Example of Wrapped Sculpture

I found this image of what looks like people covered by a golden colored cloth while searching the internet and it reminded me a lot of Christo and Jeane-Claude’s works on wrapping. This particular work is called Nanosecond Futurism Sculptor by William Hundley posted in 2006. I believe that the gold cloth cover functions the same way in this Nanosecond work as it does in Christo and Jean-Cluade’s wrapped works such as Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin.

The cover is used to conceal an object and express the entire work as a symbol. In this case, this work by Hundley is a symbol of a nanosecond, 1^-9 seconds or one billionth of a second. The golden cover is concealing what is taking place inside the cover because in reality, the human mind is concealed from any object that only lasts for a nanosecond. The shape of this work is also very manipulated and freely shaped because nobody can know exactly what happens to an object in a nanosecond, so his interpretation is an object that is capable of taking many forms according to whoever wants to interpret the object. The main point is that humans will never know about an object that only lasts for a nanosecond, at least until technology advances even further. This work is portraying the shortness of time and the blindness of the human eye to a nanosecond and the distorted form is a symbol of human’s lack of vision in the time.

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a distinctive form of art. Like paintings, it is known as a visual art. It is decorative handwriting in black brushstrokes with a special pen that is seen as art. There is a wide variety of calligraphy such as Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan, Persian, Islamic, East Asian, and even Mayan. Nepalese calligraphy is used to write short sacred texts of Buddihism and Tibet also frequently used calligraphy for religious purposes. Mayan calligraphy is used in Mexico on monuments. In east Asia calligraphy is used in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Although present day Korea and Japan have their own unique languages and characters, they often use Chinese letters for their calligraphy.

LACMA Art Gets Upcycled

What happens when art ceases becoming art? Or more accurately, when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art decides to get rid of a whole bunch of items from its costumes and textiles collection? In January, LACMA deaccessioned more than 100 items — and L.A.-based artist Robert Fontenot decided to buy more than 50 of them. Now, he’s blogging his effort to find new uses for these old items.

green LA girl

Chihuly & Blown Glass

My extended family lives in Oklahoma City, and this last Christmas I was fortunate enough to visit them. When thinking of OKC, I would never have imagined that the city has a reasonably diverse collection of art in the its museum. In fact, it possesses the largest collection of Chihuly art pieces in the world. Chihuly is currently considered to be a master in the medium of blown glass. Each piece is heated and blown by hand, and that's saying something! One of his largest pieces is over three stories tall and is made up of thousands of colored glass vines and bulbs.

Each of these twisted vines and bulbs was made by hand. They make quite the colossal statue (although I don't have a shot of the whole piece).

Chihuly's style is marked by the use of vibrant colors. Here, he's crafted a set of bowls in a variety of shades. The interior and exterior are two different colors and all have intricate designs threaded into the glass.

This ceiling was installed in one of the hallways in the museum. It consists entirely of blown glass flowers.

Chihuly's art is extremely contemporary. Here, he's taken an old row boat and filled it with individual pieces of glass ranging from orbs and vines to flowers and leaves.

The most valuable piece in the museum is a large chandalier made entirely of waterford crystal from Ireland. Chihuly made two of these chandaliers. One resides in the OKC museum while the other can be found in Venice. They are each made of approximately 200 individual pieces and weigh about 1 ton.

-Megan Renegar

Piece of Modern Architecture

I found this image of a building on a website, http://structures-art.pbworks.com/Modernism. It was originally called the Fred & Ginger building but is now known as the Dancing House. It was designed by Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunic from 1992 - 1996 and it's situated in Prague, Czech Republic. I thought that it displayed a perfect example of artists trying to portray Einstein's theory of relativity, particularly his theory on General Relativity.

Einstein's theory of General Relativity claims that spacetime is curved according to the mass, energy and momentum in that specific space. For example, if a ball is moving at high speed through space with a high mass and density, it will cause the space around it to curve.

I think the architect that designed this building wanted to convey this curvature of space. The glass structure looks like it is in motion in accordance to an object that had just bended space. The structure on the right has a tilt because of the bended space and the windows are not linear to each other. The windows look like they have been forced out of their original positions. All of these features give an image of the building succumbing to the laws of space and matter and is being manipulated by physics. This is the essence of the period of modernism when artist's tried to demonstrate Einstein's theory of relativity in artwork.

Stele of Iuf-er-Bak

The Stele of Iuf-er-bak is a great example of how Egyptians showed emotion in their art. On the stele the entire immediate family of Iuf-er-bak are all touching one another. This could show a type of connection or support toward their king. Could this have been the way that Egyptians conveyed emotion? If they could not show it on the face of the human in their art, they could have showed it in body position. The wife of Iuf-er-bak expresses the most connection and support of her king. You can see this because unlike the other figures, she has 2 hands on the body of Iuf-er-bak. I feel that this is how the Egyptians showed emotion in their art. Emotion was shown through body language.

