Apply and reflect week 14

 This week we dove into the topic of racism a bit by looking at the Concerto in black and blue. The process behind the Concerto in black and blue was to walk through a gallery, the same thing is true here with Olafur Eliasson piece The Weather Project. Only his was trying to relate back to climate matters. He took people and brought them into the space to experience the "new" world around them and form there allowed them to determine how they felt about it. He made the space available for interpretation. He wanted to talk about climate control and the effects but wanted people to create there own ideas with it. I love the way artist can do this. With 3D spaces you have the opportunity to physically bring in your audience and have them go through this experience with you to try and see what you do but also to allow them to see whatever they see. I would love to try to incorporate that kind of idea into my works. Allowing my work to be somewhat open ended to where the viewer can have a completely different experience, weather that is physical or emotional to the work then what I the creator has. I love it when artist ask you to come into a space and experience a kind of feeling that they want to convey. That means the audience is subject to a physical and emotional experience to your work. This makes the experience of seeing the work different from that of just looking at a painting or other traditional art foam. This needs peoples involvement to be conveyed, it needed to be walked through and experienced because a picture of a film of it will not do or have the same effect as physically walking through it will. 

Images from : 

https://sarahpadbury93.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/olafur-eliasson-the-weather-project-and-the-green-river-series/ and https://www.cnn.com/style/article/olafur-eliasson-experience-phaidon/index.html

Week 14

The weeks reading really dove into the work of art that was the gallery experience of Concerto in black and blue. This work had a lot of controversy with it in order to figure out what the artist was trying to say by creating this exhibit. Many saying that it was political, about the blacks and blue being police. Critics may have concluded at this decisions due to the fact that the arts of this exhibit has had past work that has had similar meaning of blacks being suppressed due to police or other cultural things. Once hearing that perspective of the exhibit I could see where the colors could be representing that. However first looking at it I would had never lead to the conclusion of that. I saw the work talking more about the unknown of the ocean. Never would I have thought of it to be anything that is political or racial in any way. I think there is black art and then there is art created by black Americans. I think there is art that black artist make that is art, some of that art may be art of other black Americans, or whites or a sculpture of a piece that has no people or color at all. Black American artist that don't want their race to have any effect on the piece and how the viewer sees it. Then there is Black Art. Art the speaks for or to the black culture. Weather it be created by a black person or not but the targeted audience is still the same. I think most Black Art is created by black Americans because they have more of a connection to that type of feeling and how to relay it back to the current cultures. 

This is a painting of our former president Obama receiving his painting by Kehinde Wiley, an black American painter.  https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/kehinde-wiley-s-obama-portrait-controversy-shows-americans-don-t-ncna849156

Week 13

Ask anyone and they will say that a photo is capturing the moment, true to what is going on in the environment. Ask a photographer and they will tell you that photography is fiction. Photography in todays time and way back when it was film has always been fiction if that is what the artist chooses. The act of taking the photo is only half of the process. Back when it was film you could create different chemical reactions to develop all kinds of effects. Today we can do the same but with digital apps like photoshop and lightroom.  Photographers are look to create a story and if there are elements in a photo that conflict with the story then it is removed. Photography is the act of capturing the moment but also creating one. The artist can either create the moment by altering the moment of altering the photos. Countries have gone to war over photos but the likelihood of them double checking them is very unlikely due to people being ignorance about the art of photography.  We believe that photos are true because of how the typical process is explained to us, but photography is a whole lot more then that. It is however important to have photos that are true that tell the story as it happened. Like film we have documentaries and we have narrative films, the same concepts are true to photography we have photography that is fiction and we have photo journalism that needs to stay true in order to keep the history of some cultures alive.  Some cultures need it to show what happened and what thing need to stay true and historic. 

