Artist Post #8

Artist Post #8

October 25, 2010

David Harding

Background:
Finding information about David Harding is very difficult, but he is really necessary for me to feature here. David Harding worked mostly between the 60s and the 70s and believes in the importance of public art. He is a Scottish artist and his work stays primarily around Scotland, England, and Wales. He is concerned with the history and development of public art as it's social context. He is a professor at the infamous Glasglow School of Art and then became the director of sculpture there. He prides himself on being able to discover how this practice can be spread through education.


Relation:
David Harding's work uses text in public areas, as my current work does. He uses text in stone, sidewalks, and walls, and even has children install text-altered bricks into brick walls. He even did some collaborations with poets in Scotland to create walkways with text embedded inside. He considers himself a "town-artist" and has written several books about his adventures through Scotland spreading his art and his messages. This is exactly what I want to do. I want to use text in both public and private spaces to spread an idea. Work like this that is so similar and so successful gives me confidence that a system of "spreading the word" like this can work.


Quotes:
"For me, the base of art was broadened and democratized with the recognition that there should be cultural democracy, which means lots of cultures existing side by side."

"Mainly what has happened in Britain is that the social development and recreation sections of city councils have employed artists. There must be, I think, some 20 or so towns in the U.K. that employ artists in ways other than for, say, graphics and exhibitions. These artists are employed mainly to contribute to social and cultural development."

Source:
David Harding. Community Arts Network. The Reading Room. Interview by Moira Roth. Spring 1986. Web. Oct 2010.


Links:
Artist Website
Interview
Representation

Note: These pieces were made in the 60s and 70s and documentation of the work is very difficult to track down. The artist's website has tons of information about the work and the artist, but not one image.

Artist Post #7

Artist Post #7

October 18, 2010

Jenny Holzer



Relation:

Jenny Holzer's work relates to my senior portfolio project on the issue of text. Holzer uses text and writing in public spaces to spread an idea. She began with posters and LED lighted signs and then began using a wide array of mediums like bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, stickers, T-shirts, etc. Between 1977 and 2001, she used self-written texts. In 1993, she began using texts written by others. She has also turned to texts from important documents recently. For example she has been using de-classified US Army documents from the Iraq War. Her main goal in using text is to enlighten the public on issues that are usually kept quiet. This also relates to my work. The idea in my project isn't something that is kept "hidden" like in Holzer's work, but it is a topic that people seem to turn a blind eye to.


Biography:

Jenny Holzer was born in Ohio and mainly fits under the category of "American conceptual artist." As far as schooling is concerned, she first attended Ohio University, then the Rhode Island School of Design, and then completed an Independent Study through the Whitney Museum of American Art. She originally worked mainly with abstract art and then moved into text as her main concept. Her work now focuses on heavy topics such as violence, oppression, power, war, and death.


Quotes:

"I’ve spent a fair amount of time alone, on my work, and so it’s with real joy that I go to other people to make something larger than I could have done solo."
Source:
Holzer, Jenny. Art:21Intervew. PBS. Web. 14 Oct 2010. .


"Listening has become my habit because hopefully, by the end of the day, I can make the artwork more fitted."
Source:
Holzer, Jenny. The Poetry Foundation. Intervew by John Yau and Shelley Jackson . 07 Jun 2006. Web. 14 Oct 2010. .



Links:
Gallery Rep #1
Gallery Rep #2
Artist Website
Interview

Idea Post #6

Idea Post #6

October 14, 2010

Advertising

Considering advertising is a pretty broad topic, I figured I should chose quotes from the Ad Legends for my advertising experts:

Quotes:

“I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.“
David Ogilvy

Source:

"David Ogilvy." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2010. 14 October. 2010. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_ogilvy.html

“It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen.”
William Bernbach

Source: "William Bernbach." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2010. 14 October. 2010. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_bernbach.html

Annotated Bibliography:

Sullivan, Luke. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This!. New York: Wiley, 2008.

I know this book well. We are reading this book in my advertising class and to be honest, it’s brilliant. It’s an easy read written in a comical, whitty way and it teaches you the ins and outs on how to get your message to the consumer. It does not give you the history of advertising, but for my project, this book works perfectly. For what I’m doing I don’t need the history, I need to know the facts… the details on how to reach a target audience with a specific message. This book is great for that.

