Saturday, February 28, 2015

Body Project Artists Journal Entry

1.  Jana Sterbak

Remote Control I and Remote Control II show Sterbak’s interest in the body and how you can restrict a female while taking away her power.  Created in the form of an 1800’s crinoline, the piece holds the female in a rigid position where she is suspended while her feet can’t touch the ground.  The piece is placed on wheels with a remote that guides the piece and the wearer around a space.  By placing yourself into the piece you are giving up control of yourself to whomever holds the remote.
Remote Control II
2.  Matthew Barney

Barney created a series called CREMASTER cycle; an 8 year project documenting his artist exploration of cremation.  Using video, Barney perfects the sculpture position, lighting, size and shape; documenting the transformation he has created to his body and others for the end product of sculpture.  His use of the body involves dressing it in clothing appropriate to the vision of the person as well as morphing the face into creatures that resemble anything from mythical to an animal.  The people as props range from a Satan to a female cheetah, dressed to covered nakedness, erasing of the genitalia, or just projecting the genitalia into something different.  His work was pretty creepy to me with a surreal and eerie feeling, almost demonic.
CREMASTER 5   
3.  Janine Antoni

Antoni is a contemporary artist who has been known to use parts of her body as tools in the creation of her work.  In her past pieces, she’s used her eyelashes, mouth, hair, and even her brain with the use of technological scanning.  Her piece Butterfly Kisses was comprised by using her eyelashes as the tool, fluttering mascara marks onto a canvas in an abstract pattern.  In Loving Care she uses her hair as her tool, dipping it into a bucket of Loving Care black hair dye and mopping the gallery floor from her hands and knees creating more of a performance art.  Her pieces convey power, femininity, and an abstract form, but you can definitely say it’s not static.
Butterfly Kisses
4.  Paul Thek

Paul Thek explores the body in his work by creating hyper realistic body parts out of wax.  His pieces in Relics consist of cast versions of his own body parts, such as an arm, encased in Plexiglas.  Thek also created pieces that resembled the body from the inside like organs or muscle.  My thoughts on Thek’s work is that he was trying to show the healthiness of the body ~ parts that weren't sick from the AIDS disease that attributed to his death.  I think he wanted to show himself as more, more than the disease, more than the artist.  A person with individual limbs that were strong and healthy, and organs that could sustain the disease, even as they weren't sustaining him within his own body.
Warrior's Arm
5.  Robert Gober


Like Thek, Robert Gober is known to replicate body parts for his installations.  His realistic representation of the male leg shows the leg, typically protruding from a solid space such as a wall lying on the ground with the foot pointed up.  The leg is created from beeswax, with a pant leg that partially covers the leg enabling you to still see the sock and leg hair that is created from real human hair.  As a final touch to the leg, Gober places a shoe on the foot, a dressier style shoe worn in a professional setting.  Opposite to his leg installations, the work that includes the male torso is more random.  In the leg installations, the leg always has a sock and shoe placed on them, and almost always has a pant leg (the exception is Untitled (Man Coming out of a Woman), where the leg is between a woman’s thighs, alluding to it coming from the womb).  Sometimes the torso is covered in clothing (pants, socks, and shoes), and sometimes it’s not.  The solid space the torso protrudes from can be a wall, antique sink, even a bathtub with the knees bent and the feet resting on the bottom.  While Gober does have other pieces of work showing other parts of the body, I felt that his work with the leg was something that he recreated over and over.   
Untitled (Man Coming out of Woman)

Friday, February 27, 2015

Rebecca Horn

Rebecca Horn is a German Visual Artists who attended the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts for one year, pulling herself out when she came down with a severe case of lung poisoning due to working without a mask.  While in recovery, she lost both her parents causing her to feel isolated, and due to her weakened state had to change the medium that she produced her art in.  The shift in her art resulted in Horn turning to creating sculptures using cloth and balsa wood, and started producing pieces that helped her explore her surroundings while bedridden.  These sculptures became what she is best known for ~ extensions of the body.  In addition, her isolation pushed her into creating cocoon like sculptures, exploring the way she fit within the space that was around her.  It’s said that she may have also needed an outlet to protect her from bad things around here, hiding herself away in her cocoon. 

