Last Thursday I visited the Warehouse Gallery and viewed the "Come On" exhibit. The Come On exhibit featured work by Rachel Rampleman, Jo-Anne Balcaen, and Juliet Jacobson about "desire under the female gaze". I entered into a small gallery and could see three large drawings, a mass of balloons, a few smaller drawings, a video playing in a small dark room, and a couple of trays of food. Each of the large and smaller drawings were very similar; all were black and white sexual images of men duplicated once or twice across the paper. Each of the drawings had intricate backgrounds with images of either skulls, hearts, flowers, butterflies, grasses, snakes, and eyes. There were also pictures of dictionary definitions of different words juxtaposed together. The combinations were "blurt blush", "prince of darnkess, prince of peace, prince of wales", and "yearning year-round". The video, "Poison: My Sister Fucked Bret" was of Rachel Rampleman's sister and her tale of having sex with Bret Michaels, and challenging the stereotypes of hooking up with a rock star.
On one of the walls was a cluster of large, long, black balloons. These balloons were filled up the day the exhibit opened, and now you can see that some of them were deflating or deflated. The balloons represented emotions. Upon falling in love, one is filled with emotions such as desire and passion for their significant other. However, throughout time the emotions can decrease in intensity. The inflated balloons signify one being filled with emotions, and with time the balloons decrease in size. The ones already deflated represent the waning emotions that occur over time.
Across the other walls were the large drawings mentioned earlier. In "No Weak Heart Shall Prosper", the image is of two men intertwined in a passionate kiss, reflected across the paper. The background contained images of eyes, skulls, flowers, and butterflies. The two large eyes in the background really stuck out to me. The eyes are looking around two large circular structures, as if discretely taking a peek at the men in the picture. "I'll Be Your Mirror" is an image of a man lying back to back with a replication of him on grasses and skulls. Above where their heads meet is a simple heart. It sticks out because all of the other figures in the drawing use shadow and shading, but the heart is just a simple outline. "You said you hated your body, that its just a piece of meat, but I think you're wrong, I think you're beautiful" is an image of skulls in an X shape across the paper, with another image faintly drawn behind them. In the middle of the X is an intricate rose. In between the top, left side, and bottom spaces of the X are hearts where the faint image in the background becomes emphasized in that space. They serve as "holes" in which one can see what the faint image is of. The hearts and the images go along with the theme of desire and passion, while the skulls possibly represent the eventual death of desire. Finally, Narcissus is an image of two men lying on a skull and an eye, who are mirror images of each other. Most of the image is a mirror of the opposite side, with a few differences such as a pointy circular image and a part of another man. A snake goes through the entire drawing, weaving through an eye of the skull and around the men. The snake gains the most attention in the drawing, as it is darker than most of the other figures in the picture and how it weaves throughout it.
In each of the pictures the men stood out greatly, due to the uncommonness of how they are displayed. Sexual images of men are a rarity in our society. We live in a society that objectifies young, attractive, and sexual women in order to satisfy the appeal and desire of men. Juliet Jacobson created these images to show female desires of the sexuality of men and to serve as a counter for all the sexualized images of women in our society.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Binh Danh Exhibit
Many say that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the case of Binh Danh's photos of the Viet Nam War, they definitely are. Each picture tells an untold story, and each one is different than the next. The stories told by the pictures that list some American soldiers who passed away in the war are completely different than the stories told by the images of Viet Namese men, women, and children whose faces are on the leaves.
To display these photos, Binh Danh uses a unique method. By printing them onto leaves, he intensifies the images and gives them a greater testimony to the war. When he was in Viet Nam he noticed a field area covered in documents, many of which were imprinted into the landscape. By looking at this he realized that war is a part of this landscape, just as the words of the documents became part of the landscape, and just as the people who died in the war became part of the landscape. He shows that in the way he displays the photos. The people are printed onto leaves, showing the mark that they left on the landscape of Viet Nam during the war.