This photo is seen as one of the first photographs it is of the empty streets of paris. But the streets were never empty you just don't see the people because it was a long exposure shot. https://benbeck.co.uk/firsts/2_The_Human_Subject/photo1h.htm

Week 12

This week we dove into the aspects of gender rolls and various forms and place where and how a gender roll can be "preformed" at, by reading  Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,”  This reading really made you think more about societal rolls of gender and were that typically is or is not appropriate.  Gender, while I do think it is changing, seems to still follow a very old almost biblical side of how you should dress and act. Men don't wear dresses, woman do not do much asides from bar children and cook. While this is changing and females are increasingly becoming more and more integrated into our corporate world and and in more recent events into our government. There is still the lingering of stereotypes for our genders. Being raised in a small farming town it was standard that woman not wear short things, boys not have long hair, girls like boys and boys like girls. That's the way it is.  Anyone to go outside of those standards was in a was punished socially. No one would hang out or associate with them. No one was really allowed to explore their or the next gender because you got the one you got at birth that was it. If you were to explore anything you were doing it hush hush and out of the eyes of society. Roles are even still present where women are oppressed in my home town to date, no government leaders are women, but nearly all the teachers are. No women speak or give group prayer at my church just repopulate it. All the woman in that town act femininity they submit to the roles laid down by society before them slowly but surely continuing their own self-oppression.  

The image I choose for this week is the "We can do It" poster and it for its time really represented the opposite of gender norms for women.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It!

Week 11

    This week we got the chance to read Margaret Kovach chapters of "Epistemology and research: Centring Tribal Knowledge." As this weeks reading were fairly complex to comprehend they were different from the topics that we have been discussing. This is our first week talking about the theory of knowing something from culture to culture. I find this topic very interesting as I have traveled a bit. In talking about the language we speak vs how another I think there are a lot of things we have to contribute to when discussing topics across cultures and mainly languages. In taking research from one language to another or talking about another language without being fully versed in the entire language you are almost playing a card game with out a full deck in a way. You do not have all the pieces to the puzzle when you dive into research of a language that you are not 100% in. While there are some things that you can learn that will help you in understanding the language there are also things that you only really know by being fluent or having the language be your native language.  Within some cultures and language there are words that do not even directly translate to another word but more to an idea or a concept of living or thought. With out fully understanding the language you can not fully understand the depth of some of those words or phrases that simply do not directly aline.  I think only knowing one or two language really narrows your world view because yes while you can be an expert in what you speak or know, you still do not connect to the rest of the world that reads or understand within there language. I think you have to know one language, typically being your native language. But as soon as you learn another language then you open your brain and mental ability to understand things that otherwise would not make sense. You see things with a more open perspective because you have to learn something completely different. Learning more language does make you more worldly. Not only by being able to communicate with so many others but by being able to have an open mind set to things that are different.   

For this weeks image I picked Raphael Sanzio painting "School Of Athens" Within it there are some many individuals with various view and theories coming from different language and background. 

http://www.abc-people.com/data/rafael-santi/school_of_athens.htm

Week 10

This week we read  Amelia Jones, "Meaning, Identity, Embodiment: The Uses of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology in Art History,"  and within it Jones goes into talking about the relationship that is created with the viewers of art vs the creators.  There is defiantly a connection between the viewer and what is being viewed same goes with the artist and what they created. All of it has or comes from different backgrounds giving it a different perspective. I view the American Gothic differently because I was raised in farm lands and this piece quite literally reminds me vary much of my neighbors when I was growing up.  However the artist created it not to remind me of my childhood he created it to bring to life is own vision of this situation.  As the relationship of how I see the work vs the artists is different so is the relationship of each individual as they see the work. Each individual brings in their own background as they see a piece and that shifts the way we see the everything.  With That I feel as if we bring the same background and judgement to a returning artist. We will always view Edger Allen Poe's poetry and morbid and all about death because that is the stereotype connected to his work but not all of his work is like that. But because we know that he had a past were many of the people (women) he loved died to early this was defiantly something to influence his work.  I feel as if many people come to art with scratched glasses, something for some reason scratched them and that is how you see, you see with the scratch.  It will influence the way you see things but that the way it is and that is what you are used to. Everyone come to art with a different background and there for the piece hits people hard or not at all evokes different emotions in different people. Art is different to all because we all come from different.  

