works in progress

new works from this semester

First Year MFA SHOW

The show encompassed a great range of works. The spaces were used to the advantage of the artists, creating hanging walls to separate some of the works that were more dynamic. The show was a little confusing due to the lack of labels on the walls? I always find the labels misleading and confusing in the mason gross gallery. The spaces are very well defined, and the labels are always in the most ambiguous place possible. In this case strips of blue tape saying place label here were implemented. Hopefully that gets resolved.
So consequently I'm not sure who had the large Cy Twombly-esque abstractions on the far back wall, but they were intriguing. These paintings had drawings on graph paper still taped flimsily to them, raw canvas loosely hanging from the frame, and an orb of quiet color in the center. That particular wall almost always draws the most attention for me. Whatever goes on that wall is always well presented and centered. It usually steals the show. In this case, though the canvases were warped and unprimed, those paintings were the most memorable and presentable for me. The allure of the wall is most likely in that it is the longest horizontal span in the gallery, and it is directly across from the entrance doors. The wall dominates the scene in every show i've been to in mason gross galleries. And I'm a sucker for expressionist abstract landscapes via storm clouds and graph drawing paper. Who's paintings are those??

For the rest of the show a huge mix of installation, art objects, and various colorful items were strewn about the gallery. Something that happens often with shows that mix installations by one artist and paintings by another is distraction. A huge installation or interactive performance will dominate the gallery space. Whereas a minimalist artist with a clean or muted pallete will experience a clash of business that draws the focus away from their work. More specifically I am referring to the back left room where the center is dedicated to a very involved installation, and the works on the walls that surround and even enclose the installation are very simple, clean, and minimalist works that are engulfed by the installation.
If the artist were to make works that were both paintings and installation, such as the case of the back right room with the moose head, there is an appropriate way to incorporate such works.

grad schools i wish i went to

1.) RISD
2.) YALE
3.) MICA
4.) CALARTS
5.)UC BERKELEY (PhD in Philos of Art and Perception)
6.) UCB MFA in Art

Nov 19 Yale Open House
Julie Wbd and I are going! Anyone want to join?

Mica Open House anyone?

I want to be Barbara Gladstone. In real life plz

The Fair

The lack of artists in this chapter is fitting, as artists have little to no idea what happens with the sales of art. The business side of art remains a serious mystery.

Wowwwww! I had no idea what went on with art once it left a studio. Literally no clue. This chapter revealed a lot about what happens to the works and who is really in charge of them once a sale is made. And once the works change hands, it never stops. The rotation of a collection and the constant sale and resale of works and bodies of work keep things popping. A little confused about the differences between dealer collector and speculator. Especially when dealers collect and artists become dealers and gallerists have collections. Then the dealer that started their own private collection opens up their own "private exhibition space" aka a gallery. I got a little lost in the terminology. But some good tips were given about selling work, selling yourself, and your work selling yourself and yourself selling work. maybe to the devil, but we'll talk about that later.

Once the art leaves the artists hands it's really out of the artists control as far as the cost, prestige of owner, and even meaning of the work is completely up for grabs. (I'm thinking lots of art gets grabbed and molested after it leaves the studio, a la Baldessari)

What is a speculator?

"You have to make new work to sell old work" This makes the deal less risky for investors, since they feel safer that the works already made are solidified and over. A sense of retrospect is seriously coveted within the art world. Once a moment has passed, collectors dealers historians and critics take years pouring over the details. It makes it hard to keep up with contemporary art. For me at least it is difficult when the modern art section is filled with dead artists.

"My art is almost unsellable." Is that because it doesn't cater to the market, and if it doesn't cater to the market does that mean it doesn't cater to viewers? Is it really a good thing to be unsellable?

"The amount of art in the world is a bit depressing."
agreed.

I think that when referring to Blum and Poe about the "too much dude", it might have been a comment about the lack of feminine perspective. The two seemed to more attribute this very characteristic to their success. Maybe I'm just being sensitive, but Thornton brought it up not me.

Hopefully now that I know what goes on in the art market I won't start catering to it in my creations. The safety of knowing that as long as I am ignorant to the business side of art then it will never be able to contaminate my work, leaves me feeling blissfully ignorant.

Damian Ortega CAPITAL less at Barbara Gladstone

Damián Ortega at Gladstone Gallery

Ordinary objects are typically used by Damian Ortega to project his interest in the mundane and everyday. This emphasis on one specific object creates a strong meeting, with a centralized idea and concept of what the true meaning of the object is. A simple object can become a powerful message when manipulated by Damian Ortega.

