Art and Globalism + Art and it's Institutions

Questions, thoughts, and responses...

#1
"...Globalism is just a code word for the Westernization of non-Western cultures. Some critics charge that globalism charges homogenization, while others argue that it reinforces the value of local concerns, histories and identities."
I think globalism has done both. I think it has opened doors that were once sealed shut. It has helped us to understand and learn of new cultures, religions, lifestyles and people. However, at the same time, it has created a sort of flat world where things have started to intermingle and mix together. It is hard to look at an artists work and try to decide where that artist might have come from. Or even to look at a person and understand their background. Whether that is good or bad I can't say, but the loss of cultural awareness and identity is frightening and sad at the same time.


Yinka Shonibare Deep Blue


Yinka Shonibare The Sleep of Reason ~ Asia and Africa


Daphne Diallo - Title Unknown

#2 "While critiquing globalism, some artists also find ways to exploit systems of global exchange and communication for their own purposes. Yet others reflect on their own changing status within a globalized universe. For some this means an examination of post-colonial realities, for others a reflection on their own condition as global nomads. For all of these artists, the ambiguous legacy yields a new understanding of the individuals place in the world." (pg 295 Art and Today)
With the invention of the internet, and the click of a button, we can open up entirely new and foreign doors. I can visit the Met while still in my pajamas. I can access the library, long after it has closed. I can also study and learn of new cultures without ever leaving my house. If I do decide to go visit these new lands, the internet makes that easier too! I can book flights, hotels and entire vacations faster than ever before.
This technology brought with it a vast new collection of information, and since then we have become an internet greedy society. We want everything, and we want it now. As artists if we need to know about an artist, we hit up search engines and read quick blurbs about them. The internet has also allowed us to display our work. Although a jpeg image is never as good as the real thing, it is something that Monet, or Picasso, never would have had to deal with. For us it is now an everyday part of our lives. You want to get in a show? Send a PDF. You want to show your work? Send a JPEG. It has sped things up in a sense but also requires us to be internet and computer savvy. Technology has not overlooked the art world.

#3 "There is no art without those who speak the language of the artworld... The world has to be ready for certain thinks, "Danto wrote nearly forty years ago, "the artworld no less than the real one. " (Pamela M. Lee "Boundary issues: the art world under the sign of globalism - Critical Essay". ArtForum)
The art world hast to be ready for all things. The world wasn't ready for 911, but the entire world responded. Indonesia and the surrounding countries weren't ready for the 2004 Tsunami and Haiti wasn't ready for an earthquake earlier this year, but the world responded. Artists and others alike. I don't think that we can be completely ready for everything. No matter whether it is a natural disaster or come new technological phenomenon. However, we can respond in positive and reassuring ways, and learn about the ever changing future that lies ahead of us.



Jake Beckman Transformation
"The tidal wave transformed so many lives. I found myself avoiding the TV so as not to become as transfixed as I was after 9-11, but I had to do something, therefore I got out the biggest canvas I had and began painting. In the end there are more than 160 birds in this painting in addition to the screaming seagull in the foreground. I wanted the point of this work to be clear, hence my visual allusion to Hokusai's Great Wave, which is an image recognizable to most people." -Jake Beckman
This artist, although not as widely known as Dittborn or Meireles has responded in his own way about what was happening in the world at that time. Brought to him via CNN and a million on the news networks these things begin to plague our mind and as artists we have to find ways of controlling and channeling our emotions.
Dittborn and his airmail painting also addressed a time when he as an artist and human being needed to find a way to deal with the suppression that was going on around him. Instead of getting sucked in he found a way out by creating artwork that could be airmailed possibly a way of getting himself out of the situation piece by piece.