White Body Fan, 1972
Fabric and metal








The Feathered Prison Fan, 1978

Feathers around armature












While her pieces are quite interesting, and watching her work with them is truly amazing, I’d have to say I’m drawn to her rendition of her cocoon which represents “images of confinement—cocoons, swaddling, bondage, prostheses”.  The Feathered Prison Fan looks warm and inviting to me, a place to shut out the world.  It seems like a safe place, a quiet place, a place where you can just be within yourself and your own mind and not have to worry about the cold, harsh reality that is outside of the soft feathers.  The light color seems peaceful, like placing yourself inside would be meditative to the mind, body, and soul.  After reading about the life Horn encountered, I can understand why she would want a place that is all hers, a place where no one or nothing can get to her.  And with the daily stresses of life, I too would love a cocoon to crawl into, a place where I can shut the world out and just be. 

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Body Extension Journal Entry on Jana Sterbak

In reading about Jana Sterbak, I was enlightened on her take of obstruction of the body, and the pieces that she has created to highlight the human bodies’ obstruction.  She pulls from what she labels a “colonized identity” to involve “awareness of the limitations such dependency puts on both personal and collective self-determination” into her work.  She also utilizes her pieces to get her audience involved, transforming them from mere viewers into full-fledged participants. 
In Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic, Sterbak is able to poke fun at the fashion industry while shedding light onto the aging body.  The dress which is comprised of 60lbs of raw flank steak decays while hanging in exhibition, but before that time it is worn in photographs by your typical, slim model.  The ‘meat dress’ evokes

“…the discourse of fashion, in which the female body is offered as the speculator object of the male gaze.  Because the image of the fashionable woman is one of youth, slimness, and vibrant good health, Sterbak’s piece, with its association of aging, death, and decay, shows the workings of, but also offers resistance to, the disciplinary force of fashion”. 

The piece is said to be a memento mori, which is a metaphor for the aging human body reminding the viewers of their own impending death and decay.  The Vanitas dress is perfect for the metaphor, as the dress being comprised of a dead animal meat that slowly decays as it’s exhibited, we too will all one day be a dead with a decaying corpse. 

In addition to her meat dress, Sterbak has created other pieces that not only entangle the female form into something that is uncomfortable and subjective, but also place the female into a piece that is controlled by another person.  In Remote Control I and Remote Control II, Sterbak constructs a metal crinoline that is motorized with wheels and batteries.  This skirt is reminiscent of the skirt garments that women wore in the 1800’s; very stiff and puffy which restrict the wearer to standing the entire evening.  Remote Control I and Remote Control II restrict the wearer by placing them inside the aluminum frame where their feet cannot touch the ground, and the wearers movements are controlled by a remote control.  While the wearer can control the remote, typically the wearer is controlled by someone else.  First of all, the wearer of Remote Control I and Remote Control II cannot enter the crinoline by themselves, instead relying on 2 men to lower the woman into the devise.  Second, the apparatus suspends the wearer off the ground, keeping the torso in a constrained, rigid position.  Lastly, having someone else control your every move can be quite demeaning to the wearer, which Sterbak designed to be a woman.  This apparatus metaphorically represents a power play; the wearer isn't the one in power (the female), but instead the power is given over to the person who holds the remote (man).  This loss of power explores the typical notion of the female ideal where woman aren’t in “control” of themselves, and seems to highlight that we live in a male dominated where men still hold the power and women are considered powerless without a man at their side.  For example:  a 30 year old single man isn't even blinked at, but a 30 year old single woman is considered “weird”, or people wonder what is wrong with her.  Why can’t she keep a man?  I feel that Sterbak was trying to pinpoint the misogyny in society, but I just don’t see it.  I feel that being able to give the remote to someone gives the wearer all the power.  Needing help to get into the apparatus puts the wearer IN power, because it is their own choice to enter the devise.  I guess I feel opposite about Sterbak’s piece than she does. 

