Art & Representation- DAVID CERNY

Fit

Shark

Entopa

David Cerny was born in Prague, 1967. He is a sculpture and installation artist. Cerny creates works that are controversial, they are made to shock and confront the viewer and make them think about the meaning deeper meaning behind his works. Cerny's work Shark was banned from two galleries fearing it would upset some viewer.

Cerny's work Entopa is an artwork made up of many elements. Each shape with in the work is the shape of a country, with in each shape there are objects that represent the stigma of that particular country. The objects move and make noise.

In the work Shark, Cerny has appropriated a work from Damien Hirst, The pysical impossibilty of death in the mind of someone living. By appropriating this work it creates a deeper meaning for the work, as well as creating a political meaning for the work because of the sculpture inside the tank.
Cerny uses many different matterials to represent the ideas and purpose of his works.

Marcus Coates

A Ritual for Elephant and Castle was one of the Big works at Art Space and it was entertaining, wierd and unique. There were four screens that portrayed Coates getting spiritual and in touch with nature in the most unlikey of places, in the poorly developed areas of London. When I was watching this i thought it was a fictional humerous take on the struggels in this area but he is really serious and considers himself a Shamen (they can communicate with animals). Where i grew up in Dublin there were alot of these badly developed housing complexes so for me this was really entertaining to see someone so naieve and funny trying to tackle the problems of redevelopment.

A similar work is 'The melancholy of Dawn Chorus' (2007).

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

"The melancholy of Dawn Chorus is born of the solitary figures’ isolation, not only from the world of the birds and the beasts but also from each other. Deceptively, Coates’ real subjects are not the outdoors and the unknown but interiority and introspection. This is the true locus of ‘nature’ in the modern world, he seems to imply; not in the open spaces of the countryside, so obscured by cultural projection and anthropomorphism, but in the withered memory of something wild and ancient, buried deep within ourselves."
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/focus_marcus_coates/

Mind Life Art : Get into it.

Hi Everyone,

I thought you might be interested in getting involved in an art project I am working on:

'MIND LIFE ART'.

If you are interested in participating I will need 5 minutes of your time.

Event #1: You simply need to make a screen Grab of your desktop and send it to me.

If you have a Mac this can be done with the inbuilt software 'Grab' found here:
/Applications/Utilities/Grab.
Simply open software - go to Desktop, choose Capture then Screen to grab your entire desktop.

Save the file using your name then send - thats it (all readings will remain anonymous unless consent is given):

mindlifeart@gmail.com


What happens next?

These desktop images will appear on the Mind Life Art website with accompanying Mind Life Art Interpretative Readings.

I hope you will be able to take part in the esoteric activities of Mind Life Art - Event #1.

If you have any questions - please get in touch and feel free to pass this on!

Amanda.

Bie GNARLY

The 17th Biennale of Sydney is themed around "The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age" at first I didn't understand what it meant but with a little bit of help (thanks Amanda) it became more obvious to what it is alluding to.

'all art is folk art.'.....'fine' art and 'folk' art are here turned on their heads in an exhibition in which the only discrimination is whether the art is any 'good'

This is an interesting idea, but made me think: is this contradictory to say the only discrimination is whether the art is any 'good' and yet display the art work in certain groups? i.e. the Asia focus perhaps I need to see the rest of the exhibition?

There was one particular work that stood out to me which was Harry Smith's 'Film Number 12' this was the one displayed closest to the super deluxe bar. I had seen Smith's work before on youtube:

These types of experimental animations were made as far back as the mid 40's and are usually painted or

cut outs manipulated all by hand. They have elements of Dada and the Surrealists and also instantly reminded me of

Terry Gilliam who created the Monty Python animations.

Harry Smith was also an all round radical and was the inspiration for the Biennale theme. Apart from being

an artist he also collected historic recordings of early american folk music.

What a guy!!

I can't wait to see the rest of the biennale!

17th Biennale of Sydney-Visit to 'Artspace'

Finally!!! !!! first look of Sydney Biennale!!

It was interesting to visit Artspace and Art Gallery of NSW. The Art Gallery of NSW were all about 'focus on Asia', the works that represented different parts of Asia was fantastic. The most spectacular work that I personally liked were by Raquib Shaw 'The mild-eyed melancholy of the lotus eaters 111 (2009-10)'. The small details and colours were so beautiful and to see such vibrant colours on his work were amazing.

