This week we were to look at three artists on Art 21; Martin Puryear, Kara Walker, and Sally Mann.Kara walker works in all sorts of medium, creating art influenced by her interest in slaves in history, and Martin Puryear prefers to create abstract sculptural pieces. Sally Mann's work was the most interesting to me. I think her idea's on art from the roots are unique as a prominent artist, where art is seen as a practice to create something fun and beautiful rather than something critical and instigating. She is also noted as an artist for taking a series of suggestive photos of her children. While controversial, the photographs make people stop and think about the purpose of the pictures, how the pictures impact us, and why they have that impact on us. Sally feels her pictures are simple, beautiful, and innocent, which points the finger at us, the audience, to interpret the art she had so much joy and fun creating. I feel like this is what makes good art.
Reading; William Kentridge, Chris Ofili
This week we read about the artist William Kentridge. William is a South African artist, mostly known for his drawings and animations. Kentridge, being a Caucasian man growing up in the apartheid, was highly influenced by the atrocities he saw around him. His work reflects sadness and anxiety through the use of his smudged, dreary looking mediums, often times Charcoal. His work to me is not very visually appealing, a lot of it reminds me of images from the holocaust; depressing, grungy, and jerky, which gives the illusion of dated equipment. The work is interesting to me though, I feel like his work is powerful, I can feel the oppression whenever I look at it.
We also briefly looked at Chris Ofili, who created paintings notoriously composed along with elephant dung. Chris's African/Caribbean heritage is reflected in his work.
Class notes
This week we mainly worked on our time projects. I was not a fan of the way we reviewed our peers work this week by rotating chairs and writing a comment for every one after reading their sketchbook. I know I missed some people, and I feel like the comments weren't very genuine. A lot of people seemed to be writing something quick and generic, then moving on in an attempt to comment on every single persons in the allotted amount of time.
(Below: Martin Puryear Sculpture, I ♥ lOVE ♥ his work!)
Reflection on Time Project Presentation Day
This weeks time projects were a TON better than the play projects of the first week. I think it was easier to relate time to art, than play to art for a lot of people. The stop animation video of the Frankenstein's monster was amazing, and you can tell a lot of time and work was put into the piece. I also really liked the idea of the "therapy through make up" piece. While more time would have helped every one achieve a more finished product, the idea and images I was shown seemed very sweet and private at the same time. It also seemed to effortlessly comment on time, vanity, and the artists own interests.
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