In many civilizations, the sun stands for life and/or strength. Why? These ancient symbols seem to have strong connections. Is it true that a symbol can be independent of (man-made) conventions?

What does this image symbolize?

What's art?

Last night it was a little difficult to post this blog for you to see it in class. But here it is. The title question above remains elusive, but I'd like to have your impressions -based on the pieces posted below. One very general definition is that art is anything man made with a social function. So, painting, sculpture, architecture, printmaking, cave paintings, artifacts (even objects that are prized for their utility, rather than for their purely aesthetic qualities) such as ceramics, glassware, basketry, jewelry, metal ware, furniture, textiles, clothing (and other such goods associated with the decorative arts) are generally considered art. Some don't share this broad view. They assume that art is confined exclusively to artifacts with no particular functional value, such as painting or sculpture. Do you agree? Do you care that what you make is art? Does it matter?

Francis Alys' paintings are enigmatic, naive, like puzzles of everyday life. And I think the paradox lies in that he uses a very simple iconography to throw us off.

Philip-Lorca di Corcia's photos employ a calculated idea of baroque thetricality, to elevate everyday occurrences out of the realm of banality.

Ivan Kafka's works can be labeled installations, but more accurately they are confrontations and dialogues with the surrounding environment. Sometimes the process involves creatively filling a space, at other times it is more a matter of asserting a presence or rearranging particular existing elements. In all cases, however, Kafka transforms landscapes in a way that is striking, yet unobtrusive.

Neo Rauch is an important artist working in new tendencies in painting.In the late 1980's he was one of the most promising painters in East Germany, after the fall of Comunism his art changed. He mixes the old Socialist Realism with environments that look acrid, poisoned. Nature is capable of mutating forms, more in tune with science fiction than paradise. I think his works convey a reality that is bleak and hopeful.

Inside/Outside (1977). Senga Nengudi explores aspects of the human body in relation to ritual and spirituality. She uses water-filled vinyl bags, mud and sand, and generally seeks a spatial and weight balance.

Today's continuing redrawing of the boundaries of art in graffiti art, in signage art, and in the various various forms of appropriation of the art of predecessors reflects our continuing exploration of areas of experience in a complex and rapidly changing world. In my view, recent art reflects a series of strong responses to provocative circumstances with themes of hedonism, humor, pathos, sexuality, compassion and concern, and others, which are presented to middle-class and non-middle-class audiences in a variety of traditional and nontraditional settings, from gallery to street corner to ballpark. Part of the puzzle and challenge in interpreting modern visual art is in the making of connections to what's happening in society as well as to prior art and to the intentions and concerns of the artist. --Marilyn Jahn, Art Journal, Vol. 53, 1994.

Chelsea's XL Bar in New York is outfitted with projectors that fill the XL sky with clouds. Throughout the night the walls and tables change colour. All ambiance, all the time.

Kathy Butterfly shows us that one can always be fresh with a traditional medium. She has a great skill with clay and glazes but packs tremendous sculptural and technical complexity in tiny fiorms with effusive decorative detail.

In his pieces, Maurizio Cattelan combines a tragic vision with a subversive humor. In this piece, obviously, the pope has been hit by a meteorite coming from heaven. You make your own conclusions!

ART 106 / ISSUES IN ART MAKING

SYLLABUS

Instructor: Alfredo Triff, Ph.D.
Email: (Given in class)
Phone: 305. 237.7554
Text: Miami Arts Explosion: The New Times Column, by Alfredo Triff + my handouts (See Bibliography).

Introduction

Art106 is a foundational course. It explores important issues in art appreciation, criticism and the sociology of art. The idea is to learn relevant aspects of art theory while looking at and writing about art.

