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Contemporary Art, Key Teal boxes- Readings Green boxes- Expanded Art …

- - - - Vilém Flusser’s short writing, "Form and Material," provides context for the idea that immaterial does not exist because material is constantly changing forms. Form, rather than immaterial, is the opposite of material because materials take on a form, and forms are made of materials. The process of in-forming materials gives them context and allows them to take shape. Artists are constantly undergoing a process with their materials. To find the shift from traditional practices to expanding ones concerning would be to prevent the natural evolution of artistic practices. That is not to say that traditional practices cannot be continued; in fact, most artists learn traditional methods before they are able to expand. Traditional categories of artistic practices will not disappear because they are the foundation of new media.
    - - The connection visually connects that Jones both wrote the essay and put together the show "The Path of the Teabowl" this semester in the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum.
      - In her essay "American Potters’ Interventions with the Tea Bowl: Using Thing Theory to Problematize Cultural Appropriation," Meghen Jones discusses the problematic nature of the teabowl's integration into American pop culture after World War II. American veterans such as Voulkos and Soldner replicated the teabowl in their own ways without truly acknowledging their cultural significance in other parts of the world, leading to questions about how much this qualifies as cultural appropriation and if it is ok. While their art is well regarded here, they reduced the significance of teabowl to a "thingness," as Jones puts it.
  - - - Peter Voulkos- Teabowl (1997)
      - Kuwata Takuro- Platinum Kairagi Shino Bowl
      - During the Teabowl tour, Professor Jones was talking about how American studio potters became obsessed with the teabowl as an icon. Artists like Peter Voulkos created their own versions of teabowls that became imitations of their east Asian counterparts. Voulkos in particular didn't bother to make his teabowls functional because his work was more about the idea of it rather than the teabowl itself. His Teabowl from 1997 is on display in the museum, and it has a large crack in the bottom as if to emphasize its lack of functionality. I told Professor Jones that that reminded me of our conversations about Betty Woodman last week. In Betty's Room, Woodman played with the idea of functional pottery without making any of it actually functional, much like Voulkos did. Other teabowls like Japanese artist Kuwata Takuro's 2011 Platinum Kairagi Shino Bowl are functional but don't look approachable. This piece in particular looks like a trophy with the platinum glaze, but the thick application of the glaze and the amount that the glaze crawled and pin-holed make it look sharp and decrepit. Even in the artist's statement below the piece, Takuro never says that it isn't meant for tea, only that he was trying not to break the rules and that he wanted to create something new.
    - - Teabowl rituals and performance art are connected because the rituals are basically performance art. There is a script that both hosts and guests follow, and there are physical actions that both must do as well. A huge part of the teabowl ceremony is not just drinking tea; it's also the preparation of the matcha and the distribution.
  - - - Betty's Room #
      - Pillow Pitcher
      - "Betty's Room" and "Pillow Pitcher" both show Woodman's relationship with functionality and materials. The "Pillow Pitcher" series was made in Woodman's early career, and here, she explored combining ceramics and painting. The forms of the pitchers are not necessarily the most functional, and I don't think that was something she was concerned about. This eventually manifested into the functionality, or rather lack thereof, present in "Betty's Room". Woodman took the time to make ceramic vases for this piece, except that the pitchers are completely 2D and nonfunctional. She combined this so well with the painting behind it that one may not even notice that ceramic is present at all in the piece at first. All of this leads to the discussion of art vs craft. Woodman was able to take a medium usually viewed as a craft at that point in time (pottery and ceramic vessels) and completely transformed it. She played with idea of making non-functional functional items out of the materials that they would usually be made of even if they were functional. She also often set her later work in domestic settings, leading one to question whether she was trying to make a statement about how turning domestic stereotypes, such as the role of women in the house, on their heads. see note on woodman's connection to feminism
    - - Words and writing can be argued as either craft or art depending on who is talking. For Rasheed, though, she takes what may traditionally a craft and solidifies it as an art form. Rasheed is interested not only in what words themselves convey, but also how they appear. She will sit and go through writings and books looking for particular shapes without looking for meaning, and then she'll think about the meaning afterwards and invite the viewer to think about the meaning too. She lets the words be the focus of her work. If you look at most of her work online, a majority of it is done solely in black and white, which gives the words a better shot at being read instead of overshadowed. I can't find a title for this work, but this piece, for example, is compelling the viewer to come forward and read the repetitive line "are you trying to die on that question?" amongst a few other lines and dissect it. Something I find interesting about her work is her inspiration. The way she approaches her art is inspired by how her dad used to annotated things he read, which is amazing. Annotations make you stop and either learn something (usually a source, fact, or opinion) or question something, which is exactly what Rasheed is trying to accomplish with her work. Slowing down and taking time to unpack something might be more work than ignoring it and moving on, but it's worth it.
        
