Jill Magid

Jill Magid seems to tackle projects not many artists would even think about. She spied on herself using video taken from street cameras and also did a project for the Dutch Secret Service. My first question is, why would the Dutch Secret Service hire an artist who wanted to get to know about the system. Why not just hire someone to make a painting or sculpture to put in the building. Isn't that a little safer than risking having your secrets published to the world?

Street Art

I think the idea of street art was the most interesting part of this class for me. Many talented people make their work visible to the public, and it very interesting to see the hard work people put into these pieces.

The part that confuses me is that, isn't what some of these people are doing considered vandalism? What would happen if they get caught? Banksy is the name one street artist goes by. His images adorn buildings all over the world, but no one knows his true identity. Does he enjoy the mystery, or does he not want to reap the consequences of vandalizing buildings?

Installation Art

Over the course of a couple classes, we viewed different types of Installation Art. One of the big Installations that seemed extremely large was the Sunflower Seeds piece by Ai WeiWei. He and other people painted thousands of ceramic sunflower seeds to place in this space. The nice thing that WeiWei was that he employed people of the area he worked in.



We also viewed the piece Pharmacy by Damien Hirst. The part that "bothered" me about this piece is that I could walk into any pharmacy in my town and see something similar, so why is considered art? Why isn't any other pharmacy considered a piece of art?

Performance Art

Performance Art was the section of this course I found the most odd. It baffled me that one person could dress up horses and film them at sunrise for a piece, and another person could dress as a badger and make a fool out of himself - all in the sake of art.

Matthew Barney seems to do pieces that other people may just describe as "odd" or weird. In the image below, he appears to be nearly naked, standing in clear heals and body paint with a art piece "growing" from his mouth.



Another performance artist we looked at was Marcus Coates. Coates work seemed much more off than the work of Barney. I could never imagine dressing up in deceased animals and acting in a manner such as he did to a mayor in a different county. It makes me think, what kind of example is he setting for people?

Plexus

Over Spring Break, my friend and I visited The College of St. Rose to view the exhibit "Plexus" by Rob Swainston. This exhibit featured many different pieces which were referred to as Propositions. The pieces were filled with vibrant colors and strips of paper arranged in various ways to give the piece depth and interesting variety.





Another piece that was included in this exhibit were 3 ceiling-to-floor length "scrolls" that displayed more art. To the right, in an area that was hidden from the entrance, there was another piece. This piece had a window-like design painted on it, as a light shined on the part where the window actually was, giving the picture some life.




My favorite part about this exhibit was the mirrors on the floor that gave the insight to the artwork on the ceiling. If you looked over the mirrors far enough, you or other viewers could become part of the piece.

A Trip to the MoMA

When embarking on my trip to the Museum of Modern Art, I did not know what to expect.  My family and I took a trip up to the fourth floor where there was an abstract exhibition.  The first thing I saw when I walked in was two pieces by Andy Warhol.  I immediately smiled.  I recognized the pieces and the style of his work right away.  One piece was a large canvas with a small portrait of Marilyn Monroe.  The other piece was a compilation of Campbell’s soup pictures.  There were several people crowded around the pieces.  Some were even drawing pictures of the pieces on display.

There were so many fascinating pieces in the exhibit.  I saw pieces that we talked about by Jackson Pollack.  One of his pieces was huge!  It took up almost an entire wall in one of the rooms.  Other pictures I noticed were by Aaron Siskind.  I recognized his name from digital photography.  I studied him a bit for my photographer paper.  It was cool to see a bunch of his photographs close up.  I really liked his photo “Martha’s Vineyard.”  I also liked his peeled paint piece.  The texture was really interesting to see in person.  It really made his photograph come to life.