A human activity with different purposes, we can see art as a cultural expression, as a social activity, an economic by-product, a political tool, etc. The nature of today’s art-world is so complex that one cannot properly grasp everything exclusively from a single point of view.We’ll look at the art market (i.e. dealers, auctions houses), media (public opinion, critics and historians) academia (educational institutions, curricula) and the public in general, to which this art is presumably directed. As a rule, the more one takes into account one’s cultural and socio-economic predicaments, the less his or her art becomes an exclusive personal activity.

Art106 is supposed to be a fun course: Frequently, we will visit shows in museums and/or galleries. In addition, I've programmed a series of class presentations with important artists, gallerists, critics and curators from Miami.

Materials and Policy

1- (a) Website reports (weekly, due by Wednesday 12 noon): It requires you to write a minimum 120-word comment per post (35%)
(b) Take home quizzes (based on reading from my book or handouts or excerpts (10%)
(c) Reports on -at least three- local exhibitions (10%)
(e) Final paper (25%)
(f) Attendance & participation=10%

2- Grades A, B and C stand for outstanding, good and average respectively. D is below average.

3- One non-excused absence is permitted. Each absence thereafter will need a doctor’s note. If not, it may lower the participation grade. Missing a quiz must be justified by a doctor’s note or the equivalent. Please, feel free to contact me if you have a serious problem with, or in the class.

(Tentative) Schedule of Classes

January 18: General outline of ART 106. Issue #1: What is art? Open discussion.

January 25: Issue #2: Symbols in art (The aesthetic recipient, the aesthetic object and aesthetic experience. The role of the imagination: Emotion, response and enjoyment).
Invited guest: Omar Summereyns

February 1: Issue #3: Art & Politics (Propaganda)
Invited guest: Beatriz Monteavaro

Feburary 8: Issue #4: Commercial Art (Advertisement)
Invited guest: Jordan Massengale

February 15: Issue #5: Conceptual art
Invited Guest:

February 22: Issue #6: Art & Sex (Pornography)
Invited Guest:

March 1: Issue #6: Art & The Body (Feminism, Self-destruction, the sacred body, Robots, etc)
Invited Guest:

March 8: Issue#7: Art & Spirituality (The Shaman)
Invited Guest:

March 15: Issue#8: Blasphemy (Piss Christ & Mohammed’s caricatures)
Invited guest:

March 22: Issue#9: Art & Media (Video, photography, film)
Invited guest:

March 29: Issue #10: Art & Culture 1- Folk-art; 2- Artisan culture; 3- Clerical culture; 4- Ecstatic culture; 5- Genius culture; 6- Professional culture; 10- Applied arts culture; 11- Mass-art; 12- Avant-garde; 13- Totalitarian culture.

April 5: Issue #11: Functions of art
Invited Guest:

April 12: Issue #12: The Art Market
Invited Guest:

April 19: Issue #13: Style in Art
Invited Guest:

April 26: Final Papers Due

________________________

Bibliography for my handouts

Design

Paul Klee, Paths of the Study of Nature. John Dewey, Art as Experience, (Minton Balch & Co.: New York, 1934). Walter Gropius, The New Architecture of the Bauhaus (New York: New York Museum of Modern Art, Faber & Faber, 1936). Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art (New York: Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, 1946) J.C. Feldster, Design Fundamentals (New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation, 1950). Lewis Mumford, Art and Techniques (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952). Rudolph Arheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1954). Johannes Itten, Design and Form: The Basic Course at the Bauhaus, rev. ed. (1975; originally published in German, 1963). A Grammar of Color: A Basic Treatise on the Color System by Albert H. Munsell (1969); The influence of photography on painting is examined in Aaron Scharf, Art and Photography (1968, reissued 1974).

