Michael Ray Charles
.
Identity:
What is identity?
Where does identity come from?
How is identity accomplished?
What is a stereotype?
Monday, September 28, 2020
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Ecology, Thoreau, Mary Oliver, Agnes Denes
Ecology, Agnes Denes, Robert Adams, Mary Oliver..."in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it any price. Men plough and sail for it. From the forest and wildness come the tonics and barks that brace mankind" (Thoreau).
Agnes Denes: Tree Mountain-A living Time Capsule 11,000 trees, Finland
Robert Adams
Robert Adams
Monday, September 21, 2020
Black Abstract Artists
Madison: Rosie Lee Tompkins
Rosie Lee Tompkins
Tompkins’s work, was one of the century’s major artistic accomplishments, giving quilt-making a radical new articulation and emotional urgency. I felt I had been given a new standard against which to measure contemporary art.
Rosie Lee Tompkins was a pseudonym, adopted by a fiercely private, deeply religious woman, who as her work received more and more attention, was almost never photographed or interviewed. She was born Effie Mae Martin in rural Gould, Ark., on Sept. 9, 1936.
Tompkins was an inventive colorist whose generous use of black added to the gravity of her efforts. She worked in several styles and all kinds of fabrics, using velvets — printed, panne, crushed — to gorgeous effect, in ways that rivaled oil paint. But she was also adept with denim, faux furs, distressed T-shirts and fabrics printed with the faces of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Magic Johnson.
A typical Tompkins quilt had an original, irresistible aliveness. One of her narrative works was 14 feet across, the size of small billboard. It appropriated whole dish towels printed with folkloric scenes, parts of a feed sack, and, most prominently, bright bold chunks of the American flag. What else? Bits of embroidery, Mexican textiles, fabrics printed with flamenco dancers and racing cars, hot pink batik and, front and center, a slightly cheesy manufactured tapestry of Jesus Christ. It seemed like a map of the melting pot of American culture and politics. Sometimes the embroidery reflected her daily Bible reading, including the Gospels, as did her addition of appliqué crosses. Occasionally she stitched the addresses of the places she had lived, and Eli’s home. The information suggested talismanic properties, perhaps prayers. She also said they were meant to improve the relationships between the people evoked by the numbers.
As an artist, Tompkins may have taken improvisation further than other quilters. She all but abandoned pattern for an inspired randomness with an emphasis on serial disruptions that constantly divert or startle the eye — like the badge of a California prison guard sewn to an otherwise conventional crazy quilt. Another narrative quilt is more like a wall-hanging, or maybe a street mural, pieced with large fragments of black and white fabric and T-shirts printed with images of African-American athletes and political leaders. Rows of crosses made from men’s ties evoke the pressures of succeeding while black in American.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/arts/design/rosie-lee-tompkins-quilts.html
Abigail: Rosie Lee Tompkins
Kaitlin
Caley: Howardena Pindell
| Megan: Joan Mitchell Ethan: Sanford Biggers |
The quilt, vernacular object par excellence, proved to be rich terrain for what Mr. Biggers calls “material storytelling.” As the full scope of his quilt work comes into view, it sheds new light on his long-held concerns — with the Black experience, American violence, Buddhism and art history — and reveals interior dimensions of his personal journey.
Mr. Biggers made his first two quilt works in 2009, installing them at Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. One of the vintage quilts had a flower pattern; the other was plaid. On each, he transposed from a historical map the locations of the church and safe houses from the Underground Railroad, marked them like stars in a constellation, and connected them with charcoal and oil stick.
