Odd Nerdrum

Well I wish I could read from Odd Nerdrum's controversial book "On Kitsch" but apparently it is an academic book because it sells for nearly $100 dollars everywhere. So unless I take a class on Kitsch vs Fine Art I suppose I will never be reading it.  Seriously 100 dollars for a paperback!  But I'm kinda fascinated with the idea of the modern art movement being denounced by artists like Odd who are calling for a return to valuing skill, craftsmanship, and art that's value is based in visual ascetics and less in theory.  I don't have opinions yet about Odd being right, or the avant garde art world being right, but all I can say is that nothing can last forever. The modern art movement included.  I'm not saying now is the end, because clearly it's not. We still have many more years of calling trash arranged in patterns and piles, or decaying animals, or glasses half full of water, Fine Art, but all I'm saying is in all probability, eventually that will go out of vogue.

So are we on the cusp of a new art movement? Perhaps.  I guess the real indicator is "have the limits of modern art been pushed to their maximum? Once you put a dead shark preserved in formaldehyde in a glass case and call it art, or put honey out on step stools to attract flies only to kill them, or record the sounds of masturbation, maybe that is the limit.  Maybe there will be a huge recoil back from this movement that has named nearly everything and anything art.  I want to be clear that I personally don't have a problem with the avant gaurde art world, on the contrary, I find it fascinating, liberating, and entertaining.

Anyway, Odd Nerdrum.

 

Early Morning, oil on canvas, 206cm x 175.5cm,

Three Men at Dawn, by Odd Nerdrum (1996)
Oil on Canvas - 61" x 73.2"

The Hunt, 2011 Oil on canvas

The Hunt is one of Odd's less disturbing image's it appears to be a self portrait.  An old, wispy haired, chubby, man (just got to be Nerdrum himself) stands poised with a bow and arrow drawn.  The central figure tips the boat dangerously forward.  A strange light seems to glow from the boat or the water beneath the hunters feet.  The boat floats in the center of the picture plane in the middle of a placid and glassy body of water.  The entire painting has a soft light, pastel colors, and a blurry softness.  The landscape created by Odd is haunting, post apocalyptic, empty space.  It find it both beautiful and terrifying.  Like most of Odd's paintings it is hard to put your finger on a concrete narrative though there is most definitely a specific meaning to putting yourself dressed in white robes, hunting with a long bow, in the middle of a lake.

Jeff Koons: Genius, psychopath, both?

Well, after about a week of pretending that my blog does not exist and that I'm all caught up on all my work I have decided to come out of my delusional state and get to work.  It seems like I go through this about every two entries...seriously pulling teeth.   Okay Jeff Koons.  He was introduced in class and seems like such an interesting dude I figured I could do a blog post on him.

I have gathered three of his best known works and some of the more garish pieces that epitomize his style. I actually personally like his balloon animals, not because I think they are great art, or because I have any respect for their creator, or the reason they were created, but because they at least don't make me uncomfortable the way that the other two pieces do.  There is something so grotesque and disturbing about his work and I can't quit put a finger on it, but It might have to so with the faces and the eyes of the figurines that he/his slave monkeys, fabricate.  Balloon Dog thankfully has no eyes, and is just big shiny and colorful, not challenging in anyway, and therefore, though void of meaning, is pleasant to look at.  This larger than life piece of steel with a mirror finish is molded into the form of a giant balloon puppy.  It is colored a garish golden yellow.  It's surface is highly reflective and distorts all images it reflects back to the viewer (not that that was something that Jeff Koons considered or even contemplated when he made this work). 

It is ironic(Koons does not even want irony in his work) that the sculpture is a rendering of a small child's plaything, that is given to them to cause squeals of joy and delight before they are quickly forgotten about and discarded, having served no real purpose in that child's life. It's Ironic because this is the same purpose that his sculpture serves for the uber rich or the world.  The uber rich child minds that have little taste or culture or depth eat his works up perhaps because his work represents what they often times stand for: showy, vapid, frivolity. 


