Matthew Barney

       I was very interested in the prosthetics the artist wore when this picture was taken. This picture/character in particular caught my attention. It's kind of scary and grotesque yet delightfully fascinating. It's kind of hard to tell if this is a human or a half animal? Perhaps, it's both?? I believe the character maintains a certain level of mystique which makes it all the more interesting.

     I think this is a great idea to take your ideas and creations out of one medium into the next.  This photograph of the artist dancing has been digitally enhanced to give it the strange scary appearance.  I think this man reminds me of an early fabulous dancer, but he also looks like a donkey.  The addition of the two opposing colors for the background creates a surrealistic feeling as well.

UCI / Beall Center for Art + Technology

On Saturday, March 26, 2011, I went to the UCI/ Beall Center for Art + Technology. I saw three large sculptures there made from inflatable materials.The three sculptures were named Bird, Inner Space, and BioMorphic. All three of the sculptures impressed me. When you stand next to them, lights turn on and highlight various aspects in a mostly darkened display room.

When I walked in there, I first saw what looked like big letter M’s hanging up. I didn’t recognize them as anything else until I stood next to them and the lights turned on. Then I could see by the reflection of the light that the M’s were actually flying birds. When the lights dimmed again, the birds returned to letter M’s. After this dramatic event, I noticed the information plaque which called them “Bird.”  Amazing!

After I saw birds, I moved on to the Inner Space sculpture.  I didn’t recognize it as anything until I read the information plaque. It looked confusing to me at first until the lights went on, then the sculpture took on the look of a NASA space station. It felt like I could go inside it and walk around.

The last piece, the BioMorphic, was part of an ongoing work exploring the forms, movements, and interaction of our human experience.  The design wasin the shape of a molecular pattern, in a geometric construction that represented the structure that underlies life.  This was a new piece that reminded me of a human form with arms and legs splayed out as though reaching for some secret robotic meaning.

Overall, I thought it was a wonderful museum project that I attended.  It was interesting to see only three pieces in this museum. Beall Center for Art + Technology didn’t look like LACMA or the Norton Simon Museum that I visited before.  This was a very small museum that is in the process of expanding.  This place seemed more like a college theatre than a museum.

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist.  He was born on December 16, 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance art.  He is an artist who seems to want to explore the role of the artist and how the artist himself influences the things he created. His works seem to cause people to have strong emotional responses. It is said of Nauman, "Nauman, beyond much dispute, is the most influential American artist of his generation." [Times. Robert Hughes. 1995] Though his work causes critics to strongly take sides, his art can be found in museums and private collections around the world.

He studied art with William T. Wiley and Robert Arneson at the University of California, Davis, in 1955-1956.Nauman also studied mathematics and physics at the University of Wisconsin Madison, in 1960-1964. He was American artist, Wayne Thiebaud’s, assistant in the sixtiesand became a teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1966.  Nauman met the singer and performance artist Meredith Monk in 1968.  Meredith Monk influenced his art as the first person with whom he discussed the "awareness of the body."This meeting reinforced his feeling that even an amateur's movements could become art.

Much of Nauman’swork is characterized by images which are often playful or have a“mischievous manner.”  The neon Run From Fear- Fun From Rear, or the photograph Bound To Fail displays the artist’s arm tied behind his back.  This image shows Nauman’s interest in the nature of communication and the implicit problems of language as well as the role of artist as communicator and manipulator of a visual language. He received the Golden Lion of the Venice, Biennale in 1999.  He created his work Raw Material at the Tate Modern in 2004.  The influence of the works of certain musicians like John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and LaMonte Young was vital in determining the way that Bruce Nauman would handle time in his films and videos. He sought to reproduce "the continuousness you feel in their music". These musicians and choreographers changed the effects of chance into tight-knit compositions which integrated the concept of a process as an essential element.Bruce Nauman also felt close to the obsessions of certain experimental film makers, notably Andy Warhol, whose films were characterized by a lack of story structures based on real time and the absence of editing: "My idea at the time was that the film should have no beginning or end: one should be able to come in at any time and nothing would change. All the films were supposed to be like that, because they all dealt with ongoing activities.”

            Critics variously described Nauman’s work as humorous or painful. In fact, throughout his career, his work often defied description. It was uncertain whether his pieces were sexual, aggressive, conceptual, or thought-provoking. Nauman's works were received either as a pop-psychology experiment or psychological torture, depending on the reaction they elicited.  Critics seemed to be polarized in their opinions of his works. In an interview in 1987 with Joan Simon, quoted in Artforum International, Nauman observed that his 1968 audio-installation work, Get Out of My Mind, Get Out of This Room, is “so angry it scares people."

