tucker.

Afterall: I

2008-10-28T15:26:00.001-07:00

One of the first things I noticed when I began to traipse through Afterall, I had this almost cultural shock. This journal doesn’t feel like most American art journals I’ve read. The attitudes towards America and the layout all come from this place that feels like it’s outside the American psyche. This is fitting as I went on to read that it is based in Los Angeles (Hardly part of the Middle American Mindset) and London. This first bit of a shock I got is what spurred me to read this journal, as it is very interesting to step out of your paradigms and see other viewpoints.

The fact that this is published with such a different viewpoint directly affected the exhibit that was discussed in the article “‘Cold Cuts: John Knight', Espai d’art contemporani de Castelló”, discussing a large scale installation in an art gallery in Spain by the Californian conceptualist, John Knight. It features pentagons with pictures of both food from various countries coupled with pictures of political events involving US foreign intervention tied to the food, complete with notes explaining the significance of each gathering of pentagons. The shape was chosen by John Knight, obviously to represent the United States Pentagon, and its many levels that affect our foreign policy, all of which clearly detailed in these large vinyl applications that cover the walls and the floor.

The second article I looked into overwhelmed me almost instantly, I feel as if there is a gathering, a network of avant-garde filmmakers that I am not familiar with, but seem as much of a household name to the readers of this journal, as Spielberg, Coppola, and Scorsese might be to traditionalist artists. This article was entitled, “Artists at Work: Haris Epaminonda”, which despite my lack of background information, managed to teach me quite a bit about the sort of work that she creates. Much like Bruce Conner’s work, Epaminonda works primarily with found footage that she works into a 3 channel short film installation that was most recently shown in Berlin. She manipulates the footage, magnifying it, or skewing the colours to fit the overall scheme that she wishes to pursue. Another detail I found interesting was that she added her own bit of ambience to the installation by contributing African artwork that she mounted up that seemed to flow with the overall style of the museum and connected it to her own works so that one could potentially think the exhibit had always been there. She is currently working with footage that she shot on a Super 8 camera of animals that she wants to project on an octagonal object.

Afterall seems to focus more or less on the art and its meaning, more so than its circulation. It also gives fantastic insights into the artists’ lives and their struggles. That allows me, as a voyeur to put a bit more thought into the meaning behind the multimedia installation. I definitely will continue following this journal as new articles crop up.

Act/React

2008-10-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

Duchamp, the man whose quote spurred the last wave of papers and reports, returns to us again in Fifield’s comments about the Act/React exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum, this time with another quote, “I would like to see it make people despise painting until something else will make photography unbearable.”(6. Fifield.) To reply to his own retort, I think that if exhibits that highlight this idea of an interactive performance art grow in popularity, his wish will be fulfilled. All art in one way or more is interactive, but the all of the artists involved took it to that next level and made it so that the voyeur is completely immersed with all of the senses, kinesthetically as well.

The first exhibit I would like to discuss would be “To Touch”, by Janet Cardiff, which was the piece that really stressed the importance of the contact between the artist and the viewer. What really stood out from this was the lack of visual-centric mood and feel that the others had. This was a very simple exhibit at rest, just a scarred and beaten table in a dark room with speakers that don’t seem to exist until you trigger the table. When you have a group of five just touching the table and feeling its every cut and scrape, the room’s simplicity vanishes and buries you under an avalanche of sound. Where the other exhibits had you watch your reactions, this one removed that and simply proves the overwhelming ability of sound waves. It makes a portrait photograph seem almost mundane.

The second exhibit I would like to discuss, in junction with a quote and another, non highlighted portion of the series is the Scott Snibbe’s “Deep Walls”. This artwork reminded me very much of a simplistic version of a video game for the Playstation console that uses a camera to place the “player” into whatever compatible game is available. For instance one could be fighting off miniature ninja’s with the recorded images and movements you made, on screen and having an effect on the game. It had a similar feel to the “Text Rain” artwork (Fifield. 30.) This also takes me back to Roger Ebert’s quote in the Fifield reading, “I…consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature.” Saying that, I feel is a slight to the art work shown at Act/React, who have very much in common with motion sensitive video games. Finally, the piece that wasn’t highlighted yet I thought still pertained to “Deep Walls” and the parts in the reading indicated, was “Wooden Mirror”, as that showed the voyeur in its work, making every time the piece was showed different, although incapable of getting the finer details that “Deep Walls” or the Sony Eye Cam could get, it was still an interesting time.

Overall, Act/React is very effective. While it isn’t the norm for exhibits yet, I would have no complaints if it became so. It gave me that sort of childlike joy that all of us experienced at least once when we were younger and had to go on a field trip to visit a museum of some sort. This is an experience anyone would love to experience and if this type of performance art really takes hold, there is some real hope to prove Duchamp's quote.

2008-09-30T22:29:00.000-07:00

The art journals I will pursue is the online AFTERALL.

Field Report I

2008-09-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

The more the idea of “second hand cinema” is discussed, the more I discover its natural connection to photography. For my field report, I visited a photography exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Upon going out there, I was informed that the only photography exhibit on display currently was a series called Unmasked and Anonymous by Shimon and Lindemann. While I wasn’t sure whether the gallery would pertain to the material covered in class, but much to my surprise and pleasure, it very much did, and I would highly recommend the exhibit to anyone curious.
The exhibit was a collection of portraits that the artist restored from the start of the profession of photography, back when they were referred to as Daguerreotypes. These were juxtaposed with portraits of a more modern flair. One example of this was a collection of semi-erotic displays of both current era women, and older, sepia tone photographs of women. (Not a whole lot has changed, aside from colour.) This contributed to a very anachronistic feel to the whole exhibit, but it made it that much more interesting. The more intriguing part of the exhibition was a multimedia installation that featured on one side of the room a projection of Shimon and Lindemann appearing to set up an antiquated photography system, and on side, a television playing footage of a sort of lower-class American family sitting at a campfire in their backyard. This gave the illusion that the projection was actively shooting this family’s campfire, and gave for a very cool effect.
After walking around the exhibit I began to consider what relation this could have with the films and topics we had gone over. The answer lies in the untold stories that these pictures have given us. Much like Baghdad in No Particular Order gave us short clips and slight insights into the lives of people, but yet it didn’t complete the story for us. These photographs work in a very similar manner. There was one in particular that struck me of two women leaning against the wall. The picture was clearly taken in the late 60’s or early 70’s and they had this look of desperation on their face. What was their story? There was not one posted, and truth be told I may never know what plagued them, but that is what second-hand cinema is all about. They may have been “working women”, they may have been just destitute, perhaps both. But the point made is that the audience has to fill in the blanks where the artist left off. Another picture that made me feel a little strange was one of two girls in front of a diner. The strange part of the picture was that I had actually been to that diner. It is in Manitowoc, and it is actually quite well known. Just to think that I stood in the same spot those girls did about fifty years ago with little change is sort of irregular. It made me almost a part of the artwork that was done. Another photo that was really interesting was a mug-shot of a young man, but the writing was near illegible and there was nothing on the mug shot indicating as to what he did to put him in that predicament. This really sealed the exhibit for me as a definite display of audience imagination when presented with a rough sketch of someone’s life.
Overall, the exhibit was very interesting despite it wasn’t the one listed to be at the museum. I found it very enlightening, as to how much photography has in common with experimental filmmaking, and as we discussed secondhand cinema. Though Baghdad in No Particular Order gave us a little more of an insight into their lives by showing their movements, voices and sometimes their pop-star obsessions, I think that this sort of photography can easily give the same sort of omniscience into the lives of others.