Relation:

When trying to think about what word or topic relates to my work this week, I was getting a little stumped because my tactic hasn’t changed in the last few weeks. But if I really think about what I am doing with this project, the main tactic I am using is simply advertising. In my opinion, all advertising is is spreading a message to an audience in a creative way. Isn’t that exactly what I’m doing? Maybe looking more into tactics used to spread advertising to the target audience will help me think of different ways to distribute my message.

Artist Post #6

Artist Post #6

October 11, 2010

Bruce Nauman

Background:
Beginning with a degree in mathematics, Bruce Nauman quickly went back to school for a degree in art. He worked as an assistant and then began teaching at the San Fransisco Art Institute. Nauman's work tends to be presented in a playful and mischievous way. In most of his work, he explores the power of language and uses text to send a message to the viewer. He started out with exhibitions at Nick Wilder's galleries in New York and Los Angeles and made it to the Whitney Museum in 1972.


Relation:
I see a huge connection between Nauman's work and the direction my project is going lately. Nauman sometimes uses sculpture, sometimes photography, and sometimes video to present the concepts he cares about. His many pieces all take different directions, but a certain portion of his work (the many neon pieces in particular) are interesting to me because of their use of text. Nauman's work explores the use of language and communication as my project does. Although I am spreading one message, and he spreads many, the concept is similar. I am so enthralled with the many directions I can take this project in, recently, all of which involve using text and imagery together to spread a message. Nauman embodies this theory in much of his work. He frequently uses only one word, or one phrase in repetition to portray what he would like to say. This work is inspiring to me.


Quotes:
"If you're an amateur artist, you can get it sometimes and not other times and you can't tell and you can't always do it over again. And the part about being a professional artist is that you can tell and you can do it over again, even if you can't say how you got there exactly. You've done it enough and you know how to get there."

"...Part of the enjoyment I take in it is finding the most efficient way to do it, which doesn't mean the corrections aren't made. I like to have a feeling of the whole task before I start, even if it changes."

Source:
"Setting a Good Corner." Art:21. Bruce Nauman Interview and Videos. PBS, 2010. Web. 10 Oct 2010.

Links:
Gallery Rep
Another Gallery Rep
Interview
Site

Idea Post #5

Idea Post #5

October 6, 2010


Chalk Art


Quotes:

""Once I realized you could make things go down, I realized you could make them appear to go up and I began experimenting." -Julian Beever

"My art is for anybody, it's for people who wouldn't go into an art gallery. It's art for the people. Art shouldn't be locked away in galleries and libraries and books. Art should be for everybody and not just art boffins, historians and so-called experts." -Julian Beever

Source for both: Loat, Sarah. "Pavment Picasso." BBC-Birmingham-Entertainment. BBC, Feb 2006. Web. 6 Oct 2010. .

Annotated Bibliography:

Beever, Julian. Pavment Chalk Artist: The Three-Dimensional Drawings of Julian Beever. Firefly Books, 2010. Print.
This book is hot off the presses; still only available for pre-ordering. Although I haven't seen it in person yet, obviously, I looked through the images online and they are just mind blowing. The work of this artist is shocking in the ability to transform a flat boring surface into an amazingly realistic and 3D piece of street art. The book is definitely worth looking into!


Relation:

Chalk art is a little outside of the realm of my work, but using the same medium. This week I focused on the use of chalk as a material in spreading a message for my project. That sparked my interest in chalk art for this week's idea post. Chalk art is fascinating and I love to look at it, but it doesn't actually relate to my work this week besides the medium used, and the fact that we are both trying to spread a message on sidewalks using this medium.

Julika Rudelius: Questions/Response

Artist Lecture
Questions to ask

Julika Rudelius

1) Most of your video work seems to be aimed towards the communication of a political message? Are their certain topics you find yourself dealing with more than others, or are you trying to cover as many pieces of the political spectrum as possible? In other words, are their certain political topics you feature that really touch you in a personal way, or is the aim of your political work more to create communication about a possibly controversial issue?

