1. Finish "Slash: Paper Under the Knife" analyses and post to blog as comments here: http://drawings10.blogspot.com/2010/02/field-trip-slash-paper-under-knife-at.html.
2. Three sketched ideas for Drawing Narrative. Bring in text or other documentation.
3. Collaboration project.
4. Supplies: 4 sheets of good quality rag paper, pencils, charcoal, conte, white chalk or white conte, erasers. We will be working from the model.
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1.) Piece: Finland's Unnamed Islands by Nina Katchadourian; 2000/2009 (topography)
ReplyDeleteThis piece is quite long and thin; I estimated about three inches long by 5 feet, and basically flat to the wall. It's made up of about fifty of the microscope slides a scientist would normally use to contain a specimen, all laid out on a metal bar. The artist took a map of Finland, where she used to vacation as a child, and cut out each of the islands that was too small to be given a name on the map, and placed each in a slide. She arranged them on the bar so that their shapes mutate fluidly from one to the next, almost like a specimen of bacteria growing and changing. I was initially drawn to the piece for its formal simplicity and then further drawn in by its conceptual simplicity. The mutation of the islands has a formal allusion to biology, as does the use of the microscopic slides. I like that it's minimalist yet organic. Her use of only the unnamed parts of Finland is vaguely political--perhaps about the way that government discounts small or sparsely populated areas--but the association between science and her childhood is more interesting to me, as if she is clinically dissecting her past.
The use of paper is due to her choice to use a map; if she had transferred the images of the islands to another material, it wouldn't have the nice quality of being a specimen from her life, something commonplace like a map, that she had decided to dissect. Her choice to cut out the islands, once again, makes it feel more like a dissection or formal study. If she had just circled these islands on a map they could have felt more like destinations than case studies. She drew the shapes around the islands with a knife, conscious of how one shape would transform into the next.
Nina has done quite a bit of work with maps before; she has rearranged the continents to create a new world map, taken pictures of lichen that look like geographic bodies and labeled them as such, and dissected a AAA map of the US, leaving only the roads. She put the road intersections from the same map between microscopic slides too; interestingly, where she once put roads that join people together, she now puts islands which are separated by water. Her projects not related to maps directly still show an international perspective dealing with language and geography; I found her rock-switching project particularly beautiful in its simplicity. I love the way that her works are personal and simple, and that she often displays them in a scientific or minimalist way. She performs these works of love in an slightly obsessive way and then displays them simply, for what they are.
2.) Standard American by Brian Dettmer, 2008 (shredding the word)
ReplyDeleteDettmer took a set of American Encyclopedias, set them up so that their pages would lie one on top of the others without the covers in between, and slowly went through cutting away words, leaving only the illustrations he wanted to keep. I estimated that the piece was about two-and-a-half feet long, six inches wide and a foot tall. It was displayed on a pedestal at about waist-height. I didn't see any political message in this piece; to me, it was so beautiful and mesmerizingly intricate that any other intentions went right over my head. It reminded me of either a biological dissection of a body or an archaeological dig in its precision and intensity. It's quite fitting that it's reminiscent of an archaeological dig in its layers because in a way, an encyclopedia is a sociological study. It lists, alphabetically, in a very methodical way, what events, people and places are important enough to demand an entry.
Just as with Nina's work, if the artist had chosen to transfer the contents of the encyclopedia to another medium, it would have lost an essential element of familiarity and the context of being something that's a staple in our lives, whether it's a map, book, journal, whatever. He drew the shapes around the illustrations with his knife and also made choices in composition; he had some control over what images overlap which images.
I was amazed to look up Brian Dettmer and see that the piece I saw was one of his simplest! I find him quite similar to Nina in that he takes something personal, a book, and presents in a very precise way. Unlike her, his finished pieces are incredibly intricate; there is truly a science to what he does, considering the surgical instruments he uses to literally dissect his books. There's also something geographic about them, like a topographical map or a cliff in which you can see the layers of history. He also uses maps, like Nina. Like I said, the piece I saw was just a small glimpse into his body of work.
3.) Peaceable Kingdom (Mystic Light) by Lane Twitchell, 2009
ReplyDeleteTwitchell's piece is composed of acrylic on laser-cut paper mounted on plexiglass over acrylic on panel. It's fairly large, but its intense colors and busy composition make it initially overwhelming. My initial thought was that it reminded me of a Buddhist mandala, a circular piece of art meant to help focus meditation, which features intricate patterns and gods. It turns out I wasn't far off: the work was meant to be an amalgam of religious imagery. It includes the mandala allusion, a subtle cross formation, nature and animals, and architecture that could be part of a Greek or Hindu temple. It also reminds me of a circular totem pole in the intricateness of its carving. I like its message--that all religions really come from the same place and aren't that different--and its relevance today, with so much violence in the Middle East over religion and how increasingly taboo and politically incorrect it is to discuss religion openly and honestly.
I'm not entirely sure about the artist's choice to work with paper as opposed to wood or stone--more traditional templates for religious imagery because of their permanence. Perhaps he wanted to modernize the practice of religious devotion. There's a great deal of drawing with his knife (all the shapes are made with cutouts with paint only used for shading and color) but I find it interesting that the artist chose to have the paper laser-cut instead of hand cutting it. It seems to me that hand cutting it could have been an integral part of its value, making it more into an act of devotion. Perhaps he meant to convey how detached people today have become from religion, ceasing to allow it to be a personal experience.
