Observation Skills

As art historians we spend a good amount of time looking closely at images and making comparisons. I've attached an observation skills test for you to try. Look very closely at the two images and compare all of the details. See if you can find the differences between the two images. It is difficult so it might take you a few minutes to find them all.

After you have found them just let me know you completed it in the comments section, but don't list what you found. Let everybody else find them on their own. We can talk about it in class. Good luck and I hope you have a good Halloween.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE OBSERVATION SKILLS TEST

Julian Beever

Brandon Meidl just sent me an email with all of these photos and I had to share them with you...

Julian Beever is an English artist known for his pavement art in England, France, Germany, US, Australia and Belgium. He draws the images in an extreme perspective which gives the illusion that they are 3-D when viewed from the correct angle.

You can click on each image for an enlarged view.












The photo below was taken from a wrong angle.

This is the same image viewed from the correct angle.

Remember his foot is really flat on the pavement with the other foot.

Pomona Art Colony

Every 2nd Saturday on the month is the Pomona Art Colony Art Walk.

The 4th of the month is the Passport to Pomona where music is played on every street corner.

There's a Latino exhibition and many Contemporary works such as sculpture, metal work, oils, car detailing, photography ... something for everyone.

And to add to the experience, the Metro train stop is one block south from the Colony. Visit the website and check it out.

Just a warning, the website is outdated, but with some patience and navagational skills, you might find what you want. And, some of the exhibitions are open through appointment only ...

Museums As Sacred Space

I have traveled to museums since I was a young boy, and I have always had fun doing so. I love going to the museum cafe or restaurant, the gift shop, and most of all to see the artwork. Whether seeing ancient dinosaur bones, Dale Chihuly Glass, meeting artists, working with artists, creating art in groups or alone, I always have fun. Being around artwork from thousands of years ago gives me a special feeling, too. Furthermore, the intentionality that goes into the works that are on display always holds special meaning. It is in this respect that I consider the labor that goes into the production of artwork that the museums contain, the meanings and events behind the artwork, and the effects of such work on the people that see them to be sacred. That is to say that I hold living to be worth focusing on as sacred, and I appreciate the works that I see when I go to museums as such. We are all unique individuals that live artistically in our own ways. In what ways does going to a museum occur as sacred for you?

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship is a fascinating limited time exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Furthermore, LACMA's Permanent Collection provides an interesting display of other Mesoamerican art as well. For instance, LACMA features a captivating model of a Nayarit-style ballcourt. Stone yokes, palmas and hachas are present also as evident in the couple of pictures below. Going to the LACMA is a highly recommended enjoyable experience especially before January 2, 2006 after which the Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship exhibit ends in order to enhance understanding of the art of Mesoamerica.

Saturday at LACMA

This Saturday we will be meeting at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

This museum has a little bit of everything. You could easily spend the entire day there. Actually I will be there several hours before the museum opens for a symposium, The First Maya Kings: The Emergence and Expression of Their Sacred Power. I know some of you are also coming earlier to see the King Tutankhamun exhibit. If you do not already have a ticket for King Tut, they are sold out for this Saturday. But, there are plenty of other great things to see there!

I will meet you inside the main entrance to the museum at 1:00 PM. The cost of admission is $5 for students.

In case you are late:

From 1:00-1:50 I will lead an overview discussion of the special exhibit, Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship, in the Hammer Building (HMR). Some 70 of the 150 pieces in this exhibit have never been in the USA before. This will be especially relevant for the ART 9 students, but should be very interesting for everyone.

From 2:00-2:50 we will join the tour: Modern and Contemporary Art, in the Modern and Contemporary Art Building (MCA). This should be of interest especially to students of ART 1 and ART 5.

If these do not interest you, there are other tours: at 1:00, Mother and Child in American Art (20 min.), and at 1:30, Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son Livingston Davis by John Singer Sargent (15 min.), both in the Ahmanson Building (AHM). Also, at 3:00, Heroes, Gods, Myths and Legends (50 min.), in the Ahmanson Building (AHM).

Otherwise, just roam around the museum on your own and enjoy the wonderful collection of art!

Also opening today at LACMA, Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro 1865-1885, on exhibit from October 20, 2005 – January 16, 2006. Organized by the artist’s great-grandson Joachim Pissarro, a curator of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition focuses on the years 1865–85 when Cézanne and Pissarro worked closely with each other, often painting literally side by side. LACMA is the only West Coast venue for the exhibition. There is an additional cost for this exhibit.

Wait there is more! The tar pits are located directly behind the museum in Hancock Park. They are one of the most important Pleistocene-era sites in the world. They are the project of the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries and are adjacent to LACMA on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Curson Avenue.

Location & Parking
The main buildings at LACMA (also known as LACMA East) are located in the Miracle Mile area between Fairfax Avenue and La Brea Avenue, on Wilshire Boulevard, just east of Ogden Drive. LACMA West is two blocks west, at the northeast corner of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard. Pay parking is available in the lots at Wilshire Boulevard and Spaulding Avenue, and at Wilshire and Ogden Drive.

For location and directions see Yahoo maps.

Hope to see you there!

Ontario Art Walk

This Saturday , October 22, from 5:00-9:00 PM is the Ontario Art Walk in the Ontario Emporia Arts District at 211 W. Emporia Street, Ontario, CA, 91762. More information: (877) 563-8743.