#4 "It is not the object in its self but rather the context in which it is seen that determines whether or not something is considered art." (Pg. 348 Art and Today)
I think that the way people see objects is different. I consider myself to have an easy, laid back sense of humor when it comes to dealing with life and even art. However, those who take themselves too seriously might have a different reaction to the same piece of art. For example. The Pink Football by James Jaxxa, is covered in pink sequins, which ultimately destroys it actual purpose, of being able to be thrown around and tossed in the mud. The fact that it is in pink, which is usually associated with girls, also add a playful jest to the piece of work. I imagine that if a serious football player found that instead of the old leather footballs they used to sell in the store were replaced with this new pink sequined version, he would be utterly upset.
I also think that if I were standing in a museum next to this football player, he would be griping and moaning about what art actually is. Unless, he too could laugh at the parody of the piece. I think pieces like this have to be looked at with a bit of "everything goes" attitude.


James Jaxxa Pink Football

#5 "Avant-garde is always connected to the ruling class ... very sustenance depends on attracting purchases by the elite, a cold reality that sets up an unavoidable clash between the myth of avant -garde artists' radical freedom and the reality of their entanglement in a world of status." (Pg. 347 Art and Today)
The idea that an artist must always be accepted by the elite social class isn't a new one. It is true that many of those elite and high class individuals of privileged backgrounds can change our lives with a simple purchase. However, the entanglement happens, in my opinion, when the artists get a taste for money, becoming greedy. The line is crossed from enjoying the radical freedom from "the man" that we often claim to enjoy. Instead that is where we would find our boss, our shackles, and our deterrents from actually focusing on what it is we want to make, instead, we would start thinking of what it is people want to buy.

Questions, thoughts, and responses...

#1
Why have there been no great women artists? Who says there haven't? There are numerous women who are in their own rights great. The problem is that they are under appreciated, and
under studied. The fact of the matter is that there were less of them, during a male dominated society, so many of them had to fight their way to the top.
"According to tradition, in the past a woman's place was in the home, she was under the tutelage, first of her father and then of her husband. Her main duties were to be a wife, a mother, and then run a household. If a woman escaped these duties to become a artist it was an exception to the rule
Today there are many great women artists. It was only in the 20th century when the mass of women became eligible (legally as well as culturally) to receive the highest levels of artistic training. So this brings us to the problem we face today, copyrights. Most great women artists are under the protection of copyrights and their estates have chosen not to allow their images to be used."
http://www.mystudios.com/women/women.html



Jenny Saville


Ana Mendieta
#2
Nochlin writes: "It is certainly not realistic to hope that a majority of men in the arts or in any other field will soon see the light and find that it is in their own self-interest to grant complete equality to women, as some feminists optimistically assert or to maintain that they are diminished by denying themselves access to traditionally feminine realms and emotional reactions."
In Feb 2007 she was interviewed by by Barbara A. MacAdam of ArtNews and was asked:
Where do you believe feminism stands today?
to which she replied, "I think we’ve made a lot of progress. I know it’s not fashionable to admit it, but I’m just stating a fact. I think women artists occupy a better position today than they did 30 or 35 years ago. Some of the best artists in every medium are women. The problem is to make collectors, museums, and curators who aren’t really up on things see that there are many great women artists. There are collectors and curators who—out of habit, laziness, or even misogyny—simply don’t bother with women. But that’s happening less and less frequently as women begin to occupy the most prominent places in the art world as creative artists. I mean, who wouldn’t think of collecting Louise Bourgeois? You’d be crazy if you didn’t. Which brings me to ask, do we, as women, have to be accepted by men to be considered great artists?

#3
Another question posed to Nochlin by MacAdams was"But the situation for women has changed in terms of the art itself.
Her reply, "Yes, in terms of expectations, in terms of what’s out there in the galleries. I’m going to point out, too, that the trope of “woman as exception” has always been popular. You think of people like Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun or Mary Cassatt or Berthe Morisot or Rosa Bonheur—probably one of the most popular artists of the 19th century—or of Georgia O’Keeffe, arguably the best-known woman artist in the United States. They’re not very highly respected in vanguard circles. People don’t know exactly what to do with “women as exception.” They’re like some odd bird out there that has done something unusual."
Why is it that they don't know what to do with women as artists? why are they not accepted, is our gender still oppressed? how can it be overcome? What do we do to overcome the obstacle of being a women in the art field? Is it possible that with more and more women entering the field that it could be overturned. Many more women are being trained in the arts and going on to teach. Could it be that the future male artists with female teachers will be more accepting and open to the idea of great women artists? Do we care if they aren't?

