5.7 presentation

David:
Your presentation was very fascinating and I enjoyed listening to your ideas. I think it's interesting to think about the infinite possibilities of what the draftsman could produce. I think it would be cool if Lewitt provided the same set of instructions to more than one group of draftsmen and then compared the two finished pieces.

Presentations: May 7

1. David: I found this very interesting about this art being more mystical than rational, it's like a leap into the unknown, you explained it very well. Lewitt's open cubes and the use of the three prime colors and the three secondary colors was very interesting as well. I also liked the part about the paintings in the walls of the room that once, painted, were painted over and gone forever. I think my only suggestion is to also talk about his career later on in his life. Very good topic and presentation.

Presentations 5/5-5/7

1.) The Video art presentation was extremely interesting to me. I enjoyed the unconventional topic as it was fresh and very informative. The thesis was well formed and the evidence was dynamic, in particular to the different video art clips shown. I enjoyed how the presentation incorporated different avenues of video art: the rehearsed cough, artist staring at audience, and the 8 second delay piece. All different cases supported thesis impeccably. My question is in regards to the performance of the artist staring at the audience, as a effort to demonstrate the attention span of an individual focusing on an actual artist. Was the audience informed on the purpose of the piece? Loved it!

2.) I enjoyed the focus of the graffiti presentation. The history was presented well and supported thesis correctly, however how exactly will the graffiti pieces pertain to the thesis? I mean are you going to focus on specific graffiti pieces or give a general overview of the practice?

3.) The Lewitt presentation was unique to say the least. The topic seems to be quite broad and alot can be done with the paper. I applaud your effort to refute the argument we read in class early on in the semester. My question pertains to Lewitt's concept of art, he felt as though his vision should be comprehended and done by other artists..however how was this exactly his art? The final product would be an interpretation of what another artist thought his work should be (I guess this statement refers to Lewitts broader descriptions left for other artists). Also did any of the artists that physically painted Lewitt's work in the museums actually get any recognition?

Lewitt In Progress

I thought your presentation was very engaging and you had a very interesting topic. I like that you had a completely different view of Sol Lewitt from anything we've learned and it will be interesting to see how you use your facts to support your thesis. The video you showed in class of one of the museums working on his producing his paintings was shocking because I didn't realize how complicated the instructions were and how Lewitt would keep erasing parts of the paintings in the instructions. You definitely will have an awesome essay to read.

Presentations

David: Your presentation on Sol Lewitt was very interesting. It took a different approach to his work than anything we read or discussed this year. The comparison to the frescos was particularly interesting to me. One thing I have always wondered about Lewitt is if he at least sketches or somehow simulates what the instructions will reproduce before he releases the instructions.

presentation 5/7

David: LeWitt is really an interesting artist. I was very fascinated by open cubes when I first saw it. Your examples of wall drawings are very intriguing too. One point I noted was how you talked about the artwork being beyond the artist, this is very curious contradiction to Warhol and some other artists who we like to talk about their life or intentions when we look at their works. What I did not quite get is why is relinquishing control "mysticism"?

5/5-5/7 Recap: Rothko to LeWitt

Kate: What a story! I find it ironic that he purposely set out to paint depressing and aesthetically unpleasant pieces for the elites who would dine at the Four Seasons, but still agreed to be commissioned. He hated them for their money while he himself was making money. This selection of paintings is very dull and undeserving of appraisal, especially after Rothko himself admitted the attitude he held towards the project. My question is, compared to other pieces by Rothko, how did the Seagram murals detour later collections? Does the popularity of the Seagram murals stem solely from the interesting narrative behind their making or are they outstanding for how they demand genuine contemplation from the observer?

Yiwen: Your presentation was very informative. Like Kevin, you have highlighted forms of art that are not exactly mainstream or commonly addressed in popular Art courses. I noticed that you don’t consider movies and film as video art. My question is: were a film to be produced with a small camcorder would you then classify it video art? Is there a time limit to video art clips? For your paper, I would suggest providing more history about video art, significant contributors, and recent developments in the practice. Great job so far!

