crit # 1

Project 1

 I experimented with materials that invoke  something living and breathing, trying to acheive something that looks like flesh and bone.

materials: wood, ribbon, borax, detergent, string, water, glue

this piece is 3ft x 2ft

Artist Genealogy Presentation

      Louise Nevelson 

               (September 23, 1899-April 17, 1988)

Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire or present-day Ukraine, Nevelson migrated with her family to America in the early 20th century. There she learned English at school since she only spoke Yiddish at the time. In the 1930s she began taking art classes at the Art Students League of New York, by 1941 she had her first solo exhibition. Nevelson became a student of Hans Hofmann and Chaim Gross, she usually experimented with found objects, paintings and printing before working with sculpture. She studied under Hofmann and Cubism in Munich, Germany and met him when he was a guest instructor at the Arts Students League. Louise Nevelson became known for working with wood and creating monochromatic, puzzle-like wall pieces. The figures were either wooden wall pieces or outdoor sculptures painted black or white. Even though she was considered a "starving artist" she was able to illustrate her freedom of expression and passion threw her art. One of Louise Nevelson's biggest accomplishments was that she was showcased in a international art scene called the 31st Venice Biennale. Today much of her work is seen in museums and other major corporations, and she still remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture world.  

Hans Hofmann 

         (March 21, 1880- February 17, 1966) 

 

A German-born American abstract expressionist painter that was born in the Kingdom of Bavaria in Germany. At the young age of six he moved to Munich with his family due to his father taking a job with the government. After the death of his father Hofmann became interested in the creative studies. His work seems to be influenced by Henri Matisse, showing a somewhat pictorial structure with spatial illusion and interesting color relationships. He started to work abstractly in the 1940s because he believed abstract art was a way to get to the important reality. Hans Hofmann famously stated " the ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak ". He founded many schools in both Germany and the United States where he was an artist and a art teacher. In Munich he founded an art school that had many future artist attending such as Louise Nevelson. In 1932 he immigrated to the United States, where he stayed until his death in 1966.

Lee Bontecou 

(January 15, 1931-present) 

            

A 85 year old American sculptor, printmaker, and pioneer figure in the New York art world. Born in Providence, Rhode Island she attended Bradford Junior College in Haverhill, Massachusetts and then later attended the Art Students League of New York (like Louise Nevelson) from 1952 to 1955. Bontecou's work is deeply influenced and affected by World War II and possibly inspired by Louise Nevelson. Since both her parents joined the war effort, Lee spent most of her summers with her grandmother in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where she developed a love for the natural world. Best known for sculptures with challenging artistic conventions with both materials and presentations by hanging on the wall. She keeps a recognizable style and received broad recognition in the 1960s. Rich organic shapes with energy shapes her drawings, prints, and sculptures. Using found materials and welded steel frames with a recycled canvas and industrial materials and other found objects. Bontecou's work has been displayed and collected by many museum corporations in both Europe and the United States.  

Sweeny- Crit #3

Artist statement and link to new Personal Site, Catherine camargo

http://cargocollective.com/catcamargo

(Artist statement is on the opening page of my personal site.) 

Rodriguez- Artist presentation

Michael johansson
Swedish artists

• Lived in a small town called Trollhätan
• At a young age he had an interest in drawing but the expectations of what qualified as good art constricted him -realistic picture perfect drawings
• He takes real life objects (found objects) and places them in a box style compartmentalizations fashion that strips the object of its use- produces and entirely different context of the object
• His artwork now relies on the real tangible ob jets that embody his prior desire for realism in a backwards way
• He attended many conservatories for art but it wasn't until he went to Malmö Art academy in Sweden when he started to find his voice in the art world
• He stated creating pieces from household objects to communicate humans relationships with to those objects and how they function
• Johansson says - " the only thing I regret about my education is not taking more risks"
• He utilized strange compositions so the view becomes more important than the viewer since the viewers are the ones that carry the associations with the objects on display
• He's open to private interpretation of his work
• His work can be an embodiment of vivid memories from his childhood piecing together model cars and trains
• His artwork comments on factorization with the repetitive objects that allow the object to be interpreted differently

Engine Bought Separately - Hugin

Packa Pappas kappsäck (Pack Daddy's Suitcases)

Cake Lift, 2009

Mike Kelley
Born: October 27, 1954
Died: January 31, 2012

• went to the university of Michigan 
•      He developed sculpture, installation, and performance pieces
• His work involves found object, textile banners, drawings, assemblage, collage, performance, sculpture and video.
• also went to CAL Arts Institute
•      He developed a series of projects in which he explored poetic themes
• His work uses a variety of media
• He works with: crotchet blankets, rag dolls, thrift finds, etc
• Through the use of material, he alludes the viewer to their childhood through familiarity
• Variety of work

Early life-

• His parents were matriarchal
• His mom was a cook
• At a young age he was involved in the music scene which led to work about nostalgia by finding a connection between art and music in a lot of his early work
• In his artwork the legitimacy of the norm in culture comes into question
• His work is very playful and childlike- alluding to the idea of memory by using familiar objects many  can relate to

  

Marcel Duchamp

• Considered the father of sculpture and had a great impact on the art world as we know it
• Duchamp wanted to put art back in the service of the mind
• He also worked with musical ideas in his artwork- he used music in his performance pieces
•  use of the ready made
• incorporated found objects or something seen as trash and added a new context to the object
• did'nt want art to just be seen as beautiful 

Crit #2 -Ryan

Super-late documentation for Crit #2

Crit #3 -Ryan