Michael Jackson and Bubbles 1998 porcelain/ceramic blend. 42x70x32''




Balloon Dog (Yellow) 1994-2000 steel



Pink Panther 1988 porcelain 41x20x19

I wanted to add a picture of Koons because I think that his work is as much about his persona as it is about any object or painting he thinks up and has a work force create.  Some quotes form Koons about his work.
Wikiquotes:

• Abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class.

• Art to me is a humanitarian act and I believe that there is a responsibility that art should somehow be able to affect mankind, to make the world a better place.

• I try to be a truthful artist and I try to show a level of courage. I enjoy that. I'm a messenger.

• When somebody sees my work, the only thing that they see is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

So, is he a psycopath?  You decide. Here are some common traits of a psycopath personality:

Psychopathy Checklist-Revised: Factors, Facets, and Items^[5]

Factor 1	Factor 2	Other items
Facet 1 Interpersonal Glibness/superficial charm Grandiose sense of self-worth Pathological lying Cunning/manipulative Facet 2 Affective Lack of remorse or guilt Emotionally shallow Callous/lack of empathy Failure to accept responsibility for own actions	Facet 3 Lifestyle Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Parasitic lifestyle Lack of realistic, long-term goals Impulsiveness Irresponsibility Facet 4 Antisocial Poor behavioral controls Early behavioral problems Juvenile delinquency Revocation of conditional release Criminal versatility.	Many short-term marital relationships Promiscuous sexual behavior

Gregory Sale

I think that if I had just looked up Gregory Sale and his work online I would have little to no idea as to what his work was actually about.  I went to his 1.5 hour talk and even now, I'm not really sure that I have it fully digested.  In fact, I have tried to explain it to at least two people and failed pretty miserably.  I'm going to make one last attempt to describe the art of Gregory Sale and see if I can get a grasp on it--specifically his It's Not just Black and White installation/ social experiment/ relationship observation....errr, whatever.

                                        Go Ahead, Wonder 2009-- Phoenix citizens are invited to offer up a short blurb about there musings for the future on their city, specifically regarding social issues.  A collection of recordings, photographs and texts memorialized the participation of Arizona citizens in this project.

  Bienvenidos! Here at the Welcome Diner 2009--The Welcome Diner served as the site and restaurant for a dinner that brought together a neighborhood with food, music, and art.  It was an opportunity to consider the growing tension of immigration issues in AZ, as multiple cultural groups shared the same space for one purpose.

                                                    Love Buttons 2008

 

  Love Buttons in Local Produce 2008--Thousands of buttons were produced and dispenced into crowds of people becoming wearable art and poetry. The buttons encourage and create interactions between people, thus turning individials into a collective, dynamic, performance art work.

 

Its not just black and White is the work of Sale's that I am most familiar with.  I have posted several pictures from his 2011 It's Not Just Black and White Exhibit and will attempt to examine the work depicted in the photographs and Gregory Sale's artistic work as a whole.

The initial installation was created by a group of inmates that were allowed to leave prison, and in their black and white prison uniforms paint the walls of the exhibit space in black and white stripes, highly symbolic and evocative backdrop for Sale's work.

One aspect or "piece" or "pearl" in Sale's exhibition was a series of tours to a tent prison erected in the desert. 

 

The gallery space used by Sale was the site of workshops, dialogs, classes, etc. that focused on aspects of the corrections system and its participants.  Pictured here, a writing workshop centers around the experiences of corrections personal and former prisoners.