Rememberance is also another way the images serve as a testimony to the war. Before Binh Danh spoke, there was a man who was in the Viet Nam war who gave a short speech. When he saw the exhibit, it brought back feelings he had from the war. To him, the faces on the leaves seemed real, and they reminded him of friends that he had lost. Binh Danh later spoke about rememberance and its ties to the theme of his exhibit. The theme of One Weeks Dead was justice. A quote he used was "Our struggle is the struggle of memory against forgetting", and it tied into his exhibit well. He viewed the memorial as a form of justice for the victims, so they would be remembered throughout time.
Binh Danh addressed how these images and his findings can serve as a reflection of current times. Currently we are involved in a war, much like the Viet Nam War. He showed a few images of the Iraq war and they bore similarities to the ones from the Viet Nam war. The photographs from the Iraq war are of people who each have their own story to tell of how the Iraq war affected their lives, just like the photos of the Viet Nam War. At one point, Binh Danh showed an image of Life Magazine and its issue where it showed photos of soldiers who died in Viet Nam as a way to honor them. He then said how the NY Times published a roster of the dead of the Iraq War. These were two different wars, but those who died in them had a similar way of being honored and remembered.
In "The Image World", Sontag writes "...a photograph is not only an image,...an interpretation of the real;it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask." This quote perfectly describes Binh Danh's photographs. They are not just an image or an interpretation, but they are a mark of what was left behind. Essentially, these photographs are "footprints" of the people whose lives were affected by the Viet Nam War. They are what was left behind. She later writes "Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history." Binh Danh's images are evidence of the people and landscape that were affected by the war. These photographs, along with many others, help to create a collection of evidence of a part of history, so it will never be forgotten. In her concluding paragraph, Sontag also states "But the force of photographic images comes from their being material realities in their own right, richly informative deposits left in the wake of whatever emitted them...". The photos from One Weeks Dead are images of the reality that was the Viet Nam War. These powerful images contain more information than one could imagine. They can tell about the person, the landscape, what the war meant to them, what their life was like during that time, or how they died. The images are remnants of what was left behind, and what will never be forgotten.
To display these photos, Binh Danh uses a unique method. By printing them onto leaves, he intensifies the images and gives them a greater testimony to the war. When he was in Viet Nam he noticed a field area covered in documents, many of which were imprinted into the landscape. By looking at this he realized that war is a part of this landscape, just as the words of the documents became part of the landscape, and just as the people who died in the war became part of the landscape. He shows that in the way he displays the photos. The people are printed onto leaves, showing the mark that they left on the landscape of Viet Nam during the war.
Rememberance is also another way the images serve as a testimony to the war. Before Binh Danh spoke, there was a man who was in the Viet Nam war who gave a short speech. When he saw the exhibit, it brought back feelings he had from the war. To him, the faces on the leaves seemed real, and they reminded him of friends that he had lost. Binh Danh later spoke about rememberance and its ties to the theme of his exhibit. The theme of One Weeks Dead was justice. A quote he used was "Our struggle is the struggle of memory against forgetting", and it tied into his exhibit well. He viewed the memorial as a form of justice for the victims, so they would be remembered throughout time.
Binh Danh addressed how these images and his findings can serve as a reflection of current times. Currently we are involved in a war, much like the Viet Nam War. He showed a few images of the Iraq war and they bore similarities to the ones from the Viet Nam war. The photographs from the Iraq war are of people who each have their own story to tell of how the Iraq war affected their lives, just like the photos of the Viet Nam War. At one point, Binh Danh showed an image of Life Magazine and its issue where it showed photos of soldiers who died in Viet Nam as a way to honor them. He then said how the NY Times published a roster of the dead of the Iraq War. These were two different wars, but those who died in them had a similar way of being honored and remembered.