In Gladstone Gallery, his work is created with one simple material. Brick. I of course am always partial to brick. I like the appeal of the down-home southern charm, the old world essence of the material, and some of the nostalgic feelings it can stir up. Also, the solid nature of the material paired with its everyday architectural uses, can easily compose an unbending foundation. The solidarity of the material creates such a bold entrance and message in its structure, it is hard to take the work as anything but serious and sturdy.

The brick is created with intentional voids within the brick structures, scattered throughout the space. Not only does every structure stand far above a standard person's height, but Ortega created the bricks with voids from concrete blocks and brick by sanding them down.

All are titled "Building", and are a dwelling-like structure. It mimics not only the windows found in the NY stacked houses and buildings where people literally "live on top of each other", as well as mimicking Aztec dwellings of the past. Its a display of 5 structures that comprise a series of these dwellings, though they could just as easily be uninhabited.

As you learn more about Ortega you will realize that most work is political, as he started as a political cartoonist. The buildings are exactly that, political representations of poverty in brick form. The show's title," CAPITAL less" evokes the loss of captial. The loss is in the buildings its self, as they represent what once was a thriving structure, though it also represents a sections of the sociopolitical world in which the buildings are imaginarily situated. The buildings are paired with a video of a building in Sao Paulo Brazil, the Treme-Treme, which the video is entitled, that houses homeless occupants. The buildings are also for the capital less citizens of the city. The world play continues! Capital, as in city, refers to the loss of the city in which they once were a part of, and now live within what once was. The nostalgia continues as a capital remembered is lived in but continues to deplete into erosion.

The play on positive and negative space is used as a pun. And we all know how much I love word play. The space is positive shapes, made of negative space. The capital waste turns into a living space. The waste of the space is used as a place for homeless to dwell. It is a serious blunder on the city planning board's record, and this is Ortega's not so subtle way of rubbing it in their face with minimalist sophistication. These spaces come to represent the dilapidation of a structure, and the utilization of such a space. It is industrial and at the same time archaic.

In another sculpture, the inside of ventilation hoses are cast and displayed. An internal space is shown again, and exhibited as a form. The negative space turned into a positive one becomes a conversation with the other 5 pieces of buildings.

I am always completely enraptured by urban environments and all of the contradictory relationships within the atmosphere. The complications of life that arise in such an environment are often convoluted and thriving with positive and negative polarized views on the benefits and consequences of such a structure. Within art the perspective can be sociopolitical, architectural, and a range of confused expressionist representation. Any way you put it, an urban study is one that appeals to almost everyone, and can create a situation for ideal introspection of the structures of a society.

What do I like about it?

I like the minimal materials used

I like the clever show title

I like the ambiguous stance the work takes on the issue it raises

I like the subtlety

I like the simple and pure aesthetic

I like the concepts that come out of such a simple title and structure that provide endless meanings

I like that the introduction on Barbara Gladstone's Gallery makes for a nice segway into my next post about chapter 3...

7 Days in the Art World posts

Capter 6- The Studio Visit
"He's done some scholarly shit and some spectacular shows. It's money well spent- peanuts compared to what we've poured into favricating Oval."

"...our business is to sell symptoms articulated as objects"

Other paintings credit upwards of 35 names. Similarly, Murakami's desire to help his assistants launch their own careers is unusual.

"I like to see the artist's reality."

"I was taught that one o the defining premises of modern art was its antagonism to mass culture... If I wanted to be accepted more readily by the academic establishment, I could argue that Takashi is working within the system only to subvert it..."

What makes Takashi's art great- and also potentially scary- is his honest and completely canny relationship to commercial culture industries."

"it's not a gift shop- it's more like performance art"

it is interesting to see that for the studio visit Sarah Thornton has chosen one of the most successful and business-oriented artists in the industry. The issue of "selling out" is a serious overtone in this chapter.

Pricing and selling works seem as far away from the creative process as possible, but are a necessary component in the business side of the art world. This is a side that is often not revealed or talked about. It is nice to know that even Takashi Murakami has the same concerns and ideas about art business etiquette, and that he was ok with letting us take a peek into his studio to find out what is really going on.

It's also inspiring to know that the success of his assistants is a concern.



Chapter 2 - The Crit

"...Wheras acadmia is based on rational group-think. There is a magic and a n alchemy to art, but academics are always suspicious of the guy who stirs the big black pot."

Most schools turn a blind eye to the art market.

The art market simmers underneath all fo these schools.

Others occupy a left-wing position that believes the neo-avant garde should subvert the commerce of art.

The art world is like a western- full of cowboys, whores, and dandies."

It is a very simple, practical matter. For clear investigations, you need time. That is the only rule of thumb. if you don't have it, you run the risk of being superficial." "People had more to say."