Sale's work is an examination of human interaction.  In all cases, a form or participation from a group or groups of individuals is necessary for his work to convey its "intended" meaning.  I put intended in quotations because though this is a form of art, at its roots is social experimentation put on display (my wording. This may not be the way Sale himself would describe his work).  His work More than just black and white took on almost an activism quality, in that it addressed a problem with out ever coming right out and calling it a problem.  It was a social experiment with a commentary on policy, and human rights issues running throughout the piece. It brought to light complex issues such as class-ism, whether Sale intended that or not.  As Sale described his work during the guest lecture I attended, it became less and less about the issue of incarceration, over crowded prisons, policy, etc. and more about law breaking citizens of one "class" interacting with law abiding citizens on another "class". Maybe its crude, or simplistic to say it so plainly but I don't really feel like sugar coating it, plus it's late and sugar coating takes thought and consideration.  

One thing that I have been thinking about when it comes to Sale's Art is that he has two different types of viewers or participants: the people that are wearing his buttons, going on his prison tours, talking in a space with striped walls, and people like me who are trying to glean from a few pictures, a video, a text blurb what the experience was like. I suppose even in the most traditional media that caveat exists.  I cannot experience the Mona Lisa that way Leonardo intended unless I make a trip to Paris.   Still, it is a profoundly different experience to participate in social interaction than it is to view about it--think about having a fight with your partner vs watching two people have a spat in a documentary.  So I guess I my biggest question is...where is the art?  Is it in the interactions/reactions of the people participating in his "experiment"?  In other words are they the art work, and the passive observer gets to watch them like subjects in a fish bowl, or are the participants the only ones who get to fully experience Sale's art, and the rest of us are getting a diluted version.  Heck, maybe it's both, but it just begs a lot of questions, like "is the painting art, or is the hours that the artist spend hunched over the canvas also art?"  

Hiroyuki Hamada

 

Hiroyuki Hamada #68, 2007-2009 

                  Enamel, oil, plaster, tar, and wax 41x23x20.5"

 

Hiroyuki Hamada #45, 2002-2005 Burlap, enamel,

 oil, plaster, resin, solvents, tar and wax 35" diameter

 

 

 Hiroyuki Hamada #51, 2002-2005 Enamel,

 oil, plaster, tar and wax 36 × 21 ^1/2 × 9 ^1/2 in

So I reformatted my usual blog format, not because I think it looks better, but because I can't get the cursor up above that first image that I pasted on here.  I'm basically in hate with technology right now.  

Okay, I came across these sculptures on art.sy the other day and for some reason they really intrigued me.  I can't help but think of Star Wars and "space junk" when I look at these.  Though I doubt that that is what the Japanese born Hiroyuki had in mind when he created these detailed, monochromatic sculptures. His work is industrial, yet organic, minimalist yet highly intricate.  I think that is what really drew me to the work.  It is a perfect balance of oxymoron; futuristic, yet ancient, crisp clean lines, yet the suggestion of slow decay.  The pieces are non representational, but they seem to suggest a narrative  or a history or their own.

I think that I will describe the last piece I have posted here.  The work is a three dimensional piece of art meant to be viewed on a wall, not on a horizontal surface.  It is deceptively large based on looking at the picture.  It is three feet high and nearly a foot deep. It is oval shaped and has vertical and horizontal symmetry.  Nearly all of the sculpture is a waxy mat black excluding nine rectangular shaped white pieces along the left front side of the sculpture.  From the picture they appear to be inlay.   Down the vertical axis of the sculpture nine to ten circles have been etched into the surface of the work.   The piece has the feeling of metal that is aged despite not having any metal materials in it.   The surface has been etched with other fine lines and circles, giving the sculpture a high level of detail that appears to be mathematically and purposefully placed for some other worldly and mechanical purpose. 

 

Hiroyuki was born in 1968 in Tokyo, Japan and originally started out as a painter he explains “I’ve been working with plaster for the past 13 years or so. Initially I used it to mix with my paintings. As my paintings got thicker and more object-like, I started stretching burlap on wood panels and wood boxes to coat them with plaster before I painted on them. After a while, they started to take irregular shapes and they became more like sculptures on the wall,”