In "The Image World", Sontag writes "...a photograph is not only an image,...an interpretation of the real;it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask." This quote perfectly describes Binh Danh's photographs. They are not just an image or an interpretation, but they are a mark of what was left behind. Essentially, these photographs are "footprints" of the people whose lives were affected by the Viet Nam War. They are what was left behind. She later writes "Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history." Binh Danh's images are evidence of the people and landscape that were affected by the war. These photographs, along with many others, help to create a collection of evidence of a part of history, so it will never be forgotten. In her concluding paragraph, Sontag also states "But the force of photographic images comes from their being material realities in their own right, richly informative deposits left in the wake of whatever emitted them...". The photos from One Weeks Dead are images of the reality that was the Viet Nam War. These powerful images contain more information than one could imagine. They can tell about the person, the landscape, what the war meant to them, what their life was like during that time, or how they died. The images are remnants of what was left behind, and what will never be forgotten.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Art and de Duve
Art is everything that is around us that was created by someone, either to fulfill a purpose or for the artist to express themselves, that others find visually appealing or find meaning from it. In high school, I was the editor for the art and literary magazine, and one of my jobs was to select the artwork that went into the magazine. Perhaps the most difficult choice was selecting the artwork for the cover. I first saw the piece last May, hanging up with all of the other submissions for the cover. The piece is of an arm, all colorful and covered with paint, with a black and white hand holding a paintbrush to the left of the arm, painting the color onto it. It caught my eye because of its unique quality. Most of the other submissions were of art as a finished product, and this one was of art in the process, and not using traditional canvases. In total I probably spent at least an hour fixating upon this piece. Looking at it gives one the feeling of tradition while viewing the black and white hand, and spontaneity when looking at the crazy mess of color on the arm. It gave me a sense of freedom and power, that the hand was able to control the movements of the brush and which streak of color went where, and that it has full freedom of choice to do so. The artist's intention was to create a piece visually appealing that symbolizes how art can liven up the world and something that would look good as a cover for a school magazine. I feel that it was highly successful, as I found it visually appealing, the transition from black and white to color shows how art can color one's world and transform things from what it used to be into something more interesting and beautiful, and I found that it fit the theme of the magazine wonderfully.
Art Was A Proper Name was an interesting article about how one could define art. I found it interesting how de Duve tried to explain the process of figuring out what art is through the point of view of an outsider, a member, and of yourself. Each character of each point of view struggles with what is the definition of art, and in the end they come up with similar answers. According to de Duve, the martian sees that "art is everything humans call art", the member of the human race sees that art is "everything we call art" and yourself says that "it's everything I call art". The definition of art has no boundaries, and is only shaped by the opinions of people, each of which are different and unique. De Duve and I share similar opinions with our definitions of art. While each of the characters in the article had a difficult time defining what art is, I too had a difficult time defining art, especially in one sentence. I agree with the you character's definition of art, which is that everything I call art is art. Everyone will have a different opinion on what art is. We all differ on what is aesthetically appealing to us, and what is not. After reading this, I believe that the word art cannot be defined by dictionary standards, but only by the opinion of the person.
Art Was A Proper Name was an interesting article about how one could define art. I found it interesting how de Duve tried to explain the process of figuring out what art is through the point of view of an outsider, a member, and of yourself. Each character of each point of view struggles with what is the definition of art, and in the end they come up with similar answers. According to de Duve, the martian sees that "art is everything humans call art", the member of the human race sees that art is "everything we call art" and yourself says that "it's everything I call art". The definition of art has no boundaries, and is only shaped by the opinions of people, each of which are different and unique. De Duve and I share similar opinions with our definitions of art. While each of the characters in the article had a difficult time defining what art is, I too had a difficult time defining art, especially in one sentence. I agree with the you character's definition of art, which is that everything I call art is art. Everyone will have a different opinion on what art is. We all differ on what is aesthetically appealing to us, and what is not. After reading this, I believe that the word art cannot be defined by dictionary standards, but only by the opinion of the person.
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