"When there's nothing to sa, that becomes the question, in which case that's a really interesting conversation."

Interesting about how we can not learn about the art market, as if it were too tabboo. It's what we all want to know and learn- but can't learn from the institutions.

Afro Margin

Chris Ofili
Afro Margin
at David Zwirner

8 pencil drawings of sizes ranging around 3 x 2' in size. The drawings focus on vertically piled objects, which are Ofili's "afro heads", piled high on the page to make a vertical "totem pole".
The composition dominates in these drawings, the space broken by lines of these afro heads, and thus create the "margin".
Ofili has in the past used such afro heads to convey the common notion that ‘all black people look the same’.
All heads are made into distinctly different shapes and sizes by Ofili. In this exhibit the heads are less accentuated as black heads than in previous works, allowing the viewer to treat the structures as optical barriers and abstract objects. The compositional use of the structures allows for a stark visual contrast between the black and white spaces of the papers. The title of the show is a play on the meaning of marginalization. Margins are on the paper, as well as in the sociopolitical aspects of the work.

Tate Britain will have a mid-career retrospective of Chris Ofili's work in Jan 2010.

P.P.O.W.

Located on the 3rd floor of 511 West 25th Street
A cohesive show about the end of civilization and mutations of nature
all done in pencil drawing of course

George Boorujy

Migratory Drift

Sep 17-Oct 24, 2009

great show, great success

http://www.ppowgallery.com/

Interview with Jenna Totten

Jenna Totten is a painter from Mason Gross School of the Arts. This is our interview about her works, which can be found here.








J- In your work there is a lot of bodily mutation and mutilation. Who inspires your work?

T- call me a sick person but i enjoy mutilation and mutation, horror, gore so naturelly i ge inspired by horror films, No real artists in particular really. I look at Chet Zar, David Hartmen, and Stephen Gammel. but i feel i just really like their work and the subject matter more than using them for inspiration. but if i were to dig into my "psychy" a bit i struggled with my weight when i was younger so this hate for the pretty perfect human form kinda boiled, cooked,and fermented in my head for a while until it became something i enjoy seeing . being normal, seeing normal things are boring to me now.

J- Do you share the goals of these artists, or are you trying to represent a merging of

T- Since i dont really look to too many artists for inspiration i try to do my own thing based on random objects and concepts i come across and i mutilate them in my head and try to make it a visual reality in my work.


J- Do you want to modify the way that pop culture represents the bodily deformations in monsters? Do you feel that you are humanizing it or removing the disgust factor? More specifically, why do your works represent bodily horror with such fun interesting patterns and colors?

T-well i like said earlier springs from my younger years of being overweight and in my teen angst it kind of just developed into this horror-esk style of purples and neon greens and so on. because really i'm not all decay and grim misery i like color too. and the bright colors bring a sort of irony to my work thats kind of corky and funny.


J- Do you recreate the characters or modify their personality or do you use their existing images and associated connotations to formulate new meanings?

T- the last one, haha. i believe your talking about my series of horror film characters in the psychedelic background. those paintings were really just for fun and some what an experiment in creating my own kind of pop art if you will .


J-What attracts you to abstract backgrounds with detached heads? Is this a decapitation or simply a void in the figure ground relationship to create a floating effect?

T- honestly there is not pre-thinking to the pieces you are referring to. but i was playing with irony a bit but i believe that our minds are more powerful that we believe that our bodies are just a vessel sort to speak.

Naked Ladies

Jeurgen Teller
Paradis 2009
Untitled; Jana and Jessica in the field, 2009
Oil on paper
60 x 42 inches

Yigal Ozeri at Mike Weiss
and
Juergen Teller at Lehmann Maupin

Ozeri, featured on the cover of Gallery Guide this month, reflects perfectly realist oil paintings of nude girls. Teller's photographs are candid-looking photos of nude girls that may as well be carbon copies of Ozeri's girls. Why are galleries featuring identical naked ladies? And why didn't Ozeri just take some candid pics and make c-prints?

Bethelemy Toguo at Robert Miller Gallery

The Pregnant Mountain

Paintings, videos, photographs, performances, photographs of performances, installation- this exhibition doesn't limit itself. A tough message is addressed, though the playfulness of simplified figures with floating space add a sense of displaced quirkiness. Guns bananas and bread inside the mouth of the painting delivers a raw message. The images and symbols play with consumption, sexuality, and give off a sense of primitive human instinct and actions. The contrast, and ironic uses of texture to depict things of graphic nature, give the images a sense of mystery.

Though the titles and captions are less subtle.
“The AIDS issue cannot be solved thanks to the distribution of condoms” Benedict XVI

Though problem solving doesn't seem to be a key element of this show, exposure and exploitation of social issues definitely is.

