Week 6 - Barbara Kruger

American conceptual/pop artist Barbara Kruger is internationally renowned for her signature black, white and red poster-style works of art that convey in-your-face messages on women's rights and issues of power. Coming out of the magazine publishing industry, Kruger knows precisely how to capture the viewer's attention with her bold and witty photomurals displayed on billboards, bus stops and public transportation as well as in major museums and galleries wordwide. She has edited books on cultural theory, including Remaking History for the Dia Foundation, and has published articles in the New York Times, Artforum, and other periodicals. Monographs on her work include Love for Sale, We Won't Play Nature to Your Culture and others. She is represented in New York by Mary Boone Gallery. A major exhibition of her work will be presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in fall 1999, and at the Whitney Museum in New York in 2000.

Research Kruger's work to find an example from the 1970s or 1980s to compare with a more recent work. How has Kruger's work changed with the developments in contemporary visual arts? Describe a recent work that moves away from the 'poster' type work of her early career.

One of Kruger's most famous earlier work is 'Your Body is A Battleground' (1989). It consists of one simple image, accompanied by red strips and white bold texts. The background image is divided in the middle, and the inverse effect is used on the right part of the image. The purpose of doing so is to attract attention to the image instead of the fonts. As time progress, Kruger begins to place more and more texts and quotes, combining them with images more often. However, the same bold colours are used; red, black and white. This simple 3-coloured style help to create a sense of unity in all of her works, as she developed her style to focus more to text rather than image. One of her recent work is 'Untitled/ Seeing Through You' (2004). We can see significant development here, as she introduces more colours into her work. The red border keeps her edgy and authentic style, but she also experiments with new colours such as shades of green. She also explores opacity and textures through this art work.

Kruger incorporated her works and space together to create an effective experience for the audience so they could experience a more spatial feel of her works much better than looking at a single poster. As human beings, we interact with the space surrounding us. Therefore, the text being placed all over the walls and ceiling, we are surrounded and our attention is focused on the quotes that are on the walls.

The bright colours that she uses on her works create a strong impact on the audience as it draws our attention to the bright colours of the text. Her fonts are also bold, which captures our attention more quickly.

Her style is very consistent through time, however, the context of her works have changed and adjusted to newer issues we face in our society today. They are still rather controversial, but with introducing new colours, it help to tone down the graphic messages she may have incorporated into her works.

Week 5 - Kehinde Wiley

Kahinde Wiley is a Gay American based painter born in Los Angeles, who has an international reputation living between Pe King and Brooklyn.

Wiley creates art using mixed media that stands out and captures attention from viewers as he contrasts two very different societies; the elite high class type of society, and a supposedly 'lower' class of street thugs. The flower patterns creates a visual effect which is eye catching, and he also uses patterns that resembles a vintage wallpaper. All components of his work contribute in conveying a message of breaking the boundaries in stereotypical societies. A good example of intertextuality would be the contrast made from the work where there is a black man riding on a white horse. In terms of the image itself, the background wallpaper pattern is rather inconsistent. The top half of the painting looks as if the main image of the horse and the man is infront of a green wallpaper. However, the bottom part of the painting, we see the patterns overlap. The image also have political connotations in the sense that a black man is riding a royal looking horse, posing exactly like paintings of the elite, typical upper-class paintings of royalties and presidents.

Pluralism is evident in these paintings, with the portrayal of african american males with their particular hip hop fashion and gang colours, carrying flags or stereotypical items- nothing but an urban myth of the 21st century because these images are what the media feed us. In reality, there might not even be people who dress like guys in the painting.

Wiley doesn't seem scared at the controversy that these paintings would spark as they carry deep, political messages and colonialism implications with them. For example, the western world view would be associated with upper-class society of aristocrats, who are mostly 'white' skinned. This also raise issues of racism and social hierarchy in the 21st century today.

Week 4 - Anish Kapoor

'Cloud Gate' (04-06)

This sculpture is located in Chicago, and influenced by the material of liquid mercury. It's made out of stainless steel and constructed together to create its smooth texture. It's unique bean shape reflects and at the same time, distorts the setting around it. The sculpture creates many reflections as it is in a concave shape, creating funky reflections of objects nearby.

'Sky Mirror' (01-06)

Originally located outside a theatre in Wellington Circus, Nottingham. This sculpture is also made out of six-metres wide concave plate of stainless steel, that has been polished. It weighs about ten tonnes and positioned on an angle facing the sky (hence the name, sky mirror). It was manufactured in Finland. It reflects its surroundings and the environment.

