Presentations 4.23.09

Alfredo: I think you chose a really interesting and unique topic. Diego Rivera's work is amazing, and murals are a fascinating topic to look at with their extroardinary size and depth of content. Your presentation was very thorough and you covered a lot of great points about the relationship between the art and its location, including issues of politics. One thing I wonder is how he chose the content of his pieces. More specifically, why did he only do most of his works on the ancient tribes and colonizers? Or has he painted artwork with other stories behind them other than the native/colonizer conflict?

Audrey: I think Jade art is really beautiful and have potential for a really interesting research proposal. When I went to the Stanford Art Museum they had all different forms and colors of ancient jade scultpures made by indigenous people. You could probably find some more information on their website about it. In terms of your paper and presentation, I wasn't sure how you wanted to include Andy Warhol's work into your thesis, but I would suggest narrowing your topic to focus on just the jade art and possibly the renaissance paintings. Keeping it simple yet insightful is probably the best idea for conveying a clear analysis. Keep up with the research on the material vs. visual aspects of value in artwork like these and I think you will have a really interesting paper!

Michelle: First off, WOW! I think your paper topic definitely has the hook to draw your readers in. Your presentation was really thorough, and you covered all the important background aspects of superflat art: the historical context, motivation behind the design, the connection to relevant social/political issues, etc. The one thing I would say about narrowing your focus would be to keep the ideas of consumerism, anime, trends, and culture in terms of the art itself. There is definitely a lot to say about these issues in Japan even without the presence of art, and its easy to get caught up on general topics rather than narrowing it down. I really enjoyed your topic so definitely keep focusing on Takara's sculpting and your research paper is going to be super fun and interesting to read!

Kevin: I think you brought up a genre of art that isn't commonly recognized, and it would be cool to see what people think of this style of art. The sky is the limit with machine art, which you revealed to us with the vast array of examples, many that are completely different in style and function. It would be interesting to see who all these different artists are that all have a common interest in machinery as art. There is definitely a lot of potential for a research paper, but make sure you figure out one question you want to ask and talk about to narrow down your thesis. Maybe you could look at a one or even a few artists or pieces of machine art and analyze and/or compare them to make your argument more specific and cohesive.

Amanda: One of the most interesting things that you touched upon was how Flavin doesn't really have any meaning behind his pieces. I think this is so funny because even so, people think they can always pull information and underlying meanings out from everything whether it be art, books, movies, etc. It would be interesting to write a paper that researches the context of art that supposedly has no meaning, and to look at what existing literature has said about Flavin's works. I think you there are a lot of different angles you could take in you research. There are so many questions for an artist who is so different (in a good way) from most artists we have studied. Is there a connection between any of his works? similarities or differences? What is his though process in creating and/or planning his artwork? You definitely have a lot of things you can talk about for an interesting paper!