Wat Pho in Bangkok

In Bankok, Thailand, the Wat Pho temple houses one of the largest statues of the buddha in the world. There are two main devisions in buddhism: Theravada and Mahayana. Southern and Western followers of the buddha subcribe to Theravada buddhism. The statue at Wat Pho is represented accordingly.

Several things to note here: the statue is entirely coated in gold plating... and boy is it large! It's 46 meters long (that's about 138 feet) and 15 meters tall (45 feet). The buddha is in a "reclining" position, not "sleeping." Although most travel guides will tell you this represents the buddha's passing into nirvana, the locals have a different take on the buddha's pose. The reclining position indicates his entrance into a state of meditation: this is why the statue is known as the reclining buddha. If it had been named the sleeping buddha, it would be depicting his death. This full-length shot gives you an idea of the size. The feet are bare and the bottoms are laced with mother of pearl. As a sign of respect, a person standing before a statue of the buddha is not to point their feet directly at the monument. Feet are considered unclean in many eastern nations. In Thailand it is even disrespectful to show the bottom of your shoes to someone!

Korean Folk Painting

Minhwa is a type of Korean traditional painting. The paintings are known as folk paintings painted by unknown artists of the general public. Thus some paintings seem unrefined and childish and depict the lives of people. Minhwa paintings were painted around time period of the end of the Chosun period (1392-1910).

There are many sub-categories of Minhwa paintings. Two of the most popular categories are Landscape paintings and Magpie and Tiger paintings. Some interesting categories include Peony paintings which symbolize wealth, Lotus Flower paintings which symbolize government officials, and Dragon paintings which could represent bringing in rain.

Why do some people still see photographs as a portrayal of truth?

People still to this day are fooled into thinking that photographs speak of the truth when there are convincing arguments that convey photographs as false.

The first questioning a photographs validity of showing truth was a photograph made by Henry Peach Robinson called “When the Day’s Work is Done” made in 1877. This photo consists of five different photos placed together in such a way as to fool the eye into thinking it is one photo.

Another questioning was an argument made by Susan Sontag in “In Plato’s Cave” that photography is an intervention. She explains that a photograph can be manipulated through intervention of the photographer to whatever the photographer desires. A photographer may tamper with his/her surroundings to make a completely unnatural and idealistic scenery.

Despite these arguments people still to these days think that photographs portray truth, why is that? Even I sometimes believe these photos to be truth. I think there are two reasons why so many others have this belief, a psychological reason and a scientific reason.

Scientific Reason:

The first reason is a photo’s accuracy in its proportions to the actual subject being photographed. A photo is accurately proportional in that everything in the photo is in exact ratio according to the subject. For example, if I take a photo of a man sitting on a table, then the photograph represents still the same ratio of the man’s width and height to the width and height of the table. So if the table was 100 inches x 100 inches and the man was 50 inches by 50 inches, then the photograph would represent the table as 4 inches x 4 inches and the man as 2 inches x 2 inches: 100:50 = 4:2.

Psychological Reason:

The second reason is that a photo is capable of showing the truth because the photographer has the choice of either intervening or not intervening. If the photo is taken without intervening and manipulation then it is a truthful depiction of the subject. This option given to the photographer of choice is the biggest contribution to the psychological effect on people because people have to decide for themselves whether or not intervention was used or not. If the photo is convincing enough then it makes people’s minds decide that the photographer didn’t use intervention therefore it is truth.

These are the reasons that I think that people still believe photos are truth, I would like to hear other’s opinions on the matter.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

The new short film by Blu: an ambiguous animation painted on public walls. Made in Buenos Aires and Baden.

http://www.blublu.org/sito/video/muto.htm

A Glimpse at Ancient India

The art of India, much like its food, dress, dance, and people, leaves a bold impression on the minds of its viewers. Much of the ancient hindu temples are filled with carvings like the ones pictured below. For those of you unfamiliar with hinduism, the religion pays homage to three primary gods: brahma (the creator), vishnu (the protector of life), and shiva (god of life and death). It centers on the brahma (not the god), which is similar to the buddhist nirvana. This particular temple was dedicated to vishnu, the protector.

Inside the temple, hundreds of stone carved columns line the walls, framing individual shrines depicting vishnu. In a temple such as this, with polished stone floors, it is customary that visitors remove their shoes before entering. Although it is a sign of respect, it is primarily to keep the floors from becoming exceedingly filthy... or so we were told.