  

American Gothic : https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/grant-wood-american-gothic-whitney

Week 9

In todays society tokenism is still unfortunately part of our society.  As we grow as a culture and country we become aware of these things. But we still knowing and unknowingly are doing some things to target groups or to make groups feel left out. As we try to grow as a country I think we may see more tokenism as we try to reach all demographics. Unfortunately I see our country going into a little more tokenism for a while before it really just becomes part of our social norm to have people of different gender, rase, religion in various work environments and what not.  While I don't think anyone would really call tokenism great I can see where it can open the door for a lot of other opportunities and or discussions to be had with various individuals and corporations.  But even then I can see how creating equal opportunities in an environment where tokenism is present can be not particularly equal. If you only have two or three people that are different from the whole group and call that equal opportunity I can see where that would be a topic to argue about. How can it be equal if that group is outnumbered and what if that group never benefits form the equal opportunity then they may declare unfair activity thus leading to more unfair advantages or disadvantages. I think there is a problem with diversity and inclusion committees because if a company, school, or any organization was actually inclusive we wouldn't have a need for a committee we would just naturally be practicing that. We need to be diverse and inclusive but we have the committees to make sure that that is being put in effect rather then the actual people finding the correct people for the job no matter the background.  

 

The image I picked is a painting, to describe diversity. 

Week 8 Apply and reflect

 

Over the course of the week we read articles that talked about the originality of text and it defiantly brought up some interesting thoughts.  Is there any original thoughts? What qualifies as original these day and who checking to make sure if anyone is even paying that close of a concern.  So the "work" I choose to talk about today is the work of the constitution. Due to it being text so I thought it had more to offer then a painting or other art form but also because I do believe in it's originality. Perhaps not word for word but as a whole concept. I think in it's time the whole things was constructed to be a new concept for the new people to start a new age. I think that it's intent was not to copy any other document up it's kind or that of another working country or government but to crate something interiorly new. I think at the time of it's creation that it did succeed to do so. That being say I do think that as original text are crated the generation adjustment have to be made in order to stay current to the people in witch it serves if it is that kind of legal document vs just a historic document. The same thing to be true with the Bible. It was as generations evolved, it was then translated into a new way for us to understand. Form King James version to New King James and so many more. I believe the first one was original but all the others are simply translations in new wordings. 

Week 8

This week we had two different readings one starting with an article by Barthes titled "the Death of the Author" Barthes goes in to talk about what happens to the words of an author and how words are used and almost constantly recycled. Barthes goes in with a hard approach by saying that no text is original and I would have to disagree with that. While I do believe that a lot of text is old ideas or conspectus chewed up and spit out as new text I still believe that there are some rarities of purely original text. I think there is text that was so original that it was considered ahead of it's time and just dismissed.  On the other hand you have works of text that was created and the glorified for its originality, such Dantes inferno.  When Barthes goes in to talk about  "once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile." From what I understand that Barthes is trying to get at in this statement is that ounce the author has died the text become so open to objections and can be taken as metaphoric as the reader would like but with the Author being alive they are able to defend their work and make sure it is being understood the way it was written. 

On a different spectrum, we read a statement from Levine who is some degrees has some similar concepts to Barthes article if I understand it correctly.  Levine is also saying the there are no original text but goes in to also say there are also no original paintings as well. But I think that Levine takes Barthes work a bit further, perhaps why she got away with the amount of plagiarism. Levine talks about that "birth of the viewer" I think Levine is really trying to show her readers that yes their is no original work but their is a cycle that comes with that, the death of one thing comes with the life of another. Almost a constant reincarnation of text in that way. Witch in my perspective is a better way of thinking about text and art. 

 

the image I picked is Dantes Inferno witch I think was at its time fairly original. 

Apply and reflect week 7

 

Kwame Brathwaite's photo of Nomsa Brath wearing earrings designed by Carolee Prince, AJASS, Harlem, ca. 1964. (Courtesy of the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles.)

Apply and reflect 

This week we read 'The Oppositional gaze' and the piece talked a lot about black female and how they were viewed and especially in film. This whole topic made me dig into some research and it led me to find some art work that I was surprise to find and it's relevance to some of the past events of this summer. Back in the 1960's photographer Kwame Brathwaite did a full series of photos of blacks and especially black females. With a title of 'Black is Beautiful' this whole series took black females with a variety of models with different ages but all focused on their natural hair and natural clothes. They were not dressed to fit a look of the common eye or that of a white persons eye. They pulled in an African culture, but kept their American culture as well. Kwame Brathwaite was really showing the true African American culture to date and the beauty of it. 

