ODD MAN OUT!

The trip to the museum exhilerating, like a burst of fresh or eating a york pepperment. It was great to see all this beautiful art in one building, it was the greatest gift a man can ever get. I took this picture of Tomaselli bird and it conveyed a message of nature in its most pure form. To see a creature with such grace of a bird pirched on a twig while about to consume a worm was good to see and showed me not to take life for granted but to respect all lifeforms that dwell on planet earth

-Brandon Walters

Tang Museum

Today we took a trip to the Tang Museum in Saratoga. On our way there I felt as if i was already looking at art, Saratoga is filled with museums, and has a ton of brightly painted horses throughout its streets. Almost every where you looked there was a different design painted on the horse. While at the museum we saw a ton of different exhibits such as the roller coaster bed, which was crazy, when I touched it the women at the museum yelled at me. The other exhibit I saw was by Fred Tomaselli which included flowers, birds, people and many other objects, with a different arrangement or depiction of each. Many of his works are collages that are put together on multiple layers. In the picture above we are looking at a book that includes most of Tomaselli's artwork and has a description of each explaining a little about each piece.

Tang Teaching Museum Trip

Our visit to the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore was a very interesting experience. When we first walked in, we were greeted by the staff at the museum and they gave us brochures on Fred Tomaselli's artwork. We then walked through the galleries and saw his artwork firsthand. It was so intricate and there was so much detail within each painting. An untitled piece that Tomaselli had created in 1999 of leaves or something of that nature, really caught my eye because of the colors alone. Then when I looked even closer I realized that the painting was in layers, each layer strategically placed ontop of another, creating an image that almost popped out at the onlooker. His other paintings were interesting too because they were images created out of other images. For example, his painting that I placed in this blog is of a human body, and the body is created with smaller colored body parts to bring a whole other dimension into the painting. I thought that the Tang Teaching Museum was a great place to experience great contemporary artwork.

-Steph

Tang Teaching Museum Pictures

Vik Muniz

Vik Muniz is an artist that has truly created his own art form. Muniz is someone who is not afraid to try multiple unconventional mediums to create works of art. He is a New York City artist, however he is originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Some of his works that we looked at in class were created with sugar. I think that the sugar pieces were some of the most creative art pieces that I have ever seen. Each portrait tells a story of each specific child that he portrays. Vik Muniz is talented and extremely creative. He knows how to create art in ways that other artists have never dreamed of. He takes thinkgs like chocolate, sugar, dust, thread, garbage, and other otherwise non-interesting items, and makes them interesting.

- Steph

Personal Collections

In class today we spoke about any collections we may have or may have had as a child. I never have had to many collections but looking back on it I had collected pogs, I forgot what there purpose was but I had a ton of them and would love to show them off with my friends. Another thing I had collected was baseball cards, when I was younger my grandfather gave me a bunch of older baseball cards and ever since then I would always collect them. Watching my collection grow was always a lot of fun and being able to see the new cards i had added to the collection was great. I do not have many collections today, I am a big fan of movies and purchase them often so that may be the only collection I currently have going for me.

20x200

This painting first caught my eye because of the bright colors that are involved and because i have not seen to many red owls in my lifetime. Like myself the artist was born in New York and i decided to use her picture for my $20 purchase. i don't have a specific reason for using this piece of work other then the colors involved drew me to it. I think it is a very interesting work and would be appealing to all people because of the originality of it. I have actually been contemplating buying this piece for my room just to brighten it up a little bit, so far i have not bought it but they may change.

Song Dong "Waste not"

Currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is the installation "Waste Not" by the Beijing-based artist Song Dong. A collaboration conceived of with his mother, the installation consists of the complete contents of her home. All of these items were collected for over fifty years, including the wooden frame of her house. Song's mother, typical of the generation that lived through the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, abided by the Chinese concept of wu jin qi yong, or "waste not." The installation, ranging from bottles and pots to blankets, egg containers, books, shoes, and styrofoam, forms a cityscape built out of the contents and baggage of the past. What i found so interesting about this piece is that it took 5o years to produce. Some artwork is done in a few hours or days and it is a masterpiece, but this was slowly put together over an enormous period of time. Some works are quickly put together but as you can tell from the period it started and was finished this one was slowly built one addition after another, which took enormous patience.