        Her formal uses of shape, color, line, repetition, and scale make the art that much more visually appealing. It's very clean and organized but not in a way that detracts from the piece. The words "this is a stout truth" are large enough to make you want to go closer and read them but not large enough to be able to read them without fully approaching them and immersing yourself into the work. She is also using words that come from different sources, which gives her art that much more history to delve into based on what, when, and where those writings are from.
- - - - In her essay "Choosing the Margins as a Space of Radical Openness," Hooks encourages people outside of binary categories of society (ie race, gender, sexuality, etc) to not only stay in the margins but to revise them and make them their own by using their individual voices. The margins then become a space where difference can be embraced and societal pressures can be resisted as long as continual efforts are made to keep it that way.
      - Hooks and Rasheed are connected because of the focus on margins. The ironic thing about Rasheed's work is that the words she uses were probably previously margins in a book or paper, or at the very least, reduced to a margin and left behind. However, she brings a new life to words that would otherwise have been buried and chooses the spaces to include these "margins." She herself has also transcended societal margins. She is not trying to blur the lines between the margins she was placed in, but rather, just like her word art, she has found herself within the margin and invites the viewer to dive in with her and slow down.
    - - Fanon said a lot of good, important things in "The Fact of Blackness." His commentary on Blackness in the presence of colonialism was controversial at the time, and it inspired further thought on the subject eventually leading to the current critical race theory. He basically laid out how black identity has not been self-created thus far; instead, it has been thrust upon them by society. His influence and impact is undeniable. While I cannot by any means say that I agree that the Holocaust was just a "little family quarrel," Fanon undeniably remains an important figure and voice in Black history. He brought up difficult subjects such as the "Negro Myth," where the color black is viewed as evil in White society, as well as afro-pessimism. He argued that society pressures Black people to want to be White, and he discusses feeling like an object.
    - - In her essay, Lorde, a Black lesbian woman, describes how she was invited to participate in a conference about examining papers on feminist theory. At this conference, she became indignant to find out how little representation of different kinds of woman there are based on race, sexuality, and class, and she criticized the patriarchy. She discusses how women are taught to highlight their differences with other women to create clearcut boundaries that ultimately prevent women from creating an all-encompassing, supportive community. She ends by criticizing the conference for inviting her as the sole Black voice to participate and speak on behalf of all other Black women.
  - - - Carolee Schneeman- Interior Scroll
        
        "Interior Scroll" is interesting to me because there is a common phrase that some people use to describe men, which is when they “think with their dicks.” By pulling out a scroll from her vagina that she then read from, Schneeman “thought with her vagina,” which I’ve never heard anyone say before. Vaginas have two main uses, which are being a birth channel (and related things like menstruation) and being involved in sexual activities. By using the scroll, it’s almost like Schneeman is directly stating that vaginas have an innate sense of knowledge and a memory, which going further is more-so a statement about women in general than about vaginas themselves. Her work could be seen as extremely provocative, but sometimes, that’s what it takes to get a conversation about difficult or uncomfortable subjects going.
      - Yoko Ono- Cut Piece
        
        "Cut Piece" is extremely interesting to me because Ono let the audience cut away her clothing as a souvenir. That in and of itself makes a statement to me because it’s addressing the audience’s sense of entitlement to the artist’s boundaries and vulnerabilities. To believe that you can go up to someone and take the clothes off of their back and expose them, even with their permission, is odd. While they may have claimed it was in the name of art, what did they do with the scraps they cut off of her clothes? They probably took them home as a souvenir, further proving what I’m reading as Ono’s point. At first it may seem that "Cut Piece" is anti-feminist; after all, letting someone cross boundaries such as removing clothes without permission is definitely not empowering. However, she was actually making a statement about passive objectification and how little control women have over their bodies and how they are touched in the media.
      - Betty Woodman is linked to feminism because she was a successful ceramicist in a time where it was a predominantly male-dominated field. The fact that she has made such a legacy for herself despite coming out of that time period and the fact that she stayed in that field despite discouragement inspired other females interested in pursuing ceramics to follow her lead.
      - Yoko Ono and Carolee Schneeman had big influences on both performance art and feminist art. To keep the map less messy, I chose to only add them in one place and include the connecting dotted line to indicate that they are equally important in both the performance and the feminist sections.
    - - Dean Gillispie- Spiz's Dinette
        