#4
"The physicality and seeming absurdity of Kalman's activities conjure the familiar unease of canonized performance art, but she leaves us wanting as she gives us only a close and cropped and artfully composed frame filled with pink skin and implements." (American Craft Oct/Nov '09) This same "absurdity" is becoming ever increasingly popular. I am often reminded of a scene from a Jim Carrey movie, Liar Liar, in which he mutes him self in many various ways. Although his are for laughs and humor many artists have taken it very seriously and a step further, intriguing us with their processes and ideas - through the same absurdity as Kalman - Such as artist Charlie Roberts. One would ask, why would someone knowingly and willingly hurt themselves, for beauty? For expression? Or Art? It is quite possible that it might be all three.

#5
"The precious pins transform the afflictions into aesthetically pleasing adornment..."
This idea leads us only to investigate further into this "aesthetically pleasing" modification of the body. I ask, at what point is this no longer a modification but rather a mutilation? Although they are becoming more and more common, and accepted, piercings and tattoos, used to have symbolic meanings to various tribes and peoples throughout the world. Do they still carry with them these symbolic references? Although they were once considered statements of rebellion they have now become mainstream. With the acceptance of these rituals becoming mainstream, are they still considered rebellious?

Yanonmami Indian, Amazonian Rain forest.


model turned artist Veruschka

model turned artist Veruschka

photograph “Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints — Face),” above, made in 1972 by Cuban-American performance artist Ana Mendieta,


Charlie Roberts


Artist Unknown


Artist Unknown








The history of all times, and of today especially, teaches that... women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves.
Louise Otto-Peters

Art and Abstract / Trans Post Humanism

Thoughts questions and insights...

First thought...
In his chapter on Abstract art now, Mr. Varnedoe states "...the less there is to look at, the more you have to look, the more you have to be in the picture."
I completely agree. I think that some of the most intriguing and mind boggling pieces are those which give you very little information. Before abstract art pictures were narratives that told stories, which didn't always leave much room for the viewers imagination. With the invention of abstract art we now have one piece that can have more than one meaning to more than one viewer.

Robert Ryman
Untitled. 1965. Oil on linen, 11 1/4 x 11 1/8" (28.4 x 28.2 cm). Fractional gift of Werner and Elaine Dannheisser

#2
Varnedoe continues on in his text with a lot about Pollock. Almost as if Pollock is the godfather of abstract art. He compares much of what is happening and has happened since Pollock's time. He writes "A better model for abstraction is perhaps the hypertext, where the line between "A" and "B" goes out in a million possible and ever more complex directions."
Is he implying that Pollock is point "A"? Assuming that to be true, then who is to say that the line drawn ends at "B" - couldn't it go onto "C" or possibly to "Z"? When looking back at how many people were influenced by Pollock, whether or not they wanted to be, it could be an impossible and infinite number, to which several letters could be applied to a single point-- assuming we still want to use letters to mark these points!

"Jack the Dripper" at work.


Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist),1950, National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1976.37.1 (Click image or hotlink below to enlarge - 446 k)

#3
"...abstraction has everything to do with what the viewer brings to it and nothing to do with what is there before us."
Each of us looks as abstract art with different eyes, different opinions. What some would call beautiful, an artist might say was intended to be ugly. What others would call art, others would call garbage. Abstracting art will only have meaning to people who want to find a meaning, sometimes studying a particular artist and knowing their intention behind the art helps the viewer to empathize and understand the art, sometimes even understand the artist. However, just as "there is no controlling what one might see in a Rorschach blot" there is no controlling what one might see in an abstract work. Just as there is no one to say that this or that isn't art.

Terry Winters
Tokyo Notes, 2004
Set of 9 lithographs with title and colophon pages
Edition of 30

#4 Transhumanism and posthumanism...
"Transhumanism has been defined as "the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by using technology to eliminate aging and greatly enhance human intellectual physical, and psychological capacities. A posthuman would no longer be human."