I can relate to these works a lot by how it apply to my photography and how I can try to adjust my photo shoots and how that can help make a difference. Photography is beautiful and it can be so powerful. I want to show the truth within my photography and the beauty that portraits photography can bring to the world and the messages that it can share.  As I get more into portraits I take a look at how those are being viewed these day and how important it is to have and share photos. To really show the beauty of the people and the black female people, is so important. These days there are so many platforms to share the photos of people and how that can really empower a group or simply just a single person. Even with Brathwaite's work, the photos made a come back with current event. As popular as they were back in the 60's more article have com up recently to show again the beauty that the public may not have been ready for in the 60's. 

week 7

Off of this weeks reading, we take a better look at the viewership of blacks in film and open up the discussion of how black work is being viewed through Bell Hooks article "The oppositional gaze." First we take a look at the background of how people viewed blacks in film. As stated in Hooks article black works were viewed as being lesser quality because it was thought that a white persons film wasn't good enough so it became a black persons film back in the day. "Since they came into being in part as a response to the failure of white-dominated cinema to represent blackness in a manner that did not reinforce white supremacy, they too were critiqued to see if images were seen as complicit with dominant cinematic practices."   Peoples first reactions to these were not great. To tag off of the discussions we had a couple weeks ago about women in works of art Black women in films were represented as "objects of male gaze" so not only were the blacks not viewed in the best way but the female blacks were viewed even worse.  Only recently have there been more voice from black females in the film world. By not saying anything you are intentionally saying it's ok, I think only within the last decade and now due to events over the course of this year are more blacks and especially female blacks will and ready to give you their opinion about how they are being viewed in films and their rolls.  

The photo I included is a work that was showing black female models in the early 60's and trying to make the beautiful look of natural hair more common among the general public. 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/lens/kwame-brathwaite-black-is-beautiful.html

manner that did not reinforce white supremacy, they too were critiqued

Week 5

In Linda Nochlin "Why are there no great women artist?" she really dives right in with exploring what the "nature" of seeing women has been and how that is really having some light shed on it in todays world.  Nochlin really points out that the mane viewers and judges of art in history has been white males. That has a lot to do with the stereotypes of women in art and the art community. If white men really like naked white women and that is who dominated the art market then that is most likely the art that will make it because that is the art the is funded and bought. Slowly over time that did begin to change and the female body became a lot more then that and women got more and more to say about how their gender was being portrayed. 

I think before we ask why are there no great women artist we have to look at the current society and ask whats causing women to not succeed. From there you can then better figure out why there were no great women artists.

I choose this art work piece to use because of the historical benefit that the gorilla girls had on the movement of changing art and women and how the two were seen together. The gorilla girls stood for a lot and allowed the females to question how they were being viewed as just a body in the art world.  I think the gorilla girls movement had a lot to do with change and awareness as to how we have an issues with our society and the viewing of the female body and how we need to change that. 

Week 4

In Greenberg article the topic of weather nonobjective art is a means of imitating God, and I do see the point to that argument. If you think about the side of creation in terms of being a god, their whole angle is just to create thing in terms of beauty. Look at the animals for examples if it if believed that the animals were created by god, or the season, or nature in general then how can you argue that those are objective subjects? The creations by god are simply of beauty and function. Everything natural, and everything connected and in a perfect working system.  So I would agree that creating objective art is very human of us to create. I would say that if an artist is trying to create works of art that are nonobjective then yes they are attempting to imitate the creations of a god.  But I don't think that is what a lot of artist are trying to do by creating art. I think artist are always trying to provoke an emotion in humans and I think for the most part that is done by being objective. I think art that is objective does get more talk and attention, vs art that is striving to be nonobjective.  But that being said I do think that art that is nonobjective is timeless.  

I would agree with Greenberg that art did belong to the "ruling class" prior to the invention of the internet.  Back when new had to travel via press and the only way to really see art wast to attend a galleries than yes, the ruling class, they people that had money that were in power that had the means and access to these galleries were the targeted audience and they defiantly controlled the art market. But in todays art world an artist can create their work and share in among various platforms to reach all kinds of people with ranging economical levels. I think this changed the control of art dramatically.  Everyone now has access to art and various styles and now the audience of artist has been widened completely.  

