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Creative Practice

What I took away from the reading and the interview was the multiple different ways a person can be considered an artist. This seems like an obvious point but like William Kentridge said in the video, the best advice is something we already know and the advice just confirms it. Although I believe that anyone can be an artist, the video also brought up a good point about the question of what makes an artist, an artist. Should we even be questioning it? Can’t someone be allowed to just wake up one day and declare themselves an artist? With social media, it is so easy to be inspired to explore art, “Storms are contagious as well. So too is the creative process. Just as one storm feeds another, one person’s creative practice can feed the creativity of another person. Storm and creativity both have fluid, unclear boundaries.” (Leski 2). 

My favorite part of the reading was “Storms arise out of disturbance, and act to displace and destabilize. They gather energy and material. They gather force and direction. They propel and are propelled. They have consequences, from saturated ground to rainbows and all manner of other effects. And they have no discernible beginning or end. That is exactly what happens in the creative process.” (Leski 2). I think it relates a lot of what the artists in the video talked about, what makes an artist successful is staying true yourself. There is no one else in the world that has the same creative mind, so there is no need to try and please others. Not needing the approval of others is something I am slowly trying to get better at, what I should be concerned about is staying true to myself and not making any compromises.

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Socially Engaged Art

When I think of social practice, I think of it being more about lifestyle choices. It is not only about creating art, but also using the choices made in your art in real life. Socially practiced art becomes a lifestyle when it “engages people and confronts a specific issue” (Thompson 18). It does not fit into traditional artistic mediums, like drawing, painting, and sculpture. Socially engaged art is not considered an artistic movement, but instead a “new social order” (Thompson 21). The artists practicing this lifestyle may work with these mediums but the art is the message the artist puts out there.  The art is laying in the message. Looking at this practice historically, I think it is loosely related to Gutai. Some Gutai artists worked within the belief of coming up with the idea behind the piece but to let the viewers actually make the art, relating to “I went from being an artist who makes things, to being an artist who makes things happen -Jeremy Deller” (Thompson 17). “Making this happen” can come from activism, engagement, and/or creating art.

I chose to reflect on the Barefoot Artists’ Rwanda Healing Project (2004-). I wanted to read into this piece because it took the events in Rwanda and its aftermath and worked towards creating a program to promote the cultural, economic, and environmental development in the area. While working within the village, they worked to establish parks, sculptural pieces, and murals to replace the mass grave sites and rundown campsites. I liked how the community was directly involved with Barefoot Artists to work towards bettering their community. Working within my definition of socially engaged art, the work of Barefoot Artists is socially practiced.

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Net Art

When I think of the internet, I think of the present and the idea of something being here forever. The idea of the “omnipresence of the internet” (Medium 7) drives home the belief that the internet is full access for the rest of time. The internet is also always changing and the internet we know now, will not be the same in a few years. Similar to the internet, art can be timeless and always evolving; there are art history classes centered around the art that came out of the Renaissance and part of the class is about why we don’t make art like that anymore. Most art can be categorized within movements, meaning a movement becomes outdated then the next one pops up. By merging the two together to create Net Art, the art falls within the possibility of becoming outdated while still being accessible 15 years later.  

I like the idea of Net Art. I think it removes the elitism from art making and adds a new type of skill set so it’s not just the traditional painting and sculptures. By making art through technology, it raises the question of what makes a net artist? Do they need painting or drawing skills or can they just be skilled with computers? Why isn’t it as respected as other art? The artist Claudia Hart works to break the division of art and tech by bringing together the conceptual and critical thinking component of art while also embracing technology.  With the world literally being forced to stop, having Net Art still available gives us all access to art when we cannot physically go see it.

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Dada

There is a clear influence of Dada in contemporary art. The creation of Dada was an avenue for anyone to express their feelings towards war, the government, and/or the institution of art. Like the pieces in the Crafting Democracy show are a direct response to the current political climate and violent acts directed towards POC and religious groups. Crafting Democracy does not have the same formal qualities of Dada but there is a similar way of making sense of what is happening in the world by creating art. (Baines 2016)  

Art coming out of the Dada movement is not as clear as the quilts and weavings because Dada artists chose to turn away from conventional artistic materials and language. Similar to what we have discussed in class about the institution of the White Cube, Dada refused to sit quietly and make art for the upper class. Both Dada and contemporary art goes along with the notion of art not needing to be seen as beautiful and can be created by anyone with the want to make a statement. With Dada art, it might be preferred to have no prior art education meaning truly anyone can participate in make Dada-like art. This allows more freedom when cutting things out and arranging the order, in the context of artistic material and language. There is no institution holding the artist back from making.