'Svayambh'

This moving sculpture is made out of red wax, in a form of a giant block that is installed between the doorways in the gallery. It is design to push and squeeze its way through the doorways as it slowly moves on a set of tracks, leaving a trail behind on the ground. This effect is created on purpose to illustrate 'bleeding walls'.

'The Farm' is a sculpture by Kapoor, that stretches 1000 acres across a farm site in Kaipara Bay, New Zealand. It is designed to stand strong against winds which blow from the North. The ellipses go both directions, horizontal and vertical. It is constructed to resist strong winds. The sculpture also enhance the view of the Kaipara Harbor on the vertical ellipse, while also emphasizing the beautiful scenery of the hills of the farm from the horizontal ellipse.

Located in Kaipara Bay, north of New Zealand. It sits in between the hillside and valleys of the farm, and an amazing view of the Harbor. The sculpture was constructed with fabric, combined with PVC and steel.

My favourite would be the Svayambh. I think it is a very creative work of Kapoor's, clever use of materials and it is designed to be in a confined space. the Svayambh is very quirky and strange in a way, but Kapoor's style of mixing architecture and art is very authentic. I really like how his designs are spatial, yet it also has aesthetic elements to it.

Week 3 - The Walters Prize 2010

a) Saskia Leek
b) Fiona Connor
c) Dan Arps
d) Alex Monteith

In 2002, the Auckland Art Gallery founded The Walters Prize. It was named after the inspirational figure, Gordon Walters. The prize, usually given out every two years, includes a Saatchi & Saatchi’s exhibition space and $50,000 prize money. It is well known as the most prestigious prize for an artist in New Zealand, and it goes out to artists that achieves significant contribution to visual arts.

1.Saskia Leek: Her works consist of a variety of abstract settings, from architecture to natural landscapes. She uses oil paint, and a combination of pastel colours, which help to emphasize simplicity in her works.

2. Fiona Connor: Themes that revolve around her works would be the durability, values and purpose of everyday objects in the world. Her ideas are spatial and supported by process drawings- she collects objects from travelling and produces hand-made work.

3. Dan Arps: An experimental artist who works with sculpture and painting. He uses random objects to create a setting.

4. Alex Montheith: Her works are displayed in art galleries and film festivals. She focuses on media, such as film or video, photography, internet and other mediums that incorporate sound performance. She combines New Zealand’s natural setting of agriculture industry with fine-art

JURY MEMBERS 2010:
Jon Bywater - Programme Leader, Critical Studies at Elam School of Fine Art, The University of Auckland.
Rhana Devenport - Director, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, NewPlymouth.
Leonhard Emmerling - Visual Arts Adviser, Goethe Institute, Munich, Germany, former Director, ST PAUL St, AUT University.
Kate Montgomery - Director, Physics Room, Christchurch.

The judge for 2010 is Vicente Todoli. 7 years being director at the Tate Modern. He is a very well known and respected figure in the world of art. He is also thought to be the main reason behind the museum’s success.

My favourite artist would be Alex Monteith out of all the nominees. She is definitely bringing fresh talent and showing us a passion for film making in New Zealand. Her works are very crafty and thoughtful. It is also an advantage that she has international experiences. She also uses a wide variety of mediums such as film, photography and 2D works.

Week 2 - Hussein Chalayan

Afterwords (2000) show creativity at its best, the design is fun, fresh and very unique, yet it brings about sentimental ideas about the fashion collection. Pale colours such as shades of grey, white and light blue are used to create a neutral, yet sombre mood. The suitcases accompanying the models in grey dresses portray a sense of being stray and homeless. I think it also symbolize the ideas of leaving home and everything behind. The models all have a slick and edgy hairstyle to emphasize the symmetrical style of the collection. This is also done on purpose, to lead the audience’s attention and focus on the clothes, and the messages they are trying to convey.

Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 2000

Burka (1996) on the other hand, is very challenging for the audience as it contains nudity. This is somewhat a brave move to display the models nude is to be appreciated for the message it carries. The work is blatantly shocking, considering the issues of the Muslim religion and culture, and the audience is expected to see it from their individual perspective. The Burka symbolize respect, inner beauty and ideal clothing for a woman in the Muslim culture. However, Chalayan’s display of nudity radically challenge this concept.

