Dave Hickey Podcast

After listening to Dave Hickey's podcast it really made me think about how much art has changed over the years.  It used to be based on the artistic talents and characteristics a person had for certain things.  Now it is all based on prices and the money one could receive.  He also discusses how there is art that can sell and there is art that will never sell.  I think its very sad how art has turned into such a commercialized activity.  People used to get involved in art because they had a love for it and they wanted to express their talents and their feelings.  Now as Hickey explains in his podcast people are getting involved because they see an opportunity to make money.  Although this may not be true to all artists, which I'm sure it is not, there are still many more artists than there ever were being placed into the commercialized art category.  Along with everything else in the world, art is changing, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? The answer to that question can be extremely different based upon who you are asking.

The Controversial Chalk

Learning about Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla was really interesting to me. The way they incorporate art into promoting social change made a huge statement and promoted debate. By welcoming people to speak about controversial topics in the bold way they did using huge sticks of chalk you can tell they are not afraid of feedback. I think it is often difficult to open yourself open to such ridicule and they handled it very well. This also allowed visitors to become an artist in the piece. It provided people with the tools to express themself in an artistic manner. I can only imagine some of the statements that were written during the time of this and I am sure it is a significant memory for the people that participated.Their artwork became an experience and because of that I think this was one of my favorite pieces this semester. Connectiong with your audience is the best way to captivate people and allowing them to express their own ideas and opinions did just that.

Andrea Zittel -Back to the Basics

I found Andrea Zittel to be strange and kind of awkward. It seemed like she was pulling away from society and trying to go against the ways of modern society. Her housing situation was a little extreme and it seemed like she put so much effort into being a minimalist that she may have been able to save herself some effort if she was a little more lax. I guess taking things to an extreme is the way she thinks especially with the lack of clothing she has. Choosing to live with only the basics is something you can get away with because people in the outside world do not need to know everything about your home life. But, when considering that she went to work for months in the same outfit that is a little much for me. In todays society appearance does mean alot...and so does cleanliness. I could not imagine what the people I work with would say if I wore the same thing two days in a row, let alone weeks. I guess if what she is trying to do is get noticed she is probably successful but it may be for the wrong reasons.

Herb & Dorothy

Herb and Dorothy Vogel are recently known for their documentary film that was released in 2008 about their collection of over 4,700 pieces of contemporary work.  The most interesting aspect to this story is that all these pieces of work were kept in their NYC apartment, which must have been extremely crowded.  The film describes the story of the two middle-class collectors of minimalist art and their valuable collection of contemporary art.  The film won many festival awards and audience awards and grossed almost $100,000 as of the end of July 2009.

When thinking about collection art, I feel that every individual does it in their own way.  Whether you collect pieces of art, or you collect something that has meaning to you such as toys when you were younger, or coins, or cards, that is all based on your own ideas and meanings to why you collect things.  Personally I love to collect movies, where my mom loves to collect thimbles from different places she has been around the world.  Herb and Dorothy loved to collect art and that is there own choice just like anyone else's choice to collect something they love.

Sunflower Seeds

I really enjoyed Al WeiWei's sunflower seeds exhibiton at the Tate Modern. I think the idea of you being able to step on the "art" is pretty cool. It allows the visitors to participate in the exhibit rather than just looking at it. I am a very hands on person so that appealed to me. I liked watching the video on how they make the seeds too, that way you really appreciated just how much work went into this. The extent to which Al is a part of the production of every seed is pretty remarkable when you think about how many seeds it must have taken to fill the Turbine Hall. I found the conflict going on around it interesting also. The fact the exhibit was closed due to a possible health hazard makes you think more about the logical sense behind this art. Which in many pieces of art I think artists are able to disregard logic and reason so I thought it was rare that a controversary like this arose. I would be very interested in visiting the Tate Modern Turbine Hall exhibits, they are all very drastic and different. I like the out of the box ideas of the artists they feature.

Louise Bourgeois- Spider woman

Known for her contributions to modern and contemporary art, Louise Bourgeois is truly recognized for her spider sculptures, which is where she got the nickname of 'Spider woman'.  She is also known for being the founder of confessional art.  In looking at her work on the spider structure I feel as though this is a very interesting and fun way of expressing ones artistic talents.  After researching through the meaning behind the spider structure I found out that it represents mothers, and the sustenance of life.  I also found that a spider's web deals with stories, social threads and interconnectedness.  Louise was named after her mother who she felt was a "clever, patient, caring,reasonable, subtle, etc. person."  She was her best friend and this is why she created this spider.  She felt as though spiders are everything her mother was.  In looking at this picture below I feel as though this structure is very interesting and fun.  After reading through the meaning of why Louise created it I like it even more because it has meaning.  Maybe other people can relate to this spider as well by not just looking at the actual structure but by learning more about what it represents.

UAlbany Courier Exhibit

         
                           

We went to the Courier exhibit at UAlbany and to put it lightly we were disappointed. I have never been to an art exhibit before and maybe my expectations were too high but I expected a lot more. I thought they would have filled the space with art pieces and instead it was quite bear. I didn't know there would be multiple artists work there either so that surprised me. I went into the exhibit without any prior knowledge of the exhibit or the artists featured there and in a way I expected there to be walls and walls of paintings and tons of sculptures. I guess if I had known the typewriting theme ahead of time I would have been more prepared and probably would have went to a different exhibit. Although, I did like the guy who made the sounds of the typewriter with his mouth. I think that was very creative and pretty entertaining. I guess overall the exhibit was educational but not the most interesting thing I have ever been to. I wish had gone to some tye of performance art instead. I think that would have been much more appealing to me.