These Research and Communications Skills lectures have definitely given me more of an insight into art history throughout the years and how art has developed.

The task that I found the most interesting was the one on counterculture in the 60s and 70s, as I found it fascinating how art seemed more free and how things were so different now than they were now. For example, I looked at a piece by Harold Cohen which showed a psychedelic-style lithograph of a person. In one sense, this seems so different to contemporary art because it seems like such a simple idea, and art has now expanded into much more than just simple lithographs with two colours. I found out that the psychedielia movement was inspired by the effects of drugs such as LSD, and art that was a part of this movement was supposed to replicate the feeling of taking those drugs. I like the idea of this because it took something taboo and got created into an art movement which made some amazing pieces and made artists at the time think outside the box.

As for the lectures, I think the one I learned the most from was the ‘Avant Garde’ presentation, as we looked at all the Avant Garde art movements such as abstract, surrealism and suprematism etc. I learnt all about the different art movements and what happened within them, and I now feel much more confident in knowing what they mean and how they changed and challenged the boundaries of art and design.

I also liked the lecture ‘Notes from the Underground’, as I enjoy learning about the 60s and 70s and their aesthetics. This lecture taught me about more art movements such as retro, counterculture and psychedelia, which I found interesting and useful, as it helped with my task for that week.

I will make sure to use some of the things I’ve found out in my contextual research as a way to dig deeper into meanings and analysis. I can use annotations to point out particular elements that interest me and expand on them more, as well as mentioning why those elements work or don’t work and whether they’re good or bad in achieving the effect the designers set out for.

In the future, I will try to bring in elements of different pieces of work that I’ve looked at, such as colour, type of line or style/aesthetic. I think this could help me in my artwork by giving myself a different style to work with and broaden my horizons with. Experimenting with these different techniques will be a good idea, as I may find a style I’m more comfortable using or one that I like better.

In conclusion, the things that I have learnt in Research and Communications Skills are useful in that I accumulated knowledge of a lot of the different movements and Art and Design throughout the years, and I will be able to apply these techniques to my work in studio practice.

 

 

Image: [no title], Cohen, H., 1968 [online] available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/cohen-no-title-p02291 [accessed: 6 December 2017]

My first image shows an advertisement from 1953 for a twist-off bottle lid. It shows a photograph of a woman looking shocked and holding a bottle of sauce. The colours and style make it recognisable as being from the 50s, as women were just seen as housewives and were expected to be prim, proper and weak.

The caption of this advert states that “a woman can open it”, suggesting that women were too weak to open lids before. This is a prime example of sexism in America, and how it could be used to promote products.

In the 50s, this advert would’ve been effective in selling the easy-to-open bottle due to relevance of sexism at the time.

The second image I found is a poster advertisement for Burger King. This is from 1975, and it

shows a family of four sitting around a table enjoying a meal.

I like this poster because it pushes against the racial discrimination that was problematic in the 1960s. The ad features a black family, which, in the 60s, wouldn’t have been acceptable due to racism still being a big issue. To see a family who were previously discriminated against makes the ad, and the brand, very positive.

 

Finally, I chose is a cover from i-D magazine. This one is from 1989, and it’s the ‘Loud Issue’, which is shown clearly as it uses many bright colours to catch the viewers’ attention. This cover uses information hierarchy to show the most important aspects, such as the logo, which is in black and white and thus stands out from the bright colours. The same goes for the chunks of text, as they’re in black and white, although particular words like ‘Elvis’, ‘Belgian’ and ‘Ska Fashion’ are singled out and highlighted in white in order for them to stand out.

I like this magazine cover because I think it fits the issue name by being loud, and I also think it’s the epitome of the 80s style, which is bright and neon.

 

In conclusion, by looking at these three published images altogether, I realise how different things can be advertised and sold.

 

 

 

Image One: Alcoa Aluminum, 1953 [online] available at: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Alcoa_Aluminum_advertisement#/media/File:Alcoa_Aluminum_advert_1953.png) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Image Two: Burger King, 1975 [online] available at: (https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/540502392770404316/) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Image Three: i-D Magazine (photography: Eddie Monsoon), The Loud Issue #70, 1989 [online] available at: (http://covers.i-d.co/cover/70/1) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Postmoderninsm came after modernism and became a rebellion against it.