Aesthetics

Two good compilations are, Joseph Margolis (ed.), Philosophy Looks at the Arts, 3rd ed. (1987). John Hospers, Introductory Readings in Aesthetics (1969); and Harold Osborne (ed.), Aesthetics (1972), which contains a particularly useful bibliography. More recent collections include Richard Shusterman (ed.), Analytic Aesthetics (1989); and Philip Alperson (ed.), The Philosophy of the Visual Arts (1992). Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism, 2nd ed. (1981), provides a broad, scholarly overview of the subject; while Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects, 2nd ed. (1980, reissued 1992), is more narrow. A comprehensive survey is also attempted in David E. Cooper (ed.), A Companion to Aesthetics (1992). For the definition of aesthetics, the above texts are relevant, as are Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979); Paul Ziff; George Dickie, Aesthetics: An Introduction (1971) and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Works and Worlds of Art (1980).The first approach to the subject as addressed in the article is exemplified in John Casey, The Language of Criticism (1966); the second in Roger Scruton, Art and Imagination (1974, reissued 1982); and the third in Wollheim's book (above). The aesthetic object is dealt with in considerable detail by Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art (1973; originally published in German, 1931); and Mikel Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (1973; originally published in French, 1953). In addition to the works already cited, the following are particularly important discussions of paradoxes: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures & Conversations on Aesthetics, and Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett (1966).

Update

Some interesting articles in the NYT. $68 million sale price for Thomas Eakins's The Gross Clinic. Are you ready for another fair? It's called "a great amalgamation of interests." This is an artist definitely worth checking out. In case I don't post anything else (not necessarily partying, just a bunch of deadlines to meet). Merry Christmas!

More Basel!

More Basel! My introduction article for the Sunpost, plus articles from Omar Sommereyns and Michelle Weinberg.

One more Basel map

Check out this map via Sunpost!

Art Basel Miami Beach

This year's ABMB comes with a ripple effect of 12 other fairs. There’s a lot to see. Here are some of my recommendations... (wait! first, get a map: This is a good one (via Critical Miami): 1- Scope Miami is a solid fair with great galleries from all over the world. Don't miss NADA with some heavy duties. 2- Design Miami 06 (in its second installment) is already one best design fairs in the world (check out Zaha Hadid’s panel. Hadid, my favorite architect, won the Pritzker Prize in 2004). 3- In the middle of everything there’s some some goofy stuff. 4- Love photography? Go to PhotoMiami (there are some Miami galleries represented). 5- Go local, all over the Design District and Wynwood: Ingalls, Snitzer, Bruk, Dorsch, The Moore Space, etc. 6- Artnet has a good take on different events. 7- If you're interested in photo and video (particularly about architecture) CIFO is a good option (their parties are really cool). 8- Other sites with detailed suggestions and links are: The Next Few Hours and Alex in the City. Don't stay home. Go, go!

(post)Installation art

Let’s see (post)installation art as entertainment, interior design, architecture, tableau vivant, hyperreality and interactive theater all at once! Who would’ve imagined that space and observer could become part of the art experience? We crave new experiences. A painting alone is Ok, but it’s not enough for our ephemeral compressed time. Too oppressively flat. Only if one could bring art into a vortex of n dimensions. How about multiplying the observer’s viewpoint so that the observer is observed by him/her? Art for time/space and string theory. There’s always a relationship between void and mass. Art is about producing illusion, whether as a flat rectangle -as in painting- or as sculpture. Ancient pyramids are huge geometric solids (there’s no division between Amun and the Pharaoh). Athens’ Parthenon brings forth the idea of order, symmetry and scale in function of the citizen. Fast-forward 500 years to Rome’s Pantheon; we find a redefinition of the space (private/public) in the stability and permanence of the empire. In Romanesque architecture the inside means worship and domesticity, serfdom, while the outside remains dangerous (thus the fortress). Modern science redefines our relationship with space. With the invention of the elevator, buildings can go up dozens of stories. The car (a little room on wheels) takes our intimate living outside. With quantum mechanics, space becomes non-Euclidean. 20th-century art erases the boundaries between object/subject, inside/outside, private/public with Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau, Duchamp’s ready-mades, the vast canvases of Pollock, Newman and Still, Frank Stella’s shaped canvases (which broke the hegemony of the rectangle), Sol Lewitt’s wall drawings, Carl Andre’s flat sculptures, Smithson’s Earth works, Kaprow’s happenings, Claes Oldenburg’s The Store, and the tableaux of Segal, Kienholz and Tom Wasselmann. Today, buildings look sculptural (Gehry's Guggenheim Museum), while interiors are designed as exteriors (Zaha Hadid)

As the boundaries between urban and suburban become blurred, the city resembles more a landscape (or topography), rather than a volume. Installation art opens the possibility of exploring the limits of corporality and gregariousness.