Kazuo Kadonaga

There will be an artist's reception for Kazuo Kadonaga at the Wignall Museum on Wednesday, October 19, 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

The exhibition, Wood/Paper/Bamboo/Glass, opened at the Wignall Museum on October 17 and will be showing through November 19, 2005.

The exhibition features contemporary sculpture from internationally renowned Japanese artist, Kazuo Kadonaga. Kadonaga’s work makes visible the hidden life of seemingly inanimate matter. He explores the inherent qualities of raw materials such as paper, glass and wood. Using surprising strategies to trap moments of transition between physical states, Kadonaga shows us the characteristic qualities of materials. Themes of accumulation, growth, erosion and destruction are investigated no matter the shift from material to material. The Wignall Museum will present sixteen of his works in paper, wood, bamboo and three of his most recent works consisting of green glass that, using an automated process, he has melted and poured into spiraling mounds weighing a thousand pounds each.

Cheesecake??

This may seem random, but there may be a method to my madness.

I'm sure that most of you know where the Cheesecake Factory is located at the Victoria Gardens Mall. Has anyone been inside of there? The interior architecture is almost a mixture of Ancient Egypt and Greece. Doric columns with lotus flowers, frescos, marble accents, ect. The Factory in Pasadena used to have Ionic and Coranthian columns, as well as brightly painted frescos. As far as I know, Pasadena has remodeled the interior design recently, so I apologize if I've made any mistakes.

But I love walking around different cities and finding intresting designs that we've studied or touched upon. Such as cartouches, niches, naves, columns, ect. It only proves that patterns and design in architecture change in ways over time, but remain as popular as ever.

(I'll post images when my computer isn't acting up).

Chalk La Strada

Last weekend was the 7th annual Chalk La Strada in San Diego’s Little Italy. Date and India streets become transformed into a canvas of chalked art squares. Over one-hundred-fifty artists, from professionals to students from all over the world became “Madonnari” or street painters during the event.

Street painting originated in the village of Grazie de Curatone, Italy in the 16th Century and still takes place there annually. There is now a revival of chalk festivals and they are held in many other cities.

Since this art form is a performance art and the city has rules for their street usage, sadly all the artwork was washed away at the end of the festival. Often, visitors enjoy seeing the creation of the piece on Saturday and return again several times during the weekend to see the work being completed by the end of the Festa Sunday night.

I was not able to attend, I was in New York, but Julie took some great photos of the event. You can view them here.

FedEx Furniture

Most of us have been there. You can just barely afford to pay the rent. But forget about buying furniture -- not if you want to eat, anyway.

Jose Avila recently found himself in just that predicament. Although he has a good job as a software developer, he's locked into two rents after moving to Arizona, and has no extra cash for an Ikea shopping spree. But instead of scouting street corners for a ratty, unwanted couch, Avila got creative and built an apartment full of surprisingly sturdy furniture -- out of FedEx shipping boxes.

Story and more photos at Wired News.

Talud-tablero

I was in San Diego this past weekend and saw a design that I learned about. The talud-tablero. It was a bench at a building that was erected in 1993. I was excited to notice something like this. I took a picture but unforetunitly I cant post any photos. Interesting that architects are using designs from so long ago now a days.

UPDATE: Here is the photo.

Getty to return three ancient pieces to Italy

This story has been every where lately, online, on the news and in newspapers.

"Italian authorities have agreed to accept an offer from the J. Paul Getty Museum to return three ancient objects allegedly stolen from Italy, but say they jhuwill continue to pursue dozens more artifacts in a separate criminal case against the museum's former antiquities curator." (Los Angeles Times)

I have heard that the Getty’s is giving the pieces to Italy as gifts to quiet any suspicion of wrong doing on their part, and now there are reports that Getty’s former curator, Marion True is facing a criminal case. I know that there is always two sides to every story, and True has not given his side of the story yet, but I can’t help to wonder if they Getty was aware that these pieces where stolen? And if True is just a person the museum can but the blame on?

I was just wondering everybody’s thoughts on the situation.

Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will premiere the special exhibition Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship. Organized by LACMA Curator of Pre-Columbian Art Virginia Fields with Dorie Reents-Budet of the National Museum of Natural History, the exhibition will be on view from September 10, 2005 – January 2, 2006 at LACMA, before it travels to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lords of Creation will feature approximately 150 objects, including 70 that have never before been seen in the United States. The exhibition will present new discoveries in Maya archaeology, art history, and hieroglyphic writing that describe the appearance of kingship among the ancient Maya and its cultural and philosophical foundations.

We'll be going to LACMA on October 22.

Slope Gallery

The Slope Gallery is in the basement of the apartment building of a friend of mine in New York City. She created a little slide show of the current exhibit. You can watch it by clicking here. So, what are your thoughts?

The New Adam

A monumental example of Pop Art whose whereabouts were unknown to scholars and art historians for 30 years has been given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

"The New Adam," a nine-panel painting 8 feet high and nearly 40 feet long by the Oklahoma-born artist Harold Stevenson, has long been considered one of the great American nudes. It was originally made for a 1962 show at the Guggenheim called "Six Painters and the Object," one of the first full-scale museum shows to investigate Pop Art.


But when the show's curator, Lawrence Alloway, saw the work, he "went into shock," Mr. Stevenson recalled, and removed it from the show. The Guggenheim said that Mr. Alloway thought it would cause a stir because of its vast scale and stark nudity. He feared that it would detract from other works in the show by Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol. (Officials at the Guggenheim say their records show that Mr. Alloway replaced Mr. Stevenson's work with one by Mr. Rauschenberg.)

More @ New York Times