While Sterbak created context of women’s power with the remote in Remote Control I and Remote Control II, she also created power context with the electric current that runs through Seduction Couch.  While Remote Control I and Remote Control II suggests the giving away of a woman’s power, Seduction Couch establishes the “buildup of sexual attraction” with the use of electric currents received from the generator.  This piece is tantalizing, yet revolting.  When the viewer touches the piece, they are given an electric shock which should be repulsive to them.  But they know that they will receive that shock prior to touching the piece, yet they choose to touch it anyways.  It’s the age old tale of attraction to what you shouldn't/ can’t have.  It’s taboo ~ which makes you want it all the more.  It represents sex and sexuality, and how desire stimulates “the injunction to know”.  It’s also been said that Seduction Couch “addresses the role of the domestic space of seduction, the boudoir, in the production of gender”.  While I can agree that placing a woman on Seduction Couch gives the male ample viewing of the reclining female form, I feel that this piece gives the power to the woman.  Sterbak “draws associations between the chaise lounge and the production of docile female bodies through visual representations”.  I guess I see it as the opposite.  While the female body is given to the observer for visual representations, the female is not docile as she lays there.  She is in control, control of herself, her viewer and what they can and cannot see; she holds all the cards. 


Looking at the work that Sterbak has created to show the sexuality, powerlessness, and control that the female embodies, I feel a sense of sadness for Sterbak.  While I loved her pieces, I feel that she is stuck in the mindset that females have no power, and creates pieces to highlight that point.  While I agree that we still live in a male dominated world, I think when it comes to sexuality we all have only as much as we want to have.  If we want to be sexual creatures, we can.  Just because someone holds the power doesn't make the other person powerless.  Sometimes the one that seems powerless is actually the one who holds all the power.         

Works Cited:
McLerran, Jennifer.  DISCIPLINED SUBJECTS AND DOCILE BODIES IN THE WORK OF CONTEMPORARY ARTIST JANA STERBAK. Feminist Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1998).  Received February 26, 2015

Tim Hawkinson

Tim Hawkinson is an American artist that was born in San Francisco, CA, in 1960.  After graduating from San Jose State University, he transferred onto the University of California where he received his MFA.   Hawkinson creates pieces that range in scale from large to small, and uses his re-imagining of his own body for the source of many of his pieces, from transforming his ideal of his self-portrait to using  something his body creates like hair or fingernails.  In addition to using his body for his installations, Hawkinson is also known for using music and the passing of time; highlighting his theme through the material, technique, and the process he uses.  While the work may seem simple to the audience that observes it, it’s actually anything but simple, instead comprised of a complex system entailing such things as mechanics through hand-crafted electrical circuitry. 

An example of piece that Hawkinson re-imaged his image is Pentecost.  This massive piece was created by arranging cardboard tubes into the shape of a giant tree, and placing robots on the branches and floor under the tubes.  The robots are actually replicas of himself, and he programmed them to beat out hymns at irregular intervals.  Pentecost adheres to Hawkinson’s theme of creating self-portraits in a fictional sense, while applying music and programming to finish the piece.

Pentecost, 1999 
Polyurethane Foam, Sonotubes, Solenoids, Found Computer Program & Mechanical Components
Dimensions Variable
Ace Gallery
On the other size spectrum is Bird, a 2 in. skeleton representation of a bird that is comprised solely of Hawkinson’s fingernail pairings.    Due to the details and precision of the skeleton of Bird, Hawkinson has created a minute piece that actually looks like a skeleton and not at all like fingernail pairings.  In fact, I feel that the skeleton looks more like something ancient, a very naturalistic form that embodies that of a bird skeleton even in color.
Bird, 1997 
The Artist's Finger Nail Pairings
2"(H) x 2 1/4"(W) x 2"(D)
Ace Gallery

Bird, 1997 
The Artist's Finger Nail Pairings
2"(H) x 2 1/4"(W) x 2"(D)
Ace Gallery



When looking at Hawkinson’s work, I can admire how he likes to push the boundaries of his own body, showing his body and what it creates in ways that transform it into something new.  His exploration into his own body must give him an outlet to know himself intimately, while giving viewers an enlightening experience through his use of mechanics, separating himself from your typical “body project” artist.  

