Bill Irwin: This century's Charlie Chaplin

Today I learned about an artist named Bill Irwin

Bill Irwin is a physical comedian, who mostly preforms in a theatre stage setting. He has been in multiple Tony Award winning plays, but that isn't his greatest achievement.

What makes Bill Irwin so interesting, and why I am writing about him now, is because he has resurrected the same physical comedy style that was so popular in the late 20's and early 30's through the stage. Watching Irwin is shockingly similar to watching a Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin film. He was able to use their style as a stepping stone to create completely new and original content that doesn't feel any different than the physical comedians in the movies.

He is highly regarded among the acting community, especially amongst more physical comedic actors, like Robin Williams. Many claim that he may have been up there with Chaplin and Keaton as one of the best silent comedy stars had he only been around 70 years earlier.

His ability to make a career out of something that hasn't been popular for over 7 decades is amazing. He was able to create art by simply being, well, a clown. That, to me, is truly inspiring.


Here is a link to a documentary on him, very very cool:

https://vimeo.com/41843938

Virtual Reality...

The Debate

 http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/27/politics/winner-presidential-debate-takeaways/

After watching the debate last night I wanted to know how the class feels about this election. I assume that a majority of the class is supporting Hillary, but I could be very wrong. Who do you all think "won" the debate? Do you all feel comfortable with the possible directions our country could be going in? This is an election that could easily inspire a lot of art work. I don't know if it is something I would make work about because I'd be afraid I couldn't do the subject justice. But I wanted to know if its a subject you my fellow classmates think about when creating?

Neurotheology

I'm currently in a class on human spirituality and we recently watched a video aired on National Geographic, hosted by Morgan Freeman entitled The Story of God.  In the episode that I watched for class, he jumped around to several different cultures and talked to a certain person in each area about their religion and culture.  At the end of the episode, the idea of Neurotheology was touched on and an experiment was conducted on Morgan Freeman to show the viewer the gist of what the research entails.  The episode didn't go into much detail but I wanted to learn a little bit more...

I researched Neurotheology and came across this article:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132078267/neurotheology-where-religion-and-science-collide

Essentially, Andrew Newberg - the leading researcher in Neurotheology, has "studied the brain activity of experienced Tibetan Buddhists before and during meditation," and the image shows the results.  There is increased activity in the frontal lobes, which is "responsible for focusing attention and concentration, during meditation".  I think this is fascinating and I'm curious to know if all kinds of meditation - not just religious thought based meditation - would create this kind of spur of activity in the brain; for example, would meditation or thought on my work or on a piece I was in the process of creating have a similar effect on my brain?

I don't consider myself to be a religious person, but I personally find religion to be something that I'm fascinated with.  I've come to realize that understanding religion and how it ties in to the different cultures that ultimately make up our world is one of the many pieces of the puzzle to ultimately understanding people and the way they think and understanding the actions they make.  

Joo Myung Duck

Joo Myung Duck is pretty much only famous Korean photographer that i know. He's really well known for photo journalism and photo essay that he wrote in 1960-70s. Among his works, i really liked his landscape that he took in Korea because of unique tonality; if we look at most of other photographer's work, especially in landscape, we notice very wide dynamic range in both black and white film or color. However, in his series: Rose and Landscape it's very difficult to find highlights of the photograph. His work is very interesting because he took a photograph of the things that so many people took but we're still able to distinguish his work from other people due to his unique style/ tonality.

Here are some of his photograph of Rose series

And below are some of his Landscape series

And here is the link that i found
http://www.miyakoyoshinaga.com/artists/Joo_Myung_Duck/artwork
This link shows his bio and some of his works that he made, as well as books that he published.

Blogs... Meh?

