Grad Student Exhibit Review

Caution: Don’t Lose the Message
Art is one of those things that everyone has a distinctly unique approach to, which has never been as clear as when walking into the latest grad student display in the art museum here on campus. Among the varied mediums of art displayed were the installations, paintings, multimedia video, ceramics, and sketches. For one reason or another, one of the simplest displays became this reviewer’s favorite.
By Brad Dinsmore, the piece is named Nervous Rabbit. At first glance, there sits an enthusiastic ceramic cat named Cat with Flowers, anxiously presenting flowers to its audience. Whether the cat is funny or cute is irrelevant to the true observer. What is particularly engaging about this piece is that on the floor, just peeking around the corner of the pedestal, sits a ceramic rabbit with flowers of his own, politely and cautiously offering them to the audience. The two in tandem intrigue me because there is more to it than at that first glance. In fact, the rabbit seems to be the significant one that would be noticed if only someone would look closer. The rabbit is so subtle that most people probably overlook it entirely and leave thinking they have seen everything to see, which is a mistake. There is always more to see. In that way, the rabbit represents the true nature of art; by peeking around the corner, the rabbit offers the audience more than just flowers and more than what is seen at a superficial glance.
As a whole, the exhibit is disconnected, which is understandable because they are several artists with their own visions. In some ways, the artists’ ideas converge. For example, Dinsmore’s People and Proverbs intersects with Dustin Price’s Untitled pillow tree installation in the center of the room. Both pieces demonstrate a theme of acquired knowledge and wisdom. Dinsmore features phrases we often hear in daily life and common sayings that have become empty thanks to exhaustion; Price’s tree emphasizes peace and perhaps a new approach to ideas in general, treating them with gentle respect. When the pieces in this exhibit work together, they are much more impactful than on their own.
Some of the pieces on display such as Sailor, the video featuring barriers, tunnels, and doors, are pleasantly ambiguous while achieving a level of coherency. Others, such as the installation in the corner with lights, a cut-out cow, and paper chains, make me think that the modern artist is a professional marijuana smoker who needs to legitimize his or her hobby by making money to buy more marijuana. It is clear that modern art is not for everyone or the faint of heart (or lungs). Usually I can find a reason to respect an artist, but the installation in the corner (of which I unfortunately neglected to record the name) weakens my resolve to respect art that I do not understand. As far as collective messages go, I could not find one hidden in the layers of installations. Individual pieces had more clearly discernable purposes, but the collective exhibit was not orchestrated to be so articulate.
Art these days seems to be less about representing what is and has been as provoking the audience to think about abstract ideas. Sometimes, however, it appears that in attempting to reach that upper echelon the messages are lost completely.

The Met!

Among the exhibits we visited was the hall of medieval art. One of the major themes was of course pious humility. Most pieces featured the Madonna. This makes sense because at the time, most everything in the world was explained in terms of religious perspective and was defined be relationship to God. Therefore, it also makes sense that people of the time would feature the Madonna on their walls, entryways, and fireplaces. If religion was the most important aspect of their lives, and it certainly played a large part, it is only natural that the likeness of Jesus and His mother be prominent in their daily lives.
Another of the exhibits that we had time to visit was the American wing. Mostly in this section were furniture (which looked comfortable and appealing after running around New York all day) and portraits. Something that I thought a lot about while walking through the exhibit was why these two forms of art might be so prominent in early American culture as opposed to something like clay working or architecture or statues like one might find in Europe. My answer to myself is primarily that people create art with the supplies to which they have access. Based on the fact that the nation was merely trying to establish itself, consider the idea that people are also trying to establish a social hierarchy, and one way of doing that is by possessing art pieces. Coming to a new continent, while not completely equalizing, certainly leveled the playing field a bit. At the same time, people needed furniture. Maybe the two needs collided, and suddenly having ornamental furniture filled that purpose. That is not to say that having elaborate furniture did not fill that purpose before, but it possibly became the primary means to identify someone’s status within those high-flying circles.
Finally, we ended our tour of the museum with the suits of armor. There is little to say about them except that it is surprising how much ornament and effort was put into something that had a lot of potential to be beaten in.
Overall, I wish we had had more time to spend in the Met. As it was, we only got to spend a few measly hours. One could certainly spend days exploring without seeing everything.