2) Many of your video pieces involve the participant's conversations being led or directed in some way by your questioning, that is then cut out of the video. Do you feel that this swaying of participant's opinion's is necessary? Is it always crucial to direct their conversations in this hidden way? Would the footage be as effective, or perhaps more effective, if the conversation was free to go in any direction? Or does this line of questioning provide a more desired outcome?



Artist Lecture Response


Most interesting quote:

• "Working with the rich and powerful people became a sport. What fascinates me enormously about rich and powerful people is that they don't care at all what you think. They're kinda entertained. It's great for film, and it must be a great state to be in...completely oblivious... but it's really kinda weird." This quote was funny, sad, and true to me. The quote is very true about the piece and it was interesting to me how none of her subjects seemed to care about the satirical and somewhat offensive portrait she was painting of them.

Other interesting quotes:

• "Am I allowed to show this stuff in America?"
• "I found a checklist on how to know if someone's a psychopath. The interesting thing is that you need all the elements on the list to be successful in business, too. So I wanted to cast both millionaires and psychopaths, but it's really hard to cast psychopaths because you can't really detect them until they're screwing you."
• "I don't know if they liked it or not... but nobody ever sued me..."
• "No... they are my creations."
• "I had them make Polaroids of themselves as a modern mirror, especially because I am fascinated with the fact that this extreme use of plastic surgery is probably because of all the photos that are taken of you."
• "I had such a desire for truth especially in the political world, but I think it's kinda a lie itself when you say you have "truth" in you documentary. So I'd rather use a technique that deals with that. When you start messing with the devil, you have to know when to stop."
  

Three Words:

Deceptive, clever, and manipulative


Interesting Discoveries:

From the work I had looked at before the lecture, I was really confused. I could see the nature of her work as unveiling the truth in the subject's personality... but I could also read in the descriptions of her work that she was coaching them. I didn't understand how there was any believability or integrity in the work she was showing, if she was secretly telling the subjects what to say. After the lecture, it all made sense. I was fascinated after I heard her explain that these subjects were indeed "her creations" and that there was little truth to them at all. The words they spoke were their own, but were specifically guided and crafted by Julika to use the technique of "manipulated truth" and "false authenticity." The use of purposeful manipulation to create a half-truth is very interesting when use intentionally.


Answers:

My first question was kind of answered by watching a range of work. She told us what she was interested in and we watched work with enough different themes that I don't believe her work is more politically aimed towards one theme more than another. The second question was answered extensively and is explained in my above response.


Most compelling work:

I think for me the most interesting work was about the women in the Hamptons. All the work was so different and so powerful, they each have extremeley compelling elements to them. But I believe I enjoyed the Hampton Women the most because it was so unusual. The women acted to happy and full of themselves, but to me it was obvious they were unhappy. The aura in that video was so eerie and strange and overall entertaining to watch.

Artist Post #5

Artist Post #5

October 5, 2010

Susan Barnett


Relation:
I am so excited about this work. For the past few weeks, I have been really focusing on distribution. Not distribution of photographs at all, but distribution of a message. I want to focus on different ways to spread a concept, and using photography as the documentation of that process. This particular series by Susan Barnett called Not In Your Face works with a very similar theme. Barnett uses t-shirts to spread ideas of her participants. The t-shirts sometimes included words, and other times included imagery. The project was all about self-identity, for Barnett's participants. She used photography to help them spread their own messages through this process. Wearing these shirts around town as well as in these photographs validate the opinions of the participants and advertise their dreams, hopes, loves, hates, political beliefs, etc. In these images, unlike the usual portraiture, the faces of the people are not shown making the information on the shirts become their entire personality to the viewers.


Artist Information:
Susan Barnett started out with a degree in photojournalism from Marymount College. After working in the industry for a while, Barnett went back to school to receive two more degrees in graphic design and photography. Her first big success as a photographer was a series entitled After Neon which addressed the fading neon signs in Manhattan. Her next big hit was the series I discussed before.


Quotes:
"This is an aspect of society that may not register with everyone, but the fact that these people are willing to wear their message on their back indicates they want to be seen and are involved in a kind of street performance art."

"A collective consciousness appears when the photos are grouped together with similar political slogans and personal imperatives."

Source for both:
"Not in your face." Lens Culture; Photography and Shared Territories. 2010. Web. 2 Oct 2010.


Links:
Artist Website
Gallery Representation
Interview