The Mona Lisa Curse is a Grierson award-winning polemic documentary by art critic Robert Hughes that examines how the world’s most famous painting came to change the art world. This documentary made me think about the relationship between money and art and what i had thought about this. It seems many people and artists consider art a business and it is very difficult to deny that there is a definite connection between the freedom to make art and the need to make money. This documentary seemed to show that being interested in art and biding on it was more a popularity contest rather than a desire to own artwork. I think throughout this we are shown the ugly and populist art-business by Robert Hughes. I was very interested in the documentary as it went on, at first I thought it was to long but then i began to find myself very interested in it and began to be disappointed if the class ended before the documentary was over. Robert Hughes is almost sarcastic at certain points throughout this, he often asks people questions he already knows the answers to just so he can hear what they think and how far off there understanding may be.

Andy Warhol

Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 and passed away February 22, 1987, he was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. He has his own museum known as "The Warhol" located in Pittsburgh, PA and also has the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, it was established in 1987 and its mission is to advance visual arts, by helping artists out with grants or whatever they may need. The Campbell's soup painting by Warhol is one of my favorite paintings because of its simplicity, I have seen this painting before and it always intrigues me. The painting is so simple and literally is a replica of a regular can of soup. It is funny how some people spend years looking for inspiration and Warhol simply copied a can of soup.

Tate

After hearing about the Tate Museum so many times in class I was very curious as to what it is and what type of art is included throughout this gallery so I researched it and began to learn about the museum. The gallery was founded in 1897, as the National Gallery of British Art. When its role was changed to include the national collection of Modern Art as well as the national collection of British art, it was renamed the Tate Gallery after Henry tate, the foundations for the collection. The Tate Gallery was housed in the current building occupied by Tate Britain which is situated in Millbank, London. In 2000, the Tate Gallery transformed itself into the current-day Tate, which consists of a federation of four museums: Tate Britain which displays the collection of British art from 1500 to the present day; Tate Modern which is also in London, houses the Tate's collection of British and International Modern and Contemporary Art from 1900 to the present day. Tate Liverpool, in Liverpool has the same purpose as Tate Modern but on a smaller scale, and Tate St Ives displays Modern and Contemporary Art by artists who have connections with the area. The Tate modern is made up of 5 levels. Level 1 and 2 are used to display large specially-commissioned works by contemporary artists and level 2 is a smaller gallery located on the north side of the building which houses exhibitions of cutting edge contemporary art. Its exhibitions normally run for 2 – 3 months. Levels 3, 4 and 5 have Material Gestures, poetry and dream, and level 5 had energy and process, while level 4 is broken into two large exhibition areas. This is used to stage the major temporary exhibitions for which an entry fee is charged.

Damien Hirst

The piece of artwork from Hirst that was really appealing to me is "for the love of god", which is a diamond covered platinum skull. this work is covered with 8,601 real diamonds and has been valued as the most expensive contemporary work of art. Hirst spent about $20 million USD to create the diamond covered work and put a price tag of $100 million USD on it. this was very intriguing when I had heard how much money he invested into it and how much the price tag on it was. It is amazing that such a large amount of money would be spent in order to make one piece of artwork. In August 2007, it was widely reported that Damien Hirst sold "For the Love of God" to an investment group for $100 million USD or about 50 million pounds. Hirst is said to own a percentage of the diamond skull, but it was not reported how much he still owns. The buyers will be expected to exhibit the work for the next two to three years at museums around the world. The BBC reported that the investors planned to resell the work at a later date.This would make "For the Love of God" the most expensive work of art ever to sell by a living artist.

Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons is a very interesting artist his work is very prominent and often catches the eye with ease. One of the main reasons i am fond of this piece is the ability it has to look so realistic while still being on such a large scale. As a child everyone has gotten a balloon animal at some point or another and you are always thrilled with it, it is always amazing to watch the artist make them. they so often have fake yet real traits to them which is why they are so interesting. What Koons was able to do in this sculpture is amazing, the ability he has to make this piece truly look like a balloon is remarkable. i think the two aspects that make this piece so special are is the look he is able to give the piece, the texture that it has makes it really seem as if it is an actual balloon. the other aspect of this that is special is the way he is able to have such perfect proportion in the pieces entirety. these two elements truly give this a very realistic feel. the reason i chose this was because the ability it has to draw attention to itself and catch your eye while still being so simplistic

What is Art?

Today for our first class, we were asked the question, what is art?. I do not think i ever gave that question much thought until this class. After thinking about it for a while and looking at pieces of "art" i came to the conclusion that anything can be art. There are many pieces of artwork that I see and I think to myself wow that's amazing how can someone do something like that, then there are other pieces that a see and i think that they are very simple or strange. Either way i have realized that anything can be art, whether it is the Mona Lisa or a simple illustration or sculpture. i think after thinking more about this i have a better understanding for art and can see beyond the surface of a piece and look for its meaning or message the artist is trying to get across. Art comes in all shapes and sizes some very original some easily copied, but either way every piece has its own story and i think that is what makes it art.