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Nicola Constantino

Nicola Costantino was born in Rosario, Argentina November 17, 1964, and attended the School of Fine Arts, National University of Rosario where she was introduced to the art of working with silicone molds, which eventually became the basis of her work.  During her education, Nicola took classes from the sculptor Ennio Yomi, while also learning taxidermy and the embalming of mummified animals.  She spent some time in America for additional training and schooling, and eventually became a professor teaching others the craft that she acquired from those that I see as her mentors. 

Nicola’s work seems to center around the body, transforming it, using it, and applying it to the everyday objects.  Her piece Winged Nicola places her in the middle of the action.  From a small picture view, I thought this piece had her standing on a stool with large wings placed behind it.  She reminded me of The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a 2nd century Greek goddess.  But upon closer inspection, the wings are actually the skinned body of an animal, possibly a pig (several different images of her has her staged with a pig).  Nicola’s stance is the same as the marble statues of Greek goddesses, but the juxtaposition of an animal’s body bring new meaning to the piece.  I’m unsure of the exact title of the piece, one site I found had it named Winged Nicola while another had a title of Venus com Asus.  Because the bulk of the information written about Nicola’s work is in another language, the translations I found didn't seem correct (referring to her as a “he”).  Due to the loss of translation, I am unsure what the meaning of the piece is, and can only conjure that she is placing herself as a Greek goddess, but without knowing what the animal is I am unsure on what the meaning of the piece can be.  But I still thought the piece was interesting, all the same.

Winged Nicola, 2010
Injected Print (Photograph)
68 1/8 x 53 1/8 in.
Another installation of Nicola’s work that I enjoyed is Peleteria Humana (Human fur Boutique).  This collection of work represents different woman’s apparel items, along with accessories.  While that sound pretty simple (and somewhat plain for sculpture), Nicola really ups the ante by covering each piece in human hair and colored latex cloth that has the pattern of nipples.  The material is a naturalistic representation of skin, making the viewer think that the bags, shoes, corset, and dresses are covered in nipples, real nipples.   While some people recoiled in disgust at the vision of nipples on women’s accessories, I feel that the installation is amazing.  It’s said the meaning is to “play with notions of the natural and the artificial, ideas of identity in a consumer society, and the materialism of the human body in contemporary times”.  Women’s identity seems to align with what they wear; they are feminine if they wear heals and carry designer bags, but more masculine if they are in tennis shoes and t-shirts.  The idea that our clothing or accessories define us is absurd, and once society sees that then women can break away from the adage of what society sees women as, and become who they are ~ themselves. 

Peleteria Humana, 1998
Human hair, colored latex cloth

Human Furriery, 1999-2006
Human hair, colored latex cloth

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Transformation Journal Entry - Bric-a-Brac: The Everday Work of Tom Friedman

While I’d never heard of bricolage and broconnage before, I had her the term bric-a-brac.  So it was interesting to me to find out exactly what they meant.  Bricolage means “do-it-yourself”, but it is also associated with recycling.  I didn’t quite understand how do-it-yourself could translated into recycling until I read the article titled Bric-a-Brac: The Everyday Work of Tom Friedman by Jo Applin.  Applin explained that Friedman uses everyday objects that are always available or on-hand, and recycles those objects into new and unusual way where the object moves from one piece into another.  She calls it “a continual procedure of recycling” and explains “…the leftover remnant of one work provides the building blocks to generate another, suggesting a process less of renewal than of making do”.  This is evident in in a lot of Friedman’s work, where he turns the boring recycled material into something extraordinary (here is where the do-it-yourself and recycling seem to coincide with each other).

Braconnage, on the other hand means “poaching”, or borrowing.  Basically, this translates into taking a piece of art from another time and place, and using the theory to establish your own work of art with your own interpretation.  Applin attributes this to Friedman where he “exploits through various strategies of recycling and appropriation or borrowing articulate a model for thinking about art’s relationship with it’s past”. 

Placing this all together gives you art that is recycled and borrowed, made from everyday objects based out of the past and placed into the future.  This is evident in the work Friedman comprised when he erased all the ink from a Playboy centerfold picture, and placed all the eraser shavings from the centerfold in a circular pile on the floor.  This redefined the object as a “sculpture as leftover”, rather than addressing the removal of the object.  In erasing the centerfold, Friedman was using an everyday object (Playboy magazine) and erasing it just like Robert Rauschenberg’s iconoclastic Erased de Kooning Drawing from 1953, poaching the idea of another artist from the past, but establishing the art in a new sense and time.  