Sachiko Kodama uses magnetic fluid to combine with dynamic, organic shapes in order to represent human emotion via pulsating liquids.

Let's design chaos and fashion our personal disorders
On Screens
With Cybernetic Tools
From Countercultural Perspectives
With Informational Chemicals (Chaos Drugs)
While DeLighting in CybErotics
As Guerrilla Artists
To Explore De-Animation Alternatives
While Surfing the Waves of Millennium Madness
to glimpse the glorious wild impossibilities and improbabilities of the century to come. Enjoy it ! It's ours to be played with. – Timothy Leery, The Eternal Philosophy of Chaos.

One can see spaces as ad lib, impromptu; suited for a life of diversity. Space -not as static, but- as a mutating force.

According to Robert Bone, The Catacombs are a metaphor for new theories of information processing. New technologies are inclusive rather than exclusionary, expansive rather than reductive, circular rather than linear, ultimately egalitarian and lifeaffirming rather than hierarchical and domineering.

Update

After I realized that we only have one more class to go, I decided to change my tune. Below, find a new focus for this week's issue. It's a sort of mix of different topics we've touched upon in class; from public art, pornography, art economics, pop culture and Feminism, to art as therapy, culture and art & society. Next week is Thanksgiving: Happy turkey to you all!

Carlos de Villasante

How about Carlos' presentation last night?

In 1982 United Artists film studios installed a statue of Rocky Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, at the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the making of Rocky III. In the film, the statue is ceremoniously dedicated in front of a cheering crowd and a humbly bashful Rocky. After Rocky III, Stallone donated the film prop to the city of Philadelphia, assuming that the statue would remain in its trategically significant position, overlooking the grand Benjamin Franklin Parkway. But, after much controversy, the statue was removed to the Spectrum, the sports stadium in South Philadelphia where the fictional Rocky and the real Stallone have their roots. In 1989, United Artists requested permission to reposition the statue for the filming of Rocky V. Having been burned the first time around, when they had to pay to have the statue removed museum authorities negotiated to have the film studio remove the statue immediately after the shooting. Stallone reopened the debate regarding the proper home for the Rocky statue at a press conference that generated much interest in his new film, supposedly the last in the series. Stallone claimed that he had done as much for the museum as Walter Annenberg (who donated $5 million and recently loaned his art collection for exhibition at the museum) and that he had single-handedly done more for Philadelphia than Benjamin Franklin. Museum authorities were once again accused of elitism, and the media eagerly picked up the ball and stirred up the old controversy, casting it in the expected terms of art authorities versus ordinary citizens, elite culture versus popular culture. --Harriet F. Senie, Sally Webster, Critical Issues in Public Art (Westview Press, 1992).

Art prices were relatively stable between the two world wars, but they began to rise in the 1950s. Prices for Pablo Picasso's works were thirty seven times higher in 1969 than in 1951, and prices for Marc Chagall's works rose fiftyfold over that period. The increase in the price of art was especially dramatic after 1983, with prices peaking between 1987 and 1990 and then falling somewhat after 1990. Picasso's Yo Picasso sold at auction in 1989 for $47.9 million, twice the pre-auction estimate and eight times what it sold for in 1981. Jasper Johns' False Start sold in 1960 for $3,150; in 1988, it brought $17.5 million at auction. From 1975 until the late 1 980s, works by the following artists recorded these price increases: Jackson Pollock, 750 percent; Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 490 percent; Claude Monet, 440 percent; Edgar Degas, 350 percent; Camille Pissarro, 220 percent; and Alfred Sisley, 220 percent. Even works by more obscure painters have skyrocketed: from 1975 to 1988, prices for watercolors by English artist Thomas Girtin increased by 310 percent, prices for paintings by Swedish artist Bruno Liljefors rose by 340 percent, and prices for works by Scotland's J. D. Fergusson appreciated by 460 percent.-- John E. Conklin, Art and Crime, (Praeger Publishers, 1994).

