Bibliography

Timea Tihanyi, “Issues and Influences of Contemporary Art” (lecture, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, January 4-March 9, 2012)

“New Forum features works by Cai Guo-Qiang,” SAM Downtown, http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/visit/inopportune.asp (accessed January 22, 2012)

Klara Glosova, “Klara Glosova” (lecture, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, January 13, 2012)

Stelarc, . "Stelarc//." Accessed Feb. 16, 2012. stelarc.org. 

Erwin, Wurm. Accessed January 21, 2012. http://www.erwinwurm.at/. 

Greer, Mandy. Wordpress, "Mandy Greer." Accessed Feb. 8, 2012. http://mandygreer.wordpress.com/.

PBS, "ART21." Accessed Feb. 16, 2012. http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/janine-antoni.

In the end

In the end contemporary art is just the newest genre of art. It may use different techniques, materials, and have a different goals. However the subjects aren't anything new, artists' works have depicted the same types of subject matter for centuries. People have been drawing maps since man first observed that the world wasn't uniform. Spiritual or religious imagery is the oldest known form of art, originating in cave paintings. Artists have been fascinated by the human body since time immemorial.

If the themes are nothing new then what is it that sets Contemporary Art apart from any older work?

Contemporary Art is unique in the materials and techniques involved. Spiritual images are the oldest form of art yet no previous era would have thought to convey them a stuffed cotton stag with worsted viscera pouring. The body has fascinated artists for millenia yet no previous era would have strapped machine parts to their body and called it art, or creating a synthetic ear for that matter. However the greatest change that contemporary art has introduced is the idea of process art. the idea that the act of making a work could be the art and not what was made. No previous era would have ever considered random pencil marks on a wall brilliant art because the man made them while chained to the floor; or black streak on the floor art because a woman painted them with her hair. Contemporary art's real innovation is process art, for it is the most unique and original concept.

Game: Art or Porn?

1) this image is a screen grab from a movie. Was it a porno or an art film?

answer

2) Was this photograph of a gay three-way intended as a promo shot for a porn or was it taken to be a work of art?

answer

3) This is an artifact from the upper paleolithic period. was it made for artistic reasons or a sexual purpose?

answer

4)This is an ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll. was it painted as pornography or art?

 answer

Answer 4

This is a scroll called the Erotic Papyrus of Turin. In spite of its graphic imagery, Egyptology have concluded from the hieroglyphics that it is actually intended as a satirical jab at the upper class of Egyptian society.

Answer 3

This object has been identified as one of the oldest known dildos. archeologists based there conclusion off the size, shape, and a residue found on a similar object found near where this one was found.

answer 2

this photograph is called Peeped from the Garden, by the photography artist Joseph Dupouy. 2009

answer 1

this is a screen grab from the opening scene of a pornograhic movie called "Nightdreams" released in 1981

Body art

Rebecca Horn, Finger Gloves, 1972. Performance art. She strapped gloves onto her hands which had long shafts jutting out from the finger tips. Then she attempted to go about normal activities with the gloves on.

Sublime

Andreas Gursky, Pyongyang I, 2007. A photograph of an immense group of people standing in perfect formation around a large globe. It makes the viewer feel tiny, insignificant, and weak. However it also gives the viewer a feeling of awe at the flawless organization. Those two experience combined form the feeling called sublime.

Vanitas

 Zoe Leonard, Strange Fruit, 1992-1997. Various pieces of fruit were peeled and the fruit was removed. then the peel was sewn back together, an empty husk. It forces the viewer to consider their own mortality.

Process art

Matthew Barney, Drawing Restraint, 1988. Matthew Barney was attached to the floor by a restraint and yet had to draw on the walls. The work was the act of him making it to the area of the wall he drew on. what he drew was just an artifact.

Kinetic Art

Jonathan Borofsky, Hammering Man, 1992. 48 foot tall steel statue of a man's silhouette, with one arm which moves back and forth in a hammering motion. The arm moves because of a motor on the work's back side.