Before...


And After...

I can't help but think about something I saw many years ago. I believe I first saw it on Ripley's believe it or not, he goes by Catman. Which is now his legal name. he pops up in the news here and there, and I am sure he loves every minute of it. He is definitely miking his fifteen minutes of fame. Catman has surgically altered his face to look like that of a tiger, or some kind of cat. He claims that he had a dream in which a Native American man told him to become like the tigers. He has even got special whiskers, which he attached to his facial piercings. He doesn't look like he did some $150,000 and thirty years ago. Nor does he look much like a human. Is this where we are headed? Altering ourselves beyond recognition to be, or rather appear to be, who or what we want.
#5 Just because we can doesn't mean we should!
"Transhumanists dismiss the term unnatural because most of what human beings do with any technology is unnatural, yet these are accepted as benefits not harms." (pg 2519 encyclopedia of bioethics)
It might look cool. It might be cool to some, but implanting jellyfish DNA into a rabbit to make it glow definitely seems unnatural unnecessary. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. If the rabbit needed the green glows for some particular reason, maybe I could see the justification in this. I don't disagree with the idea of being able to help the visually impaired, or hearing impaired, or even the implanting of artificial organs. Barney clark lived 112 days, and many others have surpassed him with their artificial hearts. However there has to be a line drawn somewhere!
Glowing Animals



Barney Clark, survived 112 days with an artificial heart.

Bourriaud - Treatise on Navigation

Thoughts, notes, and questions...

a) It is all around us. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Be Green. If Picasso were still alive he might consider himself "green." According to Borriaud he "copied, interpreted, and recycled masters of the past... he veritably embodies the strategy of recycling." Another artist who might have considered himself green, the late Robert Rauschenberg. His combine paintings include found objects that are painted over and incorporated into his works. He does not "cite" his sources when creating his combines, nor does he pay anything to the person who may have thrown these found objects out. However, when someone tried to recycle something that he had thrown out, it became a whole new story.
Rauschenberg sues another artist for misusing trash.
When Artist Robert Fontaine tried to give credit to Rauschenberg, he ended up in a world of legal trouble. He wasn't selling the artwork as his own, nor did he appropriate it into his own work. He was doing the exact thing that Rauschenberg would have done if he himself had lived down the street from Picasso, Ruebens, or even Da Vinci. After seeing the price tags his own combine paintings, Rauschenberg should agree, that one man's junk is another man's treasure. Not to say that Rauschenbergs work is junk, but found objects have usually been discarded by someone.
In an article listed in onpointnews.com it reads:
Fontaine says VARA does not apply because “Rauschenberg is the author of the material which is the subject of his complaint.” He also makes the provocative -– and potentially precedent-setting -- argument that Rauschenberg “abandoned” his attribution rights when he dumped the proof sheets in the trash.
The article continues:
“Rauschenberg is an incredible artist,” Freeman said. “But what happens when that incredible artist discards material?” Courts have found garbage to be fair game in search and seizure cases. “An expectation of privacy in trash left for collection in an area accessible to the public” is not reasonable, the U.S. Supreme Court said in California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988).

Picasso said, "Bad artists copy. Good artists steal."

Picasso: Good artists copy; Great artists steal by Thomas Stephan
Innovation through Imitation by David Platzer

ON pg. 147 Bourriaud sums up this argument. He writes, "Appropriation, with its aggressive connotations, implies competition, a dispute over a territory that could equally well belong to anyone of the combatants."



Peter Paul Rubens. The Three Graces.
c.1636-1638. Oil on canvas

Pablo Picasso. The Three Graces.
1925. Oil and charcoal on canvas


b) "The capitalist mode of production arose from the 'encounter' between 'the owners of money' and the proletarian stripped of everything but his labor-power."

This statement made me wonder about production art. I looked up the Wikipedia definition of production artist, which its self underlines this very principle.

