Week 3 Notes:  Thursday March 24th, 2015

Week 3 26th March

Can something drawn from pop culture be ‘real’ art?

Note: both Barbara Kruger and Andy Warhol came via commercial art/design. 

Warhol probably the first to use pop culture as a focus for his art. 

Revision sheet for Week 2

Art & Text – Amy Selby (text to find)

David Shrigley - The book of Shrigley (NGV) – recent show – Shrigley uses text and image in his work – lots of text and humour.  Comments on society in a comic mode. 

Appropriates childlike cartoon – (winner of The Tate prize – or shortlisted)

Today – The elements and principles of art

• Elements – line, point, form, tone, texture

• Principles – repetition, hierarchy, scale, balance – the ways the elements are arranged – how the artist has arranged the elements.  We use these (like a writer uses words) to arrange into sentences. 

• Metaphor – we can’t read a book that is in Chinese – can see it’s a book, Chinese, beautiful calligraphy – maybe we can ‘read/decode’ some of the images included – but we can only speculate a meaning.  But, if in English, we know the language and can decode.  Thus with art – if we understand the language – e.g. elements and Principles – we have more chance of interpreting the work. 

“Art is a visual language”  - we need words and definitions of e.g.

• Currently – post-modernism – “Some say we are in post-post modernism” – but only retrospectively do art movements fall into place

• Modernism – more simple – new ground (avant garde) – less complex than post-modernism – reductionist – the artist as visionary with own unique form of expression (reaction to new social sciences, scientific and archaeological discoveries) – leading to the belief that there was a notion that there were new truths to be discovered and uncovered – formal approaches to art – e.g. Rothko (colour), abstract expressionists (fixated on breaking down realism), emphasis on material processes – e.g. Jackson Pollock.  E.g. Clement Greenberg – visual art of this time sits above pop culture/pop art. 

However, post-modernism – a breaking down of the hierarchy of high c.f. low art.  There is no one definitive truth – truth is arguable – there is no one correct truth. 

Post-modernism is complex, eclectic – many artists respond to context (e.g. Christo – land art – wrapping up buildings, other site-specific works, using lenses of culture – e.g. feminism, socio-political art, more use of collaboration between artists) – an acceptance of popular culture into high art.  A realise that advertising is part of the aesthetic of late modernism.  Now – artists who have graffiti in their work – belief that art is no longer the realm of only galleries. 

e.g. girl on last night’s news – drawing on Instagram – purely selling through social media.  (The Project)  Scribble Sensation ($10,000/drawing) – architecture background.  Trad techniques – black and white.  Photorealistic – still life drawing.  To Merinda – this exemplifies PM art. 

Aside – about Academic art and the reaction to it –

Also PM – installation work, site-specific, use of non-trad materials. 

• e.g. Gajin Fujita – US artist of Japanese heritage. 

Check out the artists Merinda has referenced in the Week 2 summary

• The Mundane in Post-modernism  - e.g. Tracey Emin’s bed

• The kitsch in PM – e.g. Geoff Koons – Michael Jackson and Bubbles

• Modernism – optimism – progress, faith in the ability to create the new, find answers

• Post-modernism – pessimism, little faith in progress and science, the church, politics, the fate of the world.  Is progress really good for us?  There is no longer a ‘national identity’ – We would like the handsome princess to take us out of the darkness, but no longer believe that there is a political answer to the world’s problems

• Modernism – surrealism, the mind, sociological concepts, art is categorised – e.g. ‘a painter’ ‘a printmaker’

• Globalisation – hybrid cultures, different understandings, within each subgroup there is a multitude of opinions – there are no stereotypical groups – e.g. The Jews, The Muslim

• Post-modernism Movement away from the genius artist – less need for technique – more about ideas –

• No longer does the artist have one underpinning meaning – today – the artist may have multiple meanings – viewer doesn’t always glean any original intent from an artist – even if there were on?

Modernism – Consciousness independent from the environment

Post-modernism – the body is a representation of the world – e.g. the image of pop musicians (e.g. Madonna) – also how we represent ourselves to the world. 

For Gifs – www.erdalinci.tumblr.com

For Geelong After Dark –

• Suggestion that we use an old film from 1929 of Geelong – to promote Geelong as a more artistic place. 

• Suggestion that Metropolis is a modernist film – message is that humans are becoming clones, loss of individuality – use of repetition. 

Merinda suggests – we use the old footage from films of old Geelong – e.g. The Tale of Sleepy Hollow,

Life in Australia: Geelong 1966 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfFYc4C_JCA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTZkob0Dmo0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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tp://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/geelong/rare-footage-of-1929-geelong-comes-to-light/story-fnjuhovy-1226796756995 1929 footage of Geelong

• Suggestion that students make a gif using ‘old footage’ overlaid with own images. 

• Seeing Geelong in a new light – gifs – e.g. past, now, future –

• Next week – spend time putting something together.  E.g. make a gif – video loop

 

 

Handout from Merinda Kelly - Artists who reference of appropriate imagery from other historical/cultural contexts.