Even in a crowd, the visual arts encourage a capacity to work in solitude. The artist’s eye is always seeing, sensing and feeling the atmosphere around at that moment. If the inner peace for such exploration is not present in the person or persons we are working with in our initial contacts, we can at least see such peace of mind as part of our goal in introducing visual arts sessions. In this hectic, fast-paced world, all people can gain from knowing greater inner peace. Such peace comes from self-knowledge and an appreciation of each person’s unique, individual, creative mark which may in turn provide opportunities for increasing self-confidence and self-esteem. The wonderful beauty of the arts, in all forms, is that human emotion is involved in a raw and uncensored manner. Feelings flowing are essential for artistic experience. The professional artist and the inexperienced participant have in common the fact of being at their best as creators of visual imagery by their capacity to tap the unconscious and, as a result, to present in line, colour and form a mark that is individually their own, unable to be produced by any other individual in exactly the same way, ever. -- Bernie Warren, Using the Creative Art in Therapy, (Routledge, 1993).

Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court gave a celebrated response to the question of pornography: "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it." This fairly common remark characterizes the state of confusion that ensues whenever we attempt to define pornography, and it seems to have persisted longer than any definition yet offered. The problem of definition was nowhere nearer to a solution when a panel of experts on pornography, incuding Erica Jong of Fear of Flying fame and Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw magazine, met and discussed the issue for Harper's magazine. The panel launched into an exhaustive probe of pornography but, as expected, could not come to anything resembling an answer. Goldstein, whose attitude toward the subject is nothing if not straightforward, summarized the conclusion in this inclusive statement: "The problem with pornography is that no one really knows what it is, no one knows where to draw the line that separates it from other forms of expression."--Jon Huer, Art, Beauty and Pornography (Prometheus Books, 1987)

From here on, let's look at the following: 1- Physical environment, 2- Medium in which the craftsman works, 3- Materials and techniques, personality of the artist, 4- The artist's role in society, 5- The nature of the visual language artists use, 6- The visual forms to which the artist has been exposed and 7- The nature of the aesthetic canon by which the creative process is guided and judged.-- Evelyn Payne Hatcher, Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art (Bergin & Garvey, 1999).

Perhaps they have internalized and are cooperating with the West's construction of not-white women as not-to-be-seen. How could they/we not be affected by that lingering structure of invisibility, enacted in the myriad codicils of daily life and still enforced by the images of both popular and high culture? How not get the message of what Judith Wilson calls "the legions of black servants who loom in the shadows of European and European-American aristocratic portraiture," of whom Laura, the professional model that Edouard Manet used for Olympia's maid, is in an odd way only the most famous example? Forget euphemisms. Forget "tonal contrast." We know what she is meant for: she is Jezebel and Mammy, prostitute and female eunuch, the two-in-one. When we're through with her inexhaustibly comforting breast, we can use her ceaselessly open cunt. And best of all, she is not a real person, only a robotic servant who is not permitted to make us feel guilty, to accuse us as does the slave in Toni Morrison Beloved (1987). After she escapes from the room where she was imprisoned by a father and son, that outraged woman says: "You couldn't think up what them two done to me," Olympia's maid, like all the other "peripheral Negroes," is a robot conveniently made to disappear into the background drapery. --Lorraine O'Grady, New Feminist Criticism: Art, Identity, Action (Icon Editions, 1994 ).

Update

Tomorrow, artist Carlos de Villasante will visit ART 106.