I see from the artist's website that he works a lot with cut paper, intense color and pattern. I like the way that he combines flat color ground with shading to create a luminous, atmospheric quality in much of his work. Although it's hard for me to see from small internet images whether or not his other work holds religious meaning, it's difficult to deny the similarity between his works and mandalas or Islamic art, with its emphasis on geometric patterns.
SHAWN JEFFERS
ReplyDelete1. "Crush", 2008, Nava Lubelski.
1" x 38" x 38".
The work was made out of cut love letters, personal papers, documents.
2. The work is an obssessive compilation of paper documents. "Crush" deals with a man confronting his own sexuality, sexual identity and hiding personal facts about his life. This piece seems like an attempt at revealing his life in a way that still makes it not perfectly clear to the viewer. It seems like an attempt at "coming clean...but not really"
3. The artist chose to work with paper because given the content of the work it was an effective medium to be able to use actual documents that are part of the mans life.
4.Nava Lubelski is essentially making a drawing with the rolled tubes of paper. She uses them to create a sort of map on the surface, which one would also be able to do with traditional drawing media.
5. The paper piece directly fits into the rest of the artist's body of work. Lubelski uses thread on canvas and ink on paper to create these sort of organic bacteria like shapes that is directly referenced in the paper piece "Crush."
SHAWN JEFFERS
ReplyDelete1. "Walking through the park," 2007, Ferry Staverman. The Netherlands.
cardboard and thread, freestanding multiple sculptures
2. The work are abstract silhouettes that reference bells, lamp posts and other sort of romantic objects. The work has a lot of whimsy to it given the color and shape choices of the sculptures. But neither of those formal aspects of the work give any clues to a specific "meaning" or if the object is "something." The title is really the only clue.
3. The artist chose to work with paper because it is delicate and easily manipulated. Also, paper has a direct relation to the idea of silhouettes so it is more than appropriate.
4. The works are related to drawing because they are silhouettes. They create lines in space...which is what drawing can function as.
5. This work fits into the rest of Staverman's work because he often works with these sort of whimsical fluid and soft lines in his drawings and other sculptures. It is a different departure from his previous work because there is a very thorough exploration of color in these sculptures.
SHAWN JEFFERS
ReplyDelete"Shed," 2006, Thomas Demand
C-Print on Diasec
2. Thomas Demand's work shed is a photograph of a scale model of a shed that has a political relevence. I liked this work because I thought it had a lot of humor. He uses photography, which often attempts to catch a moment in time that is not still, to capture a moment that was both man made and completely still. There is also an absence of people which makes it a very eerie and untouched scene.
3. The artist chose to work with paper because it is a material that has a handmade quality to it. And because he uses architectural sort of imagery, it also makes the installations have an other worldly sort of feeling to them.
4. The piece is basically a drawing because it is a representation/reproduction of something "real." It functions just as a drawing does.
5. Thomas Demand's body of work is photographs of three dimensional models of rooms and other significant spaces. So this work really isnt any different than anything else that he has made.
Standard American, 2008
ReplyDeleteBrian Dettmer
Cut and altered book
1. This piece consists of an open encyclopedia with cut out pages and a series of greyscale images that are collaged on top of the pages.
2. The artist chose use an encyclopedia because it is an object that has lost its use with the rise of technology. By using it as an art medium, the artist gives the object a new function and prevents it from becoming obsolete.
3. Some aspects of drawing that are present in this piece are line, visual representations of people, charts, letters, lights and shadows on the images, and composition in the way the artist chose to arrange the images and the cuts.
4. This piece is very similar to the rest of the Dettmer's work. Most of the pieces that I've seen by him are made with books and/or book pages. However, they are also similar in the sense that they are all made with either found objects or reused materials.
Untitled (74 layers), 2009
Adam Fowler
graphite on paper, hand cut, and layered
1. The piece consists of many thin curved lines made by cuting paper and layering each line on top of the other.
2. The artist says that he uses paper because it it "ubiquitous and readily available". I think paper is a great also to create the sense of depth Fowler achieved in this piece.
3. Some aspects of drawing that are present in this piece are line, the use of charcoal, cutting while tracing what was already drawn, and also the shadows that the pieces created when the were layered on top of the other.
4. Adam Fowler has made many art pieces using this same process. Besides that, he has some prints that are still very similar to those as an end product. His work with cut out paper and his prints are both composed of numerous lines that layer and overlap, and create space.
Finland's Unnamed Islands, 2000/2009
ReplyDeleteNina Katchadourian
paper map fragments between microscope slides
1.This piece consists of cutouts of Finland's islands that are too small to be labeled in an atlas put between microscope slides.
2. The artist chose to work with paper to reference a map of an atlas, since they serve a didactic purpose.
3. Some aspects of drawing present in this piece are cutting out a drawing, representations of the islands, and organiz and sharp lines on each island.
4. This piece is very similar to the rest of the artist's work. Most of the consist of maps, graphs, and making connections.