What distinguishes "production art" from design is the lack of opportunities to utilize creativity and design training in the work involved. Although the position may be treated as low-skilled labor, the degree of technical knowledge required for some production art work may be comparable to higher skilled engineering, especially with computers.
complete Wikipedia definition of production artist

I am also reminded of the work of Kathe Kollwitz, whose work was extremely influenced by the exact opposite of capitalism. She consedered herself a proletariat and created work about her suffering and the world around her that was falling apart under the Nazi regime. She too had been stripped of everything, her job, her family, freinds, and eventually even her studio. The only thing that she had left was her art. It's a wonder that any of her work is around for us today.

Kathe Kollwitz, "Prisoners"
from The Peasants' War, etching, 1908

c) The Beautiful
Pg 45 of the Art Journal reads "...the kitchen is what's called a "reaction formation." You will notice that in each of these cases the object does not, so to speak, "match" the subject; rather there is an inverted relationship since the object is supposed to compensate somehow for a subjective sense of deficiency."
In thinking about this statement I am reminded of Duchamp's bicycle wheel. It is exactly that a bicycle wheel. However, it is not on a bicycle, it has been placed upside down on a bar stool. In doing this Duchamp has rendered both objects useless. Neither of these objects "match" but rather they are complete opposites. One used for transportation, the other used for staying put. I think that there is something rather profound about his choosing two objects that are completely opposite. By melding them together, they end up canceling each other out. From the title we could assume that his subject is the bicycle but by inverting the wheel and placing it on top of the bar stool, it's as if he is putting it upon a pedestal, which is closer to eye level, where one would not usually see a wheel.

Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913

d) Pg 159 Bourriaud writes "Artists who are working today with an intuitive idea of culture as toolbox know that art has neither an origin nor a metaphysical destination, and that the work they exhibit is never a creation but an instance of postproduction."
I think we can see many examples of this around us today. For example, Dan Steilhilber uses everyday objects to help us look more closely at the things that surround us and how beautiful they can be. Our first example appears to be a very delicate painting with minimal color where the light creates a glowing effect. However, upon closer inspection it is revealed that these are just duck sauce packets, that one might find at your everyday Chinese Take-out restaurant. The second example shows that of paper coated hangers arranged in a spiraling way. Never before have I thought that simple metal hangers could be so interesting. Both of these works have taken simple everyday objects that have been overlooked as possible mediums with which one could create stunning works of art.


Dan Steilhilber, Untitled (2003/2008): Duck sauce


Dan Steilhilber, Untitled (2002/2008): Paper-clad hangers

e) Pg. 156 Bourrriaud writes about the cultural object and "letting its origin appear under the more or less opaque layer of its new use or the new combination in which it happens to be captured..." My take on this is that he is suggesting that we need to open our eyes, to see what it is around us that we have and imagine the ways in which we can make them work for us. It is with this new way of seeing that each art movement has been brought about. Duchamp, although well ahead of his time, was able to do exactly that. In order for us to appreciate these objects I believe we need to find some kind of use or connection with them. In 2007, CNN posted a story about an artist who was doing just that. Known to some as the Post-it boy, David Alvarez, then just 19 years old, took your everyday Post-Its notes and used them as a medium to create a large scale picture of the legendary Ray Charles. Using the same concept, with music as his subject and every-day objects as his medium, he later created a larger-than-life piece of guitarist Jimi Hendrix, with playing cards. Is it possible that moving from the Post-its to the playing cards has created his own Post-Post-its?


Colorful Creation


Jimi Hendrix gets Shuffled

Nocolas Borriaud - Radicant Aesthetics

Thoughts, notes and questions...

a) On page 84 in the last paragraph Borriaud writes " A modern movement took place at the end of the nineteenth century: the brushstroke became visible, expressing the painting's autonomy and magnifying the human in reaction to the industrialization of images and objects."
Our parents grew up in a time when you saved up for things that you wanted. You worked, and put your money in the bank. Then came credit cards. You could have what you wanted now and pay later. I suppose with the idea of having what you wanted now comes the idea with making things now. With technology things can be mass produced, assembly lined, and on the shelves in a matter of days. We live in an "I want it now" society. Everything from movies to food. If we have to wait five minutes for our text messages to travel 22,000 miles to space and back, then it is too long.
With the reaction of brush strokes showing up and placing emphasis on manmade objects, it is only natural that in a society where almost nothing is manmade anymore, we would react with art that is made from mass produced items. Even our art supplies are mass produced.