 

The first thing I looked at was this photograph of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s oil barrels, which they called the ‘Iron Curtain’. They stacked four metres high of metal oil barrels in a narrow street in Paris, blocking the road and creating a traffic jam as a protest against the build of the Berlin wall from 1961.

The barrels in the photograph aren’t organised, and the artists didn’t change the colours or peel off/paint over any brand names; they stacked the barrels up purely so no one could get through, and caused the street to become a dead end.

 

In 1995, Nam June Paik created a piece of installation art called the ‘Electronic Superhighway’ showing the whole of the USA on many television screens with 51 channels (one for each state) and surrounded in neon lighting. Paik argued that media would become more commonly used in

America and should awareness about social issues such as racism and pollution, and so he made this “superhighway” of television screens, audio cassettes and fibre optics.

I like this piece because it’s extremely thought out and detailed – down to the positioning of the screens, and I like that the neon lights show all the states of America.

 

In 1978, Jacek Tylicki put a sheet of watercolour paper down inbetween fallen trees of a forest in Sweden between September and October and waited for 28 days to see what would occur naturally on the paper.

This natural art is very unique because nature is very unpredictable and cannot be replicated . the colour of this whole piece is brown, and it’s also very textured. This may be from combining mud with leaves and sticks along with the wind blowing them onto the paper. I like this because I know that only nature has caused this, and the fact that none of it is manmade is amazing. I think the message behind this is that nature can be art as well as manmade art.

 

I think postmodernism overall is very different and unique, and is more focused on meaning in comparison to modernism.

 

 

 

Image One: The Iron Curtain, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, 1962 [online] available at: (http://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/wall-of-oil-barrels—the-iron-curtain) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Image Two: Electronic Superhighway, Nam June Paik, 1995 [online] available at: (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/global-contemporary/a/paik-electronic-superhighway) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Image Three: Number 185, Jacek Tylicki, 1978 [online] available at: (http://www.tylicki.com/natural-art/#Tylicki_Natural_Art_185.jpg) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Counterculture of the 1960s was a period of time where everything was about going against the ‘normal’ ways of thinking, and people were experimenting different styles.

My first image is an untitled piece by Harold Cohen showing a lithograph of a person in red and cyan. This is a part of the psychedelia movement, which was based on drugs such as LSD and their effects. I like this piece because the colours are very contrasting against eachother, and, although there are only two colours, the details are still visible and you can still tell it’s a person.

 

My second image is a photograph taken in 1969, showing the first night of the Stonewall riots, a riot which broke out after police raided a gay bar in New York City called the Stonewall Inn. Because of this, members of the LGBT community began to protest the oppression that they were receiving.

The photo shows homeless young people begin to fight

with the police as they were protesting. The Stonewall Inn had “become home to these kids” (Mattachine Society Newsletter, July 1969), and I think this is an important photograph as it shows the beginning of the LGBT movement in the United States, and it was a very important event at the time, as gay Americans in the 50s and 60s were oppressed, and just wanted to fit into society. The Stonewall eventually added a sign in their window reading “we homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the village” (Mattachine Society, September 1969).

 

My final image is a poster created by Stanley Mouse for the “Human Be-In”, an event hosted in San Fransisco and created by Michael Bowen. This poster uses a photograph of artist Casey Sonnabend and layers on top of it the illuminati symbol; adding in details of the gathering above and below the photograph. The colours are very muted, yet the symbol really stands out against the rest of the poster.

 

In conclusion, I think counterculture images are important in displaying rebellion against the conventional ways of thinking at the time.

 

 

 

Image One: [no title] Harold Cohen, 1968 [online] available at: (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/cohen-no-title-p02291) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Image Two: The Stonewall Riots, The New York Daily News, 1969 [online] available at:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots#/media/File:Stonewall_riots.jpg) [accessed 6 December 2017]

Image Three: The Human Be-In Poster, Stanley Mouse, 1967 [online] available at: (http://www.pbagalleries.com/images/lot/1467/146799_0.jpg) [accessed 6 December 2017]

The definition of authenticity is ‘not a copy; genuine’, which is what we, as artists, should strive to achieve. Although authenticity should come to us naturally, it’s getting much harder to become truly authentic, as, with every day, new ideas are being thought up.

So is it possible to be truly authentic? I think yes and no. On the one hand, you could believe that you are being authentic by creating an ‘original’ idea, but, on the other hand, someone else may have already thought up that idea – be it days, weeks or years ago. It is possible to be authentic to yourself, but to be authentic in your approach to all art is a different matter, I think.

