Modigliani and Picasso

Modligliani and Picasso had a very complex relationship as friends and artists. There was a great deal of respect for one another, but I think more importantly, this was about pride. Picasso was definitely more established than Modigliani, and he had a chip on his shoulder about how famous he was; where Modigliani was more down to earth and just wanted to paint, he wasn't focused on selling his artwork. When Modigliani's lover goes to Picasso and asks for help, as a friend Picasso helps Modigliani out, but as a rival artist, he has to "one-up" Modigliani by painting Jeanne, which is breaking a cardinal rule. As friends, Picasso was worried about Modigliani and wanted him to succeed, but as artists, it was about pride and success. Jeanne told Picasso that he will wisper Modigliani on his deathbed, and sure enough, he did. This shows how much respect that Picasso had for Modigliani. It was a love/hate relationship.

Human Race Machine

Nancy Burson's idea of race being social versus genetic goes along with Nikki Lee's study of ethnography. For this project, Nikki not only dresses like these different cultures, like we saw in class, but she adapts to their lifestyle. She embraces their race and culture. What Nancy Burson is trying to get at with the idea of moving past difference and arriving at sameness is that race is simply a way to classify people. If we were to put ourselves in others positions, we'd realize that we're all human. Race is something we need to put past us to come to the understanding of others. I think it's obvious from Nikki Lee's study that race is definitely social. There are stereotypes of every race and class.

Final Gallery Talk

The first image was an untitled photographic print on fiber paper by Michelle Anderson. Michelle focuses on the human form. She loves the perfection and intrequite details of the human body. Mainly, she focuses on close ups, and advoids the face. I found her reasoning interesting for advoiding faces. For the same reason she leaves her art untitled, she doesn't like to include face shots. She feels that by titling a piece of art, the viewer is limited in their thinking. Instead of finding their own meaning from a picture, they feel that they should be looking for something. This is the reason Michelle advoids face shots. She feels that a face defines someone. That is the first thing you look at when you see a person, and she doesn't want the picture to be defined by a face. I've never been a foot person, I don't really like feet, but for some reason I like this close up shot of the feet. I like the positioning of the feet, and also her reasoning behind the inspiration by the human form. My next piece of artwork I chose was a series of digital media created by Alisha Skeel. She titled these History of Design 1, 2, and 3. Alisha grew up listening to old music, and watching old tv shows and movies. Her inspiration comes from the 50's and 60's. I think the look of these vintage ad's. So while Michelle focuses on the human form, Alisha focuses on advertisements and vintage. They are both talented in different ways, and I appreciate both of their artwork.

Ad Reversal 2

The subject in the ad is an average, "fit" woman. In the ad, you also see the product that is being represented; showing the different colors and varieties of the product. There is also a description of the product and testimonies from customers who have used the product. The underlying meaning of this ad is trying to convince people that if they buy the Sketcher Shape-Ups, that they will loose weight and look like the woman in the advertisement. I found this advertisement in Shape magazine. The advertisement is geared towards women; women who are uncomfortable or unsatisfied about their bodies, especially their legs and butt's. This is a very gender based advertisement. The imagery supports the text and makes the viewer think even more so that if they buy these shoes, that they will look like the model in the picture.

I personally don't like the appearance of the Sketchers version of Shape-Ups, but I think the ad was put together nicely. The testimony from customers throws in some realism and makes the viewer feel more connected with the product, and think that it will work for them since it worked for everyday people as well. They did a nice job at picking a model with a good body that people consider "ideal".

Ad Reversal 1

This looks like it is a pretty recent advertisement that could be used all over the world. This is a pretty simple ad, with the baby as the subject. The only other subjects would be the caption at the top and the adults hand holding the airplane. I found this ad in a recent issue of People magazine, so it has to be fairly recent. The advertisement is aimed towards parents who have young children. I don't think there are any "markers" in this advertisement. The subject is an African American baby, from what I can tell, but it's in black and white so the color of the skin isn't supposed to be the main focus of the ad. I think they do a pretty good job making the viewer feel that this is a typical baby, that could very well be their own child. The text is focusing on the child staying strong and healthy with the right nutrition, and there is an airplane keeping the baby's head up, like they mention in the advertisement. The advertisement is promoting healthy lifestyles, and the Abbott Food logo is at the bottom of the page. They aren't actually advertising their product themself, but the lifestyle that comes from eating healthy.

As I was flipping through my magazine, I was already drawn to this advertisement because I love children. But that is the only reason I was interpellated by this ad. I don't have children or worry too much about eating healthy, so this advertisement didn't influence or persuade me to buy their product.

Gallery Talk 2

I decided to take a bit of a different approach this gallery talk. I chose to compare and contrast a painting that I liked versus a painting that I didn't care for. The piece that was aesthetically pleasing to me was the New York Series by Elizabeth Cramer. Elizabeth draws and paints pictures based on other pictures. In this case, she had taken these pictures of New York, and decided to recreate the image. She talked about how she has a hard time incorporating color into her paintings, but she liked the effect of black and white to add emphasis to the New York skylight. When I look at her series of paintings, I see art. These are aesthetically pleasing to me. Kate Varney has a bit of a different outlook on painting. She focuses a lot on layering. Her untitled piece here is very well layered and textured, but it is not aesthetically pleasing to me. We have had conversations in class about the "skill" it takes to create paintings like Kate's. For me, I would rather see Marla Olmsteads paintings over Kate's. This just doesn't do anything for me. It looks like she sat at the top of the canvas and poured a can of paint and just let it drip down. I guess when I think of art and paintings, I think of artwork where I see a visual representation and can think of the artists intent.

