Semester 2 WEEK 1- Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.

Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.

Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg's intricately constructed claymation films are both terrifyingly
disturbing and artlessly sweet.

The new works created for the Venice Biennale explore a surrealistic Garden of Eden in which all that is natural goes awry.

She exposes the innate fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of emotions.

Nathalie Djurberg was awarded the silver lion for a promising young artist at the Venice
Art Biennale 09.

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1.   1. What do you understand by the word 'claymation'?

Claymation is a form or animation in which clay figures are filmed using stop-motion photography

2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?

After watching some of Nathalie Djurberg's claymation videos I get the feeling that it is set in a made up world or dream paradise, something that is not real only imaginary. As for “all that is natural goes awry” it seems like odd and disturbing things start to happen, you see disfigured people and spooky music is paying. The flowers also take on a sinister look, like something alien. It reminds me of a bad dream that you might have, were strange things happen, you don’t have full control over the dream and when you wake you feel slightly disturbed. 

3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?

“Nathalie Djurberg's claymation films are sweet, depraved things that can shock, amuse and confound in equal measure.” The feeling you get a first is sweet because you see the flowers or the lovely background, but then you see the videos and you feel disturbed or frightened. Its bridges from ‘artlessly sweet’ to ‘terrifyingly disturbing’

4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?

“Her Plasticine fairytale characters recall nursery days” The video looks childlike and naive, and it show children playing but then partakes in some disturbing acts, for example in one clip a pair of twins running around before pulling off each other’s skin.  

5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?

I think that it represents something with growing up, and that innocence doesn’t last. And that in today’s art world it’s not about if you make some ting that looks ‘pretty’ but if you make something that people won’t forget even the disturbing things. 

6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?

Probably because people will remember it, it’s hard to forgot something like that that gives you mixed emotions  

7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.

Personally I don’t really like her work, It frightens me, and I feel slightly disturbed after watching the video.



Ref http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/aug/25/artist-nathalie-djurberg

Week 9-Modernism and Post-Modernism

Claude Monet's 'Water Lillies' (1920) and Chuck Closes' 'Maggie' (1998) 

 Both Claude Monet and Chuck Close were exploring paint, colour and human perception. Research the work of both artists in order to;

1. Outline the intentions of each artist.

I think Monet’s intentions with the paintings water lilies was to create a painting using an array of colours and strokes to capture the way the water reflects light and colours in the midday sun.   

Chuck Closes intentions might have been to catch an image with in an image. He uses many shapes and colours in lots of small squares to create a face out of them

2. Describe the techniques of each artist

Monet appears to have used lots of small strokes and colours that suite each other well to create a calm natural effect.

Chuck Closes Seamed to use bold block colours in a swirl like effect in the squares to create almost a separate image.  

3. Find 2 quotes about each artists work, and reference them correctly.

Of Monet “In this triptych Monet depicted his Japanese-style pond covered with water lilies, at center, shimmering with reflections of clouds overhead. The water's surface fills the expansive composition so that conventional clues to the artist's—and the viewer's—vantage point are eliminated.”

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80220

Of Chuck Closes :“ Some of his paintings are almost photographic, some are realistic but have added texture that seems like the texture of skin at a microscopic level, and some are simple tiny shapes of color in patterns that form a picture when viewed from a distance. Many of his paintings are done in grids. Some of the materials he uses are acrylics, watercolor, pastels, colored and black ink, and paper pulp.”

http://jamiekitt.tripod.com/index-2.html

4. Note 3 similarities of the work of both artists.

The paintings are about real objects not abstract. (However Chuck’s might be a slightly abstract). They both use bright colours and oil paint.

5. What are some differences between the artist's work. (at least 3)

Chuck paintings are mostly portraits, Monet Painted nature paintings based off his garden.  And they use the different techniques.

6. Describe your response to the work of both artists.
 

I prefer Monet’s work over Chuck’s. It just gives me a sense of calmness and tranquillity. Like it’s the perfect place to just sit and meditate 

Week 7-Industrialisation and Cao Fei's RMB City

1. What and when was the Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution is defined as the beginning of power-driven machinery to manufacturing. Industrialization began to spread rapidly to all of Western Europe to in the eighteenth century. However, in England it was dooming faster than anywhere else in the world.

Both paintings featured on this blog, that are from the early 1900s were painted by Modernist painters from the group called 'Futurists'. The Futurists celebrated the machine, and objects in motion. Their primary objective was to depict movement, which they saw as symbolic of their commitment to the dynamic forward thrust of the 20th century.