Heidi Chronicles

There's certainly a lot one can say about the Heidi Chronicles, and a lot of things have been said in class about it. I did like the set (which I thought looked more symbolically like a hangman game than a picture frame), and I liked the omnipresent music and how it lightly complemented the mood of the scene without being so blatant that it was overbearing. Even so, I cannot honestly say that I am a fan of the play as a whole.

I thought it was without direction, discernible theme, or overall message. I know the ending is somewhat ambiguous, probably on purpose, but it frustrates me that the final scene does not put a capstone on the play like it should. If either the rest of the play or the ending was opaque, I would be fine with it, but it wasn't. I spent the entire time reading/watching it wondering exactly what the author was trying to tell me about... something... as a woman. Perhaps I was just not in the right mood to be exposed to the story.

Possible "morals of the story":
1. Feminists can't be happy.
2. You can't have it all as a woman.
3. Heidi expected too much too fast from her life as a feminist.
4. Feminism is more about the right to choose your path than "having it all".
5. Don't make the same mistakes that Heidi did, being too preoccupied with her status as a woman and forgetting to live her life according to what she actually wanted.
6. The depth of womanhood knows few bounds, but the bounds are delineated by men.
7. Wasserstein only wants "equal time and consideration" for women.

I know that in whatever people read or see, they bring different backgrounds to it and therefore get something different out of it--individual differences in the audience can change the art piece that is interpreted. Therefore, I suppose there might not be any way to agree on what the message of the play was, but mostly it just depressed me.

Note: It's certainly interesting that in the painting she mentions, The Beheading of Holofernes, the woman committing the act is named Judith. Coincidence?

Pollock and Danto

Pollock is an interesting guy. A drunken womanizer and splatter painter, he definitely made an impact on the art world. I personally like his work but think that it is way overpriced. When Allison and I began researching, we discovered that his painting Number 5 sold as the most expensive painting ever at $140,000,000 in 2006. Not only that, but most of the sources we found focused very little on him as a person. It was interesting mostly because most other artists are scrutinized as a person and an artist, which is to say that critics sometimes (most times) pull the artist's character or "artsy-ness" into the analysis. The absence of such a thing when it comes to the critiques of Pollock is telling because he seems to be above that. People clearly separate him from his work, even though he himself tells us that the line is blurred if there at all.
I like him. I'm not sure I would pay much more than cost of materials for his work just because it doesn't seem that skillful, even if there is energy-driven order to the chaos (like fractals). Even so, I could understand why someone would pay a lot for his work--the fame, the influence, the originality of someone at that scale--I just wouldn't pay that myself.

My favorite philosophical musing toward Pollock with regard to our class is Danto. In the presentation, I mentioned that Pollock's work if often accepted as art even if someone doesn't like it. I think that's particularly fascinating because there's also the debate over whether it's art if someone else could create it, or even create it by accident. (Don't we usually assign a level of intent to artistic creation?) Therefore, it leaves me to wonder what it is about Pollock's splatter paint that speaks as art even to those who think they could create something similar just as easily. Firstly, I think it's the fame. If he weren't so famous, so universally celebrated or well-known, the case would not be so. Secondly, it's the fact that he was groundbreaking in abstract expressionism and opened the doors to more controversial pieces, and because his was first and perhaps less challenging (and uses colors and traditional materials), his is automatically art by comparison.

Neitzsche and Tolstoy

Philosophy has never been my strong suit--I'm pretty easily confused by its density. I really cannot tell if it is that aspect of my thinking or something else, but I seriously do not see how Neitzsche and Tolstoy could possibly be talking about the same thing other than the umbrella topic "art theory".

Neitzsche discusses in his writing dichotomous nature, the Apollonian and Dionysian perspective on things. In the former's world, there is fantastic order, and in the latter's, the chaos of reality. Most importantly, as I am lead to understand it, the Apollonian world is self-illusion of rationality via religion, which is classified as an overall order or truth that we can get to (reminiscent of Plato?) that is conceptualized with the notion that there is a higher power. In contrast to this Apollonian world and the art in it, Neitzsche tells us that we can get certain things from Dionysian art based in this relatively real world that we could not from the purity of Apollonian.
So Neitzsche is talking about types of art and what we can do with it.

