Conceptual Intellectual

The first Conceptual art movement started in 1967 and continued through 1978. The art form started, however, in the early 1900's. One of the most famous pieces of conceptual art was Fountain by Marcel Duchamp. This is a quinticential piece of conceptual art. In this installation Duchamp took an old fashion urinal and signed it R. Mutt. That was it. There was no embellishing or distorting or manipulating of any kind. This is basically what conceptual art entails.

It doesn't involve the physical activity of making an object, such as sculpting or painting, but rather putting "ready mades" together to create a piece of art work. Readymades are things that are already such as the urinal in Duchamp's Fountain or the chair in Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs.


I feel that conceptual art let's your mind do the work. the definition of conceptualism is that the universe exists only in the mind and has no external reality. I think that is made very clear in the art of the conceptual period because the artists seem to just give you something to look at and let your mind go crazy with thoughts and opinions about a simple object that you see everyday but never really take the time to look at.


Pictures and information from http://en.Wikipedia.org

Dada

The Dada movement in the 1920's was a very interesting movement. The visual art in the Dada movement was mostly surrealism. The artists that cotributed to this movement were Marcel DuChamp and Man Ray. Allan Kaprow also was a major part in the Dada Movement, mostly in the performance art section of the time. I really liked the findings of the activities in te Dada time period. They were very simple yet very entertaining. The one we did in class oday and another I read about where people would all have their hands on a flag pole and walk around it simultaneously. All the activities were so simple, yet gave a good laugh to myself while I was reading them or doing them. I'm no really sure what the purppoes of these activites were, but i do know that most Dadaism works were done in protest to World War I. Maybe the simple protest was laughing and enjoying their art work, because I know happiness and laughter was in abundance during the first World War.

This image was found at http://www.artic.edu/reynolds/essays/hofmann.php

Mirror Mirror in my Hand.

The activity presented to us today in class was to a) Find a partner, b) Go outside and take a walk, c) Stand back-to-back with your partner, so that you're able to see your partner's face in your mirror, d) As you slowly walk away from your partner, make a face (as children do); try to imitate the face of your partner, and e) Continue until you can no longer see your partners face. When my partner and I were actually doing the activity, I found it to be a lot harder than I imagined. When I first read the directions sheet, I thought this would be such a breeze. As my partner got further and further away from me I began to not be able to see her as well as I thought I would. The mirror was a small place to focus on and as it got further from it, it became even smaller. By the time my partner was about 6 feet away from me I was trying to utilize the colors in her face to imitate it. Instead of focusing on what she was actually doing, I tried to see if the lower half of her face was darker, if it was I could conclude that her mouth was open and I was looking into it. If it seemed like she did not have eyes, I could imagine that she was squinting. By the end of the activity I could only tell if her mouth was open or closed, besides that I could not see her inside of her blue mirror, and my green one.

Also, by the end of the activity I had reached a certain state of boredom. Today in class I was very tired and I'm sure that did not help my eyesight. When the class got up to venture outside, I got a little burst of energy because we were able to move and walk, but by the end of the activity, I was even too tired to laugh at the silly expressions on my partner's face. Overall thought I think it was a good activity, and maybe if I had stopped and gotten a cup of coffee before class I would have enjoyed it a little bit more.

Good Job DuCHAMP.

This painting entitled The Bride Stripped bare by her Bachelors, Even but Marcel Duchamp had me utterly stumped. At first I thought it was some type of futuristic landscape in the top plane and then a sort of 1970's living room in the bottom half. The top half to me looked like a desert with a robotic bird in it and blank speech bubbles at the top. The blank speech bubbles made me think of an unfinished comic book. The second half seems to have a couch in the center of it with a propeller type of object coming out of the center. The mannequin looking figures on the left side of the painting is the only thing that could even remotely resemble what Duchamp meant them to be. The only way they do resembles the Brides Bachelors is because they have the shape of a human figure. Even though they are human figures, it seems more like it would be a walk in closet of some sort instead of seven or eight men. The circles in the upper right corner of the bottom also resembles a coffee table which convinced me even more that this was a still life of a living room. I was way off in that interpretation and I was just completely baffled when Pat read us the article and showed us the website of was Duchamp was actually interpreting in this painting.

Getting more into the physical traits of this piece, the only thing I really appreciate in it is the fact that it was done on glass; cracked glass. That makes me imagine that Duchamp found the piece of glass and thought out this elaborate story of what he could paint on it. If I were to find a beautiful piece of cracked glass, I would try to paint something that went along with the story of me finding it. I do not however, like anything else in this picture. The brown tones aren't terrible, but I think if it was done in a grayscale with one color added to certain spots to emphasize important parts than it would be much more appealing. Also I think that this painting is very unbalanced. In the top half the only part of the painting that is utilized is the left upper corner and top strip. The rest of the upper plane is just plain white, which causes the eye to get very bored very quick. The lower plane of the painting is less unbalanced but still has a lot of boring areas. The left side of the painting, just as the top was, is still where the majority of the objects are. It may be due to the fact that there are so many objects over there that makes it seem left heavy, but I think the bottom plane of the painting, the left side unparticular is very clutter. I think it is too cluttered for the piece. The composition and color of this painting could have been better.

Overall I do not think this is a successful piece. I look at it and it just frustrates me because it is confusing and an eye sore. The composition is sloppy, the color is not enticing and the planes really do not compliment each other. I do not like this painting and do not appreciate Duchamp's decisions made in it.

