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.