Hussein Chalayan, Burka, 1996

Both art and fashion is intertwined in a mutual relationship, therefore, Afterwords and Burka both have elements that are appropriate for fashion and art at the same time. I personally think Afterwords leans more towards art rather than fashion. With the use of a variety of materials, it creates a well-structured garment that has both aesthetic and functional elements. Burka show fashion with strong, ideological background, and it leans more to fashion rather than art because it only uses one simple piece of material, following its original design of the Burka.

There is a difference between Chalayan’s personal design work and his commercial works. In Repose (2006) is solely for the use of advertising of Swarovski. By this I mean his designs are used to emphasize the beauty of the product it is advertising and to grab the audience’s attention to the elegant, high-fashion and elite feel of the product. The Level Tunnel (2006) collaboration with Vodka focuses on the human body and their senses, as the design works around the product to exaggerate the joy we would achieve from consuming that particular product. Chalayan’s commercialized works are strictly kept for the purpose of its advertising only, therefore, he does not involve any personal context to it. The meaning of his artwork changes when it is commercialized, as he does not include any personal content into it, however, to say that the art loses its aesthetic elements would be wrong. All his works are still creative and unique.

Hussein Chalayan, still from Absent Presence, 2005 (motion picture)

I think an art movement that might have influenced Chalayan’s approach would be the Genetic art movement. It is based on the relationship and connection between science and art. Chalayan’s work on Absent Presence tells us a story about identity, anthropology, history and genetics. The use of DNA in his film symbolize new beginnings, for example, the new start of fashion. Both science and art is combined to create an interesting narrative and style to Chalayan’s work.

It is very crucial that the artist themselves personally make the art work, because then the artist know their work well from concept stages, through development and until the final design. But we also need to be aware of the complex processes involved behind creating an art work. The artist will always need help from people such as editors or other specialists. Therefore, every person who has contributed their hard work into a project should be credited for the work’s publication.sharks himself. So when and why is it important that the artist personally made the piece?

Semester 2 - Week 1: Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.

Claymation is a form of stop-motion animation, with the use of materials such as Plasticine. The clay material is usually wrapped around a wire structure. To make a film frame, the objects are moved by hand and repeatedly shot. The shooting has to be consistent against a set background in order to create an illusion that the objects are moving by themselves in a continuous motion.

Garden of Eden, as we know, is a place that resembles heaven or paradise. We imagine the place to be beautiful, peaceful and filled with happiness. The surrealistic theme of Djurberg’s work contrasts fantasy with reality. In reality, the world we live in is unpleasant and dark, filled with hatred and violence. What is meant by “all the natural goes awry” represents the exact situation of our world. Beautiful by nature, yet it is actually dark and often mistaken for its positive aspects.

There are many different emotions explored in this particular artwork, and their complexity reminds the audience of humanity, our attitudes and behaviours as a human being. The complexity of emotions involves ideas such as racism, discrimination and violence.

Djurberg uses bright colours and simple forms of sculpture to bring out elements of children’s stories and innocence in her animated work. Animation is often used to recreate reality, and it is also very appealing to kids as animation techniques have the ability to extend our imagination and relive childhood memories. The narrative that Djurberg is trying to convey is like a coming of age story, with an eerie twist. It reminds us that growing up in reality is harsh, that we won't always be accepted for who we are, and that it is far from our ideal concept of growing up in a perfect environment.

I think contrasting themes of reality vs fantasy, or innocence vs corruption is often used to break our stereotypical ways of thinking as a society. Often young kids have an unrealistic expectation of their ideal 'growing up phase'.

Djurberg’s work is very interesting in many ways, the use of animation to convey childhood imagination being contrasted with its dark content is definitely a new and fresh concept to contemporary art. I think Garden of Eden has a variety of sociological themes that are associated with our daily lives; such as growing up with high expectations of how the world will be for our future, issues of fantasy vs reality, and the illusion of a perfect childhood.

'Experiment' 2009 Venice Biennale

'Turn into Me' 2008

Bold and bright colours are very attractive and eye catching, I think this is very effective in representing the Garden of Eden, with structures of big flowers and exotic plants that give the artwork it’s strange and eerie mood. I think the use of contrast also help to remind the audience of issues that we face every day in our society.

Week 9 - (Last blog question for semester one) - Banksy's work

How can we categorize Banksy's work -graffiti or murals?

Research Banksy's work to attempt to answer this question.
What are some of the differing opinions about Banksy's work?
How does his work sit in relation to consumerism? Can his work be sold?
What are some of his attitudes to the sale of Art?
Who is Banksy? Do we know his true identity?
Upload 2-3 images of Banksy's work that you find interesting, and comment
on the ideas behind the work.