Friday, May 4, 2012
Nude photography
I have recently fallen in love with the photography of Lucien Clergue. His work centers on the use of the female nude combined with patterns and texture. I find his work to be tastefully erotic. This photo is from his Poesie Photographie book and is titled Nude with Stars, 1971, gelatin silver and is in his personal collection. All rights to the image are his. View more of his work at http://www.anneclergue.fr/
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Joel Peter-Witkin
Joel-Peter Witkin is a Jewish-American photographer. His website claims his images are "not for fairies with frail feelings. I must say I am in agreement. Witkin's photography deals with issues of the "othering" people who have heritary conditions ranging from dwarfism to transexuality. Witkin challenges one to rethink the idea of beauty in those on the margins of society. He places them in staged compositions that mirror famous works of art like Velázquez's Las Meninas shown above. Note the tribute on the right hand side of the painting to Picasso who painted over 58 recreations of Las Meninas.
Another body of his work deals with death. Witkin's work is so controversial that he carries out much of his work in Mexico. He uses real corpses and body parts to stage these photographs. Far from being detacthed, he claims to love all human beings including the dead criminals who bodies he uses for models. His work is provacative as it challenges the viewer to gaze at what one would normally look away from. He reports that his interest in death came at an early age when he witnessed an accident where a girl was decapitated. His twin, Jerome Witkin, is a painter whose work focuses on the Holocaust.
A collection of photographs by Joel-Peter Witkin
http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/witkin2/
"I wanted my photographs to be as powerful
as the last thing a
person sees or remembers before death" - Joel-Peter Witkin
Monday, January 17, 2011
Printmaking has always been an area of art that has a particular interest for me. I am saddened that I won't have time in my schedule to take a class before I graduate. I will have to add it to my bucket list of things to do. When looking at prints it is easy to get confused on what type of print you are looking at. MOMA has a great interactive display that helps you learn how each different type of print is made. It is basic information to learn before you can really begin to enjoy the innovations made by people who choose to work within certain types of printmaking.
When buying a print the lower the number the more it is worth. As you produce a print, the plate becomes worn so the quality is diminished. I have a nice four horsemen of the Apocalypse that is an artist proof (labeled a/p), meaning it is the original. It is signed by the artist, Zensky. I have never been able to find any information on the artist, but I continue to hope. It was a re-gift, so the person who gave it to us knew nothing about the print. She only knew I was an art major and thought I might enjoy it, whereas she did not. Prints are not to be confused with posters. Posters are mass produced which is why they are inexpensive. They are mechanical reproductions of works of art. They are not works of art in and of themselves, whereas prints are. Sometimes the print is an original work, other times it is a re-working of a painting. There is always skill involved. They are hand made, signed (usually) and numbered.
Who is your favorite printmaker? For myself it would have to be historically, Dürer's engravings and for contemporary, Michael Parkes who is a stone lithographer.
When buying a print the lower the number the more it is worth. As you produce a print, the plate becomes worn so the quality is diminished. I have a nice four horsemen of the Apocalypse that is an artist proof (labeled a/p), meaning it is the original. It is signed by the artist, Zensky. I have never been able to find any information on the artist, but I continue to hope. It was a re-gift, so the person who gave it to us knew nothing about the print. She only knew I was an art major and thought I might enjoy it, whereas she did not. Prints are not to be confused with posters. Posters are mass produced which is why they are inexpensive. They are mechanical reproductions of works of art. They are not works of art in and of themselves, whereas prints are. Sometimes the print is an original work, other times it is a re-working of a painting. There is always skill involved. They are hand made, signed (usually) and numbered.
Who is your favorite printmaker? For myself it would have to be historically, Dürer's engravings and for contemporary, Michael Parkes who is a stone lithographer.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Sacred Cows-My Philosophy On Art
I wanted to start my first post with an explanation about my blog title. First, I must pay homage to one of my Professors, Coach J, who is the inspiration for it. He was not referencing art at all in this conversation. Instead he was referring to our College's requirement that we learn to swim in order to graduate. He was explaining to us on the first day of Survival Swimming that he is also the track coach and that he had forced one of his former track stars to take this course 3 times, because he could not swim properly. He went on to tell us, "There are no sacred cows. I love you all the same." We would all learn to swim or we would fail and retake the class. We would not graduate until we did.
