Wednesday 3 September 2014

Shock of the new: The view from the Edge





 CLASS ACTIVITY: Shock of the new: The view from the Edge
Watch “Shock of the new, Episode 8, “The view from the Edge”, Robert Hughes


Worksheet:

1. Watch the DVD/ youtube clip and Take notes.
Include:
·      list the main themes
·      the main artists
·      Points of interest


2. Choose one of the paintings below to analyse using the 4 step analysis criteria: (choose one group of two images eg: Analysis & Comparison 1)

Describe: Tell what you see (the visual facts).  Include research about the art & artist.

Analyse: Using the 8 Design elements and 8 design principles; mentally separate the parts or elements, thinking in terms of textures, shapes/forms, light/dark or bright/dull colours, types of lines, and sensory qualities. In this step consider the most significant art principles that were used in the artwork. Describe how the artist used them to organize the elements.

Interpret: An interpretation seeks to explain the meaning of the work based on what you have learned so far about the artwork, what do you think the artist was trying to say?

Judgement: After careful observation, analysis, and interpretation of an artwork, you are ready to make your own judgment. This is your personal evaluation based on the understandings of the work(s).
 
Record answers in your journal

3. Compare the painting with corresponding photo or painting provided.
Answer: does this comparison bring a new meaning to the painting?
How does the painting fit into the historical context of the photo / image?
If you separate the two images, is it now possible to see one without thinking of the other?
What impact does this have on you?
Why has Robert Hughes described these artists as having a ‘view from the edge’?






Analysis & Comparison 1:

Analyse this painting:
 

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, tempera and crayon on cardboard, 91 x 73.5 cm

It is assumed that here as well his starting point was private feelings and experience. His diaries contain several remarks that seem to form a background to this depiction of existential angst, among them the following: “I was walking along the road with two friends – Then the sun went down – The sky suddenly turned to blood and I felt a great scream in nature –”. Munch produced several drawings and prints of this subject.

Compare to this photograph:
Chachapoya mummy, Musee de l'Homme
 
This is an image of the mummified remains of a Chachapoyas warrior. (An Inca warrior, Peru)
It is a hypothesis based on conjectures, although not supported by documents that
Munch was inspired to paint his masterpiece by this mummy that the Norwegian artist and Paul Gauguin saw together at the 1889 Trocadero exposition in Paris.



Analysis & Comparison 2:

Analyse this painting:
Frances Bacon, 1953, ‘Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of pop Innocent X’, oil on canvas,
This painting is on of a series of over 45 variants of the Velázquez painting in which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.



Compare to this painting:
Diego Velázquez, 1650, Portrait of Pope Innocent X, oil on canvas




Analysis & Comparison 3:

Analyse this painting:
http://www.franzmarc.org/images/paintings/the-large-blue-horses.jpg
Franz Marc, 1911 ‘The Large Blue Horse’, oil on canvas, 105x181.1cm

The Blue Rider, was a magazine publication series, which he was a co-founder of; it focused on the movement, and it was well known to be connected to a small group of artists who were in charge of posting images, as well as breaking stories, during the time that the magazine was in existence in Germany. They focussed upon nature rather than depicting the immediate war torn environment.


Compare to this photograph:
 http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Ohrdruf/Ohrdruf02.jpg
Nazi Germany Holocaust image

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Robert Hughes - Shock of the New

21 August


Robert Hughes - Shock of the New

If you missed today's lesson, please watch the following 1 hour you tube video:

Robert Hughes: Shock of the New episode 7’ Culture as Nature’.
Youtube: http://youtu.be/zgYDuA-fBLg

It covers:

Time period: 1940-1970s
 
Art movements:
Dada
Pop Art
Anti-formalist

 
Subjects: mass media, capitalism, saturation, technology, semiotics, signs, symbolism, assimilation, consumption.

Ideas: how does art adapt to the new world? Fear art will not survive if it does not adapt. disposable, ready-made assemblage, replacement not maintenance, found objects....


Read the discussion points below and write a short response to two of them. 200 words.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 
CLASS DISCUSSION: Shock of the new: Culture as Nature

Watch “Shock of the new, Episode 7, Culture as Nature”, Robert Hughes http://youtu.be/zgYDuA-fBLg

 
In groups of 3-4 people, discuss and record your responses to the questions below. (one question per group). Choose one person to present your discussion findings to the class.


Discussion Questions:

First Half of the video:

 

Pop art is:  Popular (designed for a mass audience), transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced,young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big business.

 

1.      Richard Hamilton’s ‘The Critic laughs’, 1968 (a giant set of edible teeth applied to his electric toothbrush, which later was the basis for a limited edition series and a BBC advertisement) presents an argument ‘that the process of the design, the manufacturing, the marketing and the advertising of the object is primary (more important than) to the object itself. Or in a Marshall McLuhan argument  ‘the message is more important than the medium’.

 

Discuss.

 

Come up with 2 examples where you can see this happening in your creative environment.

 

1.

2.

 

List the impacts of this on western art culture of today. 

 

2.      Marcel Duchamp asked: “What is it, precisely, that makes an object a work of art?”

Discuss.

Define object and work of art.

Come up with a list of parameters.

Why do you consider these things to be worthy criteria?

What is the context and the influence for your decisions?


 

3.      a) Robert Hughes describes Television programming as a “cornucopia of dung”.

The multiple viewing choices in the private environment of  TV encourage the behavior of channel flicking – this mode of delivery changes the way we see and read information.

He observes that ‘whole societies have learned to see in terms of montage and juxtaposition’…. And ours is the ‘cult of the electronic fragment’.

 

How can you see this format of receiving information has affected the visual arts? Positively or negatively?

Positive
Negative
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What might the ‘default’ future be?