The works in Artspace were mostly based on video installation. It felt strange as I was surrounded by screens. The video installation of Hiraki Sawa "Out of the blue"(2008), was very peaceful, the sound of land, wind, bird, felt like standing on top of the mountain. There was a few repeated images in the video. The other screen that was behind me had a long-shot of the land where it was covered by snow and people were walking around. That part was strange but interesting to think why Hiraki Sawa captured that moment? does it represents the Japanese culture? was there reason to choose particular season?and so on. More research of different artists need to be done after all......!
In the end, the first sight of 17th Biennale of Sydney was FUN/INTERESTING/GREAT! but can't wait to visit other places!!! especially MCA!

Harm Van Den Dorpel

We briefly spoke about artists who have made art pieces that are meant only exist online.

http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/

When Harm van den Dorpels website started in 2005 it was mostly obscure web animations that he had created. His work has grown from being only on the web to being physical. Apart from that I dont really know anything about him! all I know is he is excellent!

His new stuff is pretty whacky but you will like it more when you see his old stuff

http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/work/animal_series

http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/work/highway

EXHIBITION VIEWING TOMORROW

Hi Everyone,

I am looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow on the steps of the AGNSW. I have attached links so you can find your way there.

Please email me if you have any queries.

IT IS THE OPENING WEEK OF THE BIENNALE PEOPLE - GET EXCITED!!!

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/aboutus/getting_here

Barthélémy Toguo | 17th Biennale of Sydney

Barthélémy Toguo | 17th Biennale of Sydney

Art and Narrative: Cindy Sherman

Unititled Film Still #14, 1978Cindy Sherman© Metro Picture Gallery & Cindy Sherman

By turning the camera on herself, Cindy Sherman has built a name as one of the most respected photographers of the late twentieth century. Although the majority of her photographs are pictures of her, these photographs are most definitely not self-portraits. Rather Sherman uses herself as a vehicle for commentary on a variety of issues of the modern world: the role of the woman, the role of the artist and many more. She is known for her carefully composed photographic tableaux that draw on such familiar genres as porn centrefolds, fashion photos and film noir. Posing as subjects who inhabit these genres. Her photos deliberately mimic certain genre conventions but in a manner that shows them as being slightly skewed. At the age of 23 she created a set of 69 "Untitled Film Stills", in which she dressed up as a strangely familiar yet unnamed actress in shots reminiscent of foreign films, B-movies and film noir. The black and white shots, which Sherman completed in 1980, launched her career.

“Sherman has a history of a kind of withdrawal, a market retreat--a production of images that dare the rich to buy them. But while that may be part of the story, it ascribes too simple a motivation to an artist who watches the people who interest her so intently, identifies with them so fully, that she temporarily becomes them.”(1)

 I do believe that Sherman relates to our SPI genre as not only enacts the characters that she mimics, but she has a quite sculptural aesthetic to her photos. 



More info:

(1) Frankel, David. "Cindy Sherman: Metro Pictures." Artforum International 47.6 (2009): 186. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 3 May 2010.
http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy2.library.usyd.edu.au/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A201622555&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=usyd&version=1.0

Art and The Narrative : Penny Byrne

Penny Byrne is an Australian artist born in Victoria 1965, and has studied both ceramics and glass conservation.

Last thursday on Art Scape (ABC), i came across Penny Byrne wose work i absolutley fell in love with.

As a proffesional ceramic conservator i appreciate her work all the more, as she essentially dismantles beautiful ceramic pieces and either re-esembles them in an almost kitch manner with modern parts, often splattering the final work with red paint to resemble blood.

I think it is incredibly hillerious and incredible that as a conservator, Penny Bryne is doing the exact opposite to conservation. You can imagine the reactions of her clients, facination, shock, hatred, and confusion.

The use of china figurines that are associated with their feminie beauty and fragility, essentially makes Brynes transformation so effective. Blunt, cutting edge and straight to the point are many of her works and yet others that are subtle are perhaps more effective. Adressing political and social issues both of the present and past, Brynes sulptures create an emotive response by the audience.