        "Spiz's Dinette" is incredibly small, and the amount of detail that Gillispie was able to convey is impressive. His artwork calls back to projects from childhood, and one could argue that it is a safe space for him and a comfort. I would imagine that being in a prison would leave anyone want to escape, so Gillispie's art might be his legal way of doing that. He is also creating something you would only see in the world outside of a prison. Despite how small his pieces are, they are screaming to be seen.
      - Stephen Tourlentes- Wyoming State Penitentiary
        
        Stephen Tourlentes' work is visually fascinating because he is pushing the idea that a prison, correctional center, or penitentiary could be anywhere. In the middle of nowhere, it's easy to forget about the people there and move on with your life without having to feel bad about it, as seen in Wyoming State Penitentiary. However, in works like Dodge Correctional Institution, despite being right around the corner from inhabited homes, the institution is passed by every day without a thought from said inhabitants. The way that Tourlentes is raising awareness about these situations despite not having been in them himself is admirable. When you don't know what you're looking at at first, his photographs come across as eerie but beautiful, somewhere between alien landscape scene with Wyoming State Penitentiary to small town America at night in Dodge Correctional Institution and Abion, NY State Women's Prison. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes even more eerie in a way when you realize that people live and are trapped in those jails and confinement places for various reasons; they're not just buildings and factories that light up the sky. The people in these facilities for the most part do not have a way for their voices to be heard, and they are left in the margins of society where the general public can forget about them and their struggle. Tourlentes efforts to make them heard despite not being in their place is a great start to the cause of bringing them out of the margins.
    - - Betye Saar- The Liberation of Aunt Jemima #
        
        Saar's piece "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima" was inspired by the Black Panthers. Through this assemblage, Saar takes a derogatory depiction of Black women and turns it around by empowering the depicted woman and showing her taking control of herself and how she is viewed through direct confrontation of the source material. Saar was another important figure in feminist art, specifically in Black feminist art, hence the connection.
      - Melvin Edwards- The Lifted X
        
        The messages Edwards portrays about social injustice, civil rights, and race are just as strong and heavy as the metal he uses. The material he works with suits the topics he chooses to inspire his creations in a way that I don't think many other artists do. I think a different medium would drastically change the impact of his work. A material usually seen as purely industrial is transformed into a statement when Edwards uses the metal in his art.
        
        The connection between Melvin Edwards and Art vs Craft exists because Edwards takes a practice and medium that is traditionally craft (welding) and flawlessly incorporates it into the art world.
      - Chris Ofili- The Holy Virgin Mary
        
        What I find really interesting about Ofili's piece, The Hold Virgin Mary, is that in all probability, Mary was not white. Christian art and literature, most notably from the Renaissance, has enforced white images of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus into Western culture to this day, but they lived in the Middle East; Bethlehem is in Israel. It makes me wonder if Ofili had painted something like Cimabue's Santa Maesta with the only content difference being all of the figures were black, would it have raised as much controversy, and if so, why? It would have been more historically accurate. To comment on the elephant dung, I'm interested in why Ofili used specifically elephant dung. He could have used the dung of any barn animal to call back to the nativity scene where Mary gave birth in a barn, but he chose to use elephant dung. Another thing that comes to mind when looking at this piece is people attempting to insult women by calling them either a Mary or a Mary Magdalene to make fun of their sex life in one extreme or the other. The way that Ofili is portraying Mary in this painting seems to be trying to break that divide by surrounding her with female genitalia that almost look like they're flying away. It's as if Mary is being set free and taking control. In my opinion, this piece makes it seem like she could still be holy even if she was no longer a virgin. I think Ofili might have been trying to poke at the association between holiness and virginity.
- - - - In her essay "Sculpture in the Expanded Field," Krauss provides a diagram that breaks down different kinds of sculpture based on architectural and land elements. The four categories are site construction, axiomatic structures, marked sites, and sculptures see the diagram for the breakdown. Krauss encourages artists to defy these categories because anything can be a sculpture.
      - Krauss is connected to Expanded Sculpture because these categories are based off of a diagram in her essay Sculpture in the Expanded Field.
    - - In his essay "Art and Objecthood", Michael Fried argues that art should immerse and transcend the viewer out of the gallery setting. Fried stated that the viewer should not be aware of time and space, nor the duration that they observe the art. He believed art should be autonomous and should not rely on the viewer to give it meaning. His unwavering traditional views lead him to heavily criticize minimalist art, amongst other forms of art such as performance and multimedia. Fried even went so far as to create the term literalism for art that acknowledges that it is an object.
      - Michael Fried openly discussed his distaste for Robert Morris, as well as fellow minimalist Donald Judd, in his essay Art and Objecthood.
    - - In her writing "Framing [Performance]", Taylor creates a visually appealing layout combining emphasized words and pictures to present her content. The chapter discusses the history of performance art, as well as how it can be defined. She acknowledges the fluidity of the meaning of performance and how it can and will change over time based on the context it is presented in.
  - - - Hito Steyerl- How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational Mov. File
        
