Response Group 4

I think my favorite reading was Goode’s article Ignorance is Bliss. It may be because I felt like I was a part of the group she was talking about that belittled themselves. It seems like if you are an artist you either overestimate or underestimate your abilities. Most of the people I know whose art is liked or popular, they seem more unassuming than others. Although fame seems to boost anyone’s ego and once an artist is famous it seems like they lose any sort of modesty that they’ve ever had.

The second reading that I really enjoyed was Roberta Smith’s Who Needs A White Cube These Days? I was never very fond of a solid white square room with a few piece of art here and there. it seemed too cold to me and whenever I looked at art I felt that art should be something that touches a person’s soul as well as their mind. However, that is not to say that sometimes a white room is needed for a piece and may even enhance it sometimes. But I believe that where a piece of art is placed has a big affect on how people see it. As for me, I would want my work to be placed in an area that has a very welcoming feeling, almost homey.

Response Group 3

I read these over the summer and I have to say that I did not enjoy reading/scanning over them again. I found them to be excessively long and it was hard for me to retain much of anything. Challenging the Literal was interesting in the way that it broke down all these ways that we speak and put into light what we usually look over. It also occurred to me that is in language can also be in art, considering that art is just a type of language/communication.

In the Bishop writing, Gillick talks about how the audience is needed to make his art, art. This is an interesting idea and I wonder if all art needs the viewer for it to be complete. Is it still art if the viewer is not there or if the viewer is there but not looking at or interacting with it? For my art and what I want it to do, the viewer has to be there looking at it.

I completely agree with what Hirschhorn says about his work “I do not want to do an interactive work. I want to do an active work. To me, the most important activity that an art work can provoke is the activity of thinking.”

I see my work as being the same. What I want from the viewer is for them to think about the work. I put a part of myself into my work hoping that it will be provoking to the viewer, even if its just for a few minutes.

Studio Visit 2

On Friday I had a photo major come and talk with me about my work that I am doing right now. He pointed out that the folded flowers could be taken as some sort of statement on Japan or the Asian culture in general because of their origins in origami. This could be a problem but I wanted to keep the orderly aspect of paper folding as a contradiction to the chaos the storms cause. In the end I decided to mix making paper flowers by cut outs and folded flowers. He and I felt that some of the image should be recognizable and was needed if I wanted people to get the connection between the storm and the organized flower.

Studio Visit

Friday was my studio visit and I have to say that it was very helpful. I am currently focusing on monotypes related to home (Kansas). I told my group about how I wanted to create these destructive images and then make them into some type of sculptural object like flowers. It is a representation on the cycle of nature- destruction turning into life.

I received suggestions such as: the movement of storms and how it relates to me, digging deeper into the storms and destruction itself, perhaps making it more violent, using film as a medium, and making the prints into something other than the flowers.

I did like all of these suggestions but I am not sure if I will go with any of them yet. I want to keep the idea of making them into flowers because the flowers are a symbol for me of how life returns after the destruction. I prefer to make soft sculptures though I probably could not tell you why at this time. I need to do a bit more digging on why I make all of the decisions I make so I can give people a better idea of where I am coming from and where I want to go with this.

Reading Response 2

These two essays work well together; they touch on pretty much the same topic but have different ways in discussing it. Halley writes about why art and ideas change so much (especially Western art) and how these changes come about. Benjamin writes about a similar idea but focuses more on the industrial age specifically and how new inventions change art.

Interestingly enough, both writers had a similar idea of what “old” art possesses. Halley calls it the soul or essence while Benjamin refers to it as an aura. The soul and aura seem to be two sides of the same coin but each writer describes it differently. Halley describes the soul of art as a way of returning to nature. Benjamin talks about the aura being particular to each piece of art in its original time and form. It would have been interesting for me if Halley had written more about the soul’s position when he was elaborating on how the ideas of art came to change so drastically.

I was more interested in the idea of an aura and how an abject would lose its aura if it were reproduced. We see so many reproductions of art nowadays, does that mean that the original no longer holds its aura or value because of all the reproductions that are made and distributed? I think the aura is never lost but at the same time I don’t think we can fully appreciate it if we were not a part of the time that the piece was made in.

Reading Response 1

I have to admit that I was not completely captivated by these readings but id did find some of what they talked about interesting. Foucault’s mention that an authors name on a piece of writing changes how the text is viewed is true. I don’t think a text always needs an author, or at least I don’t think we always need to know who the author is. However, it is true that sometimes we need to know who made the piece to prove its authenticity. If you do not know whom to look for sometimes you can end up with false information.

Along with that is the point that Barthes makes when he mentions that we look to the authors/creators to understand the piece. I personally don’t see why we have to know who the person is to understand something. On the other hand, know who the creator is and knowing a little about their life opens up a different understanding of their work.

Who the author is shouldn’t dictate what people think of the text but unfortunately it does. I believe the same should go for art. Art does not need a creator to be appreciated and critiqued. Sometimes I think it would be better if one does not know the artist because then the value is not based on who made it but the work itself. We put too much emphasis on “who made this and that” that I feel like we lose sight of the piece itself.

Out of all of these readings I found hers the most appealing. It is probably due to the fact that she directly relates writing to visual art and that makes me feel like what she is writing about it important for me as an artist. The following paragraph shows some of the things that really stood out to me.

Sontag writes, “It doesn’t matter whether artists intend, or don’t intend, for their works to be interpreted… If excessive stress on content provokes the arrogance of interpretation, more extended and more thorough descriptions of form would silence. What is needed is a vocabulary - a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, vocabulary - for forms…The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”

For a while now the world of Fine Arts has been focusing heavily on content or concept. Concept is important it is what really sets us apart from each other but, at the same time, it is not the only thing about art that matters. I agree that we have lost some of our senses and we no long see art. We look at it and judge by content, pondering over a piece of art and talking psychobabble with each other when I wonder if we even what we are saying. I understand that there was a time when content had to play a key role so art could change and grow but we should not leave the past behind us completely.