Re-Assesing The Walker

The Art that I would like to talk about is the Unpainted Sculpture by Charles Ray, which is the spray painted car that we talked about in class so much. One of the main reasons people did or didn't like the piece was because it was modeled after a car that someone had died in. I think the fact that someone died in the car makes you think about how smashed up it is. Ray once said "It mattered to me that somebody had looked at it, and I wanted to make it matter to you." (Michael Fried, and Charles Ray, “Conversation”) about his sculpture Hinoki, but I think the same idea applies to this sclupture as well. Before I knew that I just thought oh that car is just kinda smashed up, that's kinda fancy, but after you know the context of it you look at it differently. You see every little piece of twisted metal in the car, every bend. I was picturing the car running into something and this person being thrown around the car and everyone around them rushing over to help, calling 911, and cops and paramedics showing up, the whole thing. I think it also helps for me because I have been in an accident similar to that, same side of the car smashed and everything, though obviously not as bad. So the knowledge that someone didn't make it through that really hits home. I think with me though whenever something happens in my life I always know that somehow it will turn out alright, which I believe is the opposite of Charles Ray, who seems to have a slightly more pessimistic way of viewing things.

Melba Price - Rapture

Around a year ago Melba Price began to make a set of 50 portrait paintings. The subject matter is people in their youth, from their late teens to early twenties. She based her paintings off of photographs that she found on the internet. Her medium is simply gouache on paper. The paintings are not set to a certain size, but are all similar (roughly 13x19). The edges are slightly jagged, and some of them are torn. The forms are very simple, and are mostly head shots that show the subject from around the shoulders and up. Many of the people are not posing they are just caught in the moment. Some of them seem sad, while others appear to be very content or even angered. The pieces also vary slightly in style. Some a re very realistic and look more like photographs than paintings, while others are more abstract, having very defined brush strokes. The backgrounds are simple, mostly one color with some shading or a slight pattern. Sometimes the background matches the picture and sometimes it compliments it. The emphasis of these is on the expressions of the people and not everything else. When you look at the paintings you almost feel like you have stepped into their lives for a moment. You see how they feel for that tenth of a second it takes to make a photo. You can tell which of the people knew the person that was capturing them and who didn't. Melba Price did an awesome job of translation them to paint.You can feel how these people felt with little effort just by looking at them.



These 50 paintings now line the walls of Midway Contemporary Art under the collective title "Rapture". According to thefreedictionary.com the definition of rapture is "The state of being transported by a lofty emotion; ecstasy" After getting the definition of rapture and then thinking of the pieces I get the impression that Price believes that being youthful means that you are emotional. That you can be easily caught up in your emotions, and that they sometimes get the better of you.

The pieces are at eye level with equal spacing within their respective groups. The groups are determined by the background of the painting. One wall has paintings in which a sky background it portrayed, while another has a rainbow of solid, brightly colored backgrounds. The painting are set up so that they are not flat on the wall. Each of them has a piece of foam board behind them so make them pop out of the wall. This gives them each their own shadow on the wall that gives them a little bit more life. Like they are 3 dimensional figures rather than just paintings.

Photos were taken from the Midway Contemporary Art website.

Text/Messages Exhibition

My Reaction to Text/Messages from the Walker. 

I liked how each of the different artist book were so different. I especially liked the one that was a piece of cake, and the ones that were shaped like guns. It was cool to see how each of the different artists went about doing basically the same thing. I was disappointed that I couldn't see what was on every page of some of the books though, like the chess piece artist book. I want to know if the pages fit together or if they are just random phrases and words.

The Walker

The piece from the Walker that I liked the most was "Untitled" by Shiraga Kazuo. That was the painting that he did with his feet on the canvas. I really like the story behind the painting, although it was kind of sad. The colors are really great. I like how it was mostly red and black with a small section that was nude colored. I feel like that was his way of letting people now that it was loosely based on people, and the atomic bomb. I think it's awesome that he thought to paint it using something other than a paint brush. It's also kind of fitting that he didn't know how the painting would turn out until he was done with it, like we didn't really know what hte reaction was going to be to the atomic bomb.

One of the works of art that I didnt like so much was the 3 videos of a man walking a line backwards, banging on a wall, and leaning over on one leg. I don't know the name of him or the video. The display kind of gave me a headache and I couldn't watch it for very long. It was also hard to focus on the videos individually. My eyes kept going to the center screen, probably because it had audio.

Instalation

The 2 images that I would have put together in an instalation would be "Kiss of Victory" by Sir Alfred Gilbert and "The Death of St. John" by Damien Hirst.

"Kiss of Victory" is a marble sculpture of a fallen soldier and an angel. The soldier is at the moment of death and it being kissed by the angel.

"The Death of St John" is a piece that is in a glass case. It contains candles, a skull, many glass bottles, and a rosary, among other things.

I would like to put these two pieces together because, they both represent death, however both in very different ways. "The Death of St John" gives the impression that death is frightening and grotesque, while "Kiss of Victory" gives the impression that death is something that can be honorable and even something a person may look forward too. I think that these too pieces together would give off mixed feelings. What you felt would depend on the piece you decided to focas on.

I think that I would display them in a room with plain white walls, medium sized, with a spot light coming from the ceiling pointing at them, and maybe one from the floor also. They would be side by side, with "Kiss of Victory" on the left.

Postmodern Interpretation

This is a painting by Jean Dubuffet. It is titled "The Cow with the Subtle Nose". The painting is a simple depiction of a cow with a green background. The cow looks like it is content. The artist may have been a farmer or a person who lived in close proximity to cows. This person painted the cow in a slightly unrealistic way, so the emphasis is not the subject matter but what it represents. I feel that it represents hard work, because cows are generally associated with farming. It is a symbol of a simple existance. A life without lots of problems or material things. What they have is what they need, and they don't want anything else.

Picture from http://www.artchive.com/ftp_site.htm.

Hey

First Blog Post