Painting sourse: https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starry-night.html

I choose this art piece because it is an example of an art piece that is a representation of nature and it is fairly nonobjective an it is an example of a timeless piece of art.  

Week 3

 

In the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction by Walter Benjamin talks about the mechanical process and what that did to art. How with the mechanical processes of reproduction how that changes art makes it better or worse. Under the topic of arguing weather print making and film photography are the same I would have to disagree in the early stages of film photography. When the first kind of film photography came out it was simply a photo of whatever the camera was pointed at. While print making you had time to create the print. What ever the artist choose to make they were able to create and reproduce. Photography didn't have that freedom until it was further developed. With the tools of various chemicals and better knowledge to the use of light, film photography became a little more creative. From that era on photographers were able to take their photo are craft it in their own way.  Photography can be fiction and that was defiantly not how it was viewed for a very long time because of the inherent description of what photography does or was at that time.   

This also ties into painting however. The reproduction of film photography and painting are in the same situation unlike prints. With film photography and painting with each new copy the artist has to have a part in creating, each painting has a new brush stroke that is slightly different from the last painting, same is true with the combination of a chemical cocktail that helped the photo come to life. Each is different, the works are all like sisters not twins. But with prints after the original all are reproduced mechanically to create like works that are just like the next.  

In some ways, mass reproduction begins to devalue the original art piece. The experience an individual has with the art piece that provokes or targets a single emotion is the goal that each artist is trying to reach when they create something. That experience is special and happens when the work is seen but with the constant viewing of the work and that experience happening more with a work mass produced vs single production gets the viewer more exposed to the the work. Over time the work becomes common and devalued quickly as to a single painting that keeps that experience alive longer. Mass production gives the art work a shorted half life. At that point the original is no longer needed, if you have so many copies perhaps copies better then the original then why would you need the original. Asides from historic value the original would no longer have a value.   

The source of the art work is https://headsup.boyslife.org/what-was-the-first-movie-ever-made/

The image is the first film strip or series of photos to prove that a horse feet leave the ground when it is at full speed. This is an example of photography not being fiction.  

Week 2

Art can be used as a power struggle because it can appeal to those who see it that aren't educated enough to find the facts through reading. By the example of the church they can show images and painting to teach those who could not read. witch in that time was a lot of individuals, thus those who could paint could control the thoughts and power of the minds of those who could not find the true facts.  It was a took because those who couldn't pain couldn't spread the word of "truth" religious of political.  

Painting is like math or reading because it used a series of symbols to convey a message. the viewer has to see the symbols that of a math problem or of letters to make up words and put that all together to crate or understand the purpose of the art work.    

Painting can be a social act because you can control the thought of the viewer with the concept that you show thought that of the signs and symbols that you show within painting. It is not only a social activity can also be political but even then it can be neither.  

Artist engage in the world of signs by knowing the language of art and then taking that and reconstructing  that into there own message. By creating a new message or idea with that they then taking the already know symbols and compare or contrast them with something completely different. They can take those symbols and create there own formula or make there own poem. 

We need to interpret all works of art within different context because we are decoding the symbols that are created by the artist. We have to explore all the options and paths that the artist could be trying to explore with us as viewers. If we just taking the work of art based off of the first concept that comes to mind based off appearance we may be missing the majority of witch the artist is really trying to covey with their symbols.   

Every interpretation my have a point to it but not every interpretation is valid. Someone can easily be seeing the symbols and take it the wrong way that intended of the artist.  

Art History 411 - Intro

 Hello my name is Paige Schemenauer 

    I am a current BFA student with a focus in Photography and Graphic Design.  I'm taking this art history course in part because it is required but also I loved the other Art history classes I took and am excited to learn more. I think learning about the history of art helps me to better understand other people art and assist in the creation of my own works.  

    Currently I play Lacrosse for the university, work as a Photographer and graphic designer for Outdoor Pursuits on campus and Wake Up, a Marketing company in downtown Pueblo.  Personally I love traveling, however this pandemic has put a hold on that. I do a lot of hiking and love being outside. After graduating in May I wish to attend a Photography school in Europe.  

    Can't wait to learn this semester and see how this whole year plays out!

I choose this work of art because of the story behind it and the power that it brought to the time. I think this piece is still very relevant and showed early on the difference with art and the male and female body.