Artist Post #5: Spring Semester

Artist Post #5: Spring Semester

February 28, 2011

Jim Goldberg

Quotes:

"The beginning of my published work, when I was very young, was a book called Rich and Poor. It's a book in which I photographed poor people versus wealthy people and they wrote on the photographs. Conceptually, it gave voice to people but it also challenged the notion of straight documentary photography."

"I certaintly consider myself working outside of photography alone because I write and collect archival images and try to combine photography and use the art making process to create a new form, or push the form of what photography is usually about."

Source for both, video interview: http://www.fototv.com/jim_goldberg

Bio:

Jim Goldberg recieved his BA in photography and education in 1975 and his MFA in photography in 1979.  Goldberg is inspired and informed by an ongoing interest in people and their positions in society as a function of broader cultural practices and policies. His work usually involves certain walks of life and ages groups per series and almost always involves some sort of writing component. His career, after his first solo show in 1979, has been very successful.  He began his career with exhibits in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and has been honored with three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and has work in a huge amount of public and private collections.

Relation: 

The biggest relation I see between my work and the work of Jim Goldberg is not nesecarily in subject matter, but more in his involvement of text. I am drawn to his work with younger subjects, naturally, because they relate more to my topic, but no matter the age of his models, I love the way he uses texts. Just like I do, he is involving the subjects in his images by getting them to participate in the project on another level.  He gets them involved, as I do, by having them write directly on the images to explain something about themselves or themselves in the images. I really enjoy his work.

Links:

Gallery Rep

Interview

Artist Website

Sharing Session

Idea Post #4: Spring Semester

Idea Post #4: Spring Semester

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Calligraphy

Somehow I started introducing writing into my drawings, and after a time, the language took over and I started getting very involved with the handwriting and then the look of the handwriting.
-Patti Smith

A man's penmanship is an unfailing index of his character, moral and mental, and a criterion by which to judge his peculiarities of taste and sentiments.

       -"Letters to His Son by the Earl of Chesterfield on the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World" 

Annotated Bibliography: Gaur, Albertine. A History of Calligraphy. New York: Cross River Press, 1995. It's hard to find a book about calligraphy that isn't just a lesson or a tutorial on lettering. This book shows techniques but also goes over the history of handwriting and the art of calligraphy.

Relation: Ever since I began adding the children's handwriting to my images, I have been obsessed with handwriting and lettering.  I am trying to figure out different ways to apply a child's natural handwriting to an image and I think I have just settled on some sort of paint pen and letting the child just write physically on the print. It scares me, but other options seem unauthentic.

Artist Lecture: Christopher Ho

Artist Lecture: Painting and Printmaking Department

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Christopher Ho

Questions:

Do you consider yourself more of a performance artist or a painter? Most of your work is either strictly painting or strictly performance. Do you think there is ever an overlap?

How were the reactions to “Happy Birthday from Ed?” How did the real “Ed,” the gallery owner feel about it? What was the point and did the reactions validate the work?

Artist Lecture Response:

Quotes from the lecture: 

"I think it's always fair to ask of anything- what are it's internal qualities. But more- we should ask ourselves, do they push forward the limitations of the field."

"Is it possible as a medium to satisfy the demands of being advanced contemporary art?"

"These paintings could help us redefine the critical art we have defined over the past forty years."

"We, as artists, pursue a critical success, not a commercial success."

Three words:

Performance, Unconventional, Sophisticated

I thought the most interesting piece of work Christopher presented us with was his "Happy Birthday" piece.  This piece was all about the different roles people play in the art world.  It featured sections of the exhibition about the collector, the dealer, the artist, and the critic.  The first section, "Happy Birthday from Ed," is based on the dealer of Ho's gallery in New York named Ed and features a 1:1 ratio sculpture of the naked dealer himself in an empty room.  The section section represents the collector and is portrayed by a red dot placed strategically throughout the gallery referencing the red dot on the checklist when a piece is sold.  The third section of the exhibition was called "Happy Birthday from Jen" who was a fellow artist. This part about the artist dealt with the value of calling something "art" and believing in it so much that you convince other people to put value in it. The final part of the exhibition id about the critic and is called "Happy Birthday from Nuit," one of the New York art critics.  This section places value on the critic by having him write a short passage claiming value in the gallery.

The answer to my first question was answered when Christopher Ho discussed the way he worked and I believe he just considers himself an artist and a curator and does a lot of site specific work, but I don't think he falls into a specific category.  My second question was discussed heavily and has been addressed above in my explanation of the Happy Birthday exhibition.