Hiroshi and his friends are having a whale of a time (2007)

Altered vintage figurine, plastic manga toys, epoxy resin, re-touching medium, powder pigments
30 x 20 x 10

Guantanamo Bay Souvenirs (2007)

Altered vintage porcelain figurines, metal chains, plastic gun, re-touching medium, powder pigments
variable

The Four Horsemen of 21st Century Apocalypse (2009)

(Water Scarcity, Peak Oil, Food Shortages, Over population)
Water - 66 x 44 x 24cm, Oil - 55 x 37 x 27cm, Food - 63 x 48 x 23cm, People - 52 x 40 x 22cm

Her aim:

"Is to entertain and educate. The pieces may seem fun and easy on the eye, but the issues I address are very important to me. I often feel helpless and frustrated by the enormity of problems facing the world. I hope my work will encourage people to at least think about some of these issues."

More info:

http://www.artwhatson.com.au/ssfa/penny-byrne

http://www.emotionadvertising.com.au/artworldmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=261:penny-byrne&catid=72:issue-4-uk&Itemid=37

James Tisdale & Chuck Aydlett: Art & Narrative

James Tisdale - 'Blue Monkey'

"My work, simply stated, is a visual journal. It is easier for me to construct throughts and expressions in a physical venue rather than by word. The work is an outward manifestation of my views toward the world around me. These expressions are highly influenced by many things, but mainly by my rural, devout upbringing in Mississippi. This in itself is a wec of contraditcions. I draw upon both the beauty, and the ufliness of this region and its impact. For me, it has been a rich soil to cultivate, pulling both disturbing and revealing aspects of my life. The work is just a channel to better understand the world and my place within it. The historical art influences on my work range from the figurative work of the Renaissance, the Kitsch work of the 30's and 40s, to the innocent God-felt work of southern folk art. My pieces are constructed with terra cotta earthenware by mehods of coiling and pinching. Once the form is established, the surfaces are then finished with several layers of both stains and glaze, which are taken through multiple oxidation firings of cone 03 temperature"

Chuck Aydlett - 'Two Heads are Better Than One'

Chuck Aydlett - 'Facebook Frivolity'

All I know about Aydlett is that he creates his sculptures by hand using press-molds, drawn on with glaze pencil and painted glaze work. I found his work distinctively narrative as the drawing within or behind the sculptures depict a story through different light shade and figures of emotion. The titles i thought were also quite narrative in themselves.

Art and popular culture

Jeff Koon
Balloon Dog
Is an American artist which is known for his giant reproductions of banal objects such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surface, often bright coloured as shown in the above image. Balloon dog is based on Balloons twisted into shape to make a toy dog. Koons sculpture differs in two major respects to the original. Its is made out of metal and is more than 10 feet high.

Art and Narrative: Martin Eichinger

“I am a narrative artist. The language I use is form and anatomy, but what I try to sculpt is romantic, emotional, and perhaps mythic art."

His works are mainly wax cast bronze sculptures and explores themes of the different aspects of a man's life.

MYTHIC MAN SERIES
Shows: Perseverance and achievement shown through the presence of gravity and the struggle against it.

Weight of the World, 28"
All Down Hill From Here, 16"
Bringing Down the House, 22"

http://www.eichingersculpture.com

Art and narrative

Matthew Ritchie

Proposition player 2003

He embarked on an outrageous undertaking, he set out to tell the story of everything from the bigband onward. Ritchie has created in the Proposition player a veritable casino, including a 100 foot long three dimensional drawing an interactive craps table with digital animation that invites viewers to roll the dice for the future of the universe. An enormous floor mosaic that invites viewers to walk into the surronding pieces of work and a deck of cards featuring Ritchie's cast of characters.

Art and Narrative

I found this image on the net there is no name of the artist nor name of the work stated on the site. I really liked this image.

Art and Representation

Matt Mullican

American artist born in 1951. His conceptual work are are grounded in the symbolic meaning of their individual elements.

Matt Mullicans art takes form as drawing, sculpture and installations which has been peforming since 1978 to investigate the nature of reality, behaviour and association, video painting etc. He shows some ellipses and balls in the above image.

Annotated Bibliography: Edward Kienholz

Hopps, Walter., Rosetta Brooks, Monte Factor, Jurgen Harten, Richard Jackson, Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Alberta Mayo, Thomas

McEvilley and Marcus Raskin. Kienholz A Retrospective. New York: Whitney Museum of America, 1996.

