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.