What on earth does this have to do with art, you might ask. Well, everything. I will go back to another conversation I had with a friend who is a Professor at a University in Kansas. I was helping him to erect a rather tedious outdoor sculpture (that is for another blog). He was giving me some free advising. In Matt's opinion, knowing what you value as a person is just as important as what you want study. Do you want to make a lot of money? Do you want to help people? What drives you? These things are not necessarily good or bad, they just are. When I described my ideas to him, he smiled and told me plainly that I was a Populist. He did not mean this in a political sense. He meant that I want art to be accessible to all kinds of people, not all people do.
I love to watch reruns of Kenneth Clarke's BBC show Civilisation (this is not a typo--the British spell it with an s). Clarke was an art historian who talked to you in your living room about art in a way that you could understand it, even if you had never studied it formally. I find a lot of people either don't visit museums or if they do, they are confused by much of what they see. Some don't understand why something is worth looking at. Modern art is just scribbles and Vermeer is just a dead guy. The devaluing of art begins in at home (art is for girls) and in schools (when it is removed from curriculum). Granted, some museums and galleries do a better job than others with having text panels that explain what you are looking at, holding gallery talks or educational events. Still, many people in the art world believe that art is not for the untrained eye. Art events are priced so high that middle class or low income couples and families cannot afford to go. They are for wealthy donors who support the institutions. Of course, this is only part snobbery. It is also survival because art is largely privately funded and needs the money.
I am calling this blog "There Are No Sacred Cows" because I want to write a blog that anyone can read and enjoy about art. I hope that people who love art will like it. I also hope that some people who always wanted to know more about it but were afraid to ask will read it and learn to love it too. Art is not just for some people. It is for everyone. In my opinion, it is the most basic form of creative self-expression a human being can make. There is a reason there are cave paintings in France that are 32,000 years old. We have always had this drive to make art. I myself enjoy creating art, but my truest love is looking at it and talking about it with other people. I hope you will join me.
What on earth does this have to do with art, you might ask. Well, everything. I will go back to another conversation I had with a friend who is a Professor at a University in Kansas. I was helping him to erect a rather tedious outdoor sculpture (that is for another blog). He was giving me some free advising. In Matt's opinion, knowing what you value as a person is just as important as what you want study. Do you want to make a lot of money? Do you want to help people? What drives you? These things are not necessarily good or bad, they just are. When I described my ideas to him, he smiled and told me plainly that I was a Populist. He did not mean this in a political sense. He meant that I want art to be accessible to all kinds of people, not all people do.
I love to watch reruns of Kenneth Clarke's BBC show Civilisation (this is not a typo--the British spell it with an s). Clarke was an art historian who talked to you in your living room about art in a way that you could understand it, even if you had never studied it formally. I find a lot of people either don't visit museums or if they do, they are confused by much of what they see. Some don't understand why something is worth looking at. Modern art is just scribbles and Vermeer is just a dead guy. The devaluing of art begins in at home (art is for girls) and in schools (when it is removed from curriculum). Granted, some museums and galleries do a better job than others with having text panels that explain what you are looking at, holding gallery talks or educational events. Still, many people in the art world believe that art is not for the untrained eye. Art events are priced so high that middle class or low income couples and families cannot afford to go. They are for wealthy donors who support the institutions. Of course, this is only part snobbery. It is also survival because art is largely privately funded and needs the money.
I am calling this blog "There Are No Sacred Cows" because I want to write a blog that anyone can read and enjoy about art. I hope that people who love art will like it. I also hope that some people who always wanted to know more about it but were afraid to ask will read it and learn to love it too. Art is not just for some people. It is for everyone. In my opinion, it is the most basic form of creative self-expression a human being can make. There is a reason there are cave paintings in France that are 32,000 years old. We have always had this drive to make art. I myself enjoy creating art, but my truest love is looking at it and talking about it with other people. I hope you will join me.
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