Represented time

Kara Walker, My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, 2007. It is a mural made from black paper silhouettes. It references the historical period and place called the High South. Though it doesn't have any words, it makes the viewer think of the pre-Civil War South.

Embodied time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF5cngcXqSs

William Kentridge, Felix in Exile, 1994. It is a film made through stop motion animation. Kentridge draws a cell with chalk takes a picture, then he erases the drawing and draws the next cell on the same paper. As a result the previous image is still slightly visible which makes the viewer acutely aware of the passage of time.

Readymade

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. It is a urinal. Duchamp didn't make it, he bought it from a plumbing store and had it displayed in a museum, thus creating the idea of readymades.

Porn or Art

Debate

 Note: narator is in black, Red is Stelarc, and green is Janine Antoni. 

Hello and welcome to tonight’s debate on art we have two real stars of the contemporary art world. Stelarc and Janine Antoni. Tonight our esteemed guests will discuss Body Art. Stelarc is famed for his utilization of advanced technology in his work. Janine Antoni on the other hand uses many house hold materials to create original works. Our first topic for the debate is what is the body?

The body is a machine made of meat and a flawed one at that. Because the body is flawed it can’t be beautiful, therefore improving the body with technology isn’t just a scientific goal but an artistic goal as well. The body is not an object for desire but rather a technology in desperate need of upgrade. My work Ping Body proved how weak the body is since with little more than an internet connection and some wires people from all over the world were able to remotely control my body.

I would have to disagree the body is the tool for making, not a raw material. The body shouldn’t seek to imitate the artificial; the artificial should be made to imitate life. These days’ people just think about objects as objects, never caring where they came from. Even if you consider the body to be a meat-machine, it is a machine of greater sophistication than a false ear with a Bluetooth in it. As my work 2038 was meant to show how people don’t even really recognize cows as animals anymore just meat and milk factories.

Both good points, however let us move onto a new topic. You view the body differently; I shall pick a topic on which you might agree: the deconstructed body. Though neither of you deconstruct the body as drastically as Mona Hatoum or Tim Hawkins; both of you do deconstruct the body on some level in your work.

My works focuses on deconstructing the body to show the beauty and complexity of their interaction. My work Moor was an umbilical cord made from numerous different materials, each material having its own story.it demonstrates the innumerable complexities of life. 

Though my work also involves deconstructing the body, I do it for a completely different reason. My deconstructions are done to show the flaws of the parts and how they can be improved or replaced. My work Third Arm showed that the science can make a fully functional mechanical arm with little difficulty. My work Ear showed how the ear could be replicated and the body improved by adding another ear.

Why exactly does someone need a third ear?

I fear we are getting off topic. Unfortunately you did not really agree much. Can you both at least agree that deconstructing the body is vital in both your works?

Yes

Yes

Good, now moving on. What would you to consider to constitute identity?

Identity is the personal collection of stories that make up a person. My work Cradle is not just a backhoe bucket. It shows the potential that the raw materials had as well as the future they create. The contents of the bucket are all simple baby supplies that the raw ore could have been forged into instead of a backhoe bucket. The fact that they are baby supplies also represents how the backhoe is used not just to build a family’s home but also how it pays for its operator to support his own home. So that one bucket influences so many people’s stories and therefore their identities.

I would have to agree on that idea; identity is that which makes us unique via our stories. However I disagree on the importance of the materials. My  work Prosthetic Head was done to show how our identities are merging into technology, soon we will be able to put our minds, our very souls into machines; and the material used to make machines are always replaceable. That wonderful identity creating bucket of yours was mass produced after all.

Well that’s one agreement at least. Finally what is the role of the observer in your work? What do you want the person gazing at your work to come away with?

Well I want the people who see my work to come away with an acute awareness of the body’s flaws and the understanding that technology is our key to auto-evolution. My work Exoskeleton showed the audience how with only a few million dollars they can be a slow moving, awkward, unstable, six legged, 12 foot tall cyborg with one slightly extended arm.

Okay, well that is interesting. However I want the people who observe my work to use their creativity, I present them with objects and it is up to them to understand what they are seeing and try to figure out how I did it rather like investigators at a crime scene. Like in Eureka I present the observers with a bathtub full of lard with a silhouette missing from the middle next to a large cube of lard and let them make their own conclusions.