Anita: I’m glad you decided to base your research on graffiti art. Personally, I feel this art form merits more recognition and scholastic incorporation than what it currently is given. I noticed that you focus on graffiti’s role in urban redevelopment and how it has altered the aesthetics of inner city neighborhoods. Will you be addressing a particular time period or providing a general history on graffiti art? I suggest, since you’re not addressing specific graffiti artists, to format your discussion on certain cities/communities.

David: Last but certainly not least. LeWitt is a character. I must say that your argument, a comparison between LeWitt’s instruction-production pieces and religious frescoes, is a bold and challenging one. With that said, and since you claim LeWitt had no religious motives when structuring his artwork plans, will your focus be on the architectural designs of the spaces in which his works and frescoes are exhibited? I suggest including in your paper how LeWitt’s work developed throughout his career. Are any of his works displayed outdoors? Has he made any sculptures or are his works all paintings? I applaud you for choosing such a deviant and egocentric artist.

Presentation 5/07

I'm glad you're doing LeWitt, when I was researching him for my discussion/presentation I found his stuff very interesting, complex, and somewhat difficult to sort out. Your thesis is very challenging but you seem to have a strong hold on your key points and what you are trying to prove. I think the Sentences on Conceptual Art seem to support your thesis a little better than his wall paintings do. I also think maybe you should explain how the mystical = the unknown... or is that just assumed?

Last Presentation

After reading your first draft, it was really nice to see the different types of wall drawings by Sol Lewitt. I think your thesis is interesting, bold, and thus could be difficult to defend, especially with Krauss and everyone else is on the other side. While Sol Lewitt's "Sentences" may suggest otherwise, I have to admit that my first instinct when you showed all of those pieces in the beginning was that he was aiming for something rational--they were all geometric, with lines and squares or triangles, and basic colors. This said, I understand where you are going, and your proposal is clear and should be successful, as long as you support it well.

last presentation

I personally don't really understand Sol LeWitt, but I think the comparisons you came up with are really interesting. I like the connection between the frescoes and LeWitt's works. I wonder where you are going with that. Also, what did LeWitt think when he knows that his art works will be covered with white paints after his exhibition is over? Do you think he was influenced by any religious thoughts? It's really cool that he didn't have the wall smoothed before he created his works; it adds interesting texture.

Presentations

Kate: Interesting topic. I like how you have focused on a particular art event to explore some of Rothko's paintings. I did want to hear more of a personal thesis, however. Also there was a lot of good info in your presentation but some of it was repeated in different sections.

Yiwen: You had a clear thesis, which is good. You also seem to have good knowledge of the subject matter. Your thesis could be better developed, though. One thing I thought was that you might want to focus on just one video artist. Acconci seems like an ideal candidate as he was a large portion of your presentation and a very intersting subject offereing a lot of possibilities.

Anite: Your paper would probably benefit from a scope limitation, you're tackling a lot of material. It seemed your thesis was about graffiti artists reclaiming urban space. Who are these graffiti artists? You glanced over that. I felt like I was left knowing only a little more about the subject matter. You can delve deeper.

Presentation 5.3

1.Rothko's paintings are very interesting, with all the vertical lines and color. He felt that Four Season wouldn't value his site specific pieces enough, why did he choose to hung up his art works there at the very first place? Just so he could “torture” the customers of Four Season restaurant? Personal, I think Rothko's paintings worked pretty well with the restaurant environment. Maybe you can talk about the different response when the same art work is displayed in the the restaurant and in the library.
2.The ability of attracting audiences' attention is a good concept. You might want to explain it more. Why are we being attracted to it, while other mediums don't have the equal power to do so? I don't really understand what you are trying to get out of the “Attention” about time. Are you suggesting that in such piece, three dimensions of time coexisted, and only video has the ability to do so? What is the relationship between video and psychological? Video materializes the objects/ people?
3.Street Art and Graffiti. The connection between Vandalism and graffiti's art works is interesting. What is the original motivation beyond the graffiti art? I personally do not like graffiti art, what is the primary goal the artists are trying to achieve? What are the effects graffiti art has that other art forms don't have?