What I found the most interesting when listening to the show was the talk about how it is believed that to make an impact, the art needs to be recognized by the institution which goes against the core belief system of Dada. I understand that to reach a wider audience, having traditional museums and galleries show the art helps but can’t art live completely outside art institutions?

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Spiritual Symbolism

While Af Klint’s works were abstract, they were focused on the oneness of  human beings and an exploration of the invisible nuances of the universe. This is similar to how Elijah Burgher works/explores art, his artworks and even tattoos work within “the creation and purpose of each symbol is meant to manifest a specific intent or outcome.” (Griffis 2018).  Relating to Burgher to Af Klint, both make their art to represent a great purpose. Af Klint blended organic with geometric shapes and added lettering to reflect on the infinite possibilities of developing the universe (Universal Pictures: The Art of Hilma Af Klint 4-5). Similar to how Af Klint was aware of her how a person takes up spaces, Burgher’s art also “shows us that we are allowed to be in tune with our bodies and where we take them and what we do with them” (Griffis 2018). Both artists are able to take extremely abstract and “invisible” concepts and create art with them.

I had briefly heard about Hilma Af Klint in an art history class but never knew about her impact on the art world. In the film, it discussed how Af Klint wasn’t afraid to take her work into the abstract world while other male artists were more timid to jump into the world of abstraction and did not reach true abstraction until their later works. Relating back to the treatment of female artists in the art world, it is unfortunately not that surprising that while Af Klint was working with new abstractions ahead of her male contemporaries, artists like Kandinsky were receiving the recognition for pioneering abstraction.

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crafting democracy response

​I’m not sure why, but I was intimidated going into to setting up the show. The only experience I have with setting up a show is from the student show we have in the spring, so I did not know what to expect. Having this show be the first one I actually had a hand in installing worked well because it was so collaborative and free. While setting everything up, I thought a lot about how craft, like quilting and weaving, should be as respected in the art world as painting and sculpture. The pieces included in the show skill and concept, why shouldn’t they be in gallery spaces as much as other traditional art? There was a lot of creative freedom in how pieces were to be hung and where we wanted to put them. This show felt different from a traditional gallery show because we were not just hanging painting on a wall or a sculpture on a pedestal, but there were dress forms and quilts suspended from the ceiling.

Because the pieces ranged from scarves and quilts to figurines and wall hangings, there was a lot of consideration taken in how pieces were being hung. We had to take into account how the audience would viewing it and did not want to hide anything. If the quilts had two sides, they would need to be hung from the ceiling and the dress forms needed to be placed in a way that viewers could walk around to see the back. Walking through a gallery, the focus is in the art and not the work that goes into installing. I was surprised at how much improvising goes into it, like experimenting with hanging materials and the trial and error that goes into hanging. Having to hang something and then have to take it down because it does not fit into that space would normally be frustrating, but in this case there is the feeling of accomplishment when you finally figure out the right space for a piece. It was hard getting up on ladder to tie fishing line but it was an exciting feeling once I stepped down and saw the quilt hanging there.

​Being up close and spending so much time with the pieces, I have greater appreciation for the art included in the show. I was able to see details the artists put into making everything. The show being “Crafting Democracy” meant the theme was clearing political and a lot the focus being on Trump and the government handling of female reproductive rights and racism. The craft aspect coming from the wide range of mediums and artists adds to the idea of these feelings of disgust towards the government’s action being universally felt.

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Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?

Being a feminist and then reading the beginning of Nochlin’s piece, I still realize I do some of the things that cement the notion of the art world being male dominated. If the artist’s preferred pronoun is not known, it is “unconsciously accepted” to automatically refer to the artist as he / him / his (Nochlin 4). As I read, I got mad at myself for doing that occasionally but I can now make a conscious effort to break from gender dominating art. Along with assuming the gender of an artist, viewing a female artist’s work as being strictly biographical becomes problematic. In my Performance and Installation art history, we discussed the work of Yayoi Kusama and how her work is viewed compared to her male contemporaries. The male artists had their art seen only through their concepts and craftmanship but Kusama’s pieces were interpreted through her personal life and mental health. Kusama created her immersive environments for similar purposes as artist Robert Morris and Ronald Bladen, to break from traditional art making and make what they want. Did Kusama living in a psychiatric hospital and her traumatic past have any influence on her art? Maybe, but that should not be the only why it is interpreted.