Tolstoy, on the other hand (or maybe I should say foot because they are relatively unrelated), writes of contagion--that art is the connection between two people forged by some medium of communication. Pure and simple, that is what he says. So Tolstoy is talking about what makes art "art" and what it can do.

I suppose from the perspective that both Philosophers discuss what art can do or what we can get from it, they debate the same topic, but honestly, that's the only true similarity I see with a superficial knowledge.

Faking It

Can a person actually fake their way into the art world, or do they just enter it as anyone else might and have an accelerated introduction? In other words, does the crash course in faking being an artist really faking it, or did he just actually learn to be an artist? It seems to me that all he's doing is creating art in his own way and shown how to B.S. his way through refining the ability to express his thoughts.

Another thing I thought was interesting was the fact that the guy very clearly had some talent before going into the challenge. His initial drawings show some skill in illustrating his self-portrait. That leads me to think that if the "experts" really thought they could turn a common person into an artist by letting them fake the things that go with the art world, one of two things must have happened:

1. They must have taken a person with no talent and trained them in how to create art without influencing the product, which is essentially impossible, or...
2. They would have had to present the art to critics the way they did in the video, without the "artist" present, with a statement by the artist himself as the way to fake art.

As it was, it's more about fooling the critics into thinking he's an artist by giving him glasses and a new wardrobe. As it is, the guy really was an artist. I reiterate the thing I've been standing by since the beginning of the class: It is art, so he is an artist, but it falls on the individual audience member to decide whether it's good or bad.

In the video, the statement is given: "To talk about art, you need to understand it." Understanding art, in my view, is a spectrum that doesn't include a lack of understanding. Everyone understands art in their own unique way.

Therefore, I think that the guy will succeed, because with art, it's really really hard to be wrong, if you believe that it's possible to be.

Kinkade

Kinkade. Where to begin.

Honestly, the man is a capitalism genius. He's got everything from mass-produced prints to puzzles to plates to chairs to figurines to a neighborhood of real cottages built to look like the ones depicted in his paintings. There's probably even more production in the works that we don't know about, and it's all for sale for more than it's worth in this blogger's humble opinion. The reason? Kinkade is not an artist--he's a business man.

That is not to say that his work is not art. By my definition, I have to identify his cottage fetish as art, but under no circumstances would I call it good art. That right I reserve entirely.

In regards to the article, the things Kinkade peddles to middle America via his galleries is reminiscent of a pawn shop. When the author discusses the worth of the paintings, I begin to wonder why certain paintings are "worth" more. One possible reason would be the price rises with who will pay most for it in a bidding war, like stocks in the stock market.

Now my favorite part about this is the fact that if someone were to hock a Kinkade, it would not catch a higher price than some less well-known artists just because he's more famous. I would guess that that is attributable to saturation and dilution of the market: Since he mass-produced his work, it is not as rare, and rarity is often the final word on how expensive something is. Inflated prices to show quality can only bring someone so far.

In today's video, Kinkade claimed that a Picasso will not be worth as much in the future as it is now, and he alludes to the fact that a Picasso will not be worth as much as Kinkade's own work because Kinkade creates art that people can understand and appreciate. While I agree with one Kinkade fan that he should hang what he likes on his wall regardless of deeper meaning, I do not think that is a good enough reason to write off the value of a Picasso.

Overall, I personally feel that the value of art is inflated overall. Sure, someone could have bought a painting for a million dollars before the economic slump, but after, the price may have dropped to half that because the price is only determined by what someone will pay for it. And that is unfortunately what we sometimes base our judgment of talent on as well. It's all inherent to the subjectivity of art.

Running the Reviews: Criticism or Neutral?

According to Chris Jordan, “The problem with statistics is they’re so dry and emotionless (Pasulka).” In the same interview, he goes on to say, “Because statistics are so hard to connect with, we’re not going to find motivation from them.” He is correct that it is sometimes hard to connect with a context-less number, especially a number so large. Another problem with plain statistics is the difficulty most people have truly understanding the scale of the numbers displayed, such as the 12.5 million dollars spent ever hour in Iraq. To resolve this problem with dry data that he perceives, Jordan helps the observer conceptualize the numbers of consumption by showing them entirely and in detail. Jordan’s exhibit Running the Numbers supposedly examines the United States’ mass consumption, but it leaves the audience wondering: Is it a criticism?