Excellent, well I would like to thank both of you for attending tonight’s debate and I wish you both luck in your careers, Good night.

Small but Mighty Wandering Pearl

Mandy Greer is a contemporary artist who specializes in using fibers and fabrics. Mandy Greer’s installation Small but Mighty Wandering Pearl from 2006 is a transcendentally beautiful work of art. Due to its gruesome imagery it is a contemporary example of the “vanitas” genre; following in the wake of contemporary artists such as Kiki Smith who also works in the “vanitas” genre.

The work is a gruesome scene of death. Atop a raised platform the work stands a great white stag. The stag has been disemboweled with its brilliant red entrails splattered across the platform, which is in striking contrast to the bleach white stag. Suspended above the platform on its far side hangs a grandiose chandelier coated with the organs of the stag.

The work is made with two different craft mediums; fabric and fiber. The stag is made from scraps of bleach white clothes of random size and shape stitched together to form the body, while the stag’s antlers are thoroughly coated in beads to give them a different texture from the rest of the body. The vibrant gore is made from yarn that has been crocheted into the shapes of various organs, the color of the yarn is not homogeneous, several different shades of red were used, which makes the work even more beautifully realistic. The chandelier seems to be an actual chandelier that has simply been covered in the worsted carnage.

The viscera is an example of ritualistic work. since it was made from red yarn that has been laboriously crocheted into the proper shapes. Mandy Greer could have done the gore quicker from a different material or made it with a different method, but she did not. she chose the slower less efficient method because of a conscious will which superseded practical function of the action. In that regard it is comparable to the work of Shahzia Sikander, in that Shahzia Sikander slowly and deliberately stains her paper with tea before she paints on it, even though she could simply buy paper that is already the proper shade.

Shahzia Sikander, I am also not my own enemy, 2009. Painted on paper which was ritualistically stained with tea. It is an excellent example of a work done ritualistically, since she spends days slowly, gradually staining the paper yellow before she even begins painting.

This beautiful work would fall into the “vanitas” artistic genre because it is using iconography to evoke thought of mortality. The white stag is iconographic in the Celtic civilization, and was later adopted in Medi Aevum(medieval) period of Western Europe as a symbol of death and transformation. 2 By having an icon which in legends generally leads the sick away for healing, dying in so graphic a manner it gives off a miasma of dread and hopelessness. The work is reminiscent of Kiki Smith’s Monument to Witches that depicts medicine women being burned alive, which was also done to show a spread of dread. The prime similarity being that the two works are both depicting symbols of healing dying horribly.

Kiki Smith, Woman on Pyre, 2001. It is a sculpture made from wood and stone. It depicts a medicine woman being burned on a pyre for witchcraft. it is quite similar to Mandy Greer's Small but Mighty Wandering Pearl, because it shows a source of healing suffering a horrible death.

Mandy Greer’s Small but Mighty Wandering Pearl is a contemporary work of vanitas. It depicts a scene of grotesque horror in a manner that captures the imagination with its detailed beauty. Its malign aesthetic forces one to meditate on this mortal coil.

Subjective Maps

For my work of art I have done a collage. Whilst I walked through the Olympic Sculpture Park I took pictures of the works of art I saw. After I finished I downloaded them onto my computer and altered them to the proper sizes for my vision. The modified photos were then placed in the order in which I experienced the works.

I made a collage of the pictures that forms a map of the park as I experienced it. In the collage the pictures are placed in the order in which I saw the work depicted. The size of the picture represents how long I spent observing it. The pictures are connected to each other by black lines; the thickness of the black lines varies from work to work. The thickness of the lines is a subjective reference of how far the distance between the two works felt. The pictures are placed on a green background, and a grey frame. The green background represents the lush greenery of the park. While the grey border represents the city of Seattle which surrounds the park.