Again, there is a divide between masculine and feminine art forms. The feminine art forms tend to be lesser appreciated, like needlework and crocheting, and are considered more like craft than art. I never understood why craft is considered low art, shouldn’t art be open to whatever an artist is wanting to make? In 2020, the conversation of  gender being a social construct can challenge this notion of masculine and feminine art making. Without the divide between male and female in society, there would be no separation in the art world.

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Culture for Sale

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Culture for Sale

Gen Pietrusinski, Faithe Bey, Dan Lerch, & Olivia Torres-Fields

Our group is interested in current issues museums are having regarding stolen art. The arguments of ownership and restitution are brought up in these prices we have constructed with images from the Davis Gallery African Collection. We discovered these pieces were being sold on sites like ​Etsy ​and small home decor sites. These pieces have cultural and religious significance.

By including strong words from articles surrounding this topic we wanted to give the viewers a sense of the conversations that are taking place all over the world. People are now speaking up about big establishments, like museums, looting artifacts so they can display them and ignore their past. We chose to display our pieces like they were part of an auction to show the commercialization of culture.

Sources: Geoffrey Robertson. From ​It's time for museums to return their stolen treasures. ​CNN, 2020

Female Standing Figure 

African, Bambara, Mali 

Wood 365 cm h.

Akuaba Doll African, Akan, Ghana Wood 28 cm h. Gift of John Barkham

Antelope Headdress 

African, Senufo, Ivory Coast

Wood

51 cm h. Gift of Gerald Frank

Kpelie Mask African, Senufo, Ivory Coast

Wood 

35 cm h.

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Marxism and Feminism

Marxist writing brings up the idea that art should not be placed in “ivory towers”, which I assume are galleries and museums, but belong to society in a larger context. If art should be more accessible, then it should represent the society it belongs to, meaning it should display moral, social, and economic factors. Creating art for art’s sake ignores these factors and goes against the move towards art needing to make a statement. Without using the cultural and historical context, art will not have the same impact, like one cannot make Grecian art without looking at Greek mythology (Adams 66). Bringing Marxism and feminism into art can lead to this type of art. These themes create a reaction against the formalist conventions of art making and introduce new iconography (Adams 65). 

The work of Kehinde Wiley is tied to breaking formalism and traditional iconography by his juxtaposition of a bright and flowery wallpaper like background with POC placed in front. Wiley observes what is going on around him to get inspiration for his art, like sitting and watching a London marketplace (Wrathall 2020). This observation is related to Marx’s writing about art because of its direct ties to the community “Karl Marx argued for tying the art to the culture that produced it. On the assumption that past cultural conditions cannot exactly be replicated, Marx believed that the production of art necessarily depended on its immediate context.” (Adams 66). Wiley’s painting of President Obama reflected the time Obama was in office, it made him relatable and took away the elitism of a presidential portrait. Like Marxists believe, Wiley looked at the context of past presidential portraits but also looked towards the future of the genre. 

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Marxism (Money/Power/Culture)

 I do believe that art and artists are influenced by social class, attitudes, and current events. Even if the artist does not intentionally add these influences, the viewer will naturally affix their own subjective experiences onto the art, “Whatever the class or social values held and manifested by the artist, their motivation or cause will lie in the alienation which afflicts art and social life (Baxandell & Morawski 25). Two people of different social classes and backgrounds may look at the exact same piece of art and experience it completely differently. I also think that most art is in response to something. An artist takes an idea and their end piece is the response, so it makes sense for art in present times to be in a direct response. It is impossible to get away from stories about racism, police brutality, and corrupt politicians. 

In art’s past, artist’s were persecuted for their work causing them to move to politically neutral locations or disguise their beliefs in abstractions. In today’s world, freedom of speech protects artists but living the life of an artist can still be dangerous, “But in striving for ideological clarity and an ethical rigor, they risk neglect of some of the specific resources of art.” (Baxandell & Morawski 26). Marxists believed art needed a purpose and there was no need for “art for art’s sake.” Art was meant to fit into three categories that followed the idea that art needed to have a meaning behind it (Baxandell & Morawski 27). While I do think art typically has a purpose, sometimes art is just created to be expressive and should not be put into a box. 

