A Penny for your Thoughts

I had a lot of fun with this project and really got into it. Tuesday was a little hard, not a lot of technical difficulties, but I was on a twelve foot latter for six and a half hours tying knots. :/ It was a good learning experience to see what it is really like installing something relatively difficult by myslef, and also a good lesson on being prepared. I brought everything I needed, except sunscreen! The seemingly simplest little thing like bringing sunscreen when you are going to be putting work up in the sun for hours and hours. I had to run to the bookstore and get some when I realized I was getting a little more than tan :P All in all, a great time. I also really enjoyed walking around and seeing everyone elses projects. It seems like mostly everyone stepped out of the box and really did something new for them, and I think we should all be proud. I'll be posting my review of someones work ( I think Kathleen's ) at a later date. I got some great pictures for her piece :)

Summaries- Public Art as Text

Four Stages of Public Art

This essay explains the four stages of public art according to Roy Bhaskar’s formulation of a four-stage dialectic, which is the practice of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments. The stages are aligned with historical stages, and trace the transformations in the possibilities for public art. It talks about the different possibilities of public art, and how all types of public art in different locations encourage viewers to react and engage in different ways.

The first stage is non-unity, or of something “not being the same” as it was. This is how Bhaskar begins any argument that has to do with transformations. In the case of public art, the first stage is putting some art in some public space. It is the change that makes the non-unity of the art that is not the same as the art of the past.

The second stage is negation. Because the first stage did not include a connection between the making of art and the reception of that art by the public, this stage is the one where “the relationship between subject and object becoming visible.” This is the realization that the form of public art is changing the reaction of the audience to something other than it would have been without the art. Artists realize that the work is not detached from the public and therefore also change their art making process depending on how they think or want the public to view and understand it.

The third stance is totality, or the reciprocal relationship between the two stages. In public art this means that there is a conversation between the meaning of the artist and the meanings of the viewers.

The last stage is the practice of transformation, or the self transformation. Which in turns of public art means that it continues to transform the possibilities of what public art might be. So, this kind of art is difficult to judge because it is always transforming. Simply the act of attempting to define it is helping to change it more.

Protect us From What we Know

This article is about Jenny Holzer’s most recent work, in which she has used declassified government documents, that we made available through the Freedom of Information Act. as the source for her text based artwork. The work is done on silk-screens, which is a new and different medium of work for her. She tries to stick to using black and which because it gives her work the official feel of the documents, but in a larger than life bold manner. Holzer sees the documents as physical objects with specific visual qualities, and wants to stay as true to that as possible. The most significant visual aspect is the government censorship of the material before it is released, abstracting her work. She blacks out names and identifications, as well as some large sections. Her most notable screen is a large black and white print of the Phoenic memo, which was a warning to New York about a possible coordinated effort by Bin Laden to send students to the US to attend civil aviation universities and colleges. Her work is unique because it allows viewers to piece together the missing information and interpret the documents on their own

Albrecht Durer

On Wednesday I got to go see an exhibition of Albrecht Durer’s etchings and woodcuts in the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Not only is his work fascinating and inspiring to look at, but the exhibition was very relevant to the work I have been doing in my drawing class, with figure drawings, as well as my history class that has recently covered renaissance art. The vast detail that he was capable of achieving with etching is incredible to see in person, and also the way he purposely exaggerated certain parts of the body makes me think about figure drawing differently. I made a sketch while in the museum, and it was interesting to study his technique of hatching and crosshatching to create dimension in the figures. Overall, I would recommend this exhibition to everyone. It’s only four dollars for groups.

This is the drawing I made in the exhibit.
I did my best to imitate his style of figure drawing.

Possible Artists for Opposites Project

I narrowed my options for the “Opposites” project down to three pieces.

I picked Charles Ray’s “Yes”, Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary, or something by Antony Gormley

Thinking about pieces for this project has been very difficult for me. The idea of opposites when assigned to a work of art, I think, is kind of arbitrary. Is the opposite of a two dimensional piece really a three dimensional piece? Or white the opposite of black? Not really. :/

Despite my confusions, I think this project is going to be a fun challenge. I look forward to seeing what we all come up with.

Our Performance

What a hectic couple of days! I thought we would never get that yarn up but the work was SO worth the payoff. In retrospect I am really glad we made a lot of the choices we did. The yarn looked great from across the courtyard and from above. I know we got some attention as well with all of those TV’s. The extension cords and the double projectors were also very effective, especially at night. All the people I talked to who saw us were really impressed. I think we should all be proud.
Yes we had our ups and downs with making choices about times and some stress about making other decisions but I think it was a really good experience. I learned a lot about what kind of work goes into a public art performance and I think we all learned a lot about each other. I really look forward to spending the rest of the semester with you guys.


The Yarn!!!


From Above

My Personal Space

My personal space on campus is the MLK fountain in front of the Marshall Center. The first time I sat there was before I was even a student at USF. I was here for a tour of the campus with my dad during my senior year of high school and in the middle of the tour I had an emotional breakdown. We were sitting on the benches near the fountain and I started to cry. I was overwhelmed about going to college and scared to leave my family and friends. I couldn’t picture myself here at USF. This is kind of a sad memory, but it has made that place very special to me as I have grown to live and love my years at USF. My freshman year I did one of my first photography projects there and first realized my love for art. I also spent time there with my current boyfriend, Adam, over the summer on one of our first dates. We jumped in the fountain for a swim and then laid out in the sun to dry. I still always remember that day with my dad, and how sad I was and scared. If only I had known how rich my life would become at USF.

So, to advertise our performance, I first thought it would be a good idea to take my box head to my personal space and use it (and myself) as the advertisement. However, I had second thoughts about giving our idea away that easily and decided to hand out flyers myself instead. Most people seemed friendly and interested, but of course there are always those few who turn them down.

Leslie Shows' Artist Lecture

At first glance Leslie’s work looks like simple landscape compositions, but they are made up of intricate collages with great detail. The pieces are relatively large in scale, but in order to get a full appreciation of the work they have to be viewed up close. Even the digital close up images she had to show were nothing compared to what I am sure the work looks like in person. I thought it was particularly interesting that she played with using multiple representation of the same thing in a single piece. For example, in one piece she used graph paper to represent salt crystals, and also used real salt water painted on the piece that started to crystallize. She also played with text in some of her pieces, which has always been a debate for me in my own work. In one piece she had segments of dust that were blowing through the air and one of the scraps she used actually had the word “dust” on it. Sometimes I am drawn to the idea of words in a piece but I think at times using legible text can make a piece less interesting. However, for Leslie, her work already has such depth from the elaborately detailed collages that the text adds another layer of interest and is not immediately noticeable. Overall, hearing Leslie talk about her work was an inspiring experience. She is such a young artist and has found a way, through her somewhat surreal subject matter and her mixed media method, to bring viewers into her own imaginary world.