This book provides over 400 colour and black & white plates of Kienholz work including detailed catalogue essays for each piece. It feature

s detailed background about the subject’s character and his life in and out of the art world. Essays are included talk to the American social climate and the effect of location on his work. The plates are arranged in chronological order and there is a chronology by his wife.

Pincus, Robert L., On a Scale That Competes With The World:The Art of Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Los Angeles: University of California Press Berkeley, 1990.

The author of this large over arching essay delivers a historical context in this book and through his referencing places Kienholz work in amongst his east coast contemporaries such as Donald Judd and Tony Smith. In this book Pincus Stakes a claim for Kienholz as one of the most underrated post war artist And as he says in his introduction “...This study is a biography of their American work. I have Aspired to trace the

development of this oeuvre as it has taken place over the past three decades and more so we can better understand its marked contribution to both American art and art in general.”

Kienholz, Edward. The Art Show. Germany: Berliner Kunstlerprogramm/DAAD. 1977.

This book is the catalogue of a show Kienholz had after being invited to the Berliner Kunstlerprogramm/daad grant program. The text is structured as a diary in French, English and German and details specific instances form the ten years of the project. The work is meticulously documented in its creation to give a behind the scenes look at the process involved in this project.

art and narrative - kara walker

kara walker (b.1969 USA)

my complement, my enemy, my oppressor, my love

cut paper on wall

-

kara walker is an african-american artist who explores the subject and issues of race, gender, sexuality, power, violence, repression and history but in almsot friendly mannerism. Walker's unique style consisting of tableaux of black cut paper silhouette installations on wall appear almost like a bed-time stody telling shadows, like those of classic disney cartoon character peter pan's. however when you study the narrative told by these silhouette figures, the playful scenes turn into rather provocative, disturbing images which unveil and confronts the dark history of america regarding such issues.

http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker

Art & Narrative: Jose De Creeft

This week, I have taken the topic of Narrative in art quite literature-ly (get it?). This sculpture is derived from a very well known victorian children's book.

This sculpture is an image taken and appropriated straight from Lewis Carol's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', resides in Central Park, Manhattan. It was commissioned in 1959 by George T. Delacorte Jr., a NY publisher, in honour of his late wife. The artist was Jose De Creeft, a spanish artist who worked mainly in wood and bronze. This Particular sculpture is in Bronze.

Art and Narrative - ilya kabakov

"The man who flew into space from his apartment"
1985-88

Ilya Kabakov to me in a very interesting artist who incorporates and is inspired by narrative when it come to his works. Kabakov uses fictional biographies that he has written previously which has been derived from personal experience and uses them as inspiration or a starting point for his works. Kabakov has also written his memoirs of his childhood. He used these and his works to tell and show the story of the birth and death of the soviet union.
The work pictured "the man who flew into space from his apartment" was a risky project for him to do and after every show he would take all the posters in case the soviets did drop in and he would get caught.

"I built the installation The Man Who Flew into Space in the corner, I glued Soviet posters from inside of it and I would take it down after each showing for fear that they would drop in, understand, and that would be 'the end of everything." ~ Ilya Kabakov.

this work tells us the story of how controlling the soviet union was/is and it talks about to escape out of the union to some kind of freedom that hopefully would be better then where he was before trapped. And then all that is left is a bed a table and a very large hole in the ceiling which fills the installation with light (this is the light source that lights the work) thus suggesting to us that he was heading to wards something much better.

Dali/Walt Disney short film: Destino

Please watch this, it is really good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU_f2vqEgGM

This is a short film (6.47) that Salvador Dali and Walt Disney collaborated on in 1946, but never finished. 6 decades later, and the disney artists completed the film using Dali's storyboards.
This doesn't fit with our studio area, but I just found it really interesting and wanting to share it anyway. It has ties to Narrative art (as film usually does). The storyline is like Dali's paintings, very bizarre but very intersting, with a smooth shift from one sense of reality to another. Within the changing dimension we have a simple story of longing, love and loneliness. The film has no dialogue, but instead is empowered by a beautiful song (written by mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez), at times mournful and then triumphant.

The style of this story telling can be related to some postmodern literature, which abandons the concept of a linear narrative.
Art and Today comments on postmodern narrative, stating that art critic Craig Owens sees it as a form of allegory. Allegory allows multiple interpretations of events or characters to hold deeper meanings, which can be applied to Dali's art.