the search for an artist- bookart

I have found that in this week searching for an artist that i truly love and honestly want to research and write about was somewhat difficult.
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN is a large place to choose from, There are many artists who are extremely talented and have unique ideas so the range is HUGE picking one was impossible at first. I looked again at chuck close, then dove into pieces in the sculpture garden, artists such as Jennifer Holzer who works with granite to creat large installations, Selections From the Living Series, Fredrick Wiseman who made The Spoon Bridge and Cherry, Henry Moore who used bronze to creat abstracted figures Reclining Mother and Child and Richard Serra who makes amazing works with large plates of Cor-Ten Steel that is the same steel used to build ships, Five Plates, Two poles.

In the end, a sculpture i am not as fimilure with durring my many ventures into the sculpture garden, i decided to research George Segal. George Segal sparked my intrest because i have heard his name brought up a few times in my life as an artist, but i had never truely experienced his work or looked at the expansive works he has done. Segal works primarly in plaster and creats molds of full size people placing them in specific situations and movements, From what i can tell already as i have just really started digging is that he enjoys public art. I am drawn to his use of mixed miedia to emphisize his point and draw in the viewer to interact with his works.

More to find out and to research, and i am looking forward to it.
~Flo

Source(s):
http://garden.walkerart.org/artwork.wac#head

Midway Contemporary Art

There are many places and galleries that shove a million different pieces of art from high priced collectors, this is not one of those places.
The gallery owner is very involved in selecting the pieces that end up in the midway gallery, making it more personal.

There were many works that enjoyed, but two stood out as my favorites and one that i really did not find too pleasing to look at, and that was a hard

decision, because i really did enjoy all the works in the Midway gallery.

My favorite in the end would have to be "Not Sorry" by Nate Lowman. Lowman's work depicts a personal and usually scary event, which in context could have been in many number of places. Using bullet resistant glass, brushed stainless steel, and stickers he makes a direct statement of how it is, how there are no applogies and no remorse for a attempted robbery, or that there is the plan the action and the outcome, and there is not room to be sorry for it.

Another key point is to note that the times are tuff, some are in desperation to find work and get money to pay the rent. which in skepticism could be attributed to the selection and presentation to Lowman's work.

My lest Favorite, based purely on not liking the coloration, was "I just want to be mice elf" by 1985-2006; Gedi Sibony.There is something about the color combination and confusion about purpose beyond a ironic saying. The astetic is near perfect with the intentional awkward miss sizing. I do not see the connection between the name of the piece and the piece its self.

Sources:

http://www.midwayart.org/exhibitions/09_04_secretlife/images.php

When thinking about what pieces of art one would construct for this blog revolving around a piece that sparks interest and evokes conversation and possibly a level of discomfort, I was drawn to pieces from the Americas, France and Italy.

Finally narrowing it down, two works in particular combined in an interesting and controversial frame. John Baldessari's "I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art"(1931) and Arthur B. Charles "Torso"(1971).

Charles' "Torso" is contrived of many bold brush strokes and a basic recognizable form of a womans torso. The shape and form of the torso are defined by the colors and thickness of the brush strokes defining the negative space and helping to push the from out from the picture plane. Now imagine this colorfull and vibrant torso overlayed with artfull text, by Baldessari, stating "I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art".
"I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art" is repeated in sucession about 17 times, the sentences structure is not aligned, there fore is seeminly unbalanced but in baldessari's statement becomes clear, "I will not many any more boring art" place and worded to make the viewer feel as though it is a contradiction in that the asetetic is not with in any strict and formal form, but in a expressionist manner, in that is is freely stated and filling of the space in a unstructured mannner.

Baldessari's piece overlayd on Charles' piece would being a sence of major crontadictoin. the long lasting and colorful vibrant and intresting torso allows the black and white letters stating that there will be no more boring art crumbel, or in another view excentuate the fact that post modern art is not defined and is calling the "Torso" boring becasue of its modernist quality and originality.

[reference]

Baldessari's painting is featured in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA)exhibition of "Text as Image in Contemporary Art."

Postmoderism in the community

I recently went to visit the Quick and the Dead exhibition at the Walker Art Center, there I found an amazing variety of pieces surrounding the topics of quick and dead.

Postmodernism is best described as an art movement which was thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath. Artists use classical style in a diverse media borrowing from the past and from that, making something new.

Using the definition and explanation of postmodernism, from the book Criticizing Art by Terry Barrett, i was able to study the pieces at the Walker Art Center and relate them to this movement in time.
Michael Sailstorfer's Zeit ist keine Autobahn- Berlin, (Time is no Highway, Berlin) 2006, explores in installation the movement of a car tire the while spinning is gently running against the gallery wall, while this is happening rubber residue from the tire falls to the floor and collects below on the floor as the tire treads begin to wear more and more.
The work plays against all of the senses, sight, sound, smell and the implied taste of burning rubber.

Sailstorfer is using postmodern views of the world alluding to time and things that have already occurred in the past, as well as the future. a recollection of things that already exhisted in time and space and presenting them in a new manner correlate well to the postmodern throw back of traditional individuality and sole creation of creating art for arts sake as most would allude to a closer definition of modernism.





Michael Sailstorfer, Zeit ist keine Autobahn - Berlin, (Time Is No Highway, Berlin), 2006tire, iron, motor, electricity, wall 56 11/16 x 51 15/16 x 26 9/16 in. Courtesy the artist and Johann König, Berlin
http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=4486


Flo

Tellin it like it is...for the very first time.

Hey this is Rachel Farrell

Just here at CVA starting a new adventure in blogging.... yes as a verb...i am going to go blog.
OK...maybe later...

peace,
Flo