The work which I have titled “Map” represents subjective time. Its represents time by using the sizes of the pictures and the thickness of the lines to convey the amount of time passed subjectively. It is subjective because I didn’t measure the passage of time nor the distances traveled so it is entirely based on how it felt to me.

This method of representing subjective time is not directly like any other work I have previously seen. However it is comparable to the work of the artist Richard Long. In that Richard Long’s works are photographs of things he experienced serving as subjective maps of his trips. Though it is arguable that it is not representing time but rather embodying subjective time because it was depicting how long it felt rather than representing a specific point in time.

Richard Long, A Line and Tracks in Boliva, 1981. This is a photograph Long took of a trail he left in the dirt when he dragged his feet for several paces. It give the observer a sense of time's passage from his perspective due to the drudgery it conveys.

Index

1.   Introduction

2.   Vocabulary list + examples

3.   Contemporary Art: Themes/ subjects on which Contemporary Art focuses

o   Strategies, materials, and processes

o   Spaces and Places

o   Spirituality

o   Identity and the Body

4.   Game

5.   Conclusion
6. Bibliography

One Minute Sculptures

One Minute Sculptures are a type of sculpture created by Erwin Wurm. In them Wurm takes readymade objects he has appropriated and quickly puts them in a unique construct, generally involving his body.  They are not quite to my taste but regardless of that I have chosen to write on the One Minute Sculpture that I saw at the Henry Art Gallery.

I chose to write about the One Minute Sculpture by Erwin Wurm where he is balancing teacups on his feet. In the video we can see Wurm lying on his back, with his legs raised against a wall. On the soles of his shoes he is balancing a porcelain teacup on each foot. The room in which he is doing this is devoid of anything apart from Wurm and the teacups, the room is poorly lit and the camera used is fairly low definition.

My recreation of the One Minute Sculpture being discussed. I used paper cups in place of teacups, since I didn't want to risk breaking any of my tea cups. furthermore I turned the cups upside-down and stuck them on my feet because they kept falling off before the picture could get taken.

Wurm is clearly a successor to Marcel Duchamp based on how is sculptures are made. Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain was the first work of the readymade field.  The One Minute Sculptures are part of the readymade field since none of One Minute Sculptures are made using specially made materials. In the sculpture I chose Wurm appropriated the tea cups, which in their normal context would just be thought of as rather nice cups. However in their new context observers think more about the cups appearance and possible meanings the cups could have when balanced atop a man’s feet.

Wurm’s works, One Minute Sculptures, are considered sculptures; however some might argue that they are dioramas. Erwin Wurm’s works do meet the definition for being sculptures; they are three dimensional and as such they possess mass and volume, they have negative space, they are made of physical materials, and give the observer a physical experience. However dioramas have all these characteristics too, the difference between the two is that sculptures have a three hundred and sixty degree experience, while a diorama can only be experienced from one direction. The reason for the uncertainty is that though one could witness Wurm One Minute Sculptures in person and get the 360 degree experience, the video of his work shown at the Henry Art Gallery was of Wurm doing these works by himself with a stationary camera. Therefore since the camera was stationary the works could only be experienced from one angle making them more like a video diorama then a proper sculpture.

Mark Dion, Landfill, 1999-2000. Diorama made from a shipping crate filled with garbage. It is an example of a traditional diorama which is what I am comparing Erwin Wurm's work to.

The subject seems to be the precarious position of high society. Teacups are something generally symbolic of high society, due to its association with European Imperialism. Therefore by putting two on such and unstable position it demonstrates how unstable high society is. However another level of symbolism is apparent do to his using his own body as the base. By placing the tea cups atop his feet whilst his body was in such an uncomfortable position one could interpret that as a metaphor for how high society or the elite, build their glory and prestige through the subjugation of those they force beneath themselves.

Example Earthworks

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970. Earthwork. Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty is a Contemporary Earthwork. It is a jetty made from large rock which forms a spiral.

Example Tableau

Ed Kienholz, The State of Hospitol, 1966. Tableau made from resin. this work is an excellent example of a tableau in contemporary art because it is made from diverse materials and it has a message. It is meant to draw attention to the sorry state of psychiatric facilities.

