Final Artist Response Project

Art Piece:

Throughout the semester, I focused on the artist Oskar Schlemmer. Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school that was located in Germany and focused on fine arts. He was strongly influenced by cubism and abstraction. Although he did have a number of physical works, Schlemmer was most well known for his choreography. He worked at the Bauhaus school, and was surrounded by ballerinas and students studying dance. Because of this, he was heavily influenced by ballet.

In order to contemporize his work, I found a video of a ballerina on the Internet. I then paused the video to isolate separate frames, and layered them on top of each other. I then created the background of the piece, utilizing triangles and a monochromatic color scheme. A number of Schlemmer’s works use a pink and grey color scheme, reflective of his love for ballet.

The denotative meaning that can be drawn from my project is that ballerinas do not hold one shape, and this cannot be communicated through a two dimensional surface. The connotative and ideological meanings that can be drawn from my project are that Oskar Schlemmer’s ballet and cubism influences shaped his artwork to reflect these two things, and in result shaped my artwork to commemorate him.

Reflection:

Looking back on the semester, I really enjoyed the work that we did. Going into it  I was nervous that I have no artistic abilities, but for the work that we actually did, artistic talent was not completely necessary.  I am glad that we learned how to identify so many different aspects of a piece of artwork. From this class I will definitely use my new knowledge of Photoshop. I have needed to use it for a number of classes, and have always struggled but now feel much more confident in it. This class could be better if we had more time in class to work on projects. I found myself struggling to get things in on time and spent a lot of time outside of class working on projects without the proper resources.

Data Visualization

"You are born modern, you do not become so"

The quote that I chose for my postmodernism project is “You are born modern, you do not become so.” For this project, I used Photoshop to create “modern” babies. The denotative meaning of my project is that you are born modern. I created babies using modern technology, participating in modern trends (Ray Bans, man buns), and babies that are known for the meme that they are a part of. This collage goes along with the quote “You are born modern, you do not become so,” with the idea that the babies are too young to know what modern technology or trends are, but they’re already using them.

The connotative and ideological meanings that can be drawn from my project are that what we view as “modern” depends on the individual person. I may have a different idea of what is modern than the person sitting next to me does. I chose to use Apple products, Ray Bans, Beats, selfies, memes, man buns, etc., but did not utilize things like modern art or modern music.

Postmodernism

Frederic Jameson

• Van Gogh's painting of the peasant shoes
• Represents agricultural misery, poverty
• You would never guess the meaning of the painting unless you were aware of what was going on during the time period that it was created in
• Andy Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes
• Doesn't really speak to us at all--seems like a random collection of random objects
• Representation of postmodernism
• Materialistic and doesn't have any real meaning

Jean Bauldrillard

• We idolize simulations--particularly Disneyland
• "This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized and religious reveling in real America, in its delights and drawbacks."
• Teaching people to look up to illusions (pirates, the frontier, future world)
• Disney (an infallible world) serves to cover up the fact that America is real--conceal the fact that the real is no longer real
• In order to spend a day at Disney you have to drive there, stand in unbearable lines to enter, stand in unbearable lines again to get on each individual ride
• We see Disney as this great place where you can let out your inner child, when in reality it was created by man to generate profit

Postmodernism Introduction

• In previous societies, if you saw something that was different from you or how you did things, you would fight to change it
• Today, because we know more about different societies and different cultures, we are each our own melting pot of different traditions and customs
• The postmodern world is a mix of everything--identities, realities, cultures, races, gender roles, technologies, economies, cyberspaces, mediascapes
• "Postmodern artists, just like the explorers of past centuries, simply plunge into the unknown and then try to represent it."
• Jean Baudrillard:
• Believes that today's society is too wrapped up in mass media, advertising, television, newspapers, magazines
• Because we have constant access to communication, we don't recognize things as art
• Hyperreality: an order of representation that is not the unreal, but has replaced 'reality' and is more than real, more real than real
• We teach children to idolize hyperreality figures like pirates and Tom Sawyer, and don't teach them their actual significance

George Kubler

In George Kubler’s writing, I thought the section where he talked about Talent and Genius was the most interesting. He believes that talented individuals begin their craft earlier, master it more quickly, and come up with more fluent ideas than those who are untalented. He also brings up how people find “hidden talents” later in life, and can pick up a talent that they’ve always had but were left undiscovered. He brings up a list of talented artists, Leonardo, Raphael, Bernardino Luini and Giulio Romano. All of these artists were talented, however, two are much better known than the others—as a result of the timing and environment of when they flourished. In order to be a great artist, you need a combination of natural talent, early detection of that talent, and perfect circumstances.

This point struck me as unfair, because what about today’s artists? I have a friend who is an incredibly talented artist, is studying in the University of Michigan art program, but probably will never be considered a great artist like Leonardo or Raphael. Because in today’s world, artists go completely unrecognized and are under appreciated. In order to know a current artist, you need to be completely absorbed in art. I am not an artist, or an art junkie, but have heard of artists like Claude Monet, Renoir, Leonardo and Raphael—but have not heard of an artist that exists currently or even existed recently.

Art Event #1

I visited the Julio Fine Arts Gallery during the opening of “Fractured Histories: Ancient Greek Pottery from Haverford’s Allen Collection.” I thought that the exhibit as a whole was very exciting, because it consisted of all pottery, which is something that we aren’t looking at in our art course—so it was interesting to be able to look at artwork that isn’t two dimensional. The piece that stuck out to me most in the exhibit were the two small jars displayed together, titled “Side-Spouted Jar” and “Stirrup Jar.” They were both crafted by the Mycenaean civilization—the first advanced civilization in mainland Greece. The two jars have very similar functions, both to pour small amounts of liquid. When viewing the jars, I thought that it was really cool that they were really used by a civilization during the mid-fourteenth century BCE. It is amazing that they are in such good condition, and we are able to determine and imagine what they were used for.