I recently visited the Gagosian gallery, in London, where I saw Richard Serra’s huge scale sculptures. The sculptures were made from plates of industrial sized steel and took up the whole entire room that they were in. In one room were two cylinders of steel and in the other room was a huge structure to which you were able to walk around inside.
Due to the structure being so large and it’s being made from raw industrial material made me feel very small and fragile in comparison. When walking through the tiny corridor within the sculpture it began to get narrower at the top which felt very uncomfortable and quite intimidating as it was almost as if I was being trapped by this incredibly heavy object.
Richard Serra’s work explores how sculptures can be enjoyed both visually and physically, he wanted to create an environment for the viewer and not just create something to look at in a museum. Serra wanted the audience to be part of the art. He often created sculptures in the outside world so they can be viewed by everyone rather than only people who visit galleries, making his work universal but also controversial as he is known to have sued the American government for removing one of his works.
When I first saw Serra’s work they were arguably the most interesting pieces of art I have seen in a gallery, simply because I was so shocked at the vast scale within such a small room and the fact that it’s exactly not what you think of when you think of art; a huge industrial sized sheet of steel. Pictures seen of Serra’s art does not do it any justice, the intense feeling of seeing it in the flesh is lost.

https://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-serra/artist-exhibitions
https://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-serra
https://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/richard-serra–nj1–may-07-2016
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/13/richard-serra-review-nj-2-gagosian-britannia-street-london

From what I understand from the texts both Steinberg and Serra both have different interests in art however they both discuss their interests and the change in the process over a period of time.

In Leo Steinberg “from other criteria” he talks about the process and development of art. I like how Steinberg is more open minded and speaks about how the placement of the art does’t count. Also Steinberg focuses on how other artists such as Rauschenberg and Duchamp and how they helped shape the expressionist movement.

In Richard Serra “from the Yale Lecture” he talks about how he build site specific work which is different to how Steinberg says that the placement of the art is not important and that ” there is no law against hanging a rug on a wall, or reproducing a narrative picture as a mosaic floor” he believes that the subject matter is the art.

 This is a kind of flower called Gerbera.

“Gerbera L. is a genus of plants Asteraceae . It was named in honour of German botanist and medical doctor Traugott Gerber (1710-1743) who travelled extensively in Russia and was a friend of Carl Linnaeus.

Gerbera is native to tropical regions of South America, Africa and Asia. The first scientific description of a Gerbera was made by J.D. Hooker in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in 1889 when he described Gerbera jamesonii, a South African species also known as Transvaal daisy or Barberton Daisy. Gerbera is also commonly known as the African Daisy.” showed on wiki.

The garment above in the picture is from Gucci 2016 flora series. Flower is the most important elements in design of the Gucci , always appear in the final garment design. The designer prefer use bright color ，meanwhile using contrast color to enhance visual effect.

These flower maybe several different colors of rose. Compare with the gerbera , Rose is more rounded.

Inspired by the seventeenth Century season writer Madeleine Scurry  in 1654 by the creation of depicting the  map (Carte de Tendre tenderness), the snake and the vines entanglements, flowers and twigs whispering, love and adventure and attachment. In the dawn of the game and the future retro vortex theory, Alessandro Michele never discouraged. Identification of  green red green stripes and women’s printing again this season, Gucci interpretation of the Situationists drift , the fuzzy zone is no longer wandering in the past and unknown ,  open the door of the Gucci drift to the modern time.

The vague gender consciousness, regional culture, the boundaries of time and space, these familiar elements still exist, familiar and unfamiliar wake up the perception of antennae. However, the  precise fuzzy definition has become Gucci a new definition of the most powerful. All creatures are like exquisite murals, jumping colors and the limits of the visual limits of the printer, exquisite brushwork depicting the most sexy woman in Alessandro Michele’s heart. This season’s Gucci faded timid scholar breath in the details, teasing boudoir small mood. As the embodiment of urban inner subconscious can record the map, to intimate feelings that whisper to the world to explore v.. Romantic and delicate design makes the whole series full of expectation and exploration, rich styles and colors make this season an important fashion landscape in Milan in spring. Retro, romantic, amorous feelings, elegant patterns are inseparable from the full of flowers, let us feel Gucci new spring series of wonderful scene design.

Punk style

· I chose this book because last week I went to the Camden Town in London, I found that some people’s dressing style is very cool and interesting, exaggerated clothes and accessories are very special, these thing made an indelible impression on me. And from this book, I knew many history of Punk, and enhanced the understanding of punk style. For example, nail, pin, hairstyle, earring, leather jacket and many rubber materials. Also understand the motivation and interpretation of punk style. First originated in some bands, “punk never dies” is a slogan, saying that young people are not afraid of rights, brave to do their own spirit such as anarchism. But the information about punk style of fashion and society that is not many.

