art and audience

still from meechifeber

keyboard player playing along with film on station

lady watching one of his films


i found an very interesting artist John Bock that Incorporates art and audience into to his practice by choosing where and how to display his works
in one of his show he choose to display it at central station in Italy on platform 21 where he showed and series of animations and films for people to be able to sit round and enjoy to watch
one of the films was called meechfieber
which is about a German fable set on a alien planet in the country side
i wasn't able to find a video on it
but he had several screen set up round the station like on set on the stair case where people would sit on the steps and watch it
and in the main walkway of the station


here is a video of some of his installations of where he places his works
www.youtube.com/watch?v=intgp3z1GIk&feature=related

Wolfgang Laib: Returning to What Is, review

Darren James Jorgenson interview with Wolfgang Laib gives us an insight into the world of the artist and his practice and how his life and past experiences and how they influence him in his work. It also brings to light even though his works have on first appearance a very nature based look tot hem he explains to us the real and true meaning behind his choices of mediums and why he is not as the critics say "nature artist".

Wolfgang Laib is very informant in his answers when talking about his process in his work where we are learn the reasons behind the artist choice material he uses like pollen, milk and beeswax is because to him and pointed out by Jorgernsen that material is already made and been thought this amazing process to get there and then to be used in his works. But instead of placing them in the natural environment Wolfgang takes them out it and and uses it purely for the material its self and placing it in the gallery space turns it into an abstract idea. he tkaes hte nautre out of the material and by doung this removes the "nature artist" from his work. We see through teh interview Liab's commitment to process through the passion in his answers and the way he tlaks of his works and the meaning and influences behind.

From this interview it can be said that Wolfgang's art is his life and that he is a very processed based artist in the way he collects the pollen before he starts the work, they way the milk has to be changed everyday in his works. its all a very slow and time consuming process but which is vital to his works as this interview is to understanding his works and showing the true meaning behind them.
Jorgenson allows Laib to give us this overview and insight into his work and also addresses the topic's that we wouldn't and just a viewer in the gallery wouldn't know.

art and institutions

Pawel Althamer is a sculpture, performance and action artist. he is highly involved with installtion and sculptures. but i won't to focus on one of his early works surrounding people on space.

Althamer has challenged the stereotypical notions of places and and space where he has totally redesigned the gallery space or manipulating the viewers perceptions on it, which was seen in his first solo exhibition call the exhibition where he totally removed and cleaned the place, washed the floors, scraped all the old paint off the walls and placed in the bare minimum but necessary furniture into to building as to refer to the building original 'purpose' which was an apartment which shows the institution as art and how it transform over the years to accommodate to the need of the people who inhabit the area.

in the work below again he change to gallery space into the surrounding you would find in a different type of building. where he transformed the main gallery area in the a waiting room. and cutting a hole in the wall to lead you outside into the gallery garden changes the original use of the place as it would of been used before. and taking away from the idea of the gallery. but more of a waiting room and the exit.


http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_althamer_pawel#brodno

Art and globalization

Asian field

Anthony Gormely for the past few years ghas been working on projects in different countries that so the idea of globalisation, such as his field projects. the ones seen above are in Asia. and what he does is he collects the clay form local areas. In the process of making this work there were 500 people who volunteered

"My reply is that it's not one artist's work; it's everybody's that made it. The numbers - 180,000 little figures, 25 tonnes of clay, 3500 boxes - all those statistics are justified if you realise it's tackling big issues."

this work adresses a world issue... the growing population as the unborn, our future who will be the possible inheritors of the earth.

the work is meant to close in on the viewer and infect the space around them with all these tiny human like figure with out mouths and only staring eyes

art and spirituality

Ana Mendieta works embody several themes and ideas with in spirituality which tie to pre Columbia/ afro-cuban beliefs and also the body, mainly hers with in space and pushing the boundaries between matter and spirit. This connection with spirit was bought about by her speration from her parents when she was 13 by the American catholic chruch. this then influenced her greatly in her art practice.

Even though her works were shocking to the audience like in her work where she presses different parts of her body on a sheet of glass to distort it in front of an audience to question societies idea of a good figure of a women!

her development of her works were greatly influenced by the exile as well as the intercetion of the Caribbean/ north American cultures later in her last years.





Ana Mendieta's Burial Pyramid- an amazing performance work
http://www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/videos/193

art and identity - Nayland blake

the big one, 2003

"Bunny Group, Two Holes", 1996/7

Graphite and colored pencil on paper
8 Sheets: 12 x 9 inches each


Nayland blake was an artsit i found to show art his identity in each of his works.
his works are decribed in many different ways as disturbing, brutal, hysterical, provocative and tender. Blakes works deal and play with cultural narratives that have been built up and told and that society abides by which he loves to contradict
The Bunny is recurring symbol in his works which is representing several things the artists identity as a gay man and also as a child with parents who were completely against bi, gays and lesbians. he chooese the image and persona of the bunny to represents the "gay promiscuity" or as he puts it "he fucks like rabbits" also the bunny connotes racial denigration.
the bunny also ties in to his African European heritage folk heroes.

art and the body

Renee Cox
is a one of African Americans most controversial artist of today.
she uses her body in her works to show and celebrate the "black" women and the woman's body also as a retaliation to society as it is/ was / still quite sexist and towards female artists and females and also racist towards her and other Renee Cox continues to push the envelop in her work, questioning society and the roles it gives to blacks and women with her elaborate scenarios and imaginative visuals that offend some and exhilarate others.
in the work below we see the last supper that she has adapted Leonardo's DA vinci last supper to her own interpretation where we see Renee Cox as Jesus which when first was shown caused great up roar. which Renee Cox is trying to show and portray

"I have a right to reinterpret the Last Supper as Leonardo DA Vinci created the Last Supper with people who look like hims.The hoopla and the fury are because I'm a black females. It's about me having nothing to hide."