Artist Post #4: Spring Semester

Artist Post #4: Spring Semester

February 20, 2011

Jill Greenberg

 

Quotes:

"The concept is that the children are crying as if its the end of the world-they are being overly dramatic, as they tend to be. But if they really knew how bad we adults are allowing things to get, and how bad it will be when they are older in terms of the environment they would really be crying."

"I loved the raw and intense emotion of the children, I have always been intrigued by pictures of children crying."

Source for both: http://www.bakmagazine.com/interviews/13/jill-greenberg

Bio: Jill Greenberg calls herself "the manipulator."  This nickname was inspired by a German pop culture magazine in the 80s, but refers to the fact that she stages her art be it photography, painting, or filim.  Greenberg went to art school her entire life and has been active in the darkroom since the fifth grade.  She eventually graduated from RISD with a BFA in photography and then moved to New York City.  

 

Relation: The series that I relate most to of Greenberg's is called "End Times." This is a series of stunning portraits of children screaming and crying. In her artist statement, she talks about how toddlers cry and act like everything is the end of the world and how she really enjoys that aspect of things.  I think her work is so interesting and it relates to my work in the fact that it deals with children's emotions and how they act.

Links:

Interview

Gallery Rep

Artist Website

Idea Post #3: Spring Semester

Idea Post #3: Spring Semester

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Media Influence

Quotes:

"...I rant about it in the book, too, about the sort of 'Sex and the City' world. That really bothers me that Samantha, who is one of sickest characters on television becomes a role model...It's such a divorce from reality. I treat Samanthas all the time. They're horrible, miserable human beings who will suffer with their behavior...Then to put her up as a role model becomes confusing, people start to feel flawed. They engage in behavior that's supposed to be cool and good and don't feel right..." 

  - Dr. Drew Pinsky

"Television exposure during adolescence has also been linked to subsequent aggression in young adulthood.  A 17-year longitudinal study concluded that teens who watched more than one hour of TV a day were almost four times as likely as other teens to commit aggressive acts in adulthood."  

-The Kaiser Family Foundation, TV Violence Fact Sheet, Spring 2003

Source for both: 

 Various Authors. "Media Violence, Sex, and Profanity ." Parent's Television Council, n.d. Web. 15 Feb 2011. <http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/facts/mediaquotes.asp>.

Annotated Bibliography: Lewis, Justin. Constructing public opinion: how political elites do what they like and why we seem to go along with it. Columbia Univ Pr, 2001. Print.

This book is an interesting resource on figuring out how children are influenced.  I like this as a reference because it tells you how media personnel work to construct public opinion. This book is like a guide on the "science" of swaying opinion.  This would be helpful when trying to show how and from where inspiration is received.

Relation: I really feel like this issue addresses where my series is heading.  I feel like after tons of reasearch and contacting people and interviews and unsuccessful photographs, I have finally found what I need to focus on. I am narrowing down the topic of my series where children draw their inspiration and make a point to show that the parent's of these children should want to be those role models.  Researching the topic of "media influence" of course is relevant to my work because I am exploring where inspiration and influence come from in a young child's mind.

Artist Post #3: Spring Semester

Artist Post #3: Spring Semester

February 13, 2011

Darragh Shannahan

Relation: The work I relate to the most of Darragh's was a series called "Stick Stories."  Darragh is technically the artist responsible for the series and the resulting photographs, but the photographs in the series are actually documentations of pieces of art made by children Darragh met and worked with.  Darragh is an Irish artist and worked in an underprivileged area of the Canal Communities in Dublin.  Here, Darragh made it a goal to keep the local kids out of trouble by working with local arts foundation groups and holding free photography and art classes for the kids.  The resulting pieces were made by the children and got them involved in a creative act versus another activity. This relates to my work because I would like to somehow involved children in an art making process, or invite them to have some hand in the series, in some form.

Bio: Darragh Shannahan is an Irish photographer.  Growing up, he was more interested in music, and is currently still the drummer in a band in Ireland. After becoming a successful photographer, Darragh got a job teaching photography workshops at the National Gallery of Photography in Dublin.  He is also a working artist in various projects mainly working with the youth of Dublin in one way or another.  Darragh has been a photographer for the past 10 years. He has worked with the After Schools club in St Michael's since 2005.  His "Stick Stories" body of work is currently on display at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Quotes:

"We develop art programmes in collaboration with youth groups and community groups, whether they be children, young people or adults."

"It's not just about viewing art as an activity, it's about creating opportunities for people to really develop meaningful relationships with artists".

