m-alexgarcia-blog

[m-alexgarcia-blog]

Post-Modernism

Barbara Kruger. I Shop Therefore I Am. 1987

We see a strong graphic design influence in Barbara Kruger’s I shop therefore I am. Regardless, her practice of editing found photographs and creating provocative phrases has led her to inform our culture of our materialistic ways.

I shop therefor I am uses visual strategies that she has appropriated from mass advertisements. It’s statement subverts the philosophical claim of “I think therefore I am” - therefore what you buy makes who you are.

Moreover, her research on ideological messages and their meaning in mass media dramatically bring in the attention of large audiences. This is important because more and more people being understanding the notion of our existence as consumers rather than a human agency and how it shapes our identity.

After all, many believe one’s value and identity is based on the surface appearance — the labels and purchases you wear.

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Tino Sehgal. This Is So Contemporary (2003) German Pavilion of the 2005 Venice Biennale

This performance art piece uses doesn't use “performers” at all. Instead, the people performing the piece are “interpreters” who create a fleeting event that cannot even be recorded. Sehgal’s instructions for the piece was that there couldn't be any recordings of the event – it is meant to be a special memory for us to cherish. 

Tino Sehgal has focused on the “equalising” the relationship between the artist and the public. He does so by showing viewers what is “so contemporary” -- a term often confused and misunderstood because of the diversity of styles and mediums it encompasses.

This is So Contemporary features visitors who’ve been chosen at random to dance and sing, “This is so contemporary, this is so contemporary…”

Although there’s been a lot of critical analysis of Sehgal’s work, I personally believe it’s hard to argument that This Is So Contemporary goes beyond entertainment.

The conceptual concept of This is So Contemporary is noteworthy because of its abstract idea, but I haven’t experienced it the same way I react to street performer hassling a passer-by. I think this is where it fails. 

One thing is for sure, its a damn provocative piece. 

[m-alexgarcia-blog]

The Rise of Video Art 

Martha Rosler. Semiotics of the Kitchen. 1975. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm5vZaE8Ysc

Semiotics of the Kitchen is a feminist parody video and performance piece. The 6 minute long video critiques traditional women roles in today’s society.It is probably one of the most boring videos I’ve seen but I have to give Rosler merit for critiquing the social problems of our culture

She starts of by showing kitchen utensils in alphabetical order. She does it in a style similar to straight TV features. Surely, she elevates her artistic strategy by she locating herself concretely in her work.

There is a strong power structure throughout the video of domination and submission that can be analyzed within the comic, social, and political worlds we live in.

I believe this comical show successfully addresses the issues inherent with “the Woman in the kitchen” by showing women their “instrumentalized position”. Moreover, she allows women to see the irony of their ascribed roles in society and how it should be changed.

Ultimately, her research and representation of white-male dominance bring consciousness to women viewers. 

[m-alexgarcia-blog]

Photo Creds: Power, Politics, and Globalism

Ai WeiWei. Sunflower Seeds. 2010-11. Installation at Tate Modern. London. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7UcuYiaDJ0

“Sunflower Seeds” by artist Ai Weiwei is made up of 100 million hand-painted sunflower seeds that cover a vast part of the floor in Turbine Hall. It’s about 4 inches deep and visitors are encouraged to step right in. Some visitors even bury themselves in the sunflowers.

The seeds are cast in porcelain and are painted with a liquid clay, then fired. This process leaves each rock with a matte finish that look identical to that of a real sunflower seed.

Each sunflower is unique, like a grain of sand or fingerprint. I love this work because Weiwei created a singular statement with a hundred million tiny objects. The sunflowers represent our everyday life, hunger, collective work and a prospering Chinese industry. Truly, its a masterpiece of great simplicity and complexity. Weiwei does an incredible job of representing a dialogue about the social and cultural place of art.

And although “Sunflower Seeds” might appear strange and somewhat weird, WeiWei understands his place as an artist. Moreover, he acknowledges that his work exists in a place of social, cultural and economic relations.

The best part is that everyone can get participate in the work and therefor participate in his political art and movement. I find it oddly moving and beautiful.

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Contemporary Approaches to Painting

Gerhard Richter. Untitled. 2005. Oil on canvas.  50 cm x 70 cm. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF4SAmtCyLg

What is contemporary painting with Gerhard Richter?

Untitled embraces the chance effects and mistakes during Richter’s artistic process. Moreover, the viewers attention gravitates to the density of the oil pigment and material nature of the painting.

Interestedly, this completely abstract work, evokes my personal emotions and leaves traces of the painters personality.

The many layers, strokes, and scrapes of colour are beautiful. This is the same beauty can be found within the simplicity and complexity of nature.