        Fried is connected to Steyerl's piece because he would absolutely condemn the theatricality of it. He would argue that Steyerl's film isn't art because it relies on an audience and the duration that they view it.
        
        As the viewer of "How Not to Be Seen", you acknowledge the humor behind the work, but you also know you're taking something away from it, even if you don't know what that message is at first. After a bit of reflection on it, my interpretation of the video is that Steyerl is commenting on fake news, green screens, virtual reality, and pervasive surveillance/ Big Brother. In a way, despite showing her face on camera, she is hiding herself by using text to speech instead of her own voice. Perhaps she is commenting on YouTubers and the personas they put on in their videos, since this is a "how-to" video. When she was putting the paint on her face during "to camouflage," and she blended into the background, I think she was commenting on the masks we put on to hide in the world, albeit makeup, personality masks, or hey, even the face masks we've been wearing for the past year and a half. She's also commenting on how we don't just look at images every day; they are beginning to create their own realities and spaces. We don't just look at pictures, we zoom in on them, we scroll and swipe past them, and sometimes we use them as a sense of validation. I think that's a direct hit at social media, which could bring us right back to pervasive surveillance.
      - Sharits- T.O.U.C.H.I.N.G
        
        In Sharits's T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, I noticed how intimate and pivotal the heartbeat is. In my experience, hearing a heartbeat in art, albeit music or film, grabs my attention. It's something every single human has in common and can understand. When the heart rate in the artwork speeds up, generally viewers become more attentive, and it can even raise some anxiety and cause the viewer's pulse to race as well. It's crucial to the immersive element of this piece, and I would argue that it is just as important as the repeated word "destroy."
        
        This is the list of things I heard in T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G that I wrote down as I watched it: destroy, this jaw, this joy, distraught, his straw, his draw, the straw, it's dry, Fitzgerald, draw it, try, this girl, describe, his try, it's drawn, it's Gerard, it's Charles, it's Joy, it's Troy, Vince Guaraldi.
        
        Acknowledging the time context of this art, I think some of the combination of words I heard really play into the fact that the Vietnam War was happening. All stemming from the word "destroy," I think a word like "distraught" is pretty self explanatory. However, hearing things like "his straw" and "it's drawn" make me think about the draft that would have been affecting male Americans at the time; they drew the short straw, their names were drawn from the hat, imagery like that. On top of that, hearing names in the video makes it feel like those people were about to be put in danger. Maybe "Gerard, Charles, Joy, and Troy" are being drafted or choosing to fight, and they run the risk of being "destroyed." Perhaps, hearing "destroy" right before you hear "this joy" is pretty telling as well. In combination with the visual that was flickering so much it gave me a headache and the image of the man mutilating his tongue, the art is unsettling. Because Sharits is making the viewer notice the flicker, and it's not passive anymore, perhaps as the artist he is making a comment to his viewers that he will not be passive anymore, and he'll say what he thinks and stand up for it. I think the fact that the heart beat is so intimate, combined with the words I heard enforcing this foreboding sense of impending danger (the Vietnam War) makes this piece really impactful.
    - - Minimalist
        
        Robert Morris- Untitled (1965)
        
        Morris's "Untitled" cubes are about the viewer’s experience, as opposed to the artwork itself. The viewer acknowledges that four mirrored cubes are sitting in a gallery, and as they move around, they can watch their reflections follow them. Fried argued that Morris’s work was not art since it embodied objecthood and existed in a situation. He also condemned the theatricality of the work since it both relies on a durational experience and assumes an audience. Fried accused Morris of being both a literalist and an ideologist, not an artist. The audience’s relationship to the objects in Morris’s "Untitled" intertwines with the fact that there are mirrors. The audience physically sees themselves in the art and, therefore, becomes part of the art. The way that they move and act informs what the art means to each individual viewer. While Fried and others with traditional notions may disapprove of minimalist sculpture, Morris and other minimalist sculptors place the most importance on the audience in their art. This makes the viewers feel important, and it allows the audience to engage and interact with the art in a completely new way that may inspire them to come back for more.
        
