Video review

1.

The Lowdown on Lowbrow: West Coast Pop Art

·       Lowbrow means someone lacking in taste or uncultivated.

·       They explain the origin or the word and that Robert Williams came up with it.

·       People like this art more because of it being influenced by pop culture, car culture and folk art.

·       There were times when galleries would not display this kind of art and the artists went through a tiki phase in the 1950s-1960s.

·       In Vancouver, the first lowbrow art gallery opens.

Displaying Modern Art: The Tate Approach

·       Discussed the art display model and how they are displayed in museums.

·       Idea of suiting the museum space to the featuring art is established by the Tate Modern.

Bones of Contention: Native American Archaeology

·       Archeologists take Native American bones and don’t rebury them when found.

·       You can be charged with criminal possession of Native American bones.

·       Samuel Morton’s studies try to compare intelligence to brain size, so the skulls of N.A. are kept in museums.

·       Smithsonian has 18,000 Native American bones.

·       N.A. are stripped of their identity in U.S. boarding schools in the early 20^th century.

An Acquiring Mind: Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan

·       He believes that an exhibit must be complete and show the entirety of the subject otherwise one must not do it.

·       Acquiring art is a lengthy and educational process.

·       Conservation is the next step with art curation, they use modern and ancient techniques to preserve art.

·       Use many techniques to preserve art including water immersion and x-rays.

·       There is an Egyptian temple in the museum in the western world.

·        The metropolitan Museum has one of the most comprehensive art collections in the world.

2. The answer to this question is a yes and no. While some videos relate to the project, some do not. Bones of contention and the lowdown on Lowbrow do not relate to the art curation project at all. Then the An acquiring mind video and the Displaying modern art do relate to the project because of their insider knowledge of how the museums are set up, the steps taken and how it is decided which steps are taken.

3. I enjoyed the films, especially the last one about the metropolitan museum greatly. They do add some depth to the concepts learned about in the course and the two videos will aid greatly in the curation of the art project I am doing.  The video about the metropolitan, on a side note, has made me seriously consider going to NYC to see the exhibits.

art gallery visit 2

Artist- Patricia Carter

Title- Allegory of a Surrogate Mother

Media- Oil on Canvas

Date- 1998

Size- 48 x 48

Source: Myself

1.  A black woman standing in a strained posture holding her hip with a maid outfit on. There is also a work in the background that shows the maid with two white children around here feet as two children would be around their mother.

2. Color is used here to make the allegory of the surrogate mother obvious by the differences in the color of the skin of the figures. Pattern is seen and used here on the floor in the work to show the opulence of the home owners and to draw your eye to the figures.

3. The symbolism of the color of the skins of the figure of the works is to make the surrogate mother obvious to all viewers.

4. My interpretation of this work is it is all used to show what the title is suggesting, which is a surrogate mother.

Artist- Esther Sawyer

Title- Untitled

Media- Charcoal on Paper

Date- Unknown

Size- 28 x 14

Source: Myself

1.  The work is that of a clouded figure which is a woman holding a child in her arms.

2. Shape and mass are seen in this work by the faded outlines giving shape to the woman and the child. Emphasis is in this worm in the form of only showing the top half of the woman and the child and not much else but you can see that there is a background although the artist chose not to show it. Scale and proportion is here because it is realistically proportioned with the child being proportioned to the mother.

3. There is no symbolism here besides the image of a woman holding a child.

4. My interpretation of this work is that this was drawn in passing of a woman holding her child, just an image of normal day life.

Artist- Julius Lankes

Title- Ruth

Media- Woodcut

Date- 1924

Size- Small (handsized)

Source:  Myself

1.  There are two woman holding each other while standing next to a tree with the landscape of a stream and other trees in the background.

2. The element of line is used here to create the sky and the clouds, giving texture to the work and dimensions. Space is used here to for the perspective of far and near objects as well as atmospheric perspective with the landscape. Scale and proportion are used here to emphasis the two women in the foreground over the surrounding landscape.

3.  There is no apparent hidden symbolism here.

4. My interpretation of this work is that strength through unity with the two women hugging and comforting each other.

I thought it was quite different but not necessarily a good thing. I think it took away from the exhibit, having to study it and take notes while trying to figure out what to do my work on. I feel that on the other hand, some work of studying an exhibit can be more beneficial than just looking at works randomly.

Video review

1. The reasons why I watched these particular videos was because I thought they would interest me. Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpture of Spaces and Andy Warhol: Images of an Image peeked my interest when I saw that he designed a park in Miami.

2.

Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpture of Spaces

·        He has a world heritage site based on the Japanese style of garden in Paris

·        He creates them as he puts it to humanize space and time

·        He has artistic versatility, shown in the Miami bay front park and his use of water to delineate space around his works

·        Learn about the sculpture park he designed in Jerusalem

·        Designed a 400-acre park in Sapporo Japan and it shows the depth of his vision

Andy Warhol: Images of an Image

·        He was a commercial artist before going into advertising.

·        We learn about his use of silk screening and about his interest in the lives of famous women and how that lead to several repeated images

·        He also was an journalist and a film maker.

2. How do the videos relate to the readings in the text? I believe that these videos relate to the text because they talk about artists who at that time were different and they didn’t do conventional art. I also think that the Isamu Noguchi video relates to the text because he is exactly like one of the artists that would be included in the chapter.

3. What is your opinion of the films? How do they add depth to understanding of the readings and art concepts? I enjoyed the films, especially the sculpture of spaces video. They added depth to my understanding of artists that they talk about in chapter 23. I consider these videos both informational to the chapter we had to read this week but while they supplied us with supplementary knowledge, I do not necessarily believe that I had to watch the videos. While the last two videos that I watched were on styles and subjects and helped to understand the material, this week’s videos were all not essential knowledge, in that it isn’t really needed.