And then, I went these websites because there are many information about Punk and the resource is reliable. Gothic culture is different with Punk, even they have a little bit similar. Here I learned a lot about punk band. Such as the famous band sex pistols.

In my opinion, enough research can provide a lot of evidence and broaden my mind if I want to do the design of this idea in the future, in order to further understand the punk culture, I found this website using webcat.

BBC News (2002) A brief history of punk. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2601493.stm (Accessed 29th October 2015)

Ryan, B. (2015) Punk shocks the world. A short history of punk. The Seventies,17th August.

Sklar, Monica (2013) Punk Style, Oxford: Berg.

Subcultureslist (2017) Punk rock based counter- culture. Available from: http://subcultureslist.com/punks/ (Accessed 29th October 2015)

BOOK:

Agnes Rocamora,<<Fashion the city:Paris , Fashion and the Media>> published in 2009 by I.B.Tauris &Co Ltd, 6 Salem Road , London W2 4BU,175 Fifth Avenue , New York NY 10010. Distributed in the United States and Canada  Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan , 175 Fifth Avenue , New York NY 10010. The right of Agnes Rocamora to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, design and patients act 1988.

While much attention has been paid to the making of Paris in the work of writers and artists, little is known about the city as defined and created by the fashion media. This book focus on how the French fashion press , with a lots of images , showing French is a city leading world fashion. I really like the fashion in 1900-1990, in that generation, many originally fashion idea had take place. French, as the leader of the world fashion , also has many famous designers and works.

WEBSITE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_in_fashion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This website show us a large number of information about 1990s fashion , women’s  fashion,  men’s fashion , youth fashion and beauty trends. we can see anything in this website , whatever you want to know about that generation fashion .

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:

“What clothes did people wear” published on BBC news on 20 January 2014.

This article focus on the clothes in  the early 1990s ,

“In the early 1900s, people covered up more than we do today. Women and girls never wore trousers and women kept their legs hidden with long dresses or skirts.

Men and boys often kept their coats, jackets and ties on, even in hot weather. People from every social class usually wore hats when they were outside. Children’s clothes were usually miniature versions of grown up’s clothes.

Clothes were made from natural materials, such as wool or linen. Materials used for today’s clothes, such as nylon and polyester, did not exist. There were no zippers on the market yet and Velcro hadn’t been invented so clothes were fastened by buttons, hooks or laces.

Jeans were unknown in the British Isles and the closest things to trainers were canvas slippers with rubber soles known as plimsolls. Shoes and boots were made from leather and were kept on the feet with laces or buttons.”

I chose Renée Cox’s Hot-en-tot Venus, 1994 photograph to analyse. In this photograph she uses herself as the subject matter. Cox is stood with her body facing to the side with her hands resting upon her hips, she has her head turned looking directly at the camera, straight at the audience. Cox is wearing fake breasts and a fake butt which is tightly tied on to her body using string which is clearly left to be noticed.
The message she is trying to establish is obviously very important to her and her everyday life, which may be why she has used her own body. The artist came out from hiding behind the art, she was now part of the art, which presumably was very empowering for her as a female artist. The fact that, as an audience we are looking straight at the artist, naked, really makes you understand how important the message is as she has bravely stepped out and put herself in this great vulnerable position. It also makes you realize how critical it is that she is not only representing herself, but recognizing other women and reaching out to them by putting herself out there and making it clear that the expectations drawn from the media are truly unrealistic. Cox herself used to be a model and therefore it almost means more coming from her as she is saying that even her own body isn’t media ‘perfect’ either but just embrace it.
The composition of the photograph is very interesting as she has only used a black background, which demands the audience to look at her. She is the only thing that matters at this moment of time. This is a very direct and straightforward way of communicating with the public, Cox is not hiding behind metaphorical nonsense, she is putting what she wants to say out there right in front of you. Literally looking at you straight in the eye. https://artintheblackdiaspora.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/renee-cox-hot-en-tot/
Video of the Week: After Hot-En-Tot: Two conversations with Artist Renée Cox

Renée Cox: A Taste of Power

During my research for the contemporary project I stumbled across Jackson Pollock and Gerhard Richter, both are well known for their techniques used to create their paintings. Pollock was known as an action painter; this is when the method used to create the painting is more important than the outcome. His style of drip painting using hardened brushes, sticks and basting syringes to apply the paint to the canvas from all different directions caused the action to flow from the instrument into the energy portrayed in the painting. Richter developed a technique where he dragged the paint across the canvas using a squeegee, usually over paintings and photography creating defaced imagery.