Kate, Yiwen, Anita

Kate: The history behind Rothko's murals is somewhat interesting, but i didn't seem to hear an argument surrounding the topic. I think the story shows how much these abstract paintings can do to the viewer. I never would have imagined thinking of them as windows unless I stared at it for a while. I think you should focus on the viewer's actual experience, and the artist's intention, as they can end up being very different. I can just imagine diners at the four seasons thinking to themselves how lucky they were to be eating this close to a "real Rothko"! Isn't it ridiculous what ;fine art" has become?

Yiwen: Cough made us want to look more than if it were a real person, because it was unreal. However, the pointing one made us want to look away because it was uncomfortable, even though it was just a video. I think this is an interesting contradiction that shows the versatility of the medium of video art. Also, you talked about some performance art pieces, you should be careful to make it clear that you realize those aren't video art. perhaps you should refocus your essay on viewer's comfort level when viewing art, unless your current idea of attention span, time and the unreal is working out okay.

Anita: You said the language used by graffiti artists shows violence towards the city, like "bomb" and "burners", but you also said that those who make graffiti want to reclaim it? This is a little weird sounding. Why would they "attack" the city in order to put their own culture into it? This supports the negative stereotypes surrounding gangs and graffiti. Also, at the end you showed picture of suburbs, but that is not the "urban" redeveloped part where the graffiti is. Isn't graffiti on a person's home a different story from that on a city building full of elites? Lastly, one of the pictures you sowed was of graffiti on a train. How is writing on a train reclaiming the city? It's not even going to stay in the city!

Presentations May 5

Kate: If Rothko wanted the rich to suffer, why then would he take down his piece and move it to a museum? To make the less-rich suffer as well? And as far as Ms Hoy's reference to landscape/portrait goes, in what ways can Rothko's pieces be interpreted? Is this paradigm of orientation really just our means of grasping his art work by analyzing its relationship to traditional painting, since otherwise his art is so abstract that we supposedly don't have much to work with?

Yiwen: Thanks for making the class a physical experiment by having us watch a video and noting our attention span. It made me feel uncomfortable and I don't feel the results reflected the viewpoint you claim to take. The Time-Delay room really isn't as confusing as you say it is, unless of course the cameras have the monitors in view... because then the camera would delay an already delayed playback, which would then be rerecorded as it is played back in front of the cameras and delayed again. Now that's confusing. And how again was Vito Acconci video art? You seemed more to be focused on discomfort... art. Sounds more relevant to Chris Burden and violence art than to video art.

Anita: I don't know what city you were talking about, or if this was some generic scenario or something, since you weren't very specific. Regardless, you spoke of a city being rebuilt. You said that the graffiti was made to "take back the city" which is an act of possession, so this complicates the art's relationship to commodification in a different way; though the art itself isn't a sellable item, it is aiding in the possession of the city space. It seems like it might be more interesting to talk about the futility of permanently acquiring the city through graffiti art, since the "goal" is supposedly to take back the city, but since graffiti is easily painted over this is obviously an impossible task, and so maybe some of these tensions between time and materiality manifest themselves in the art itself? Also, just a thought, if the city wasn't owned by the graffiti artists to begin with, don't you think that rebuilding the city would be somebody else's way of taking the city back from the graffiti artists?

Presentations 5.5.09

Kate: I really liked how you incorporated the technical aspect of the paintings by both the use of colors and the use of vertical and horizontal lines. This being said, I think it would be great if you expanded on the idea and storyline behind the painting. I found the relationship between Rothko and the hotel to be one of the more intriguing aspects of the presentation and would love for it to be further explained.

Yiwen: Great set up on your presentation. It was a good idea to present each idea and then wrap it back into your thesis and main points. Your whole idea of this new generation of video art is something that I had never really processed. When I became more aware of this I immediately wanted to compare the main similarities and differences of video art compared to the more historic style of art. I think your thesis on attention span, time, and reality are all good angles, but make sure you can tie them all together cohesively.

Anita: I really like how you dug deep into the culture of graffiti art. I definitely agree with you that graffiti art is a form of anti-modernism. I am interested in seeing if there are two sides to the story on this issue. Do you feel that all graffiti art is done in bad taste and for the wrong reasons or do you feel that most graffiti art is done in good taste and for the right reasons? Or is it a combination of both.