 

 

 

 

b) ‘Small packets of information are delivered on a platform that ‘equalizes’,  effectively trivial items become important or important information becomes trivialized.

 

Discuss.

 

4.      Robert Hughes values the technical prowess of an artist and an ability to be visually descriptive and earnest over the intuition and instinctual ‘gift’.

 

What do you think is more important? Why? List your reasons for and against.

For
Against
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Debate.

 

5.      Robert Hughes criticism explores the notion that art movements cannot be viewed out of context, historically and culturally.

Why is thins important? What can we learn from studying a society’s cultural and political history along side it’s visual arts programme?


 

 

Sunday 10 August 2014

JASPER JOHNS + POST WORLD WAR 2



Assignment JASPER JOHNS + POST WORLD WAR 2
 
Watch "Art in the Western World: The Aftermath" on youtube (25mins) http://youtu.be/L5pFbx0cF74?list=PL8Jz61TGii_HbjuNIRUSpKFLn0lUzfiqx
 
1. Summarise Text 2: Jasper Johns Prints 1968-1980 (given out in class: see Felicity to get your copy)
2. Answer reflective questions in response to the video ‘Art in the Western World: the Aftermath’ (available on youtube + shown in the lesson)

Part 1: Summarise Text

Use the resources provided to you in week 1 & 2 to summarise the given text.

Submit:
·      1x written summary of 300 words minimum for part 1 (typed), summarizing the text in your own words and using full sentences and paragraphs (no bullet points).
·      Summarise the key ideas, issues, points or themes.
·      Present your work typed and printed with a TAFE cover sheet (with part 2)
·      Discuss what you imagine these ideas, issues, points or themes mean to in relation to your visual art practice (what is possible?) at the end of your summary.
Due Thursday 4pm, Week 7. (*This date has been reviewed and rescheduled from the original assessment document)

Part 2: Answer reflective questions
Read the text below before writing your answers to the questions. This is intended to make you think; and there are no ‘right or wrong’ answers.

Paintings in the Renaissance show a need to depict content be it religious, historical or mythological subject matter. This depiction of specific representational content relied on the audience to be familiar with the subject, which excluded much of the uneducated population.

Art after the Renaissance, artists made paintings which assumed no educated knowledge of the viewer such as landscape and genre paintings which used the expression of colour rather than religious or classical ideals of form & content to represent an idea. For example, Romantic painter Turner used colours and brush strokes to portray atmosphere and fleeting sensations of a sublime landscape and narrative.

Later the Impressionists took painting to analysis: they analysed the chemistry and psychology of colour; the application of paint, new technology and pigments. Seurat employed scientific studies in optics and the study of colour to create pointillist paintings.

All of these movements and styles had one thing in common; they heralded the depiction of known objects, representational of the world.

Then as a reaction against this establishment, artists began to see painting as a form of expression or emotion itself and rejected forms drawn from observation in favour of non-representational imagery. The Fauves chose colour according to their feelings “wild beast” within them, The surrealists made ‘automatic’ drawings, the abstract expressionists created works from their immediate internal experience of the present.

This can be seen to be a rejection of the imitation of nature and asserting an independence from the perceived visual world; which was (and still is) controversial with the public & artists who paint known subjects. The debate becomes “what is art?” or “why is that art?”; you may have heard many times in response to viewing an abstract piece “I could do that my self”.

Russian Abstract Expressionist Wassily Kandinsky witnessed major events of war, scientific discovery, Europe on brink of war Russia at edge of revolution.

“When religion, science and morality are shaken, and when the outer supports threaten to fall, man turns his gaze away from the external world and toward himself. The elements of the new art are therefore to be found within the inner and not the outer qualities of nature.”

1.     Why do you think this approach is taken for some Abstract Expressionist artists?

2.     Do you think this type of introspection is to satisfy the artist or the viewer?


3.     What relationship does art now have with society?

4.     Thinking about the practice of abstract expressionism in the 1940-50s and the idea of creating non-representational artwork through pure expression; do you think that art has become accessible to everyone? Why?


5.     Do you think anyone can create a work of art? Why?

6.     Where do you place your value in a work of art?

7.     In the Reading “Jasper Johns: Prints 1968-1970” we read that he practices printmaking. The author, Christine Dixon, states,

for all modern artists, the dialogue between a unique object and its reproduction in multiple is a central argument about cultural authenticity. Multiple copies of one image, such as the original print… serve to disseminate the artist’s idea.”  

Do you think it is still true that today, the idea that a print (rather than a unique or one off image / sculpture) reaches a wider audience? Explain your answer.

8.     Thinking about the signs and symbols from our western culture that Jasper Johns uses in his artworks, how much do you need to know about the artist (Jasper Johns) to understand his work?

9.     Christine Dixon asks, “As for all visual art encountered directly, the primary value is sensory. How does Johns’s imagery fall upon our eyes and our minds?” Respond to this question.

10.  What questions does the idea of producing multiples (eg: printmaking or digital prints) of one image raise in terms of value of a work of art?


Due Thursday 4pm, Week 7.

Submit:
·      Your answers to the questions (include the questions), typed and using full sentences and paragraphs (no bullet points).
·      Minimum word count = 200 words for part 2.
·      Present your work typed and printed with a TAFE cover sheet (with part 1)
Helpful Resources:

Websites
Bauman, 1989, Art of the Western World – Episode 17: The Aftermath, TVS Television Ltd, New York, viewed 9 August 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pFbx0cF74&index=17&list=PLxO9GeRLfUk93LIfuPhWo7AaFdqGli4Xq

Magazine Articles
Dixon, C, 1997, Jasper Johns: Prints 1968-1980, National Gallery of Australia, 5 April-13 July 1997, Australia.

DVD
Abstraction: The Painters World (available at TAFE NSW RI Library, Wagga Wagga) no reference information available.