I personally have a hard time writing free-form blogs. It is difficult for me to figure out something to write about. Obviously I have hit the snooze button on posting in this class so I'm trying to just get going. So obviously, the first thing I knew I could write about is being bad at writing blogs. I used to be turned off by them, they remind me of passive-aggressive internet diaries. But there are so many kinds out there now that they are more a basic tool of the internet. I don't mind the use of a blog like this so much, just commenting on people's thoughts seems so permanent and dispassionate to me. Having discourse through comments on the internet never seems to be very beneficial. Especially the more wide-reaching the blog is. People just wind up congratulating each other for thinking the same way and brow-beating the people trolling them for a reaction. Few minds are changed without an actual personal conversation. However, blogs cannot be put in a box anymore because they are essentially whatever the writer wants them to be. But outside of being useful tools, are blogs a form of art?
I overheard someone in the art department talking about their blog like it was a meth addiction or something. She dramatically proclaimed it was her main art-form and how antsy she gets when she can't blog. Her friend quickly dismissed her, much like I did in my head.  But after some thought, wondered if there was a large population of people who considered their blogs "art." The answer is no. At least not many- out loud at least. A few articles on a couple blogs consider blogs art, depending on the writer. And it seems to come down to, if its self-expression, then it's art. Blogging is still generally new, so maybe there will be some break-out blog that will change all our lives and blogging will be considered in the same rank as novels, painting, and movies. I can easily see in the future, blogs being procured as a sort of readymade art. Especially considering what possible future political, natural, and international disasters unfold. We will have so many personal perspectives on history to look back through. It might help us paint a better picture of history. Blogs create a living dialogue of whats going on in the world and the perspectives of people through time. So after much deliberation, I could easily see blogs becoming an important part of art and history. But currently I still see them mostly as the internet's editorial section.

Catherine Opie (Graphic)

Catherine Opie is an American photographer who plays a lot on sexual identity, as well as societal relationships.

In my Women, Art, and Society class, we discussed the idea of the "monstrous" in self-portraiture, or what it means when an artist depicts themselves in a grotesque or disturbing manner.

Catherine Opie's self portraits especially stood out to me, considering that I used to paint pretty gory self portraits when I was younger, and is always something I've been particularly drawn to. I don't know what exactly it is, but self depiction through horror/gore or overall "unsettling" means always resonated with me. Perhaps it had something to do with my anxiety/depression growing up, feeling overcome by the "monsters" of my internal conflicts. Even now, my monster/horror art is what I end up loving the most - I find myself longing to go back to it after months and months of tinkering with glitch art/distortion. I dunno, my work doesn't feel "all there" to me without it.

Anyway, here are my personal favorites:

Self Portrait/Cutting

Self Portrait/Pervert:

Ben Thouard

AHHHHHH IM SO STOKED AND SO JEALOUS OF THIS GUY. He photographs the ocean and is in Tahiti...I know its probably very wrong to be jealous of other artists.... artistic outdoor photography just really puts a fire in my belly. Im still trying to figure out why the outdoors and natural (giving the medium power) usage of mediums excite me so much. May sound cheesy but I love having the ability to embrace and give freedom to the medium (example: how jackson pollock did his work.) He was both in and out of control of the paint. You can see Ben Thouard start to treat the waves like paint splattering on a canvas....I truly am at my happiest when Im outdoors. And I love being able to decide where Im going, but have no idea what beautiful moments I can capture while there. Which is similar (im guessing) to how Ben Thouard ended up with these beautiful underwater pictures. He put himself in a magnificent natural place and his artistic eye caught these moments and said "dang that would make a beautiful photo" CLICK

http://www.benthouard.com/Underwater-visions/

Anne Vieux (pronounced view)

Anne Vieux (pronounced view) studied painting at KCAI and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. She currently resides in New York. She works a lot with painting. Its very gestural. She experiments with video projection and different types of technology. Bringing virtual space into material space. A lot of her process works with photographing and scanning reflective papers. Its almost like she enjoys tricking yours eyes as to what you’re looking at because she uses many different processes in her work. She’ll scan reflective papers so they’ll read as painterly and then paint on them giving them depth, but they’re still flat? Its amazing! She reintroduces the hand into a lot of her images by adding paint, and it becomes very gestural. She plays with “gesture, scale, pattern, zoning out, and making the invisible- visible.” and that is a lot of what i am interested in exploring right now in my work, so Anne is very relevant to me at the moment. Her work is just absolutely stunning visually, and one thing i think she is doing really well is putting meaning and intentionality behind the abstractions that she's making. Which is something that i think contemporary artists (and specifically photographers) seem to be struggling with. Anyway you guys should really check out her work it's magnificent.