I have read about Marxism in history classes and have only had it briefly mentioned in art history classes. I wonder why Marxism theories are not taught more in art because of the connection between Marxist writings on how social class struggles have affected history and how art history is a part of that same history (Fair-Schulz 2019).

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Crimp, The Museum’s Old

Taking photography out of the documentation and information realm and moving it into the gallery world is only possible if everyone sees it as an art form, “the issue of photography as an art of the copy rather than the original is a central issue.” (Crimp 8). Photography, used as documentation, is often classified by where and what is being photographed but to be in the same space as paintings and sculptures, having the photographs be identified by their artists would possibly place them on the same level in the eyes of museums and galleries (Crimp 9). When I think about photography, I think about how the photographer was purposeful in what they decided to capture. If the photographer decided this image was important enough, maybe the viewer should spend more time trying figure out that importance. Breaking through the walls of a gallery means breaking down the conventions of displaying art. Having photography be issued as an art genre challenges the elitism of traditional galleries, this is done by taking away the one of a kind quality of the pieces. Photography allows pieces to be easily distributed and reproduced, while this removes the notoriety of having rare art, it creates the possibility of smaller galleries giving a variety of viewers access to art they, otherwise, might not see. Making art more accessible “contaminates” the exclusivity of exhibitions and the illusion art creates, photography gives a peek at the real world and this brings viewers back to reality (Crimp 11). Photography does not need to abide by any set of rules and the action itself is accessible, meaning there is a wide range of artistic viewpoints and themes that may not be seen in a painting. The capability of capturing a moment in real time is a quality that can only be accomplished in photography.  

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The studio in relation to the gallery

In Oliveira, Oxley, and Price’s piece, A Book of Burning Matches: Collecting Installation Art Documents, the idea of having the gallery also be used as a studio space breaks from the stereotypical museum environment, quiet and full of older pieces usually created by white men. Moving the creation of art into a gallery instead of just showcasing the art, can breathe new life into a potentially stuffy space. The history of the gallery space is added to the art placed inside, “Every change in location introduces new relationships and extends the discourse…” (Oliveira, Oxley & Price 83), so the artist's decisions are not the only thing going into the final product. An artist’s studio environment can influence the end product and since every gallery has its own audience and vibe, it plays a role in how the piece is received.

Relating to how a gallery can influence the art world, Maurice Berger’s piece,  Are Art Museums Racist? Art in America, discusses how that with the influence of current events on art, museums should be a diverse space for viewers to be exposed and confronted with new ideas. Instead of making permanent changes to who they are including their collections, museums are focused on “separate-but-unequal programming’: African-American shows in February, during Black History Month, white shows the rest of the year.” (Berger 146). Museums are keeping on the trend of performative activism happening on social media, only having a few BIPOC artists surrounded by a constant flow of white artists is similar to people posting images about change but not following up with action. While it should not be their responsibility to bring awareness to the oppression they have always faced, there are many obstacles in place that stop artists of color from creating diverse spaces. To become an accredited museum, which leads to future funding, they need to be financially stable and how can there be stability without funding (Berger 148)? The problem of racism in museums cannot be fixed until there are BIPOC in “policy-making positions” (Berger 150) and are a bigger part of permanent collections.

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What is art for/to you?

I have always used art as way to give myself a louder voice. Along with creating, I have discovered artists who have exposed me to subjects and topics I would not learn about in classes. Art has given me a way to step outside of the box and express thoughts I would usually not say out loud. I struggle with anxiety and creating art has always been something I felt comfortable with. Although the process of making art does still stress me out, like having deadlines or having to start a piece over, I still feel confident in my abilities and the outcome of end products which is something I struggle with in other aspects of life.

Art is typically classified as a creative outlet for all people, artistic or not, allowing people to remove themselves from the outside and enter another world. If your words are not being heard, making can cause a larger impact. My belief of what art is for is constantly changing, I have my need for it and another person could be creating for a completely different reason. Like right now with all the racism and injustices we are seeing unfold, I think art is allowing creators to express political frustrations when they cannot find the words.

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Jan Brandt, Happy Contagion, 2018, recycled fabrics