Upon entering the gallery, the first print to the right is his 2004 work, “Containers and Mount Rainier”. At first glance, this work seems to be nothing more than a portrait of Tacoma skyline, but upon rumination, it is much more than that. It sets the stage for the rest of the prints by juxtaposing nature and our influence on it. It acts as an introduction to the statistically based commentaries on how our culture behaves, but the print itself is not critical. Some could view it as a condemnation of how people use land and space, but “Containers and Mount Rainier” is merely a foreword for what is to come. Jordan’s works that follow “Containers and Mount Rainier” appear to be more specifically critical of consumerism and wastefulness.

His criticism is exemplified with “Skull With Cigarette”. It is fairly apparent what he is saying when he creates a picture of a skull out of cigarette packs: “Cigarettes will kill you.” Jordan’s representation of the number of American deaths due to smoking per six months is clearly negative. It is difficult, however, to determine exactly who or what he is critiquing. Is the cigarette company the problem, or is it the habit of smoking? The piece is purposeful and impactful, but if his intent was to precisely pinpoint one target, Jordan fails. Still, without a specific mark, Jordan is able to condemn the entire cigarette industry. In that way, this work becomes critical of western culture.

While Jordan seems to be criticizing American consumerism with some of his work, other pieces are much more neutral. Some appear to be there for the sole purpose of facilitating conceptualization of the large numbers we hear about our own consumption. For example, Jordan uses one hundred dollar bills to display 12.5 million dollars spent in Iraq every hour in “Ben Franklin (2007)”. Most of the time, the news will report new budgets or extreme figures for spending in Iraq, and it is difficult to truly understand how much that is. In “Ben Franklin”, Jordan lets the audience understand how much money that is by showing us the pure statistics without criticism.

Though the majority of the pieces in the exhibit are geared toward disparagement of the western, or sometimes more specifically American, consumerist lifestyle, his contemplation is not always negative. Sometimes, Jordan lets the audience come to their own conclusions, as with “Jet Trails (2007)”. In this picture, Jordan displays the jet trails of 11,000 flights which is supposedly the number of flights for every eight hours. This picture could be taken as a deplorable waste of fuel or a demonstration of how our culture has developed with technology and instant gratification. Either way, Jordan does not pass judgment. In some ways, the jet trails are necessary for our lifestyle—exchange of foreign goods, diplomat travel, or vacationing tourists. In other ways, they could be seen as necessary for the stability of world economy or maintenance of peace, especially because not everyone flies. Eleven thousand may be a small number given how many people are in the world. The choice of how to interpret this statistic is left up to us.

Of course, other reviewers believe that Jordan’s goal is not to criticize or lead others to criticize but to wake people up to their roles in the grand scheme of consumerism. Julian Champkin interpreted Jordan’s work as an “underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a world that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible and overwhelming (Champkin 142).” Jordan has said that the wastefulness “is happening because of the tiny incremental harm that every single one of us is doing as an individual (Champkin 143).” Champkin also agrees that Jordan’s “His work brings out the meaning that statistics contain but fail to convey (Champkin 141).”

Even so, Champkin has some criticism of Jordan’s art. Referring to some of his pieces, Champkin observes that “the detail of the image is lost,” 3 which is true. A problem with his approach, neutral or critical, is that in such photos as “Lightbulbs (2008)” the detail is lost as it fades to black or merges together. On one hand, it is good to see the large scale of the statistic, but on the other, it is still as useless to view a demonstration of said statistic when the detail cannot be surmised. In that way, Jordan fails.

In this audience member’s opinion, Jordan’s best work is that which is real and ambiguous, such as his introductory piece “Containers and Mount Rainier”. Because it is a real place that someone could go and view in the real world, not just a doctored photo of unrealistic proportion, it is much more impactful. It is a real place that the effects of consumer culture can be observed in the natural environment, for better or for worse. In this piece, he provokes us to think and leaves the conclusions up to the viewer—the best kind of statement. As a whole, Jordan’s exhibit does an excellent job of triggering his audience to contemplate their place in the process of consumption, and while he gears his critique toward negative criticism, he lets the audience decide for themselves.