2. Research both Modernist paintings in order to comment on the subject matter, form and style used to celebrate the machine and motion in each painting. Answer the question in 2 parts for each painting.

In Boccioni’s The City Rises (1910) it shows quite a dramatic scene of colours and movement. The subject matter appears to show a work horse near a factory that has gotten loos or has been spooked, thus causing the other horses to run right as they are starting to get spooked as well. This creates a whole panic as workers scramble out of the way of out of control horses and the whole city starts to run in fright. The big red horse in the foreground appears to be placed in a so your eyes follow from its back to its head where you notice the two workers being trampled. Then you notice the other worker to the left trying to calm the white horse. In the background you can see the whole commotion unfold as the horses go mad. These ‘work accidents’ may have happened quite often near the factories during the Industrial Revolution, because horses are easily spooked by the machinery and by small enclosed spaces like the city streets. This might have attracted Boccioni’s eye in the news paper in the form of an article. He might have thought it an opportunity to explore an idea of some ting that could accrue in daily life in the city and a chance to experiment with movement.

  Balla's dog on leash clearly show a small dog trotting along its owner’s feat with a lead attached to its collar. You can obviously see that the artist was exploring movement and how to show it on canvas. The way it is painted shows the lead swinging from side to side and the dogs tail and legs moving rapidly as you might expect a small dog to do.

Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9) refers to China's recent rapid industialisation and urbanization.
(www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/cafeintopia.asp)

3. Research Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9)  in order to comment on this work in more depth.
i.e what images has she used in her digital collage that refer to China's present and history, and why has she used these.

Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9) is an online city that she has created under the name of China Tracy. “Named after Chinese money, RMB City shows a perverse view of Beijing—a blend of communism, socialism, and capitalism.” It is said to be constantly under construction, always changing like the city Beijing.

4. RMB City is described as a utopia/dystopia. Comment on what these terms mean, and how they can be applied to the work.

Utopia is described as the perfect place or world and dystopia is described as world or society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding. It’s like a antonym or its being hypocritical. It could try to show how Beijing is trying to build the perfect city a utopia, but in doing so it is creating misery, poverty and its destroying the word. 

5. Although the Modernist paintings and the contemporary digital work have emerged from
different contexts, there are also many similarities. Comment on the similarities that you can see in the work. Look at the moving digital image atvimeo.com/4272260, if you have not
already researched it.

Though both Medias of work are very different there are some similarities. For intense that fact that both medias are about machinery and movement even though RMB City is a digital image and The City Rises and Balla’s dog on leash is ‘still’ images the idea is the same.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/balla/dogleash.jpg.html

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0906/S00212.htm

Week 5- Science and reason- Video art by Pipilotti Rist

1. Define the 17th century 'Scientific Revolution', and say how it changed European thought and world view. 

The scientific revolution is described as the most widely influenced change that occurred over Europe in the seventeenth century.  The very way of European   thinking had changed due to it: “Systematic doubt, empirical and sensory verification”. Categories were formed for separate sciences to fall under and people started to view the world like a machine. Every feature of human life was greatly changed by these changes. This change of the world-view can be documented in the paintings and sculptures of that era.

2. Give examples of how we can we still see evidence of the 'Scientific Revolution' in the world today.

Science is everywhere today. Everything we have in modern day technology is due to science,  from the way new building are being built to the laptop I’m typing this on right now. Science has evolved dramatically in a few hundred years and still is to this day. 30 years ago the computer was as big as a house. And not ten years ago the iPob didn’t even exist, and now there realising the touch pad! And But the question is; are we movie to fast? Are we using too much more than we can afford, should we slow down and take a breather?

Research Pipilotti Rist's video installations to answer the following;

3. From your research, do you think that the contemporary art world values art work that uses new media/technology over traditional media?

Personally I don’t think so; I think the value for each media is pretty equal. Though New media is (as its name states) verily young/ new, it is after all fresh and almost an experiment that has to be fully explored to be under stood.

4. How has Pipilotti Rist used new media/technology to enhance the audience's experience of her work.

Pipilotti Rist (1962) is a Swiss artist who uses moving images and installations, combined with bright and bold colours. This perhaps helps he it attracts the audience to her work and makes it noticeable. This can be seen In one of her exhibitions called Pipilotti Rist: Heroes of Birth In New York, she used LCD triptych to display two colourful large scale video projection works. The videos are projected on translucent fabrics handing from the ceiling as it shows nature images. “Together with the melodic sounds that fill the room, a meditative environment is created.”