If we really study Untitled closely, we can make further connections with the unpredictable occasions of pure chance that we have encounter our own life.

It is these actions of outside forces that make Untitled so amazing.

[m-alexgarcia-blog]

Sound Art

Janet Cardiff. The Forty Part Motet. 2001.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXBia5kuqY

The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff is one of my favourite Sound Art pieces. It consists of 40 separately recorded voices that are played back through 40 speakers strategically placed throughout a space. They are placed in an oval shape. 

The placement and quantity of speakers allow us to experience music from the perspective of singers. This is truly magical because we can better appreciate every performer and hear their unique effect on the music.  

Moreover, Cardiff allows us to move through the space with great intimacy. We experience a closer connection with all the different voices. More interestingly, the 40 separate recordings also reveal how the music is an ever changing construct of art. This allows viewers to investigate the sculptural accepts of The Forty Part Motet by enabling us to choose a path through the space.

It is my favourite piece because you can hear the music jumping around and echoing from singer to singer. It’s an overwhelming experience that I haven't felt with any other art piece. The sounds waves hit you and there is nothing more to do but surrender and enjoy the sculptural journey.

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Sensory Experience, Spectacle, and Immersion

Olafur Eliasson. The Weather Project. Turbine Hall at the Tate. London, England. 2003.

The weather project in Turbine Hall is arguably Eliasson’s most popular installation. Visitors were utterly amazed and in-awe of the dazzling sun that confronted them — especially in the middle of the ugly London winter that was just outside space they stepped into.  

The shinning void of colour is outlined by mist. And as viewers walked down the long Turbine Hall, they experience a whole range of expectations and emotions.

Illusions of the bright sun are shattered when they discover the technical components that Eliasson created for the spectacle. This discovery feels like they’ve seen the hidden face of the sun.

Regardless of its construction, its effect of viewers in mesmerizing. Eliasson helps us understand the influence climate has on social effects.

Ultimately, weather is so fundamental to shaping our society that no one can argue its effect on the political, cultural and emotional aspects of our life. The weather project is a true example of sensory experience and immersion.

[m-alexgarcia-blog]

Earth Art, Land Art, Earthworks

Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty. 1970. Earthwork. Salt Lake Utah.

Smithson started to produce Earthworks in 1970; Spiral Jetty was one of his best know pieces. Spiral Jetty is an incredible coil of rocks that’s placed the on coloured waters of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

As a viewer, much of our experience is effected by the space around the art object. This couldn't be more true when experiencing Spiral Jetty.

The particular combinations of colours in the lake evoke a ruined or polluted sci-fi effect. Smithson calls our attention to “environmental blight” by purposefully inserting the work in a damaged ecological area.

His emphasis on time and the transformation of environment connects us with a world outside our four, white gallery walls. We can reflect on our interests in science, geology and simply our presence in time and space.

I have never walked around the Spiral jetty myself. However, walking counter-clockwise around the coil has prompted others to think about cosmology. Truly, a masterpiece of today modern art world.

[m-alexgarcia-blog]

Sol Le Witt. Incomplete Cube. 1974

“Incomplete Cube” is one in a series of works that Sol Lewiit is known for. It’s created by a cube frame structure; some edges are removed so that the structure appears more three-dimensional. This structure can be rotated in space and transformed into an identical partner of the first structure.

The concept of the incomplete cube was to formulate language of graph theory.

This allows us to mentally reconstruct and complete the cube from the remaining parts. I believe such an absolutely and logically mind set can deprive a work of art of any subjective and artistic research involving composition or expression.

However, in Sol Lewiit’s own terms, he is successful in allowing “the idea become a machine that makes the art”. As a contemporary artist, what else can you ask for? The work makes us respond purely to an idea.

[m-alexgarcia-blog]

Robert Rauschenberg. Erased de Kooning Drawing. 1953.

This piece by Robert Rauschenberg explores the limits and the very definition of art. He reinforced that he is a creator or ideas — a similar concept first  approached by Marcel Duchamp.

The simple frame and understated transcription of Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953) are the integral parts of the whole piece. Is it possible that he successfully completed an artwork sole by removing marks?

As the MOMA noted, “the finished piece offers an indication of the psychologically loaded act central to its creation”. The piece would be very confusing without the inscription; you’d simple have no idea of its meaning.

Surely, the power and allure of Rauschenberg’s artwork stems from our curiosity go the unseen and from the perplexing nature of Rauschenberg’s decision to erase a de Kooning. One can only wonder, what it an act of destruction, provocation or humour? Regardless, its mystery opens up the floor to many present and future interpretations.

I for one, think its a humour celebration about the continuation of art and where it has led us.