Works Cited

Champkin, Julian. "Running the numbers: statistics as art." Significance 5(2008): 141-144.

Pasulka, Nicole. "Running the Numbers--The Morning News." The Morning News. 23 Jul 2007. 15 Feb 2009 .

Kant

First of all, Kant's quote "If we judge objects merely according to concepts, then all representation of beauty is lost (106)," immediately calls to mind a contrast with Plato's concepts of art. As we recently learned, Plato considered art to be three times removed from the "real", and along comes Kant claiming that beauty is nonexistent if judged by Plato's standards. Of course, not all art is beautiful, but since the goal of many artists is to represent things in beautiful ways, the direct contrast is worth examining.

And in regards to universal goals, I latched onto Kant's words: "It is of no consequence how [gratification] is attained, and since then the choice of means alone could make a difference, men could indeed blame one another for stupidity and indiscretion, but never for baseness and wickedness. For thus they all, according to his own way of seeing things, seek one goal, that is, gratification." (pg 99-100) I'll say it bluntly: B.S. Of course we can blame someone for their baseness or wickedness because wickedness stems from the choice that one makes to gain that gratification. I won't dwell on it... but this is me mentioning Hitler. So I do think that the choices someone makes about art, whether it be taste or what they're hanging in the livingroom, or keeping hidden in the garage, speaks to who they are or perceive themselves to be. Art is iconic in that without the messages behind it, it would be merely aesthetics.

Kant claims that once you become interested in something, you are no longer fit to judge its beauty. I disagree, proposing two scenarios:
1. I become interested in the art because it is beautiful. Just because I begin liking it, since humans are after all drawn to beauty, doesn't mean I can't determine whether it is beautiful. It is true that the bias may obscure or polarize my views like a mom's perception of her child, but that by itself doesn't make the determination wrong. Like any other critique of that nature, one person's view must be contrasted against a backdrop of others'.
2. I think the particular art is not beautiful but like it anyway. Sometimes a piece of art is hideous but likable because of what it represents. I personally didn't find all of Chris Jordan's art beautiful--for example, the airline plastic cups--but I did like the art and what it represented.

Kant insults my intelligence by suggesting that liking something pulls the wool over my eyes, and my perception and ideas about that thing skews any reasonable judgment about it.

Tastes

There is a very good reason as to why different preferences in art are called different "tastes". It's because people's preferences for what they hang on the wall or display in their living rooms or attend at a theater vary as much as people's preferences for food. For the most part, I do believe that much of what we are willing to digest as a common group depends on the culture from which the observer is coming. For example, someone of United States descent might be less inclined to appreciate a nude painting than another culture thanks to our roots as a country in Puritanism.

Regardless of the cultural aspect, personal tastes seem to be rather consistent in many people, or to borrow a term from experimental literature, people demonstrate internal consistency. That is to mean that tastes draw people toward the same kinds of paintings which in turn individually demonstrate their personal tastes. Let's say that a fan of ironic art walks into a gallery and spots the two paintings on the UH 440 class's group page hanging up on the wall. That person would purchase both of the paintings because they both demonstrate irony, and it would not be a long stretch to claim that they are meant to be displayed in the same collection or even in close proximity. Since the man is making a monkey face, and the monkey is posing for a portrait the way a man might, it is easy to make several conclusions with regard to what the artist could be saying.
Because they seem to be of similar origin, message, artist, and/or genre, they could be considered tasteful.

One thing I would like to point out about taste is that it does not determine what art truly is. When someone claims that a piece is not art, it is because s/he is using the term "art" dripping with connotation. "Art" does not imply good or bad: That's the job of "skill".

Paradigms and Purposes

Something that I think is worth discussing is Plato's philosophy. First of all, I don't think that if life is an imitation of the ideal, that art is imitation of imitation, or a copy of a copy. In fact, I would say the exact opposite, that art is closer to the ultimate idea. I've been taught that Plato philosophized about everything trying to get at its most essential "essence", so to speak. For example, all pens are at different levels of "pen-ness", all attempting to be the "most pen". So! That means that every piece of art is an imagining of something, usually with a twist from the artist who has imagined that thing at its most pure. So if a piece of art is an abstract representation of an imitation, then it could be that art is closer to the truth or the real than the original worldly thing that inspired the art.
Though in some ways I can see his point about a copy of a copy, it bugs me that just because it's not the ideal, it's not worthwhile. Who cares if it's a copy of a copy if we can walk away from it with a point? It's like saying that because someone took the bus to a job interview instead of a cab, that person isn't getting the job. Who cares how he got there if he's qualified? In some ways that leads to the argument about intent, but I don't think that's very applicable in this case.

