ARTWALK CULVER CITY 2007 is co-presented by I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately. Extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas. I just think about it.
- Steven Wright
I wanted to follow up on a statement made by a student during the final class meeting of Art 3 (T/TH). The student said that they believed the textbook stated that Chartres had true flying buttresses before Notre-Dame of Paris. I wanted to clarify two things: 1) Notre-Dame was built before Chartres and 2) it appears the text might have been misread. On page 533 Stokstad (revised 2nd edition) states "Notre-Dame had the first true flying buttresses" and it also bridged the period between Suger's Saint Denis and the later Chartres. What might have been confused is that on page 524 the text states that Chartres was the first to COMBINE "the pointed arch, ribbed groin vaulting over rectangular bays, the flying buttress, and the triforium". Just wanted to clarify this information for anyone that might have been confused by that exchange during class.
Enjoy your summer break!
Last night the Chaffey College School of Visual, Performing and Communication Arts held their Student Awards Program. I wanted to take a moment to congratulate the recipients of the Art Department scholarships and awards. Well done to all!
Among the 2006-2007 Art Department Scholarship winners are 
Arts Starting March 20, 2007, the Capital Museum in China will have the biggest exhibition of contemporary British art, displaying British artworks such as "a well-made bed" by Tracy Emin, "fidgeting bobbies", and "Royal Ascot hats." These works not only bring the variety of art to China but also represent the “cultural and economic opening.” In the past, many leading Chinese artists got their inspiration from British art but now, they start following their “own voice and subject matter” and making themselves known around the world.
Around the same time, a Chinese contemporary art exhibition will take place in Tate Liverpool, an art gallery and museum in England. This will also be the biggest Chinese art exhibition in the UK. Starting March 30, artworks by many well-known Chinese artists will be displayed. Ai Weiwei will have her “two tonne floating chandelier”. Zhou Teihai will have “three French dessert dishes for the opening dinner,” and Xu Zhen with “a video of his “expedition” to lop the top off Mount Everest.” However, Karen Smith, one of the staff, hoped this exhibition would bring out a “lighter side” of China, which the world not often hears about, and it is “a wonderful sense of humour.”
This is an interesting article in the New York Times that deals with art history and the preservation of somewhat lesser known contempory art locations in New York. The public art organization "Creative Time" is a non-profit group that has chosen 32 sites around the city, in which they will place plaques to comemorate that location. One sight is 231 East 47th street, it is a brick courtyard that once was the sight of Andy Warhol's first Factory where he made silk-screen paintings. The arts are a very important part of culture whether they affect people's lives directly or indirectly and preservation is a big part of that. This article reminded me of a phrase I heard the senator Dennis Kucinich say, "Arts are the key to the unfolding of a vision of a society."