MAY 5TH Presentations

Kate: I thought you Rothko was really interesting when I read your essay, but it was even cooler being able to see the actual paintings and the four seasons hotel that was supposed to host the paintings. I liked how you showed the grimness of the colors and discussed the vertical lines and the enormity of these paintings. I could definitely see how they would make people feel like they were trapped in a prison when surrounded by them. 

Yiwen: You had a very good presentation and you clearly pointed out what you wanted to prove in your essay. The video of the cough was a good example of showing how video is unreal and so produced to be something that it's in reality is not. It just shows how fake everything is and how disturbing it becomes when people push it to be real. I liked how every time you showed a piece, you would right after relate it back to your thesis and explain how it pertains to it.

Anita: Your subject on graffiti art was very interesting and different from the last presentation on graffiti art. I like that you focus on the irony of street art and economy. Making the graffiti mainstream defeats its whole purpose to be anti-modernist, anti-modern redevelopment, and taking back power. You have a lot to work with, good job!

Presentations

Kate: I think your topic is really interesting and that you can go pretty deep with it. I enjoyed learning about the history and complications behind the piece, as well as Rothko's inspiration for it from the library in Florence. The piece definitely reminded me of Rothko's chapel that we studied earlier in the year, with the whole idea of the use of open space, so you could probably explore this in your paper.

Yiwen: The points you made in your paper and presentation were very good, I think. I know that I was freaked out by the pointing video and the coughing one as well, so when you talked about the audience feeling uncomfortable and looking away, I definitely knew what you meant. I think I looked away after like 5 seconds. The Time Delay video was really interesting to me as well, and I think you could really get into the unique effect of this idea of a 4th dimension with all of the examples you proposed.

Anita: I think your thesis is very straightforward and easy to understand, with the whole idea of being anti-capitalism and against the mainstream. I think you should go even deeper to explore different types of grafitti from the types we usually see in urban streets and walls, such as the yes men or the billboard thing that we saw a bit of at the end. People have been trying to fight the mainstream through art for years, but I feel that grafitti is the only type that hasn't in some way given in to capitalism.

5/5 Presentations

Kate – I liked how you really incorporated this discussion of the location along with what artwork would result from knowing what the location might be like. I especially liked your comparison with the chapel/church in discussing how this theme transpired over to the Seagram murals. I think this should further be explained.

Yiwen – The whole time and attention captivating video art really caught my attention. I guess I never saw video this way – as a sort of challenge to my perception of art. I think it might not be such a bad idea to incorporate discussion about mainstream videos and how we’re okay seeing these – there’s no real sense of challenge or feeling weird although we are fully captivated by them, i.e. “most shocking videos”.

Anita – I would definitely include what Meredith brought into discussion at the end of class. If your take is that graffiti art is a way of reclaiming the urban space by literally taking over a space through art, then I would do a compare/contrast with what we’re shown in class.

4th round of presentation

Kate: Your presentation about the Seagull murals by Rothko was really unique. Rothko’s aim of “ruining the appetite” of those restaurant goers was really interesting. I wonder why four seasons hotel choose him to do the decorations. I think your paper would be really good if you can further discuss this mural and its site-specificity.

Anita: I am really convinced by your point on how graffiti art is a form of anti-modernism and how you supported your case with history of city-planning, etc. I also found how you differentiated graffiti-like art and real graffiti really interesting. Perhaps you would like to talk more about the concept of “making the place uglier than it already is” that some artists have. Also, I don’t quite get why they thought that creativity in art school equals to capitalism.

presentations on 5.5.09

Kate: You said that he said that he wanted to torture the guests of the Four Seasons Restaurant but then decided he wanted his pieces to have more committed audiences, so did he still create his pieces to disgust and torture even though he put them in a museum?
I also think that you should explain the significance of the horizontal and vertical paintings.

Jiwen: You said that video medium cannot capture what physically does not exist but with today's digital and computer graphics do you think that has changed?

Anita: You said that graffiti artists were purposely defying laws and making things ugly. Do you agree with Jazzmin in that some artists are making political points and rebelling against the ordinary?