(She also makes really magnificent books. There's some in the special collections at the library, i suggest everyone check those out. When i saw those books i did not want to leave them.)

http://www.cultureisland.com/visualhappenings/small-talk-anne-vieux-visual-artist

http://blog.art21.org/2012/02/01/cold-showers-and-manic-transcendence-cranbrook-students-talk-method/#.V-mN6qIrK8X

http://annevieux.com/

http://manacontemporary.com/anne-vieux/

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/analog-meets-digital-art-in-this-group-exhibition

The Patagonian Dogs

Dave Kent Captures images of Dogs in South America.

I saw this photo series and it nearly took my heart. Anyone who has ever considered following the career path of art or even being an aloof artist has probably made a portrait before. I remember an incident while in my high school photography class. We were having a class discussion about what it means to take a portrait. I remember my teacher saying that portraiture can only pertain to humans. It's now 4 years later and I still think about what my teacher had said. I feel that a good portrait opens the identity of a soul to the viewer. I feel that these pictures really showcase that. I know that a dog doesn't know that it's being photographed or what a camera is, but I think that Kent has given a cool perspective of somethings mundane--a life of a dog. Most of these dogs are just lying down or sleeping, but I think that there's something special in these dogs not posing for portraits like people do. This is truly their life.

individuality- visual identification of people

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/investigating-identity

Wigs (Portfolio) (American, born 1960) Lorna Simpson 1994. Portfolio of twenty-one lithographs on felt, with seventeen lithographed felt text panels, overall: 6' x 13' 6" (182.9 x 411.5 cm)

I found a section on MoMa's website about identity, and with this being a "hot topic" in 2016 I figure I'd give it a read. One particular piece I thought was interesting was this Piece called Wigs. These lithographs are touching on investigating "the history of African American hairstyles and conventions of beauty." and it got me thinking about our outer identity. the ones that people glance and make these overarching comparisons. summing them up in whatever way possible- but is it our fault? is it a natural habit or a habit that we are born with?

boy or girl 

tall or short

our race

hair length

eye color

and then we get into specific things

how we walk

the tone of our voice

the way our eyes are shaped

is there a separation between these "specifications" that our subconscious makes for us? 

Today when I was walking around campus I tried to see what I was gathering subconsciously and then what I was creating in my own mind. For me it seems like the only few that were obviously subconscious were boy or girl. I'm sure there is so much visual information I was getting form someone subconsciously. Then I found that I began observing the colors people were wearing, their "style" or clothing, their hair, etc. I may dive in deeper on researching visual identification of people

Julie Roch-Cuerrier

This artist is actually someone my ex went to to school with at the Royal College of Art in London, UK. She works a lot with histories, whether it be her personal history, world history - or in the case of It Meant the World - a bit of print history.
I'm drawn to her work and installations, there's a pleasing simplicity that really speaks to me on a whole. It's also really good to see/read about a working artist our age and know that with hard work it's quite possible to find success in the art world (depending on your definition).
Check out her website, maybe check out some of the press about her work (that isn't in French Canadian) I think a few of you may enjoy it.
http://www.julierochcuerrier.com/

In the Shadow of Things

Last year I used to spend some of my free time in the library looking through the photography section. While there I found a book called In the Shadow of Things by photographer Leonie Hampton, a UK based artist. She has made everything from books to films to written stories. Her diversity in her work is just one reason I dig her. In this series she focuses on what a family really is because she sees no point in documenting a happy family. Also, lets be real, there is no such thing as a perfect "happy" family. That is just some American dream bull shit that we all strive for but can't achieve. I just really connect with this body of work due to my own family history. Aside from the meaning behind it, I really just find the images in the series captivating and beautiful. The way she pays attention to lighting is almost delicate and her subject matter gives off moods of emptiness and anxiety. If you guys are interested her book is in the library. However it is not at the moment because it is sitting on my desk. I highly recommend it. 

 http://www.leoniehampton.com/home/

Thinking Out Loud

Art Books

In the next couple I, along with my peers, will have to create our own collection of pieces into a book for my Digital 2 class. This is very exciting for me because This will be my first attempt at putting together a book. The possibilities of what can be considered an art book are endless, however that endlessness does bring a little bit of anxiety. There have been soooo many interesting interpretations of the "book" by so many different artists that I don't know how I could just pick one. Though I do think I've found an artists collective whos books I enjoy most, at least for now. That group is known as "Visionaire." I recently had a chance to view a couple of the "books" they've released, special collections in the library has a few items from Visionaire. I put books in quotes because these books weren't exactly pages bounded by a cover, but rather physical items that added in how you saw each piece. Every thing Visionaire release has a number, for instance the book I viewed that I enjoyed most was Visionaire 62. Though it was a highly crafted collection of pieces and probably something I couldn't exactly emulate, it did give me a more abstract way to approach making my own book. So I wanted to ask the class what are ya'lls favorite art books and why? Also I've attached a link to to Visionaire website.http://www.visionaireworld.com/issues

