypass it all together? Although Heartney doesn't mention it in her chapter, i thought it would be cool to raise the subject of graph culture as a direct subversion of art and its institutions.

Blu is an italian mural artist who I am particularly interested in for his mural scale stop-animation works. I think these works, although not so much sculptural, have cross-overs with performanative and installation practices in terms of their engagement with and response to space.

Heres some images, but for the full effect, deffinitely check out youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uad17d5hR5s

SENSATION!!!!!

Art & its Institution: Sarah Oppenheimer

Sarah Oppenheimer is an American artist, who was born in 1972. She graduated with a BA in Semiotics from Brown University in 1995, and an MFA from Yale University in 1999.

"I felt at the time and still feelt hat the gallery is one essential context for the cultural reception of my work. What came under scrutiny in the Claire Compley work was the question of whether a work of art whose discourse disclosed the system of economic reproduction could possibly, at the same time, engender that economic reproduction for itself. Just as the work served as a model of how the gallery operated, it also served as a model for its own economic reproduction." - Michael Asher

I find the idea behind the works of Sarah Oppenheimer are almost an extension of Michael Asher.

610-3356, 2008.

MF-142, 2010.

D-17, 2010.

OE-15, 2010.

The title of the works in letters and numericals are "derived by reference to a typology or classification system created by the artist that describes, in graphic form, how the hole is perceptually perceived and the materials used to create it." Sarah Oppenheimer's artworks change the viewer's perception on art and experience of space. She uses the space in a non-traditional fashion where her artwork doesn't gaze the visitor as a painting or sculpture would, but it instead directs your gaze at different spaces. It changes the way we look at art and what we think of it.

Bibliography:

Heartney, Eleanor. Art & today. Newyork: Phaidon, 2008.

"Sarah Oppenheimer: Projects". http://www.sarahoppenheimer.com/index.html?id=2 (Accessed September 21, 2010).

"Rice Gallery: Sarah Oppenheimer D-17". http://www.ricegallery.org/new/exhibition/oppenheimer.html (Accessed September 21, 2010).

"Artinfo: Tyler Green Modern Art Notes". http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/category/uncategorized/page/90/ (Accessed September 21, 2010).

"P.P.O.W: Sarah Oppenheimer". http://www.ppowgallery.com/press_reviews.php?artist=21 (Accessed September 21, 2010).

Bibliography

Art and its Institutions

Janet Cardiff (born 1957 Canada)

Murder of Crows / Installation 2008

"The notion that art should provide a window on the world has been well established at least since the mid-fifteenth century, when Leon Battista Alberti laid out the principles for representing space through the system of one-point perspective. Conceiving the picture plane as a stage on which objects were arranged in diminishing scale, the artist drew the eye into the painting and hence away from any of the distracting apparatus that might have dispelled the illusion."

This idea of a singular perspective is similar to the establishment of the institution and its one-way path to success, its ability to ignore the ‘distracting apparatus’ that is art unbound by rules and conventions. Since the early 1990’s artists have explored this symbolic relationship between art and its institutions within their practice. Questioning and observing the hierarchy between curators, collectors, and artists; the commercialisation of art; the role of the audience; the housing and display of art. ect. Canadian artist Janet Cardiff is one such artist who is exploring the role of the physical gallery space of the institution. Cardiff works with sound and video within her practice and is perhaps best known for her signature audio walks, which she has made extensively internationally. Her gallery installations - often made in collaboration with George Bures Miller, Cardiff’s husband - are narrative and suspenseful sound and video works.

Cardiff’s audio walks transform an everyday stroll into an absorbing psychological and physical experience. In these walks Cardiff reinvents the audio walks offered at museums that explain current exhibitions, focusing not on the exhibition itself but instead a fictional narrative. The viewer is given a headset and simply follows the instructions of the voice. Most walks begin in an institutional space then either diverges outdoors or inwards into classified parts within the institution. The viewer is enveloped within a cinematic and non-linear experience as retrace the footsteps of another with no idea of what is to come. Cardiff’s audio walks invite and guide the viewer to notice and appreciate something from a different perspective. By removing her works from within the institution Janet Cardiff’s exploration in the physicality of art and the housing of art is clear.

Bathroom Stories 1991

Muenster Walk for Skulptur Muenster 1997

Bibliography

Books

Phoenix Art Museum. Constructing New Berlin: contemporary art made in Berlin/Phoenix Art Museum; [transi. From the German by: James Roderick O- Donovan], Munich: Prestel, 2006.