I am very intrigued by the way both Pollock and Richter work and so would like to devise my own way of working inspired by these two techniques. The idea of an action painter catches my eye and so does the idea of defacing imagery. Mixing these two together I have come up with a way of working by applying paint using ping pong balls, by covering the balls in paint and then bouncing them onto a large image or drawing. Where the paint goes on this image will be out of my control and hopefully, the splashes and prints from the balls will capture the movement and energy onto the paper, like how Pollock captured this in his paintings. The photograph or drawing underneath will be a portrait, as I am mainly considering how defacing portraits can cause the viewer to be uncomfortable. This is inspired by the way Richter applies paint onto photographs of people.

The practice I am going to be evolving is what I like to call “Mood Painting”. Where basically you create abstract paintings from the emotions you are currently experiencing or are being evoked through an external stimulus, for example I will be listening to music and from the music I get inspired to choose what colours to mix into the background and sometimes place words which stick out to me from the song. I started creating artwork this way at the beginning of this year in my Art Foundation course after being inspired by a talk from the artist Tom Hammick, the way he spoke about his prints and the personal connection he had between night and day and how it influenced his work, I was inspired to experiment with this personal connection within my own artwork; so I began this mood painting technique. I really enjoyed it and it created some interesting work and was somewhat therapeutic for me to allow my thoughts and emotions to seep onto the paper through an array of colours and words and to reflect on the outcome afterwards.

STEINBERG, L. (1999) From Other Criteria IN: HARRISON, C. Art in Theory, 1900-1990. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, United States: Blackwell, 948-953.

Leo Steinberg’s ‘From Other Criteria’ is a short essay talking about the way certain people view art and how particular styles of art made presently are not necessarily seen as ‘art’ in comparison to known artists such as Picasso and Warhol.  In this essay he uses the artist Robert Rauschenberg, and compares his strange pieces of work to shed a light on how not all art has to be a neat little painting or at least an aesthetically pleasing piece of work. He references this type of work style as the ‘flatbed picture plane’ and summarizes the essay by saying “It is part of a shakeup which contaminates all purified categories. The deepening inroads of art into non-art continue to alienate the connoisseur as art defects and departs into strange territories leaving the old stand-by criteria to rule an eroding plain.” Basically, saying that art made because the artist wanted to make it, is seen interesting and more worthy today than that of the artists who produced work in the modern art period and that the standards of criteria of what people view as art has changed from that of the early modern art era.

SERRA, R. (1999) From the Yale Lecture IN: HARRISON, C. Art in Theory, 1900-1990. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, United States: Blackwell, 1124-1127.

Richard Serra’s ‘From the Yale lecture’ is an extract taken from the artist’s Yale lecture in which he talks about his site specific built artworks that are seen as uncanny and controversial. He says in this lecture: “The work does not enter into the fictitious realm of the ‘master’.” And that he is “not interested in art as affirmation or in art as manifestation of complicity.” Essentially, he is making a dig at the attitudes of modern sculpture and how the teachings of the masters are that sculptures should be beautiful Michelangelo pieces of work made from marble, unlike Serra’s curved bent pieces of metal.

You can see the similarities are quite distinct in each of the short writings, whilst both Steinberg and Serra are talking about different elements in Fine Art, they are both saying the same thing. Late Modern art and now Contemporary art should be made because the artists want to make what they want to make in their own creative space. Contemporary artists shouldn’t have this almost burden over their head of having to work in a specific manner because that’s what the masters of art taught.

The Tate modern is an example that you can appreciate the art movements and masters of art whilst also appreciating the crazy creativity and uncanny use of materials that contemporary artists of today explore in their work.

For this task, I decided to pursue something I would never typically choose to do voluntarily – performance and performativity. I took the opportunity to try something far from the remit of my practice and be more open-minded with the results of what this may yield.

I became increasingly interested in the presence and role of the artist in the creation of work and undertook a series of explorations using the body as a canvas – as opposed to just my hands as tools for making. Having previously considered the ‘artist’s hand’ in my work and how much of yourself you expose in creating work, I began to embrace these notions of identity I typically use my work to evade.

On separate occasions, I covered myself in masking tape, painted myself orange and wrapped myself in newsprint. Using familiar materials, I was able to approach ‘performance art’ without being put off or running in the opposite direction.

For this task, I also participated in a collaborative project with three others in which we connected ourselves to one another with yarn, tying our hands and heads together.

Working performatively and collaboratively