The Pursuit of Art- Personal or Not?

To pursue something is to seek to attain or accomplish a goal. So when an artist is pursuing their artwork what is their ultimate goal? Is it to make money, to shake up society, to send a message, or is it personal? Artist Vija Celmins is all about the process of art, for example she has been working on a painting of a cosmic scene for over a year. She sands over the panting and has done that nine times and tries to articulate it at the time she is currently doing it, and if she loses the idea or image that she is currently trying to articulate which she deems sometimes does happen, she redoes it. In this process the painting becomes a memory and a dense feelings at the end. She always has an image of what she would like to do and she builds the art from the beginning. She builds on a painting and the changes that occur is directly related to what is going on in her own life. She often repeats images such as an ocean and does it in different materials. She is all about labor and craftsmanship and the process of art. Celmins isnt looking to have a certain product at the end of her painting, her process is personal and its about representing what she is thinking and feeling at the time of doing the painting.

Drinking Art

Getting lost in Art

During class we get the unique opportunity to look into how art is formed through the use of various techniques by different artists. Each seems to strike me a little differently and this particular artist, Vija Celmins, struck me in odd sort of way. Celmins spends a large portion of her time in her studio creating very intricate works such as her space paintings or her paintings of the local harbor. The finished product makes the viewer have to look at it twice to see if the painting is a photo or an actual painting because the detail is so extraordinary. All her works she claims she has to build in order to get a good texture to start her painting. Often times she uses sand paper to give the work a more real appeal to it. All this preparation and tedious work brings out an amazing result that really draws the viewer's attention. The thing that drew me to these pieces was the result of moving your head closer to the painting. I felt as though i was moving closer to the picture and that i was moving among space. This was a feeling that caught me by surprise because if you look at the work from a far distance the meaning behind it does not jump out at you as much. This is a unique way of creating art because I feel that the more this artist focuses on the smaller detail the more meaning it can have to a person like myself.

Vernacular of Beauty

What is good and what is beautiful? The most important aspect of art is how the art makes the viewer feel. Some art as i mentioned in previous posts, is not always the most appealing to look at, but in some ways it can move a person and give them a reaction that makes it worth while looking at. This is what should make a piece more valuable and not the appearance of some pieces which we no can be gory, etc. Reading Hickey's excerpt allowed me to get an inside look of what a professional art critic expects out of a great work.

Beauty and It's Effect on the World

In the article " Enter the Dragon; On the Vernacular of Beauty" by Dave Hickey, he discusses beauty and what it has done to the world. Although I have to admit I found this article to be a bit wordy and scrambled and I had a hard time following it- I thought that there were good messages behind his article. Hickey feels that beauty is the beholder to what makes a person drawn to art, what makes a person feel something when looking at art, and what makes art sellable. He points out that many people who want to buy art are focused on the aesthetics of the work and not really the meaning behind it. Beauty gives access to the art world to all regular people and he advocates the famous saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Hickey was recently published in Newsweek as being "The Bad Boy of Art." (Dave Hickey: The Bad Boy of Art)

The Business of Art

When looking at a piece of art, many people look at it as a moving piece of work that is full of meaning and beauty. What many don't realize is that there is another reason that artists do their work besides to make art- and that is to make money, and to find fame. Money can be viewed as an impurity of art. On the website http://arts-careers.com there are many different ideas and articles about how to be a successful artist in terms of money making. They talk about teaching art, and how to make money through art shows. One artist we discussed in class seemed very monetary driven. Jeff Koons is a very successful artist who uses art as commodities and represents culture through that. He produces his work in a factory with many workers and machines. In the video we watched in class, one of the people working in the factory says that he hasn't really seen Jeff do any hands on activity in a while. Koons describes that the process of art is a metaphysical one- meanwhile he just makes sure that his factory is running properly. He seems to hold himself at a very high level and his success as an artist has made his ego bigger. He puts himself on a pedestal, literally and metaphorically, as he made a sculpture of himself. 

Controlling a Huge Canvas

It amazes me how a person can create such an intricate piece of art on an extremely large canvas. When standing far from the canvas it is easier to get a sense of where certain aspects should go but when you get within inches of the large canvas it must be easy to lose track. Alison Watt is a Scottish painter who was given a unique chance of becoming the youngest women to be given a solo exhibition at the Scottish national Gallery of modern art. She constructed 12 huge paintings all by herself which consisted of white fabrics. If you take a more analytical look, to make the fabric look real she incorporated many different kinds of whites to bring the true colors out in the shading and other sections. When I first viewed her finished work I was very impressed. The detail that she put in to each work was incredible and the focus required to paint that large amount of area amazed me. Some artists such as John Koons hires a team of artists to take turns and paint each individual section of his large paintings. To have the ability to paint such a large canvas humbles me and makes me appreciate the work Miss Watt has done for her exhibition.