Erased Playboy Centerfold

Eraser Shavings















Work Cited: 
Applin, Jo. Bric-a-Brac: The Everday Work of Tom Friedman. JSTOR Art Journal.  Received September 24, 2013. 

Friday, February 13, 2015

Robert Bradford

Robert Bradford grew up in South London, knowing at a young age that he wanted to be an artist.  He completed his Foundation at Beckenham School of Art, his BA in painting at Ravesbourne College of Art in Kent, London, and completed his MA in film at the Royal College of Art, London.  While he focused the beginning of his career in painting and drawing, he transitioned into film video and photography when he was offered a visiting lectureship at San Diego State University in California.  In 2004, Bradford started working on a series of sculptures where he attached plastic toys onto a wooden armature to transform the plastic toy into objects representing something more.

Toys from Robert Bradford's work
In Dark Sniff, Bradford has taken a collection of toys and turned them into a representational piece of a dog.  The dog is standing on all 4 legs, while his heard sniffs at the ground.  The dog is in the shape of a hound dog, and the action is what hound dogs do ~ following their nose wherever it may go.  The piece is colorful with texture created from the toys that are used to comprise the piece. 
Sniff
Toys and torches on wood
120 x 60 x 45 cms approx
Another piece of Bradford’s is titled Toy Soldier, another wood armature covered in discarded toys.  This piece seems quite amusing to me as Bradford has used discarded toys to create a larger replication of a toy ~ a toy soldier.  Again the colors and textures add to the piece, giving the viewer many area’s to look at, follow, and explore. 
Toy Soldier
Plastic toys on wood life size figure
While Bradford’s work seems to sway on the side of crafty, one thing he noted was that children seem to take an interest in his work.  I can see how utilizing a material that is interesting to children would make them excited to seeing the work.  Hopefully that excitement introducing a whole new generation into the world of art, something that is overlooked in this day and age and seen as less important than Math and Science.  Pieces like Bradford’s may just help bring out the creative side in kids, letting them see objects that are more than the toy they have at the bottom of their toy box, seeing them as a material for something that can touch others. 

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Tara Donovan

Tara Donovan was born in New York in 1969, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn.   Her first solo exhibition was held at the Ace Gallery in NYC, making her an instant success.  I became interested in Donovan when I was introduced to her ability to turn mundane everyday objects into organic pieces, flowing from one end to the other and giving the object the ability to be extraordinary.

Donovan’s piece Untitled is a cloud-like structure that is made solely from Styrofoam cups and hot glue. The piece is quite large in scale, measuring in at 6 ft. high, 20 ft. wide, and 19.2 ft. deep, and it seems to flow from one end of a room to the other.  The cups are glued to each side, with the interior opening positioned towards the floor, letting the light from above illuminate through the piece.  The cups are somewhat altered in form, squeezed together at the sides to make a flat surface to hot glue them together.  This gives the cloud dimension within the form, making parts of the piece seem darker than others.  Due to the light and the change in form of the cups, the cloud looks more like a potential ominous cloud with the ability to open itself and drop rain on the audience below, instead of holding only a white fluffy cloud appearance.

Untitled, 2003 
Styrofoam Cups, Hot Glue
6'(H) x 20'(W) x 19' 2"(D)
Ace Gallery New York
Donovan has another piece titled Untitled that amazed me when I found out the material that comprised the piece.  This Untitled is made of Mylar, where Donovan shaped the Mylar sheets into cones and then attached the cones together with hot glue.  The most amazing part of this piece is the light play that occurs when light bounces off the shiny Mylar creating shadows within the piece and giving it depth.  Between the organic circular form, the light play on the silver material creating black shadows within the depth, and the structure of the form as a whole, I envision this piece to represent a molecule.  But I wonder how it would look in a room with a disco light.  I imagine the varied colors bouncing though and off the piece would lighten up even the darkest, bleakest space. 

