thank you

So much. Over the last week or so I have been so happily surprised by the outstanding response that I have received -- calls and emails came in from all over offering to send me supplies. I've gotten boxes and books and notes beyond my wildest expectations.

You all warm my heart. Thank you for your glitter scales, your caps, your too-full mittens. I am inspired and hopeful knowing that my twenty-three babies just gained an entire network of support through me. I couldn't do this without all of you!

chaos is art

Lee Krasner 1965 Night Creatures

12 MORE DAYS

change is art

Here's to restoring faith!

an intersection of my interests

Lucian Freud 1958-9 Woman Smiling

Lucian Freud is the grandson of Sigmund. The painting above represents the shift from his early practice of using thin paint to his later thick-paint technique. 

 

Fun fact: he's rumored to have somewhere around 40 children.

Only 24 more days...

el is here!

true or false?

Michael Singer 1989-92 Untilted

One weakness of the present generation of curators is their subservience to artists. Because the artist made the work, he is not necessarily the sole judge of how it is best seen, or even what it means. Production and consumption (interpretation) are different acts.

Lawrence Alloway | "The Great Curatorial Dim-Out"

a work in progress

When I Last Wrote to You About Africa | the Davis. | planned Spring 2011

For my museum issues class we will be helping with an exhibition planned for this spring by the African artist El Anatsui (b. 1944, Ghana). He employs found objects, often trash, and puts them together to create something far greater than the individual parts. He focuses on the things that connect us together as human beings, migration, communication, and consumption.

Right now, we are engaged in discussions about the role of the museum and how the definition of a temporary exhibition affects the execution of this particular show. We are very much in the information-gathering stage, just starting to choose groups. I am hoping to work on the installation design and budgets.

calculated risks

the Davis. | September 15 - December 12, 2010
A show of new art work from the studio faculty at Wellesley, curated by Elizabeth Wycoff. The design for the promotional material (pictured above) is about the hiding and displaying objects. There was no overarching theme for the show, mostly because it was all new work, but the title suggests the feeling of vulnerability that the faculty felt exposing their work to the community. I was especially excited to see my former photo professor Christine Rogers' work, especially because it was never something we talked about much in class. Her photos are accompanied by a video and the entire presentation is overwhelming, uneasy, comical, and critical. Before the show officially opened, my museum issues class had a tour and we were able to focus on things like the space that the artists used, the hanging of the objects, and the diplomacy required to fit 13 artists with differing goals into a shared space.

bauhaus

When I tell family members I am taking a class on the Bauhaus and I get the inevitable, 'huh?' I curse myself for taking a class on something so random and then quickly explain to them that it was a German school of design in the interwar period.


That is a gross oversimplification. The Bauhaus was officially an architectural school, but it influenced modern art and design so greatly that it is not easily classified.

After World War I, Germany was searching for an identity in the facing of rising economic crisis and political upheaval. Europe was grappling with many of the same issues, and people felt that industrialization and new technology were partly to blame for the devastation of WWI. A movement had begun before the war emphasizing the return of the handicraft to return the integrity of the object.

In this climate, and with many other international influences, Walter Gropius started the Bauhaus in Weimer.

This woodcut was designed by Lyonel Feininger and exemplified the unity of art and the handicraft.

The curriculum included an introductory course where students were encouraged to learn about the essence of material. After this course they would begin in a workshop which was conducted by a master of form and a master of art. The idea was that until there were people trained in both art and craft, there would need to be teachers for both.

Over time, the Bauhaus, a state-sponsored school, faced political pressure from the growing German right and shifted its focus to technology in order to bring in some revenue. The objects created were from everyday materials.



A new logo was adapted to represent the unity of art and technology.


The Wassily chair created by Marcel Breuer became an iconic figure from the Bauhaus. It was originally created from bent metal from a bicycle with the help of a plumber.


The idea was that it would be an affordable, ergonomic chair for the masses. Now, not so much. But we are surrounded by bent metal furniture, just look around.

I don't know if anything like it could ever exist again without becoming commercial, but the idealist in me has hope. The teachers changed the way that art is taught so that students were engaged with the materials rather than forced into a hierarchy - something that we now take for granted.

Even this long rant is an oversimplification. If you want to find out more check out the MoMA exhibit. I had a chance to visit earlier in the semester, and it is a very well designed exhibition. Herbert Bayer would be proud.

Finally, keep your eyes open for a Christmas Bauhaus dyi object. I've just got to get through this thing called finals.

cell tango

An exhibit called Cell Tango is currently on view at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley. From artists George Legrady and Angus Forbes, it is a computer program running in real time that takes photos submitted by email (to submit send the photo as an attachment with related tags in the title of the email to pix@celltango.org) from anywhere in the world and pairs them with other photos from the internet with similar tags. They appear in webs and clusters based on the key words.


George Legrady spoke about the project at the opening earlier in the semester. He talked about how he believed it was art because he had created the program that was executing his idea. He also brought up the point that the project is open to the whole world, but generally only people who are involved in the community in some way are interested in submitting their photos. Along those lines, there is no editing or censorship involved - pictures go up within about 2 minutes - and so far 'they've been lucky.'

As I sat there I saw many different clusters of photos rotate through the screen, but I found myself thinking how much more interesting the work would be if there were more photos. Then again it is such a small community that I was directly engaged with many of the images that appeared.

Although technically they are supposed to be photos taken from a cell phone, I decided to submit a couple of my own from last year:

tags: friends, party, high school throwback

tags: holidays, trees, friendship

The implications of this work are very important as our society leans more toward technology. At what point to we draw the line between technology and art? Is designing a computer program enough?

It is also a social experiment - after the opening talk I spoke with one of my professors about how we both had the urge to whip out cameras right there and take a picture of the artist talking about the work to submit to the project. It supports the idea of common associations and the shared human experience. And I love that it is always in flux.