Marina Abramovic/Frida Kahlo/Cui Xiuwen Comparison

The time in which these artists have created their artwork has spanned many years, each living in a different time, yet all deal with some sort of feminine portrayal. Frida Kahlo was the first of the three artists who lived in Mexico, growing up during the time of social change, and died in the 1950’s. Kahlo paints self-portraits most of the time because she claims she is the person she knows best. The main elements portrayed in her work are the emotions of joy, love, creativity, and passion. Physical and emotional pains are important factors but not the main elements of her work. Kahlo This is not long before the time of Marina Abramovic started her work in Yugoslavia around the time of WWII. Her work was always on the cutting edge, pushing the boundaries of art and use the body as an expression of form. Her current work at MOMA is a retrospective, recreating several of her prior works and in her eyes the finishing of a huge amount of works. Her interest right now is legacy because she is “in the third act” of her life. This is quite the opposite spectrum of where Cui Xiuwen is. Xiuwen was born in 1970 in Haerbin, China. In her work she portrays a young, Chinese girls and the social expectations of women of the time. Some of her recent work portrays the issues of the female at a time of motherhood and related issues such as pregnancy and maternity. The mediums with which each works is different, although all have been painters at some point in their art career. Kahlo’s work has always been painting and is best described as surrealistic although Kahlo herself argues that she says, “ I do not paint dreams…I paint my reality.” Both Abramovic and Xiuwen had begun painting and had epiphanies to cause them to feel like the medium wasn’t able to convey their work any longer. Abramovic has worked in several mediums such as interventions, sound, video, and performances. Her work often tests the limits of the body and elicits cultural critiques and these are often of a feminist kind. Xiuwen addresses emotions of anxiety, concerns, vulnerability, ambition, and compassion for women in her work. This is done through photography and video. For Xiuwen painting wasn’t able to present time lapse and switch of space nor able to have the narration her current work does. Each woman deals with a struggle and deals with it a little differently. For Kahlo it was that of boredom and physical constraints when bedfast. Her work however has a positive outlook on life, which made her work become both a cultural and historical icon. Abramovic has strong feministic influences and is a reaction against the cultural restrictions on the females of the time, pushing boundaries, and having resolute emotion. Xiuwen follows some in Abramovic’s steps but just highlights the struggle and not screaming for attention. Yet the overall mood created by Xiuwen is cooler and one of stress and despair. Kahlo produced work about herself, Abramovic the female artist, and Xiuwen’s work is about every woman in China.

Coffee Cup

Inherited Traits discussion

We are taught from an early age that art is the result of the creation process and a product that an artist creates. Traditionally this art followed a cannon where one could gauge the success of the piece by following set expectations. Today the definition of art has expanded through different art movements and new technology available. Conceptual art has lead greatly to the push for the thought process behind the work to be just as important if not more important than the product. To me art is a combination of these two schools of thought. While there should be some skeletal framework of artistic elements at play the thoughts behind the resulting piece should be taken in great consideration. Genealogy of the Supermarket echos this balance of what art was and what art has become. Most importantly the definitive mark of today's art is to create emotion. It could be anger, regret, loneliness,uneasiness, fear, pride, or happiness. What part of the process is considered art today, seen in the exhibits, is a combination of what we are shown with what we are told about the piece. There are those pieces that one could argue that in their sheer creation becomes the art with elaborate setups such as Transplant or Trace by Heidi Kumao. The sheer manipulation of the projection onto a tag within a bell jar or a blank book placed in front of the screen. Another trend in art is that the piece is not necessarily entirely constructed by the artist. In Nina Katchadourian's The Nitegown pictures she uses photographs that had been taken of her mother and combines them with photos that she had taken. In the talk we discussed the commonality of the artist not printing their own work so one could argue that it is the more the creation of the idea and setup that encompasses the art rather than the piece that hangs on the wall. In her piece Accent Elimination the viewing experience of the piece became just as much a part of the artwork with Katchadourian giving specifications of the pedestals, size, and types of TVs for the art to be displayed on. The art of today has grown into something that is a result of many things that the artist controls although not all of them the artist may physically create.

Project #1

Project 1

A snow storm is a magical time if you are lucky enough to not need to be across town. With each major snowfall it is like a vacuum, all of the sounds of the hustle and bustle have stopped and you are left in a dream like state where you are frozen, transfixed at a particular point in time.

Digital Art Introduction

Digital Art begins by distinguishing between art that uses digital technologies as a tool to create art and those that use digital technologies as their own medium.

I found interesting the link of conceptual artists as Duchamp to the digital art

The shaping of digital arts by science and technology-no surprise there

Good to understand right away the issues being faced in digital technology today:
The inability to store or difficulty to store these works of art reminds me of many conceptual pieces

Those works intended for the Internet pose problems in which while one can display their work outside of the gallery and the limited access to Internet inside the gallery

The fact that those Internet works can't be easily placed into a context

Expanded Internet access doesn't eliminate the fact that Internet art usually requires a relatively private engagement over a longer period of time-Lounge area as possible solution but concerns are "ghettoization" and the removal of the piece from contextual pieces

The value and sale of digital installations

Responsibility of maintaining the work, often thought of as ephemeral and unstable-upgrade of software and hardware

Benefit of piece being on view all of the time vs only available by rotation

Reaction to Students comments on 4 artists

Most of the comments of my classmates seemed plausible and in line with what i had gotten out of viewing their work. There are a few exceptions such as Joey who looked at Jeff Wall's work, saying that it depicted that landscapes that were boring. I myself had problems getting to understand his work until I read some of his writings. Wall's work is something someone can not just take for face value. They must look closely at it and have a little back story to understand it fully.

Teun Hocks was an artist whose work seems to be appealing to everyone, some calling it a dreamlike state and others commenting on it's comedic elements. While one didn't have to read writings by Teun Hocks to understand him there were those artist who you would have to understand more about them such as Cindy Sherman. Katie brought up a good point about her work being about a type of woman instead of a specific woman and Susan spoke of the familiarity to her work. This is in large part because of the context in which these photos represented the woman. From my understanding her work is about the woman's place in the world and uses what is supposed to be the male gaze. Elle thought that there was a sense of tension and an awareness to Sherman's work but I disagree. This awareness is not of being photographed but rather of viewing by a male not far from sight. This is a distinct difference between Sherman and Crewdson's work.