Untitled, 2009. 
Mylar and hot glue. 
18 1/4 x 32 1/2 x 30 in. (46.4 x 82.6 x 76.2 cm). 
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Contemporary Art Council, 2009.24

Friday, February 6, 2015

Transformation Journal Entry - Everyday Object Artists

Below are 5 artists who use everyday objects to create pieces of work by either transforming, altering, reconstructing, or simply just using the objects.  The things you can do with everyday objects are mind-blowing.


1. Takahiro Iwasaki:  Takahiro Iwasaki is known as a Japanese miniature artists where he transforms rolls of grey and blue electrical tape into topographical maps.  He achieves this task by painstakingly cutting out pieces of the tape; giving what appears as a mountain peak placed upon the roll of tape.  











       

     2. Tara Donovan:  Tara Donovan is known for her cloudlike sculpture made solely of Styrofoam cups.  By gluing the cups together, she creates an organic form that diffuses the light into beautiful patterns. 












     3. Thomas Jackson:  Thomas Jackson creates colorful pieces of art out of objects such as plastic cups and Post-It Notes that he suspends in air to photograph.  His photos are taken in outdoor settings where he places the everyday objects together, which he then photographs and uses Photoshop to remove whatever support he used to hold the object up.  He adds nothing to his photos, instead only using the program to take things away.   




1.      




   

      4. Yuken Teruya:  Yuken Teruya uses objects such as McDonald’s bag and toilet paper rolls, transforming the objects into landscape scenes that are reminiscent of his hometown in Okinawa.  He cuts the images out of the object, transforming the mundane into something extraordinary.  









5. Ernie Button:  I’ve saved the best for last.  Ernie Button creates his own unique art which he’s title “Cerealism”, landscapes that are created out of your everyday breakfast cereal that is glued into      place.  I guess he wasn’t ever told not to play with his food!



Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Odine Lang

Odine Lang is a German sculptor, specializing in armature and skin, creating pieces out of wire with paper for the skin.  Depending on the piece, they can be representational of an animals, objects like shells, or abstract in design.  Her pieces don’t seem to hold a rhyme or reason to the design, some focus on the armature with very little skin covering it, and some focus on the skin where the armature is hidden underneath.  I’d have to say I like her pieces that focus on the skin the most, they seem to be fluid in design, and the shine of the shellac applied to the paper add another dimension to the piece.  So those are the pieces that I will focus on for this entry.

Closure is what’s called an “artists book”, comprised of a round armature covered in Japanese paper stained with tea and covered with shellac.  The circular form decreases as you make your way inward; the exterior forms are bigger than the interior form, making the piece look almost like clam shells place within each other with the shells getting smaller towards the inside.  The skin is very thin so the viewer can experience the form of the armature underneath.  The book is wordless, with an organic, naturalistic minimal quality that evokes feelings from the viewers based upon the form and the color.  I think of fall when I look at it, the tans and reds bring me back to that time of year… that and the form is reminiscent of the ocean to me.  Together it all seems peaceful, my favorite place aligned with my favorite season!
Closure, 2009
Book object.
Wire, Japanese paper, tea, shellac, bookbinding thread.
10 x 7.5 x 3.5 cm.

Closure, 2009
Book object.
Wire, Japanese paper, tea, shellac, bookbinding thread.
10 x 7.5 x 3.5 cm.

Another artist book that Lang has created is titled 8 Minutes, several books placed within one book.  The design shows one accordion like book that when open shows several little books tucked into pockets within it.  There are no words on the exterior book, and I’m unable to see inside the little books, so I wonder if they too are blank, or if they have little stories.  Either way, the plain white color of the exterior book contrasts with the light, pastel green cover of the little books with their lavender purple pages.  The pastel green covers do have a flower etched on each, and when you add the design of the flower with the colors of the books I envision spring.  Maybe there is a nice, springtime story resting within the covers of the little books!  I can imagine myself reading from the stories placed inside.
8 Minutes, 2012
8 booklets, each with 8 pencil drawings, with green plastic sheet cover, and each book pocketed into a folded leporello.
8.3 x 11.7 x 3 cm. Single booklets: 7.4 x 10.5 cm.