The above image was found at http://www.woestenburg.nl/dada/afbeeld/duchampverre.jpg.

Pattern, Pattern, Pattern.

Patterns are a very unique thing. They can be made up of the simplest unit, but can create the most extravagant pattern I believe that the use of the corners in a unit is essential to the pattern working out. The corners will really bring each square together and almost create an optical illusion for the viewer. It makes it a little harder for the viewer to find the single unit that is being repeated. Also, there needs to be some kind of repetition with the way the units are turned in each square. This causes an overall uniform pattern that will create a nice composition. There are so many different ways a pattern can be formed. There are man made patterns and patterns in nature. Man made patterns include brick walls, quilts, and patterns on the bottom of tires.





There are also patterns that simply appear and the human race has nothing to do with them. These are patterns in nature, such as snowflakes, shells, in different styles of plants, and many types of animal prints. Nature and man have been creating patterns for years and years. They are something that dates all the way back to the beginning of time. They have stuck around for so long because they are used in so many different things. They can be used for identification, to tell stories and of course for fashion. Patterns have always been around and they always will be.

Can someone please pass the Gestalt?

I have worked with the gestalt technique before so none of these images were really surprises to me. I do however have a great appreciation for it. The way the negative space and positive space is used to make two different elements of the picture give it a feel like an optical illusion. Gestalt always reminds m of M.C. Escher's drawings. I guess it is in the way that if you look at it a certain way you can see something completely different then before. I love this type of artwork that make your eye think before analyzing the piece.


This image was found at www.248am.com/ nat/fun/gestalt-game/

Critique Me.

10-step Scale

Creating this scale was nothing out of the ordinary. My art instructors in the past had us draw, paint, use whatever media we needed to do different grayscales and color scales. We usually did 12 step scales so it was a little different for me to have to shorten the scales to just 10 steps. It was a little bit of a challenge and a couple of times I found myself making too less of a difference in between steps, but practice does make perfect. After a couple tries I got it better. Making the scale was not too challenging, but it was rather tedious. It's not one of my favorite things, but I guess it is a useful way to explore shades and tones.

Tie Off

The string thing we did in class on Thursday was a very fun experience. I was a little confused why Pat was throwing bundles of string at the students at first, but then when she told us what we were to do with it I started right away. I went across the room, over tables, under chairs, through loops, and around legs. At one point, when I was tying up a chair, Bart Lentini came at me with a bundle of string. He began putting it around my head, tying my arms, wrapping it around my neck, and weaving it through my shirt. So being the spiteful teenager I am, I started doing the same to him. As Bart and I wound each other up, Alex Garcia stepped in. she was tying us together, so we started tying her to us. At one point all three of us were just throwing string on each other’s heads, not even tying each other up. Finally all three of us were bound together and could not move more then a foot from each other. Then, just as Doyle's Law states, "what can go wrong will go wrong", everything became a lot harder. We had to untie the giant web-knot we got ourselves into. People started complaining the second it was said. I personally, like to untie things. I have never untied something on that great of a scale before, but I still actually enjoyed it. It took about 30 minutes just to get the three of us mobile again and then another 10 minutes to get the rest of my roll of string untied from everything. The funny thing about the big knot we created was it only took 3 maybe 4 people to create it, but it took about 8 people to get it undone. It is very true that it harder to clean the mess then it is to make it. This was a great experience though; I do believe it brought the class a little closer because we all had to work together to get everything back to normal. It also showed how lines could make shapes, because I noticed that while I was untying myself, that the knot was really a series of triangles, and circle, and even some squares. I was actually a little surprised at how much you can learn just by wrapping string around things in a classroom.

Line or Shape? That is the question.

A. Shape
B. Line
C. Shape
D. Shape

What makes a line?
A line is a connection between points A and B. It has two ending points and only two ending points. A line can be straight, curvy, zig-zag, very think, very thin, or very random.

What is a shape?
A shape is made up of connecting lines that form an object. The lines that are being connected can be straight or curvy causing there to be geometric and organic shapes. Geometric shapes are ones such as a square. circle, or triangle. An organic shape is usually less angular then a geometric one, and most often found in nature.

Crit 1

This piece is very spacious. Although it has the most going on in the bottom portion of the piece, the whole piece is full of duller colors and much detail. The people on the bottom are lying on rocks and set in a triangle pattern with the exception of the man to the right. It has a beautiful river in the back with dark shadows from the trees above. The picture has tremendous perspective and an overall peaceful tone.

It seems to be a religious painting due too the angels and the infant in the cluster of people. The depth between the women, angels, and man, and the city in the background seem as if the Madonna, Infant Jesus, and possibly Joseph are heading towards the town they will be finding safety at. The angels seem to be checking up on the family on their travels and making sure the baby’s in good shape. The trees and rocks seem to be setting a sort of sense of a hiding place for the family. It is as if they are in a safe spot to take a break and relax before they continue their travels.

I believe this is an overall well done piece of artwork. It is very balanced and done in great detail. You can depict each leaf in the trees and even the expression on the people's faces. The shadows are also done in great detail. The piece is detailed, but still simple enough to not be overwhelming. Also the symbolism of the shadows and the safety for the Holy Family and Angels gives it a very serene and peaceful feeling.