Vocabulary

• Aesthetics: The field of philosophy dedicate to the theory of beauty. what is beautiful and why is it beautiful?
• Description: The internal information of a piece of art.
• Subject matter: the imagery of the work, what is visually present in the work. 
• people, objects, places, events, et cetera
• Media/Medium: materials and technique used in the work of art.
• Form/Formal Elements/Elements of composition: How the work was put together. how it uses:
• spaces, shapes, shading, texture, volume, scale, proportion emphasis, cropping, framing, foreground/mid-ground/background, et cetera
• Interpretation: What the work of art is about, relies on information not contained in the work. requires research, analysis, and synthesis. What the work means based on:
• rules, worldview, knowledge, history, art history, biases, and beliefs of the culture
• Context: where/when is the piece presented.
• What is currently going on in that:
• Place
• Society
• Culture
• Historical background
• Content: everything that is in the work of art. the imagery, the artist's intent, the form, medium, and context
• Concept: the Artist's intent. What he wanted to say, how he wanted to say it, where he positioned it, how he wants you to react to it.
• Subject: the main idea/theme/topic of the work

·  Sculpture: a type of art which is 3dimensional, has both mass and volume, composed of physical materials, and provides the observer with a 360 degree experience

·  Diorama: a sculpture that is in a closed space and can only be viewed from one direction.  Generally depicting a “real world” event or a closed scene.

·  Tableau:

a Life-sized sculpture with no barrier, so the audience can walk around in the scene.

·  Installation: a single work of art composed of an ensemble of multiple different elements. Draws the viewer into a multisensory environment.

o    Site specificity / Site specific: work that is conceived for, dependent on, and inseparable from its location. Context(location) vital for understanding the work.

·  Earthworks/Land Art: art which uses the landscape as its medium. Highly site specific, literally can not be moved. Represents the artist imposing his will power over nature.

·  Readymade: a mass produced, or commercially available item not made with the intention of making art becoming art by being placed into a new context.

o    Appropriation: the act of taking an object and putting it in a new context

·  Embodied time: when the work makes the observer acutely aware of the passage of time

·  Represented time: a symbolic process by which an artwork, or element within it, refer to a subject beyond itself, it does so by:

• Using/referencing history
• Freezing a moment
• Symbolism

o    Monument

·  Kinetic art: artwork made with moving or mechanical parts

·  Process art: art where the emphasis is on the process of making through physical handling materials and repetitious accumulation.

• Uses the logic of the materials. Ex. metal rusts, ice melts, wood rots, liquids drip/pour

o    The materials are ephemeral, changing over time.

·  Performance art: live art activities that encompasses elements of theater and visual art

·  Subjective time: time experienced. Ex. how long it feels like

·  Objective time: Time measured. Ex. How much time passed

·  Iconography : using traditional forms and imagery in an artwork to add further meaning.

·  Vanitas: when art possesses imagery to remind the viewer of their mortality

·  Sublime: art which evokes the feeling of awe and terror experienced when observing something of incomprehensible immensity.

·  Ritual:

• A set of actions with symbolic value

o    Done with a consciousness that supersedes the practical function of that activity

·  Figurative art: work that depicts the body

• Body Art:
•  
• Made with/on/out of the body
• Performance activity
• Often through extreme actions that explore
• Gaze: looking is never neutral, contemporary art generally endeavors to expose or subvert the gaze’s biases
• Behavioral theory of art:
• Art allows us to express ourselves in ways which are difficult to convey
• Art serves as a catharsis
• Art helps spread ideas
• Instrumental theory of art:
  art’s role for-
  o    An individual: an agent of consciousness, morality, ideology, and pleasure
  o    A community: an icon of the community’s culture
  o    A culture: an artifact of the culture’s ideals
• Institutional definition of art:

1. An artist is a person who participates with understanding in the making of a work of art.
2. A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public.
3. A public is a set of persons the members of which are prepared in some degree to understand an object which is presented to them.
4. The artworld is the totality of all artworld systems.
5. The artworld system is a framework for the presentation of a work of art by an artist to an artworld public