        Robert Morris is also linked to Site Construction under expanded sculpture because his piece "The Observatory" is technically site construction and, therefore, qualifies to connect.
        
        Richard Serra- Inside Out
        
        The most important aspect of minimalism is the audience. The duration that the audience spends with a piece, their awareness of their surroundings, and their questioning of objects and materials, while argued to be bad by Fried, all make up how minimalism is categorized and viewed today.
      - Modernist
        
        David Smith- Cubi XII
        
        Anthony Caro- Yellow Swing
        
        The key ideas of modernism were that works were autonomous, smaller parts created a unified whole, it must suspend its own objecthood see Fried, and works of art in some respects are not objects.
      - Expanding
        
        Site Construction #
        
        Mary Miss- "Perimeters/Pavilions/Decoys"
        
        Mary Miss's "Perimeter/Pavilions/Decoy" reminds me of a bunker. For the time that it was built in ('77-'78), I wonder how people who lived through the Vietnam War (ie soldiers, pow, etc.) reacted to it, since the war only ended in 1975. I imagine their emotional reacts could have been more visceral from the bottom of the pit, even more so than from the top looking in. It's not exclusive to people who were in Vietnam either. The Cold War was still fairly recent, and many Americans were familiar with bomb shelters. "P/P/D" doesn't look exactly like a bunker, though, since it's not covered, so I wonder if anyone made that connection at all. Without any context, I wonder how many people would assume it's some sort of architectural structure with no relation to sculpture. Also, Miss seems to want the viewer to recognize their own vulnerability while engaging with the piece.The viewer can look at the artwork from above and beside and realize how far down the pit is. In that way, it also reminds me of the "Untitled" mirror cubes by Robert Morris, in that the art is waiting for the viewer to experience something unique to themself and their experiences.
        
        Marked Site
        
        Robert Smithson- Spiral Jetty
        
        While there are some amazing photographs of "Spiral Jetty," experiencing it in person with the landscape and weather unique to the day and time that you go must make them all the more enticing. Being able to physical walk on/ around this piece makes it much more immersive, which is a completely different experience than looking at photographs and videos. Fried would dislike this piece for all the same reasons that he would dislike "Sun Tunnels."
        
        Nancy Holt- Sun Tunnels
        
        Holt’s "Sun Tunnels" heavily rely on duration. They rely on the duration that the viewer observes them as the sun and stars rise and fall; however, they also rely on the duration of the weather on any given day, as well as the duration of the drive to view them. As the sun moves, the shadows around and inside the tunnels change, as do the colors in the sky. Two viewers could go a day apart and have completely different experiences depending on the weather. In a way, "Sun Tunnels" is also theatrical. Not only does the lighting change throughout the day, just like it would on a stage, but also, it is a marked site meant for human intervention and interaction. The tunnels are objects that can be climbed on and inside, and the framing of the surrounding landscape changes based on the viewer’s perspective. Anticipation also plays a huge role in this artwork between the anticipation of getting to the location and the anticipation of the sky. This piece heavily relies on its audience.
        
        As for the connection to Fried, Holt challenges objecthood by embracing it and continuing to call it art. Her art allows the viewer to acknowledge what they are physically doing and seeing. She even places emphasis on letting the viewer acknowledge the location by placing "Sun Tunnels" in the middle of a scenic area and using the tunnels and their holes to frame the view. Additionally, Holt’s work shows that the “art object” is no longer a requirement for making art. Most viewers of "Sun Tunnels" view it through photos and videos, and while the physical experience is not the same, Holt still manages to make the viewer aware of the surroundings and mindful of the fact that the objects are concrete tunnels.
        
        Axiomatic Structures
        
        Christo and Jeanne-Claude- Wrapped Reichstag
        
        Michael Asher- Pomona College Project
    - - Chris Burden- Shoot # #
        
        These connections exists because Burden’s "Shoot" and Abramovic and Ulay’s "Breathing in, Breathing out" seemed to have apathetic audiences that would not intervene, even if something look off. In a way, though, Yoko Ono’s audience for "Cut Piece" see feminism in blue may have just been following the rest of the crowd by helping cut off her clothes, which also makes them an apathetic audience that won’t intervene even when something looks wrong. It makes me wonder how far people are willing to go in the name of art. Perhaps we’ve all developed some apathy from everything we’re exposed to in the media ever day that non-action to such situations is the new norm, even outside of artistic contexts.
      - Marina Abramović and Ulay- Breathing In, Breathing Out