True authenticity is even harder to achieve now because of the internet, as things are shared all over the web. Art is a lot easier to see now than it was centuries ago, and we now draw inspiration from any artist we see. Even artists that were alive centuries ago are on websites and archives such as Wikipedia, and their work has been uploaded for anyone to see, write about, or copy.

In conclusion, I think that, whilst not impossible, it is difficult to be truly authentic. It’s hard to know if your work has already been created somewhere else, however, I believe that, if not copied purposefully, it is still authentic, as well as it can be authentic if you draw inspiration from the work of others, but still stay true to your own style, or add your own unique flair.

In the ‘Manifesto of the Constructivist Group’, Rodchenko states that ‘technology is the mortal enemy of art’, which is a phrase that I completely disagree with.

The reason I disagree with this statement is because I believe that technology is vital in some aspects of art, for example, graphic design. Graphic design is dependant on computers in order to get the outcome that designers want, and without the technology that we have today, graphic design wouldn’t be in such a remarkable place as it is now, and we wouldn’t have the iconic movie posters/album covers etc. that we remember.

Technology also enables us to save multiple versions of our work, allowing us to edit and go back between the different ones to see which is the best. Technology lets us share our work over the internet for people to see, which allows us to accept commissions and work from brands, or create branding for companies. Without technology, work would be harder to find, and, if found, would take longer to create.

Rodchenko uses the word ‘enemy’ to describe technology and its relation to art as a whole. I think the reason he says this is because he despises anything that could threaten the authenticity of art as it happened centuries ago – by the artists’ hands themselves, without editing and done first time. Because of technology, we now have the power to change our art completely from what it started out as, whether it’s photoshopping out flaws to removing something entirely. However, I still think that technology is essential to artists.

My first image is one I chose by a Brazilian collage artist called Marcelo Monreal. He uses photographs of models and cuts them up, adding illustrations of flowers and leaves.

He uses the 3D effect of half the face coming apart to give the image more dimension and make it seem more real, and the flowers creeping around the part of the face coming apart also suggests that the flowers are still growing. The bright reds and greens contrast against the light yet dull colours, brightening up the otherwise boring photograph of the model.

I think Monreal uses these illustrations of nature to show that beauty also comes from within, even under these photos of beautiful models. The flowers show that under this model facade, she could still have an amazing personality and be bright, as well as having a pretty face. As well as this, the image of the flowers coming out of the face could also surprise the audience and make them look twice, as it’s not something normal you would expect.

The second image is David Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”. I chose this because it’s such an iconic photograph (taken by Mick Rock), and it shows us fully what Bowie’s aesthetic was.

This album cover is very detailed, much like Monreal’s work with the flowers, however, it is also very dark and busy, unlike Monreal’s, which is bright and easy to see where the main focus of the artwork is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image One: Marcelo Monreal, 2016 [online] available at: (http://www.contemporaryartcurator.com/marcelo-monreal/) [accessed 13 November 2017]

Image Two: “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, Mick Rock, 1972 [online] available at: (http://www.rockandrollgps.com/the-album-cover-location-for-the-rise-and-fall-of-ziggy-stardust-and-the-spiders-from-mars/) [accessed 13 November 2017]

‘Terminal Bar’ (2002) is a short film directed by Stefan Nadelman about a bar on Times Square in New York City, including photographs by his father Sheldon Nadelman, who worked at the bar from 1972-1982, and collected 10 years’ worth of photos.

Sheldon Nadleman took over 2,500 photos of the people of the bar and the bar itself, which closed in 1982, and in the photos, you can see the place and people developing throughout the years and the bar carrying on its rough aesthetic. The bar was originally mainly for Irish-Americans, but over time became a gay bar, yet still remained popular throughout.

The photos in the short film move around and appear/disappear to the beat of the heavy rock music, which adds to the aesthetic of the bar and gives an indication on what it must have been like to drink there. Toward the end, I realized the photos become categorized, for example, some are just of photos of people wearing glasses or wearing hats, and this makes the bar seem more diverse in who it was targeted for.

Sheldon Nadleman says that “nothing has changed” when he goes back to visit to bar years after it’s shut down and, as it’s now a video store, this quote suggests that the New York streets haven’t changed, as opposed to the bar. I like this quote because it may be implying that the bar still lives on in spirit, and that people will still remember it if they lived to see it in such a popular state.