"Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts." - wikipedia, (n.d), Retrieved August 10, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality
Intertextuality is when you have a piece of Artwork/writing and find similar qualities in it from another piece of work that makes you understand it more. A lot of Artists these days are doing so as they try to reproduce an Artists work.
Wiley's portraits are based on photographs of young men who he sees on the Street. His models were asked to assume poses from the paintings of Renaissance masters. "He creats a fusion on period styles, ranging from French Rococo, Islamic architecture and West African textile design to urban hip hop and the "Sea Foam Green" of a Martha Stewart Interior colour swatch.(Wikipedia.com, n.d)
"Pluralism in art refers to the nature of artforms and artists as diverse. It honors differences within and between equitable groups while seeing their commonalities." ALVC.2, Caldwell (1999), Page 46 Para 1. You see this in Wileys work as he uses the influence of "Old Masters" in his portraits of African American men.
Wileys work creates a lot of interest in a way that develops questions. "Wiley engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the the herioc, powerful, majestic and the sublime in his representation of urban, black and brown men found throughout the world." KehindeWiley.com,n.d. For me stereotypes show in Wiley work how he has used African American men, dressed them in normal "gangsta" clothing and placed them in a high classed power setting. This gives us many questions in what he is trying to portray in these images to the audience.
Afterworks (2008) was inspired by the horror having to leave your home at the time of war. After talks with his family Chalayan explored the ideas of how we may want to hide our possessions or how we may want to carry them with us on departure in such an ordeal.
Burka (1996) is very thought provoking. It Challenges us with ideas such as modesty, identity and feminity. Chalayan presented models wearing different length burka inspired creations with nothing underneath them, with some models being completely naked except from a mask and sandals. This ability to stay relevant to society this many years on is what makes Chalayan's work stand out above many other designers.
'Afterworks' and 'Burka" both have meanings behind them and stand out very clearly. When seeing these works I see the person inside them as well as what he is trying to portray. Fashion these days is just about the lastest trends and making an image that everyone seems to follow. Chalayan's work is not just creating clothes he creates ideas and works or art that forever cross the line between art and fashion.
The level Tunnel (2006)
Chalayan has created an installation to help advertise Level Vodka. I believe that this is still art in a way that shows different ideas than normal artists. It interacts with the audience and gives them an experience like all art installations do. "The individual going through the tunnel might feel like they are able to feel the smell or taste the sound resulting in a synaesthetic experience." It is not only trying to sell a product but also showing a piece of Chalayans Artworks. Chalayan is taking a step further and working with promotional companies to make his work.
Absent Presence - 2005 venice Biennale
I personally think that it is not a big deal if you do not make the artwork or clothing yourself. A lot of Artists are making such big artworks that they need help to make it faster. I still believe that it is all coming from that Artist. They are the one that thought of the idea and planned it all out. When looking at a piece you are not thinking of how they made it you are thinking of the concept and ideas that comes with it. In the fashion industry they have different people for everything. The designer might not be a sewer so they have someone to do that just but they still came up with the ideas and patterns. On the other hand as a painter you should be able to do your own pieces yourself. In my opinion getting someone else to do your painting will never turn out the same as your own.
Post Modernism:
- an art movement which was thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism.
- it is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the problem of objection truth and inherent suspicion towards global cultural narrative or meta-narrative.
- The period in which we now live in is often called "post-modernism".
- something which evolved after 1968
- the term is used in philosophy, literature, social sciences and architecture.
- composed by two parts "post" and "modern". "post" is latin for "after", and "modernism" refers to the modern period.
- It was during Postmodernism when we started to see an “indifference to social concerns.”
- Post modernism partakes of uncertainty, insecurity, doubt, and accepts ambiguity.
- It is very closely synced to what “is also called New Age thinking.”
"The post-modern artist is "reflective" in that he/she is self-aware and consciously involved in a process of thinking about him/herself and society in a deconstructive manner, "demasking" pretensions, becoming aware of his/her cultural self in history, and accelerating the process of self-consciousness." Witcombe(2000)
During the post-modernism, people started to agree on "social and cultural pluralism". After there was an "attention to play of surfaces". People started to adapt to "simulation, visual media becoming undifferentiated equivalent forms." "hyper-reality" became much more powerful than the "real" images. There was also mixing of "pop culture" and "hybrid cultural forms". Art started to "authenticate by the audience" rather than just ny the "artist".
Ai WeiWei Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo.
Ai WeiWei is one of Chinas earliest and most influential avant-garde artists. He is a self-taught artist who sparks the modern art movement in Beijing. He is influenced by Dad, Duchamp and Warhol by creating provocative and subversive photographs, installations and sculptures.
Banksy uses stencils to make statements about everything from war to politics, big business, government oppression, and the mess we're making of the environment. "Does the image mean we are powerless? Flowers are so ephemeral, so fragile. How could they possibly hurt anything? Or are the flowers a symbol of the intangible power that comes from belief and hope and that certainty of truth?." (Tommi Lou Carosella, n.d) It is also very interesting the way Banksy shows his work. A way that many people don't like and think it is vandalism. I think it is powerful and makes people look at it in a different way to what they would see if it was in a Gallery.