Commidy Self

Like chapter 7 says, we are influenced on a daily basis by advertisements. We see them everywhere. Sometimes we don't even know we were bein influenced. Advertisement companies have invested mass amounts of money to market their products in a way to make consumers feel that they need that product. Everything we do and buy, for the most part, is largely influenced by advertisements. As we talked about in class, advertisements can also create a problem that wasn't relevant, so they can make a problem to "fix" that problem. The Lifebuoy ad promoted their soap and introduced body odor, something people weren't concerned about until this ad. So as consumers of theses products, I would agree that we are in fact products of products, whether it is what we are wearing, what foods we buy, or what car we buy; we are influenced by advertisements and buy into that product.

Gallery Talk

The first piece that caught my attention in the gallery was Chubby Yellow Makes Some Friends by Molly Parker Smith. Molly's sculptures reminded me of something I would find in Monsters Inc., which is my favorite kids movie. I thought they were cute, but different at the same time. When Molly got up and talked, she expressed her fascination with the process of decay and death. She told us that she liked to pick up road kill and watch it decay for inspiration. I was shocked when I found out that she had created Chubby Yellow Makes Some Friends. Molly said that she needed a break from decaying objects and just created pop culture monsters, which she said was an accident. All of her sculptures are done from coils of clay. Molly said she has an overactive imagination, and this is where her artwork comes from. I found it interesting that Molly said she leaves most of her pieces untitled to allow the viewer to create your own title; Chubby Yellow Makes Some Friends is one of the few pieces that she actually titled. The next piece that I found interesting was Who Speaks for Planet Earth? by Kate McIntosh. I had originally picked out the sculpture done by Kate because I thought it was creative, but once she explained the piece, she told us about the two pictures that she placed on the walls on each side of the sculpture of water, and it really tied into the sculpture and made one big display. The pictures really went well with the sculpture because it depicted the moon controlling the tides. Kate talked about how she thought that ceramics and photography go hand in hand, and this was a great representation of both. When Kate was talking, she said that she likes making things with her hands because it shapes who she is. Both pieces were created with different mind sets and for different reasons, but they were both aesthetically pleasing to me. The color scheme of Kate's display was great, and I also loved the bright colors that Molly used for the monsters.

Scott Adam's Quote

I think Scott Adam's meant that art isn't necessarily what you had invisioned in your mind. Sometimes artist just "freestyle" and see what they come up with. Mistakes are a part of art and I think it just adds to the creativity if artists can build off a mistake. Once a mistake is made, the outcome is going to be completely different than what they had expected, but that mistake could have made the artwork more than what they had imagined originally. I agree with his quote to some extent. Some artist's mistake could have lead to another artists master piece. But I do agree that artists need to make up that decission on whether to keep the mistake or discard the work and start over. One time I made a cake; and when I transfered it out of the pan onto a plate to ice, it fell apart. I decided to just cut the cake in half and make a double layered cake. I used the icing to cover up the "mistake". The cake didn't turn out how I had originally planned, but it still looked good (if not better) and tasted the same that it would have if it hadn't fallen apart. I think there is much to be said about artists who can turn a mistake into something better than they planned.

Voyeurism

I think it is safe to say that we are, to some degree, all voyeurs. I wouldn't go around telling people that I was a voyeur, that sounds creepy. I think everyone enjoys people watching and wondering what is going on in other peoples lives. People do it on a daily basis, both consciously and subconsciously. I don't think people are embarassed unless the person they happen to be looking at looks back up at them. The natural reaction is just to look away and act like you weren't just looking at them. We avoid eye contact for fear that they might see us looking at them.

The Power of Gaze

In class, we discussed the acts of looking; where images give those who look at them a sense of themselves as an individual human subject in the world. We, as the viewers, make the meaning of the artwork. We are interpellated on a daily basis, whether we are aware of it or not. Something that I was interpellated by was the idea of an inspecting gaze. This is the idea that people are going to act more appropriately when they are under the impression that they are being watched. The gaze gives a sense of relationship to power. We are constantly being watched every day. Our book talks about being watched in grocery stores, elevators, parking garages, and other public places. In class, we talked about cameras above traffic lights and at intersections. When people see these cameras, they have the sense that someone is watching them, so they slow down or stop at the red light. We have no idea if these cameras work, or are even turned on; but that is not the purpose for the cameras. For the most part, it doesn't even cross peoples minds that they may not even be turned on. Another idea of inspecting gaze was Jeremy Bentham's invention of the Panopticon Penitentiary. Our book discusses three key components for the purpose of this idea: panopticism, power/knowledge, and biopower. Bentham's brilliant plan consisted of one gaurd tower in the center of a circular prison, that was capable of seeing into every cell and hearing everything going on, however; none of the cells could see into this tower. I was even more fascinated when we discovered that the tower was never actually used. This was there for the inmates to feel as if they were being watched. Humans have a fear of being watched, and will act differently if they feel that sense of inspecting gaze.