A majority of the columns were carved into the shape of guardian animals such as lions, elephants, and other rather terrifying looking beasts. The animal above is a lion. Note the large eyes and massive teeth.

Cows and oxen are considered sacred to the people of India. They do not worship the animals, but they will not kill them for food. It is not uncommon to see one of these gentle creatures mulling about in the streets. In ancient times, oxen and cattle were extremely important to village life because they provided sustenance for the people (milk). Their importance is reflected in the art of India. Although it is severely weathered, it is clear that this sculpture in the round depicts either a cow or an ox.

-Megan Renegar

Robert Frank's The Americans

Iconomaniacs Episode 14

In celebration of America's 233rd year of independence, John and Denise discuss the recent exhibitions and publications celebrating fifty years of Robert Frank's The Americans.

http://www.iconomaniacs.com/

Are Vasari's claims of the three best artists valid?

I am only a novice in art history and Vasari during the Renaissance time period and his claim about the three "most eminent" artists in human history intrigues me. I am here to give my view point and ask others of their opinions about the validity of this claim.

I believe that Vasari’s claim is not valid. Using the adjectives, subjective and objective, I will explain my opinion. To create an objective claim, opinion is not included and the idea is absolute and universally known. For example, “the table is 23 inches in width”. A subjective claim on the other side is completely based on opinion. For example, “the play was horrible”. A claim is only valid if it is objective because there is no bias.

From what I learned about Vasari’s claim is that he used five categories to evaluate artists: rule, order, proportion, draughtsmanship, and manner. Rule, order and proportion are all measurements of classical Greek style, draughtsmanship is how skillfully the artist used these measurements, and manner pertains to the narrative aspect of the piece of art. I will go through each of these categories and label them either objective or subjective:

Rule – objective
Order – objective
Proportion – objective
Draughtmanship – subjective
Manner – subjective

More than half of these categories are objective so why do I say Vasari’s claim is invalid? It is because the objective categories rule, order, and proportion are based on Vasari’s subjective idea that classical Greek style art is the best type of art. There are many other styles of art in history and to categorize measurement dimensions using just one style is clearly biased. There are too many subjective definitions of “best artist”. For example, the best artist could range from the artist that has mastered the most styles of art to the artist that has completely mastered one form of art. Vasari’s idea of “best artist” is entirely subjective because all his categories are subjective in essence.

I repeat am merely a novice in art history and my entire claim about Vasari’s validity is subjective but these are my thoughts. It would be great to hear other opinions on the matter. Thank You.

A Closer Look at Bernini

This is a video clip I found on youtube.com after searching Bernini. It shows close views of some of Giamlorenzo Bernini’s great works to see the great detail he put into them. The viewer can easily see and understand the emotion and expression on the faces of Bernini’s sculptures. For example, the St. Theresa’s face on the sculpture Ecstasy of St. Theresa has caused controversy for countless years. To many people it appears as if the nun is in orgasm. However, the video explains, ecstasy is both a physical and spiritual experience.

In addition, the video explains Bernini’s early history and works of art. His father was also an artist and was told he would be surpassed by his son. Bernini’s art is about passion which is why they are in action and have a great deal of emotion.

Herb & Dorothy

Herb & Dorothy, a film by Megumi Sasaki, is the true story of a postal worker and a librarian who built a world-class art collection. The tagline for the documentary is "You don't have to be a Rockefeller to collect art."

I'll definitely need to check this one out.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

If you've ever asked yourself what constitutes "art in motion", a resounding answer may be found in the 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The movie is based on a novel by the same name, and is an autobiographical account of Jean-Dominique Bauby's life as a person living with locked-in syndrome. In the matter of a moment, Jean-Do (as he is lovingly referred to by friends and family) goes from being a thrill seeking and high rolling bachelor, and the editor of French Elle, to being completely paralyzed after suffering a stroke. By using a unique form of communication, that involved only the repetative blinking of his left eye, Jean-Do was able to translate his thoughts to a speech therapist and later, onto paper.

The concept of the film is touching, not only is its message positive and assuring, but the story unfolds in a beautiful way. At the beginning of the movie, the viewer can only see what Jean-Do sees, from a blurry and mostly cynical perspective. however, as the protagonist begins to accept his situation, and somehow finds light in it, the viewer is exposed to aesthetically pleasing memories from his past, visions of an impossible future, and a whole world of dreams.

As somebody who lived his life so dedicated to art, Jean-Do's memoir depicts this aspect of his personality in a profound way. The use of imagery is poignant and powerful.

Recommended for anyone who has had the courage to ask themselves the big questions, and all who have been unafraid to seek the answers.