   

5. Comment on how the installation, sound and scale of 'Ever is Over All' (1997) could impact on the audience's experience of the work.

'Ever is Over All' (1997) is a clip which shows a women skipping along the street, and smashes car windows with what appears to be a prop flower. The odd behaviour of the women is defiantly something to be noted. Combines with nature and smashing sounds it attracts the audients attention.

It’s almost something comical; as the police man walks past and simply greats the women with a wave as she carries on smashing windows.

6. Comment on the notion of 'reason' within the content of the video. Is the woman's behaviour reasonable or unreasonable?

The woman’s behaviour is defiantly unreasonable. It is defiantly outside the social norm and illegal; and (as i said before) it is somewhat comical with the police officer, who is also female, who just simply walks past.

7. Comment on your 'reading' (understanding) of the work by discussion the aesthetic (look), experience and the ideologies (ideas, theories) of the work.

The work is defiantly there to portray influential statement. Is it trying to relay an idea of woman’s new found place or power in society? It almost feels like this women has a citron power to do what she wishes were ever she goes.  

http://librarydigitalprojects.com/2008/11/23/three-forms-of-information-immersion/

http://www.artknowledgenews.com/2009-07-31-00-00-00-pipilotti-rist-to-create-a-living-room-disco-in-her-next-exhibition-at-hauser-and-wirth.html

http://vernissage.tv/blog/2010/09/13/pipilotti-rist-heroes-of-birth-luhring-augustine-gallery-new-york/

Week 3- Ron Mueck's sculpture and Humanism

  1. Mueck’s sculpture is described as hyper-real. Define the meaning of this term and apply it to his work.  

Hyper real is defined as involving or characterizing a particularly realistic graphic representation.  Looking at Ron Mueck’s work, hyperrealism must mean to make a sculptor or painting look real, yet have a feeling of unrealism to it as well. He applies this to his work by making realism sculptors of people either bigger or smaller than in real life. For example; one of his sculptures is of a newly born baby boy, it is amazingly realistic, from the crinkles in the babies skin to its wet hair, yet the sculpture is at least seven meters long.

2. Mueck is not interested in making life size sculpture. Find out why he is more interested in working with the scale of the figure which is not life size, and mention two works which use scale that is either larger or smaller than life.

Mueck’s work is not life size sculptures. These sculptures are so convincingly live like, the only reason to think there not real people are there size and scale. All of them are either larger or smaller than real live people. Wild Man is approximately 10 feet high, while Two Women is only one foot high. I believe that Mueck wanted to make these sculptures nonlife size so that you can see all the little details: like the individual hairs on the skin. Quoting from a wed sight  it says “Mueck increasingly wanted to produce realistic sculptures which looked perfect from all angles.”

 3. Define Renaissance Humanism , and analyze the term in order to apply it to an example of Mueck's work. Note that the contemporary definition of Humanism is much broader than the Renaissance definition.

Humanism was a educational advance based on classical studies of Greek and Roman authors during a period from 1400 to 1650. Humanism is the term generally applied to the predominant social philosophy and intellectual and literary currents of the. It is a system of thought that considering human beings, rather than the church, as able to decide their own morals and life style, rather than following the Church.  An example of Humanism In Mueck’s work can be seen in Dead dad. It shows a naked man that (by the title) is dead rather that a religious finger. It shows that we are all human and fragile. 

 Dead Dad

  

4. Research and discuss one of Mueck's sculptures that you might find challenging or exciting to experience in an art gallery. Describe the work, upload an image of the work, and explain your personal response to the work. Comment on other student blogs to develop the discussion around the variety of our own personal and individual responses to art and design.

The Sculpture that i chose is Youth. It shows an African American youth looking suppressed at a (what i assume to be) i knife wound. What excites me about this work is the amazing detail that Mueck shows in his work, from the realistic hair to the baggy jeans.

Another reason why i find this sculpture so exiting is because the youth’s expression, it is almost like he is suppressed to see the wound there. It makes me wonder how he got the wound and what will happen to him.

Youth

 Youth close up

Youth 2 

                               

Reference websites :

http://artblart.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/opening-ron-mueck-at-the-national-gallery-of-victoria-international-melbourne/

http://hubpages.com/hub/Awesome_Sculptures_Of_Ron_Mueck