I always did admire gothic artists' ability to truly elicit the emotions and reactions they were going for, at least at the time--a sense of inferiority in response to a grand cathedral or their use of light to represent the divine light of God. Versailles is another example of personal environmental artwork that I would love to visit. As we discussed in class, apparently there are some spots in the garden that, despite the rigidity of it, are solitary and more overgrown. It makes me think of people finding their own place in the world. I like the physical environmental space form of art because it tends to impact me more and puts some things in perspective.

Nature and Nuture

The question that's plagued the social sciences for ages is the ever-present, "Nature or nurture?" There is really no way of knowing, almost ever, which is responsible for anything because the two are so deeply intertwined. Asking that question is like asking which eye is more important in the grand scheme of things, or in the event of a double-amputation, which leg you'd rather have cut off first. It makes a small difference if any because it all culminates in the same ending: You like what you like when it comes to art. Of course, it is human nature to seek answers; it's apparent from psychological experiments that people are more comfortable with a wrong answer than no answer at all. That's not discounting the article's proposed explanation of art and evolutionary psychology, but it is something to consider.

Personally, I think one reason people like the landscape scenes so much is partially because it is noncontroversial. What's not to like about a wide-open landscape? Sometimes people put them down as uncreative or decoration instead of true art, but they seem to be a minority. The skeptics probably even liked the pretty pictures when they were young and open-minded. Maybe they don't like landscapes because they have an internal definition of what they like or what they like to be associated with, and because a landscape doesn't fit that criteria, it is cast aside.

What the article seems to be arguing is not so much if DNA helps determine what we like in art, but what we like to see in general. And it seems silly to tell me that I obviously wish I was in the savanna just because I need shelter, food, water, and safety. Far from it. Sunsets don't make me nervous, and I don't always like wide open spaces. Maybe the reason we like those things is because we need them to survive. In one way, that supports the article, because those who didn't follow those rules and needs of survival got eaten by lions. On the other, that's like arguing that because I need contacts to see, I must especially appreciate art that features glasses, x-ray vision (like Australian Aboriginal art), or blind people.

Art that's compositionally sound is actually a "nature thing"--symmetry and the composition rules are evolutionary and scientifically supported. Whether I like desert landscapes or jungle landscapes--that might be nurture. Do I like snowscapes? Yes. Do I want to live in one, say, when it's really bad in Pullman? Not necessarily. In fact, someone who was here last winter might be less inclined to have one on the wall now because s/he is sick of it. Voila! Nurture. And I don't buy that having a picture of one on my wall enables me to cope with a new ice age.

What is art?

Art is intentional manipulation of a medium to convey meaning (or a message) beyond utility. By "intentional manipulation" I don't mean a specific product of the efforts because sometimes art is the process, like a meditation. In some cultures, people spend hours a day creating a mandala (example shown), only to blow it all away at the end. For them, the end product, while often beautiful, complex, and full of meaning, is not the artistic part of art-making; instead, the art is in the meditation involved in spending that time creating the piece. In contrast, photographs or paintings are often purely "end result" art, appreciated almost solely for what is tangible at the end. Paintings are not often famous for their creator's mental process during the creation of the work; instead, they are famous for content, composition, and so forth.
Where art becomes confusing is in the utility it transcends. Can something still be art if it's usable? In class, one newspaper featured a print of a barn. A napkin circulated with it on which a similar barn was printed. If illustrations of barns can be art sold for millions, is it still art on a napkin? If it was the exact same picture, would it be art on the napkin, or merely decoration? If the Mona Lisa was printed on underwear, is that still decoration or does it become desecration of art? Or is art just decoration?
I would say that all art contains the capacity to be just decoration, but all decorations are certainly not art because decoration is not meaningful manipulation (more about status).
Are movie graphics art? Is the flag art? Is porn art? Are company logos art? ...Hmm.