In 'Los Angeles'(2008), I see a cave man/ape holding a bone in one hand and a tray with fast food on the other. This is very interesting because you would never see an ape/cave man and also you would never see one holding a tray of fast food. You see a lot of ideas like this in Post-modern art as artists are now looking further into making things without meaning.
Claymation is a service mark used for an animation process in which clay figurines are manipulated and filmed to produce an image of lifelike movement.
What i think the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden' means is that Djurberg's installation experiment is oddly dreamlike and unreal. She has almost created her own 'Garden of Eden' from hell. The term 'all that is natural goes awry' means that what we expect and what we think is normal it will be the totally opposite. Djurberg creates things that people wont expect and will get us thinking about the unreal.
Djurberg confronts us with many different'Complexity of emotions'. The stories deal with topics such as war, violence, sexuality, sadism ans assault in an investigation of the darker side of the human soul. Their sexual and sacrilegious encounters are just pretext to highlight preserve games of power and submission. AS the catalog of biennale says : through these minutely composed sequences of stop motion animations, djurberg toys with societies perceptions of night and wrong, exposing our own innate fears of what we do not understand and illustrating the complexity that arrises when we are confronted with these emotions.
Djurbergs stop-motion animations are hand-modeled plasticine puppets. They almost remind me of TV programmes when i was little. Djurberg's stories have a lot in common with traditional folktales. They deal with archetypical themes and involve traditional roles as the good, the bad and the kind helper. The films also have animals as characters e.g. the wolf, the bear and the tiger. As in tales strange and magical things happen in Djurberg's films; animals speak, trees walk and humans fly and talk with animals. Like in traditional tales the films have shocking and gruesome elements which occur after the narrative turning-point in the story. After this turn of events the films no longer look like children's TV but rather as a scary x-rated fantasy without any moral.(Helle Ryberg, curator, 2005)
Artists are always looking for different ways to capture and inspire their audience and i think this is why they are so interested in turning something innocent and sweet into something disturbing. It shows they are thinking in different ways and go beyond what we expect.
Djurbergs work is very disturbing but i was very intrigued by all her work. Her work is very different from any other artists and show many different stories and emotions. The music by Hans Berg in the films is dominating and with its almost psychopathic cheerful rhythm it hints to the fact that there's something wrong. The music she also uses creates a set mood for the audience to feel they are apart of the work. You almost get into a mind set of what is happening around you.
Both Claude Monet and Chuck Close were exploring paint, color and human perception. Research the work of both artists in order to;
1. Outline the intentions of each artist.
Claude Monet was founder of The French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing ones perceptions before nature.
Chuck Close has studied the human head in both painting and photography; he has transformed our understanding of portraiture and carved out a unique space in contemporary art. The ’scanning experience’ he describes has always been facilitated by Close’s uses of the grid, which allows the artist to make a leid of geographical survey of the face.
2. Describe the techniques of each artist
Impressionist’s painters have a specific way of using colours. As most impressionists, Monet uses his own palette to paint shadows and rarely uses black. Monet obtained an appearance of black by combing serveral colours: blues, greens and reds.
At the beginning of his career, monet used dark colours, as he did in the ‘studio corner’ marked by black shades. From 1860 on, monet abandoned dark colours and worked from a palette limited to pure light colours.
Close's work is made by a grid brought to the foreground, creating a cadenced space of 2.5inch cells. These cells are made by abstract and biomorphic shapes, from gooey lozenges and lopsided bubbles to more geometric rods and circles. The shapes often traverse across two or three cells, or conjoin in L-shapes.
3. Find 2 quotes about each artists work, and reference them correctly.
“As for the colours I use, whats so interesting about that? I don’t think one could paint better or more brightly with another palette. The most important thing is to know how to use the colours. Their choice is a matter of habbit. In short, I use white lead, cadmium yellow, vermillion, madder, cobalt blue, chrome green. That’s all.”
“I was trying to rip it loose of the context in which we normally saw portraits and normally saw people, and try to make it a scanning experience, and experience of stumbling through this landscape.”
“Artists…see both the device that make the illusion and the illusion itself. Im as interested in the distribution of marks on a flat surface..as I am with the thing that ultimately gets depicted..[its] shifting from one to the other that really interests me.”
Chuck Close. (2000-2001) Retrieved 30 May 2011 from
4. Note 3 similarities of the work of both artists.
The colours are very bold and also soft.
The brush strokes used are very similar, almost like a circular motion.
The texture gives life and emotion to the paintings.
5. What are some differences between the artist's work. (at least 3)
Monets work is a lot more realistic and softer than Close’s
Close uses a very unique method of painting to show the image. He has done each square individually and uses many different colours in each.
Chuck Close focussing more on people and detail of their face where as Claude Monet is nature and reflection.