Art and its institutions: current conflicts, critique and collaborations/edited by Nina Montamann, London: Black Dog Publishings, 2006.

Heartney, Elenor. Art & Today. New York: Phaidon Press Ltd. 2008. Art and it’s Institiutions

Websites

City Gallery Wellingtons, Janet Cardiff: The Forty-Part Motet Exhibition Notes Issue #01, http://www.cardiffmiller.com/press/texts/Curatorial%20Notes JCardiff Web.pdf

[Accessed 19 sept 2010]

Janet Cardiff Bures Miller, http://www.cardiffmiller.com/index.html

[Accessed 19 Sept 2010]

Art & It's Institutions: Lawrence Weiner bibliography

Lawrence Weiner. "Placed upon the horizon (casting shadows)" 1990, Vancouver art gallery.

Lawrence Weiner, "Many colored objects side by side to form a row of many colored objects" 1979. Enamel on Brick.

Lawrence Weiner, "One quart exterior green industrial enamel thrown on a brick wall", 1969. Enamel on gallery wall.

Bibliography:

-Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today. New York: Phaidon Press Ltd. 2008. Chapt. Art and It's Institutions.

-Möntmann, Nina. Art and it's institutions: Current conflict, critique and collaborations. London: Black Dog Publishing. 2006.

-Albero, Alexander; Zimmerman, Alice; Buchloh, Benjamin H.D.; Batchelor, David. Lawrence Weiner. London: Phaidon Publishing. 1998.

Art and spirituality

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/eliasson/images/hallsun4.jpg

The way in which Olafur Eliasson might employ mechanics to create art contradictions that force viewers to question there own spirituality. Weather and environment, a once unexplainable force controlled by a omnipotent force, still symbolizes the surrealness of our existence.In The Weather Project, the fourth in the annual Unilever Series of commissions for the Turbine Hall, Olafur Eliasson takes this ubiquitous subject as the basis for exploring ideas about experience, spirituality and representation.

In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the Turbine Hall. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the Turbine Hall has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape.

Through reenacting ritual and spirituals phenomenon, Eliasson suggests spirituality can be found within many different formats. The shared experience is a common feature that underpins his work, which is an important factor in art as it reminds us of our equality as humans. Yeh sure that's sounds nice and arty. What the hell am I writing about, as if anyones actually going to read this bullocks. Eliasson is a giant douche anyway, like only the Dutch would be like "ok ve need a giant sun in ze room , lots of lights for dees English faggots arhohoho" . The end.

http://www.tompenney.com.au/ESSAY%20ART%20SPIRIT%20TECH.doc
For more info.

Art and architecture

http://images.gizmag.com/gallery_lrg/4455_19080520119.jpg




Michael Rakowitz feels strongly about the issue of homelessness. So strongly that when he focussed his creative attentions on the subject he began manifesting practical outcomes, specifically the ParaSITE. The parasite is a is a small, collapsible, double-membrane shelter that uses the escaping warm air from a building’s HVAC system to inflate and warm the temporary home.

"While these shelters were being used, they functioned not only as a temporary place of retreat, but also as a station of dissent and empowerment; many of the homeless users regarded their shelters as a protest device, and would even shout slogans like "We beat you Uncle Sam!" The shelters communicated a refusal to surrender, and made more visible the unacceptable circumstances of homeless life within the city.

For the pedestrian, paraSITE functioned as an agitational device. The visibly parasitic relationship of these devices to the buildings, appropriating a readily available situation with readily available materials elicited immediate speculation as to the future of the city: would these things completely take over, given the enormous number of homeless in our society? Could we wake up one morning to find these encampments engulfing buildings like ivy?

This project does not present itself as a solution. It is not a proposal for affordable housing. Its point of departure is to present a symbolic strategy of survival for homeless existence within the city, amplifying the problematic relationship between those who have homes and those who do not have homes." Michael Rakowitz

I see this work as a reaction to the way we live. The reality is the modern form of architecture allows for mass homelessness to occur in cities. Societies fabric is hugely influenced by the way we live and people living on the strews is a byproduct of dense populations. Rakowitz tackles this idea head on by using the metaphor of the parasite, an organisms that uses it's host to survive, As a means to make a statement and create a temporary solution.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/4455/

Art & It's Institutions

I shall be presenting Lawrence Weiner, if only he would stand still on that pedestal... :)

Art and its Institutions

Hey amanda, just letting you know the artist i'm presenting is Janet Cardiff.