Master pieces in Styrofoam at iamboey.com
With the creation of the internet, we can even see one of these tiny masterpeices created. I am Boey

Skin of Spaces by artist Daisuke Hiraiwa.

Hundreds of disposable knives and a shoal of fish for inspiration helped the artist create the installation Skin of Spaces for an exhibit in Milan in 2008.

b) I find it interesting that Bourriaud compares Koons to Hurst. Two people that I don't think I would have compared prior to this reading. He writes:
"Jeff Koons takes children's toys and endows them with and enormous Physical weight that contrasts with their frivolousness... For Koons, the density of matter becomes the quintessential code by which to organize the visible." He goes on, "As for Damien Hurst, the magnificent visual means he employs... only serve to underscore the morbidness of fragility of the subjects he pins or imprisons there."
Is it possible that Koons is also trying to immortalize a bit of history? I have often wondered why it is that if you take a shark, put it in a tank, and place it in an art museum, it becomes art. Why not put it in a natural history museum? However, the same could be said about Koons' work. Why not put them in a toy store? Each of these artists is, in their own way, immortalizing a piece of life. Whether by placing it in a museum, to be seen as an art object, or by emphasizing its size, so as not to get tossed out or lost with the other long-since-forgotten toys.

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1992

Jeff Koons, Rabbit, 1986

c) Pg. 95 "Seurat attempts to reproduce the movement of industry in painting... Seurat anticipated the pixel."Bourriaud began the chapter by writing about how the "lifespan of objects is becoming shorter." However, if Seurat anticipated that his paintings could be easily mass produced, and therefore created them in such a manner, could it be said that by embracing the mass production he also solidified his lifespan? Making him an ever popular, and easily reproducible, master of art?

d) As semionauts we "wander in search of connections to establish." I don't think Bourriaud means an internet connection but if you think of his sentence with that meaning it still makes plenty of sense. We wander in search of connections. We yearn for the information at the touch of a button. We want it now, we need it now. We are also searching for ways of connecting with others. Through facebook, e-mail, blogs, and even news. Just yesterday I was informed of world events that happened thousands of miles away, via text. I quickly set out searching for my "connection" and rapidly found the information I needed- only minutes after the actual events had taken place. Something that just a few decades ago would have taken weeks or months to learn about. We are in the same position as the hunters and gatherers of old, but we are not hunting animals or gathering sticks for our fires. We are now hunting information.

e) As a printmaker I cannot close the doors on the machine and its ability to aid me in my creative process. I think that as semionauts and wanderers in search of anything and everything it would be unwise to do so. On pg 103 Bourriaud writes about how the "photographic reproductions, the forms appear as so many transient incarnations. The visible appears here as essentially nomadic, as a collection of iconographic phantoms." I agree. I would even go so far as to say this has become its own sort of art movement. Those who embrace the machine, be it a printing press of old, or a simple Xerox machine can find that they are very powerful tools.

Jean Daviot, Silences, 2001, Musée Chosum, Kwangju (Corée)

SUPERFLEX
If value, then copy, 2008
Photographer: Sam Hartnett

(Copy Light consists of a workshop where a series of famous and popular lamp designs are fabricated and hung in the main gallery. Images representing iconic lamps such as the Billberry A338, the VP globe, the Bubble and Opera suspension, are photocopied onto transparencies and attached to a basic cubic lighting structure. These new lights are constructed and hung in ARTSPACE's main gallery gradually filling and illuminating the space over the span of the exhibition. Copy Light is seeking the borders between a copy and its original. Through this manufacturing process a copy of a copy turns into something new: an original lamp that communicates the problems of the current copyright system.)

artspace@artspace.org.nz
http://www.artspace.org.nz