6. Describe your response to the work of both artists.
Chuck Closes work is very fascinating, I like the way he looks at detail and shows it in a different way. It is very stimulating in the way he paints. Also, the scale he uses for his image is massive.
Claude Monet on the other hand has amazing brush strokes in his work. It is so light and soft but very detailed. The colours he uses and the blending of different colours is very unique.
It was the period from 18th to the 19th centruey where major change in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportations, and technology had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of the time. It marks a major turning point in human history and also bought huge consequences to society where factory owners had to use children and women to run the machines.
2. Research both Modernist paintings in order to comment on the subject matter, form and style used to celebrate the machine and motion in each painting. Answer the question in 2 parts for each painting.
Umberto Boccionis 'The City Rises' (1910)
Boccionis ‘The City Rises’ shows speed and movement. It feels like he is trying to capture the indivisible flux of life through his drawings. The buildings in the backgrouns can be seen but as it gets closer to the middle focusing on “horses and men” it gets more futuristic.
Giacomo Bailias ‘Dynamisn of a Dog on a Leash’ (1912)
‘Dynamisn of a Dog on a Leash’ conveys a sense of speed and urgency that puts his paintings in a line with Futurism’s fascination and with the energy of modern life. The image almost shows a frame-to-frame woman walking a dog on a boulevard.
3. Research Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9) in order to comment on this work in more depth.
i.e what images has she used in her digital collage that refer to China's present and history, and why has she used these.
RMB City shows a preserve view of Beijing – a blend of communism, socialism, and capitalism. Like Beijing it is always under construction. Candy-striped smoke stacks suggest continuous industrial production. Missiles make unremitting pre-emptive strikes, and ships more goods swiftly in and out of port. A giant cart, tilled with skyscrapers and religious monuments, floats and nearby.
Feis work responds to Chinas rapid urbanization and pace of social and economic development. She depicts states of transformation within a youth culture heavily influenced within manga and played out against an ever-expanding cityscape.
4. RMB City is described as a utopia/dystopia. Comment on what these terms mean, and how they can be applied to the work.
Utopia is where people dress as manga and movie characters and play out fantasy lives. Then there is dystopia where it is a society characterized by human misery. I think that RMB City is exactly like Utopia; it is a world where people can dress up as different characters and live a fantasy life.
5. Although the Modernist paintings and the contemporary digital work have emerged from different contexts, there are also many similarities. Comment on the similarities that you can see in the work.
Although ‘The City Rises’ and ‘Dynamism on a Leash’ are very different pieces and use different mediums there are many similarities. They both show a similarity in movement and motion. They are all also very eye captivating in how she has used all the different mediums.
1. Define the 17th century 'Scientific Revolution', and say how it changed European thought and world view.
17th century 'Scientific Revolution' is a series of changes in structure of European thought itself: systematic doubt, empirical and sensory verification, the abstraction of human knowledge into seperate functions like a machine. It is the period when new ideas in physics, astronomy, biology, human anatomy, chemistry and other sciences led to a rejection of doctries.
2. Give examples of how we can we still see evidence of the 'Scientific Revolution' in the world today.
Everything we use these days is with technology and the way we live today is revolved around computers. It helps Artists try new things they have never been able to try. Our generation is very lazy and technology makes things easier and faster for humans.
3. From your research, do you think that the contemporary art world values art work that uses new media/technology over traditional media?
I think it can be seen in many ways and people have different opinions but my opinion on this is that we dont try and value contemporary work over traditional media it is just that there are many ways that new media/technology can be shown. Technology is a massive park of our lives and I think our generation finds it more interesting and eye catching.
4. How has Pipilotti Rist used new media/technology to enhance the audience's experience of her work.
Rist has used two different films along side of each other that totally does not relate to each other but she has made them link. They are also interactive with the audience and when looking at these you need to take time to think about what she is showing. She also uses sounds to help the audience understand the concept and helps relate both films to each other.
5. Comment on how the installation, sound and scale of 'Ever is Over All' (1997) could impact on the audience's experience of the work.
The installation is almost life size and could feel very real while watching this. You could almost feel like you are walking along with this women on the walkway. The colour of the installation captures your attention and stands out in the dark space. The sounds are very soft and relaxing but when something smashes and breaks the volume increases and brings the audiences attention closer.
6. Comment on the notion of 'reason' within the content of the video. Is the woman's behaviour reasonable or unreasonable?
I feel her behaviour at first was unreasonable but then as the film went on i understood her feeling of wanting to get all your anger out and felt it was reasonable. The sign from the police officer and everyone walkign around made things look normal.
7. Comment on your 'reading' (understanding) of the work by discussion the aesthetic (look), experience and the ideologies (ideas, theories) of the work.
I feel in this installation it shows a feminist statement with the female police officer. Also, with the parked car she is showing the male domination and how we try and be stronger than men. With the soft voices it almost makes it feel like a dream but still overpowering when she smashes the car.