For me, I like Nauman’s Neon works because I saw his works as been very beautiful. His neon works are like advertisements that I’ve seen on business store windows.  I thought his other works were disturbing and confusing.

Bill Viola

             
       Bill Viola is an internationally recognized video artist. When I looked at this piece, I fell in love with it right away. I see a phoenix in the form of a man, rising up from the ashes. But when I take a closer look at it, I see the relationship between light and darkness, masculinity and femininity. All these elements are well unified by the force of the fire. It looks like the man is in the foreground, is seen approaching through the darkness, which is the background.

     This piece is symbolic in a way, in my opinion. The fire symbolizes the obstacles that the man in this picture has to overcome in order to achieve his goal, desire. This piece could also be interpreted as a woman running and gradually transforming herself into a silhouette as she turns away from the light, which is the fire and walks into the darkness. This piece is very abstract and could be interpreted in many ways.

Bryn Oh

     

            I did some research on this artist and I noticed that most of her works have a very gloomy, depressing feel to them and also look very robotic.  In addition to that, the works are all set in a virtual space. This piece, according to the artist, is a self portrait as captured by herself. It looks like she is a snow queen in this piece. As I mentioned earlier, the background is, in my opinion, incredibly depressing. Her facial expression, standing posture, and her icy exterior really go with the background.  It is as if she almost blends in with her surroundings.

            In one of the interviews, she says snow was her "very first toy, before Legos", and she also says that she makes snow homes, people and often underground tunnels, "which are nice and warm inside." I guess this piece is very symbolic in a way.  Her icy exterior might push people away but, to quote the artist " its nice and warm inside." There is always a story in her art, and there are lots of little elements that need to be discovered to understand the whole picture.

Erwin Redl

  
   This piece by Erwin Redl has a very special meaning, in my opinion. It is about the shifting experience of space and time. The artist blurs the boundaries between body and the environment, solid and immaterial, immersion and isolation, etc. using both technology and new hybrid configurations. This piece raises awareness in me to pay attention to my relationship with the environment in a world where technology is increasing and becoming dominant in everyday use.
      
      In this piece, it looks like the artist really emphasizes visual awareness by creating an illusory, glowing space with a lot of LED lights. I guess the purpose of this is for the artist to have more freedom to express the visual effects of his computer-generated work. By using this image of a very young child, the artist emphasizes the new beginnings of technology and it relationships to humans.

Four Yip

        
        This piece is very colorful and extremely fantasy-based. From this painting, I observed that the artist has a fascination in combining nature, human and animal attributes into this particular character. She uses a lot of pastel and primary colors in the red spectrum and light. The girl in this piece is mostly naked.  I think it reinforces the point that I made earlier, which is the artist's fascination with human and animals combinations.  I believe she likes to portray humans in their most natural form, nude, just like the animals.

         I find a certain strangeness to this piece. Maybe a little creepy. As I mentioned above, her choice of colors is very powerful and these particular colors fit into the theme of nature colors and realism. This piece is whimsical and curious. It holds a detail that made me laugh, quiver and sigh with happiness. For instance, I am talking about the lush attention to fleshy creases. This portrait is bright and fun and it captures my attention right away. I think this piece is also very special for another reason. The use of colors in this piece is just so natural. It allows me, as a viewer, to interact, participate and  feel as if I am actually part of the painting.

Lecture 10.1 "Cypress College Art Gallery"

Today, I went to Cypress College Art Gallery. They had an exhibit called "The Quotidian World" video art exhibition.  I saw many short videos from many acclaimed contemporary artists, such as Camlab, Yoshi Saki, Zach Kleyn, and Kushami.  Artists created works that followed interactions with the real, or "quotidian", world. The Rapture, Remembered: Episode 2: The Gingerbread Lesson by Zach Kleyn was the one that impressed me. When I saw The Gingerbread Lesson video art work,  I felt sadness. When I saw this video, I thought her gradmother passed away and she remembered what her gradmother said about the gingerbread. I thought this video art work was interation with her real life. She wants to show us about her grandmother. I thought she loved her grandmother very much. That is very strange to me. It made wonder why he did that, what purpose did the artist have for using this other voice? Was the artist mocking the people in the video? It left me with a strange feeling.

Group A midterm

Today, we talked about our projects and discussed our collages. It was interesting and fun. I liked it. I am thankful to my group for bringing in food and drink . I'll bring it next time.

A beautiful ear of corn

Hi, I saw a beautiful ear of corn on twitter that I wanted to show all of you. I thought it was a most colorful piece of creative art.  This beautiful ear of corn represents the colors of spring and is like the candy corn of Halloween.