James Turrell at PaceWildenstein

15 works of 5 to 6 foot tall rectangles with projections in the center of different colors of light in symmetrical shapes, bending and expanding ever so slightly as the angle of view changes. The colors slowly change and the reflection on the dark black glass of the gallery is behind you, reflecting not only the other bending lights but also the entire gallery. As the press release explains, it is actually "Here, that physicality is generated using the optical space of dichromate reflection holograms." (Pace) ... whatever that means.
The physical forms of light are famously used in the past by Turrell and manipulated into a perceived space by the viewers eye. The light as space are seen in a physical manifestation in these recent works.
As instructed by his grandmother, he was to meditate by following her instructions "to go inside to greet the light." (Turrell)
I would like to think Turrell is teaching us how to contemplate in a similar way, with literal use of light.

ATTN SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS- $

Stipend offered for design work. $100 stipend to design advertisement poster(possibly posters) for a public performance collective. Please send me a link to your portfolio or contact me if you are interested.

Looks good on a resume ; )
oh and it's moneyyy!

Please send examples of work involving any previous poster designs or similar works.
send to juliejar@eden.rutgers.edu
links are good, files are ok.
Thanks!

Goldblatt

Intersections Intersected
David Goldblatt at New Museum

Goldblatt's large landscapes and city scapes cover the walls of two full floors of the New Museum. His work spans over several decades, of significant importance to South African history and apartheid. The photographs are huge, almost 4 x 4 across every wall. They are also unending, a body of a life's work. Though the quality of the photographs is unchanging. There is no chronological log of a switch from film to digital. The sunlight does not seem brighter in the photographs of most recent years. Though the pictures can span from the early 70s all the way up to present day, the photographs remain unchanged in style and remain indeterminately timeless. This is an interesting comment on the artists work, as well as the state of South Africa. You simply can not tell when any of these photographs have been taken. It is unchanged, and their progress is synced and cataloged through Goldblatt's eyes.

Having been to Johannesburg I can attest, it's not the prettiest place. it's dangerous and unreformed.
As a Johannesburg native friend of mine once put it, "Oh, you've been to Jo Burg? It's a real shit hole, isn't it?"
Though the photographs do reflect a wide range of places throughout the country, it seems to me an accurate portrayal, and not harshly swayed in the direction of sympathy toward South Africa. Nor do the photographs evoke any type of gross reaction or pitty. Nor do they rejoice in the years that follow apartheid's end. They are quiet, and subtle. The sunlight really is that dull and overbearingly flat and bland. The colors are completely neutralized and washed away by sunlight, as the photos reflect. The most striking piece, that was repeated throughout the show, was the photograph of the housing projects that remain unfinished. It speaks to me as a metaphor for the state, the people, and Goldblatt's work.

Alex Bag Is Hilarious

Performing for us the wildest musings of her art student personality, the video "Untitled Fall '95 remarks on art school and a character's rude awakening to the art world. Portrayed through this student is the discouragement that her character experiences as a young artist. The Caricature is perfectly created through her personality with high expectations, naive speech patterns, trendy dyed hair and all. This is a caricature of a young art student that is discouraged by criticism, unfamiliar with concept, and has copped many assumptions on the expectancy of success. It is an image easily understood by anyone that has met an edgy art student in the past decade. Among the other hilarious art school characters is a pretentious visiting artist. Demanding, also overly expectant of success, and with an absurdly serious overtone. It is funny, but also sad in a way that demonstrates the deconstruction of a young artist by their own high and unrealistic expectations and critical surroundings. It is also a demonstration of the more humorous side to the presumed sophistication of art. Art that makes fun of itself is often not taken seriously, which is an issue that Bag addresses in this work and targets with triumph.


On the same note as the post below on A Bucket of Blood, the performance portrays many stereotypes of artists that ask the viewer to pose some questions and observations about the role of humor in art, and to question and critique the absurd personalities and ideas presented in real (non-movie scripted) art and artist as well.

A Bucket of Blood

A Bucket of Blood

Poking fun at the artist while dissecting the personality of a mad, fake artist (pun!). Actors are pretending to be artists, while creating a parody of the contemporary art world. Who is a faker and who is not? The point of acceptance for the main character comes when he is confronted with a great success, and a lie at the same time. From the looks of A Bucket of Blood all of the artists are fakers, and it's fun to watch the world buy into the stereotypes of the art world. The movie's acting audiences and artists really play with the roles of actor and artist in a way that provoke the viewer contemplate a question that many untrained critics are asking today - are we all being fooled, tricked, and conned by modern artists?

as kitsch as it has become, All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players