One artist that I found particularly intriguing was Ad Reinhardt.  His pieces were so simple, but something drew me to them.  Two of his pieces were just black paint and nothing else.  My family looked at me and thought I was crazy when I said I liked these pieces.  “There’s nothing to it!” said my dad.  But, I noticed after looking at them that it was about the variation of the shades of black that Reinhardt used in these pieces that made it so interesting.  Most people just glanced at these pieces and walked away assuming they were just black squares and rectangles.  However, it was really cool to see the deeper meaning in the pieces and actually understand what the artist was trying to get his viewers to see.

While at the museum, I also visited a contemporary art exhibition.  This one was really cool and had a lot of things we talked about in class as well.  A lot of the works were a lot larger and stood our more than the other pieces.  Some of the artwork took up an entire room!  There was one piece that was a glass circle where half of it was lit up in neon green.  It seemed so simple, but it was still so exciting to look at.  It’s just funny to see these things that make you wonder why they are such great pieces of art, yet you are still drawn to them and can’t look away.

One piece from this exhibit was two entire walls filled with the word AIDS in small square tiles.  This piece was colorful, and it made you a little bit dizzy if you stared at it for too long.  There were other pieces within the art and it was really something.  It sent such a strong message and you were forced to look at it.  Other pieces were simply words printed largely on the walls.  One piece read, “The show is over the audience get up to leave their seats time to collect their coats and go home they turn around no more coats and no more home.”  There is no punctuation, and the words are written spaced out and funky.  I’m not really sure why but I was especially drawn to this piece.  I thought the way it was presented was really different and it made you stop and think about it both while and after reading it.

I also saw an installation in this exhibit.  It had unfinished walls, garbage bags hanging on the walls, and random things all throughout the space.  It was really interesting how Paul Chan, put together this installation.  It was even cooler to actually know what the script was talking about when they mentioned that this piece was an installation. 

Paul Sharitis’ video was particularly striking.  I walked into a dark room simply to see a bunch of colors blinking on the screen.  First blue would come, then green, orange and so on.  My sister decided to make use out of the film and make shadow animals.  This film was forty-four minutes long and nothing happened except the different colors popping up on the screen.  Like many of the other pieces, it seemed so simple.  Anyone could have done it, right?

My trip to the Museum of Modern Art was a great experience.  I did not know what to expect before I went, but once I arrived it was really cool to see everything.  I liked a ton of the different pieces, and it was cool to actually recognize the artists and the types of art they were discussing in the descriptions.  My entire family was completely baffled and lost throughout the exhibit, but I understood a lot of what was going on and was able to explain things to them.  It was excellent to be able to do this and to actually know what some of the artists were trying to portray in their pieces.

-Kristen

SHHH! It's A Secret!

Many artists use observations to depict the world around them.  One artist in particular that does so is Jill Magid.  She used institutions and authority in order to make her art.  She worked wit the Dutch Secret Services in order to create conceptual artwork.  Magid has a particular interest in secrets; not the exposure of them but their existence.  Therefore, her project with the secret services was one that really fascinated her.  She enjoyed working with them and using them as a way to create her artwork.  She had the opportunity to work with members of the secret service and understand the organization from the inside. 

After creating her project, Magid got people to wonder who was the watcher and who was an observer.  Was everyone a spy?  The agents really appreciated her work and kept scheduling to meet with her despite the fact that the secret services did not like parts of her work.  They felt it revealed too much information about their organization and made her black out parts of her book.  The book could only be seen through glass as well.

Magid’s work depicts this idea of awareness of the population and what this means.  She utilizes what is out there and turns it around to benefit her and her work.  I thought her piece called “I Can Burn Your Face” was really intriguing.  I liked that she did it in neon so that it stands out and “burns” your eyes when looking at it.  It goes along with the title of the piece and the idea she is trying to portray through this piece of art. 

I also thought the idea of exposing these agents so much that they feel vulnerable but not enough to quite figure them out was really fascinating.  I would never have thought that this is what she would have done with the information she gathered through her meetings.  Not only was it something interesting to look at, the idea behind it is really cool and I liked that we got to walk through the process with her.  Seeing her thought process and her ideas through her own perspective really brings the artwork to life.


-Kristen