I thought this corn is fake corn. It was beautiful but you cannot eat it. The real corn is not as beautiful but you can eat it. This beautiful corn was created by man just like what we discussed in class between beautiful and real.

Los Angles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

During my adventure to LACMA in March 2011, while in the Ahmanson Building, I found my way to the South and Southeast Asian Art exhibit. There I saw a magnificent sculpture of the Guatama Buddha, the first Buddha or “awakened one.” It was made from metal in colors of dark gray and orange. When I saw this, I felt very proud to be part of the Buddhist community in the United States.  To see the Buddha displayed so beautifully in a famous museum, caused me to experiences a surge of excitement and happiness.  It was wonderful because my family traditions and religious beliefs were there for others to see and appreciate.   As a devout and practicing Buddhist, this event filled me with great pleasure.

At the Pavilion for Japanese Art, I took a photo of Sumida River, from the series Views of the Famous Sights of Japan, 1897. The images that impressed me most in this picture are the Cherry Blossoms. When I was young, I heard my mom say that the Cherry Blossom is a famous flower in Japan. We have Cherry Blossoms during the Vietnamese New Year too.  We use them to decorate our home during this season as they are very beautiful.  Seeing this painting brought up memories of my childhood in Vietnam, and also reminded me today of my Vietnamese heritage and times of religious celebrations.  Personally I found this picture to represent the delicate style and vibrant colors of Japanese Art.

            When I went to the Hammer Building, I was impressed with the Korean Art.  Korean Art gets me in touch with Asian Culture and makes me want to visit Korea. I took a picture of three statues of Korean kids.  They were called Altar Attendants. One child held a Phoenix, representing heroism and strength; a second child held a book, representing learning; and a third child held a turtle, representing financial luck. When I read the information, it said those three kids brought luck to Korea through their Alter gifts. When I saw these, I felt a kinship to the child that held the book because I too love learning.  Coming to the United States, has been lucky for me because I have more opportunities for learning and growth.

The next building I went to was The Resnick Pavilion Building. It contained European fashions of the past.It made me feel like I was in 18^th century Europe. I took a picture of an antique white fan. It reminded me of my Vietnamese traditions. Vietnamese women always use manual fans instead of electric fans. This fan made me feel like a beautiful Vietnamese princess.

Next I went to the Broad Contemporary Art Museum Building. I took a picture with a large wood sculpture. This sculpture made me feel like I was at the Great Wall in China. The sculpture seemed to go on and on with no exit out. It was impressive. It was a beautiful sculpture that made me feel small and insignificant while next to it.

The last building I went to was Art of the Americas Building. I took a picture of The Flight of Europa, the sculpture of a woman riding a bull, which looks more like a horse to me, made from bronze. The impressive thing about this statue was the bull. Because the bull looks so much like a horse, I was quite moved by its beauty.  The Horse is my Chinese Zodiac. The Horse represents my life and future.  This bronze horse/bull represented to me strength, power, and the ability to carry or support someone. I find these same qualities reflected in me because my parents often call me “horse.”

Overall, I found that I was drawn to and impressed by Asia Art and artists.  Because of my cultural heritage these works of art resonated in my soul. I found them all beautiful in different ways, each piece unique and creative. I found my adventure in LACMA well worth the trip.

My Collage Project

I want to show my life through my collage.  On the left side, I talk about me and include of photo of myself.My name is Quynhnhu Cao.  I am the only child in my family. I am living with my parents. I want to become a math teacher. Math is my favorite subject. I am more interested when I am taking a math class than when I am taking any other class.  I also included a family picture in my collage. This is because my family is very important to me. I love my mom and dad.  I also put in pictures that symbolize my personality, my interests, my ethnicity, and my skills.

I was born in Vietnam and came to the United States when I was eight. I speak only Vietnamese at home with my parents. My family left Vietnam because they wanted me to have better career opportunities and because my father’s family was already here.  We live in a Vietnamese community but love being in America too.

An interest I have besides math is art or being creative with my hands. I enjoy drawing, knitting, crocheting, and sewing and do these activities in my free time. On the right side of my collage, I talk about my interests which also include listening to music and eating.

I judge my personality as being someone who is shy but determine to succeed. I am very goal oriented and focused.  I have many friends and enjoy talking with them and going places with them.  My friends say I am a lot of fun to be around and I keep them laughing and entertained.