The reference was to a theory that holds that people along the Underground Railroad shared crucial information in code through quilts hanging at safe houses and other way points. Scholars have found little validating evidence, but for Mr. Biggers, the fact of folk knowledge, even when it’s apocryphal, has worth in itself. “It’s more important that the story endures,” he said. The quilts, however, continue. Their softness is their strength. Their transmittal attests to survival; whether they broadcast freedom codes during the Underground Railroad or not, an artist can inscribe them now with salutary information for today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/arts/design/sanford-biggers-quilt-bronx-museum.html
Sanford Biggers
Veronica: Sam Gilliam-Basquiat, Hanna: Grace Hartigan
Sam Gilliam Paintings
Monday, September 14, 2020
taking a walk or making a bird nest
1 Zion and Babylon
A prominent feature of post-modern thought is the idea that everything is constructed out of existing texts or ideas, including our own identity. A postmodernist would say: “Our culture tends to determine what foods we like, how we dress, what constitutes polite behavior…All too often we are like puppets on a string, as our culture determines what is cool”
Elder Stone says we should pay attention to the zeitgeist (zeitgeist=time spirit or spirit of the times) of the culture of the people of the Lord, to the culture of Zion.
What are some characteristics of the culture of Zion?
Modernism embraces the idea that there are universal ideas about what makes a good art, universal principles of design
What is wrong with that? What is wrong with the idea of teaching the elements and principles of design, for example?
For one, It was based on a certain culture’s idea, and was in reality a relative cultural truth that was promoted as being universal, in the present day context, a white, European, male truth that ignored or disdained, or did not consider other kinds of truth about art or beauty) , that at universal truth exists.
Postmodernism, like Logan pointed out in the blue sweater segment, says, everything comes from somewhere…
We could ask, where does the culture of Zion come from?
It is a recurring challenge for the church to figure out the culture of Zion. At one time the church was more adamant about promoting Great Basin American ideas of culture…does that mean when someone joins the church in Africa or Ecuador or Uruguay that they need to erase their own culture? Is it always only two cultures, Zion and Babylon? Does the culture of Zion evolve or is it handed down to us? Do we contribute to or help construct the culture of Zion?
Logan also pointed out the modern and postmodern ideas continue to thrive and influence each other. (modernism: science can save the world, truth is absolute: postmodernism: knowledge is mediated by culture)
As Elder Stone points out, as well as postmodernist theorists,
we are engulfed by the culture around us, like puppets on a string.
But postmodernism can also reflect a Zion culture in its focus on social and social justice issues, social critique, and seeing things from other’s perspective, even if it makes us uncomfortable and not “move within a cocoon of self-satisfied self-deception, fully convinced that the way we see things is the way things really are” (Abigail) Good example of post-modernist attitude is Fake news.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Defining Contemporary Art: The Devil Wears Prada and On Museums
Borders: USA and Mexico
Borders
Masks, coronavirus, gender, country or state borders, fashion, family borders, what is food, comfort, perfection, comfort zone, anxiety, because you are a girl…” art and science, fears, the white canvas, self-motivation, edge of my knowledge, social constructs, expectations, money, artistic skill, lack of artistic skill, doubt, space, time, school, work, comparisons, ignorance,
What troubles me about this statement?
I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like.
From Barrett: When people talk about art, they tend, unthinkingly, that everyone’s opinion is as good as everyone else’s. To dismiss a carefully thought out, backed by evidence statement with “That’s just your opinion” is intellectually irresponsible. (not that it should be accepted, but that it deserves a reasoned response.)
It doesn’t matter what you say because it is all subjective anyway. When discussing art. An extreme relativism that does not allow for truth or falsity, or plausibility and reasonability, or for knowledge and experience either
Critics are knowledgeable, passionate, political, opinionated, enlightened, connoisseurs, art does not speak for itself. A good critic makes arguments, not pronouncements. Critics can also be about resistance, freedom, social justice, rebellion, interpretation and promotion.
There are many models of art criticism. Every time we, as critics (connoisseurs, lovers of art), confront a work of art, I am looking for something way beyond a simple pronouncement “I like it”, I am looking for a vivid description, merging into an interpretation (including how it moved you), an informed judgment, and some theory….how is it art? This means you are going to be building a chair of your theory of art.
1. How do we choose which art to look at? (the Devil Wears Prada)
The institutional art world is the primary area where we will be looking for artists. We chose this route because this art may have the most influence on culture, ideas, and other artists.
2. Kerry James Marshall: on Museums:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5mIklsZl5s
At the same time, we need to be aware of the problems with this selecting our artists from the institutional art world, especially artists who have been left out.
Quantum Physics Motel Kemmerer, Wyoming
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