Source: www.cdysb.ie/publications/PDF/Y%20Now%20-%20Issue%20%201.pdf

 

Links:

Gallery Rep

Gallery Rep 2

Interview

Idea Post #2: Spring Semester

Idea Post #2 Spring Semester

February 10, 2011

"Copycat Suicide"

Quotes: 

"The well-known suicide serves as a model, in the absence of protective factors, for the next suicide. They occasionally spread through a schoolsystem, through a community, or in terms of a celebrity suicide wave, nationally."

"Publishing the means of suicides, romanticized and sensationalized reporting, particularly about celebrities, suggestions that there is an epidemic, glorifying the deceased and simplifying the reasons all lead to increases in the suicide rate. Increased rate of suicides has been shown to occur up to ten days after a television report."

Source: Philips DP. The impact of fictional television stories on US adult fatalities: new evidence on the effect of the mass media on violence. American journal of sociology, 1982, 87: 1340-1359 via http://www.lumrix.net/medical/psychiatry/copycat_suicide.html.

Annotated Bibliography: Philips DP. The impact of fictional television stories on US adult fatalities: new evidence on the effect of the mass media on violence. American journal of sociology, 1982, 87: 1340-1359. 

The copycat suicide phenomenom is a theory that is still being researched and learned about. With the insane about of media coverage and media influence in this day and age, this book seems a little outdated, but really was groundbreaking in research about the psychiatry copycat suicide.

Relation: I came across this interesting topic when researching about why people draw their influence from media.  I think this theory helps me to prove my argument that people, children included, are too dependent on the actions of characters in the media.  This was very interesting to read about and I think gives me a bit more of a perspective on how severe media influence can be.  This will help me address the issue in my series.

Artist Post #2

Artist Post #2

Spring Semester

Monday, Feburary 7th, 2011

Tamara Reynolds

 

Relation: I have been thinking a lot recently about how to photograph children to capture the youth and impressionable nature in their eyes and their expressions.  I found this photographer, Tamara Reynolds, and I love the quality of light and the atmosphere and mood created in her portraits of children.  The expressions they have and the youthful, innocent quality of their looks is fascinating, but I am most drawn to the expressions she captures that makes it seem like the children already have an important story to share.  I want to capture a similar expression and quality in my images of children to show the influence they receive from media and the people around them. 

Bio: The way Tamara Reynolds writes her bio on her website tells a lot about her personality. It is written playfully in sentence fragments detailing the important parts of her life.  Her bio quickly tells the viewers that she was a tomboy growing up and was always inspired by National Geographic photographs. While she attended Catholic school and was told to read and therefore was even more drawn to imagery since it was the opposite of text.  She went to college and received her BFA in photography and began assisting other photographers. She began a very successful career of her own and shoots portraits of people of all ages and editorial work.

Quotes talking about different pieces made about children:

"As an adult traveling with my companions I have spent productive hours deep in meaningful and honest conversations, worked out difficult issues, read inspirational books aloud, listened to educational radio shows and explored areas of the country lost to most in the world. As a child I was trapped. Car sickness, boredom. My imagination was honed in a car. And I became the good little traveler."

"To keep my head on straight and not get too deep in the muck of negativity I have to remind myself that I must shoot what I know, what intrigues me, what is my world. I have to stop chasing the world and be in it."

 Both quotes pulled from Reynolds' blog: 

http://tammypatrice.blogspot.com/

Links:

Interview

Website

Gallery Rep

Idea Post #1: Spring Semester

Idea Post #1: Spring Semester

Thursday February 3rd, 2011

Role Model

Quotes: "Although observational learning can take place at any stage in life, it is thought to be particularly important during childhood, particularly as authority becomes important."

- Dr. Joe Kiff

"Observational learning allows for learning without any change in behavior and has therefore been used as an argument against strict behaviorism which argued that behavior change must occur for new behaviors to be acquired."

Dr. Joe Kiff

Source for both: Kiff, Joe. "Observational Learning." Psychology Wiki n. pag. Web. 2 Feb 2011. <http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Observational_learning>.

Annotated Bibliography: Bandura, A. (1977) Social Learning Theory. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Hardback: ISBN 0138167443 - Paperback: ISBN 0138167516. This book is pretty much the bible of studying role models.  Author Andrew Bandura pioneered the research on observational learning and implemented some of the most important studies in the area.  This text details his theories.  There couldn't be a better text used to learn about role models and learning by observation. 

I am now really looking into the idea of role models for children.  I want to observe and find out where children draw their influence and inspiration.  By researching the psychology of role models and how a child develops their role models might help me know where to look, what questions to ask, and how to address the issue with the children I want to talk to.