Ilya Kabakov

                           Ilya Kabakov and  Emilia Kabakov

 

 

Ilya Kabakov is a Russian-American conceptual artist of Jewish descent. He was born on September 30, 1933 in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. By using fictional biographies such as “Charles Rosenthal,”many inspired by his own experiences, Kabakov has attempted to explain the birth and death of the Soviet Union, which he judges to be the first modern society to disappear. In the Soviet Union, Kabakov notes elements common to every modern society, and in doing so he examines the gap between capitalism and communism. Rather than depict the Soviet Union as a failed Socialist project defeated by Western capitalism, Kabakov describes socialism as one utopian project among many that have been tried.

Throughout his forty-year plus career, Kabakov has produced a wide range of paintings, drawings, installations, and theoretical texts. Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Ilya Kabakov completed 155 installations between 1983-2000. The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment is one of Kabakov’s more famous installations. Created in 1984, the viewer enters the installation through a single door and is invited to visit the separate rooms, only one of which cannot be entered. This room must be viewed through cracks in a door that has been shoddily boarded up. The fictitious hero of this installation is a lonely dreamer who develops an impossible project: to fly alone in cosmic space.This apartment resident builds a catapult-like contraption or slingshot to shoot himself through the roof into outer space. But this dream is also an individual taking of a collective Soviet project and the official Soviet propaganda connected to it. A text describes the story as told by three other residents, one of whom happened to know the cosmonaut better than the others.  The room still contains the contraption, a gaping hole in the ceiling, and scientific drawings and diagrams tacked to a wall that is covered with wallpaper composed of old Soviet propaganda posters. A diorama of the town shows the man’s expected projectile path into outer space. The text explains that shortly after the man went into orbit authorities arrived and boarded up the room. The miserable room and the primitive slingshot suggest the reality behind the Soviet utopia, where cosmic vision and the political project of the Communist revolution are seen as indestructible. 

 

All of Kabakov's work is made in the name of other, fictitious artists, like “Charles Rosenthal.” This reveals a hidden rule of the modern art system: only an artist who doesn't want to be an artist or who doesn't even know that he is an artist is a real artist—just as only an artwork that does not look like an artwork is a real artwork. The installation is a narrative, the validation of a fictitious event. The installations are powerful comments on the Soviet Communist System of that time.

In the 1970s, several factors led Kabakov to become more conceptually oriented. The first was that Soviet thinkers embraced the structuralist theory from France, which shifted focus from an art object to its context. Further, maybe due to the influence of structuralism, the intelligentsia began to question the friend-or-foe attitude toward Soviet ideology. In the 1970s, rather than be anti-Soviet and pro-Western, many artists took a neutral position that would allow them to question and analyze the perceived gap between the ideologies. Kabakov was never considered a dissident as he remained loyal to the Soviet System.  His artistic comments on his society reflected symbolic statements rather than negative commentary on the Communist System. For example, in The Shower Series from 1965, a man is depicted standing under a shower but with no water flowing from it. Kabakov interpreted the work as a simple but universal metaphor about the individual who is always waiting for something, but never receives anything. Critics of communism interpreted the work as signifying Soviet culture and its lack of material reward.

Later developments led to Kabakov’s friends and colleagues forming a group that became known as the Moscow Conceptualists Group, which broadly encompassed the Sots artists and the Collective Actions group, both of which were influential in the construction of Russian conceptualist art.

When I view Kabakov’s artworks, they make me feel uncomfortable. His works give me a sense of apprehension, confined and close, like being trapped in a small and messy room. I feel controlled, with little room for movement.  I don’t like his works because I don’t like the feeling of confinement.  In a cultural context, Kabakov’s artworks to me reflect more despair than optimism, hopelessness rather than an improving society.

 

Identity 3: What is Beauty?

Today Mr. Zucman talked about beauty. What is beauty to everybody? When I saw Plato's idea, I thought like Plato that beauty is objective and reflects goodness. Aristotle thought beauty is about things that have  appropirate form and order.  I agreed with Plato's idea because everybody sees their life and people in different ways.  Beauty doesn't neccessarily reflect truth or a specific idea. For example, the beauty of a beautiful women doesn't always mean that she is also smart.  Mr.Zucman showed us some video clips about beauty. When I saw those video clips, I thought most pretty girls were visiting plastic surgeons. They did not possess natural beauty. Mr. Zucman showed us some pictures of naked women. I thought that these women displayed a true, natural beauty.  I also thought beauty on the inside, like kindness and love, is more important than physical outside beauty.

 At the end of class, he showed us the movie "We're All Angels." This movie was about Jason and deMarco. I felt sad that people were saying injurious things to them. I thought that being gay isn't a big deal because God made us.