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is Chinese contemporary artist and activist. He've been working on variety of mediums and as a political activist, he has been highly and openly critical of the Chinese Government. Among his works, Study in Perspective photo series really stood out for me because his simple gesture in the series shows serious rebellion against world's supreme authorities. After I saw this image at Art museum in Washington D.C. I also wanted to take similar picture but I couldn't take it because I was aware of people around me. From this I learned it takes more than just flipping middle finger in public space to make this project. Especially, if you get caught doing this in China, you probably end up in jail at the least.

His art was so provoking that there are at least 15 surveillance camera monitoring his house in Beijing. But he described his decision to put himself under further surveillance as a symbolic way to increase transparency in the Chinese Government.


http://aiweiwei.com/index.html
This is the link to his website he also have documentary videos about similar topic so if you're interested, checkout this website

1 AM Stream of Consciousness

1 AM stream of consciousness.

Currently I am writing this in my living room with funky fresh beats playing in the background. The best way that I can describe it is the perfect summer album. It has an amazing ability to create this feeling of nostalgia in a person. Music seems to do a very similar thing for people that movies do. It can transport you (emotionally) to any place you want. 

I think that is the reason so many people are drawn to movies, or music, or really any form of art in on way or another. One thing that I really enjoy about music is the fact that it is an art form that is very foreign to me. I know movies very well, when I watch them I often times think about the work that went into them on set, or the work that went in during post production. For music, though, I have no idea what work goes into it before during or after. This, as a result, lets me enjoy the art form in a very genuine way. I also really enjoy meshing the two art forms together. Specifically through music videos.

Music videos are wonderful because they are a very concise way of telling a story, aided by an entirely different art form (music). While regular movies have music in them, to help with guiding the emotion of the pieces, music videos are songs that have images to help the narrative of the piece.

Some day I'd like to pursue creating music videos in a very narrative fashion. Some of my favorites include 'Yellow Flicker Beat' by Lorde, 'Ghengis Khan' by Miike Snow, and 'Papaoutai' by Stromae. Because of their ability to create a narrative in such a short amount of time without the use of any "dialog." They are also beautiful, just craftsmanship wise.

Yellow Flicker Beat

Ghengis Khan

Papaoutai

Bullshit with Banksy

I'm not going to go into much detail about the England based street artist, Banksy, who I'm sure we're all familiar with. He has many well known images that have been painted on several walls around the world, and his identity is still more or less unknown.
And in case you don't know, here's what his street art looks like 

also, larger scale exhibitions and installations such as Dismaland




Anyways, today in Liverpool, Banksy's Love Plane was removed from a building that is about to be demolished and reconstructed so that it could be installed in a "street art gallery"
First of all, the entire piece wasn't even removed, just the airplane

before:


after:




The group that removed it (Sincura Group) left a note that reads
"Dear Liverpool, the Banksy Love Plane artwork has been removed It is being restored and will return to Liverpool to feature in your new Street Art museum"
I'm not partial to the idea of street art being put in a museum. They claim to be doing this so that Banksy's work can be enjoyed for many years to come, which is understandable, but is street art supposed to be something that lasts forever? Isn't that the risk you take when you put your art on private property? Street art gets removed and painted over all the time! That's just the nature of it. Is it even still street art if you rip it off the wall and put it in a gallery?
This also isn't the first Banksy they've stolen, in 2014 they put on a exhibition titled "Stealing Banksy"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/10785417/Banksy-condemns-disgusting-Stealing-Banksy-exhibition-on-opening-day.html

Personally, I think this is bullshit. The group claims that this "street art gallery" isn't about the money, but in their 2014 Stealing Banksy exhibition they sold Banksy's Slave Labour work for more than 750,000 euros

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/banksys-love-plane-artwork-removed-11906978

Anyone think this is a good call? Thoughts on taking street art off the streets?