Shelves are Art?

While looking through Chapter 37, I came across a picture of shelves on page 140. I asked myself, "How can shelves be art?" Well, after reading the description of the piece Untitled, 1967 by Donald Judd, I understood why it was called art.





From the perfectly and mathematically rectangular "shelves," that are made out of green lacquer on galvanized iron, to the equally spaced spaces above or beneath the "shelves," Judd was able to give space a powerful meaning in this piece, rather than the actual elements that he made. Space has a meaning, just like in poems. Whether it be to add uncertainty to the poem, a signal to the reader to ponder on a line, or to attract readers who don't want to read a lot, to read that poem. Whatever the reason for space, one can be certain that space is a very powerful. In this piece of work, Judd uses the space to add contrast: from bold colors to flat colors, from a solid to air. The space creates a steady rhythm to the piece.


I don't know if you can see this or not, but in this piece, depth and shades are magnified by the space. The shadows from the shelves onto the empty space give the space a new shape and shade. Justing adding to the powerful quality of the space. Unlike Jackson Pollock, who just copiously dripped and splatted paint on a flat canvas, taking a chance on where the paint fell, Judd takes no chances. He speifically places things a certain way and there is no guessing on what the outcome is going to be. He has a blueprint and follows it. "Actual space is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface."

Time-Jumping Clara

After reading the first chapter of "The House of the Spirits," I was very confused about what time I was in: the past, present, or future. The first paragraph of the story opens with the arrival of Barabas, a little puppy that accompanies the dead body of Uncle Marcos, Nivea's brother. Then we skip to the past, before the arrival of Uncle Marcos, to the church service that the del Valle family attended (even though they are non-religious people) where the father is trying to attract voters because he wants to be elected into Parliament. Then the scene shifts even further into the past, decribing the birth of Nivea's eldest daughter Rosa (the title of the chapter). Apparently Rosa's striking features make her the most beautiful person. Her yellow eyes and green hair make her resemble a mermaid. Then we skip to the present where the family is at church, and then we foreshadow to the future where Nivea recalls that moment in church many years later.

All of the skipping from past, present, to future is a little confusing to me. But then I realized that Clara can tell the future, so the jumping from one time to another is subtly putting the reader inside of Clara's head. Maybe this is how she feels. For one moment she is in the past, another in the present, and another in the future. This could be why Clara cannot connect with anyone in the book. Because she is floating (literally and figuratively speaking) through time and space, adding to the story's deep theme of Magical Realism.

Chamberlain's Transformers

Looking at page 138 in the humanities book, the sculpture "Debonaire Apache" by John Chamberlain really caught my eye. My first impression of this sculpture is that it is a piece of junk. Yes, that is a very shallow way of analyzing this "art" but after reading into it a little more, my first opinon of this piece has changed. Chamberlain used the technique called assemblage to create this sculpture. Assemblage is used to bring attention to the "random and violent aspects of contemporary society." By showcasing rusty, twisted automobile parts from a junkyard, he points out the dangers that technology will bring to society if they are misused.





Apparently, Chamblerlain created this sculpture out of automotive parts and paint. In a way, the sculpture looks like it came from a Transformers movie... or maybe not.





Chamberlain's sculptures remind me of the expressionist movement in painting, like "Street, Berlin" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The dented, sharp, and crushed lines of the metal and bright colors from "Debonaire Apache" resemble the geometric shapes and the uses of color in Kirchner's painting, only Chamberlain created a three-dimensional look.





Another similar artist that Chamberlain reminds me of is Marcel Duchamp and his "readymades." Duchamp took an object (example: urinal) and put it in a completely different environment and with an entirely different purpose/meaning. This is the same thing that Chamberlain does. He takes old car parts and assembles them to create a sculpture--placing the car parts in a new environment with a different purpose/meaning.

Estes For Real

While reading Chapter 37, I came across the painting "Double Self Portrait" by Richard Estes. When I first saw this, I thought that it was a photography, not a painting. The painting looks so real! The glare of the light on the glass window, the metallic sheen on the bar stools, the debris littered on the sidewalk, Richard Estes in the reflection of the window, looking like he is taking the picture. All of it is so realistic that I had to look at the painting closer in order to notice that it is not really a photograph.





Apparently he takes photographs of scenes in Manhattan, he goes to his home and rearranges the structure of what he originally sees and records through photographs, which form the basis of the final easel-size paintings, to reconstruct reality. He adds depth and intensity to his paintings, expanding the viewers' sensory field, going beyond the naked eye. In one painting he shows the window, what's beyond the window, what's reflected by the window, and what is behind the reflection on the other side of the street.


Notice the lack of people in the photo, even though the setting is in New York City. It is as if Estes is trying to disguise the city and make it unrecognizable to the viewer because he didn't want to people and landmarks to detract from his art.


Many of his other paintings are created in the same style. Clean, reflective, geometric landscapes and the details that he adds are very meticulous: metallic sheens and backwards stickers and signs in the background in a reflection. He gives us a very realistic "Sunday morning" feel to all of his paintings.


Telephone Booth





Paris Street Scene

Readymades Already Made?

While flipping through my humanities book trying to find something to blog about, I came across the readymades Fountain by Marcel Duchamp. I remembered Duchamp from his painting of The Nude Descending the Staircase, where to some people, the painting may look like a just a pile of wooden shingles, and to others, it looks like a person walking down a staircase. I was the latter of these people and I loved that painting. I was almost going to blog about that certain painting, but after doing more research on Duchamp and seeing his readymades, they inspired me to write about them more.

A readymade that I found was very interesting was the Bicycle Wheel, where Duchamp placed a unicycle wheel on top of a wooden stool and spun the wheel around.

Now the question you may ask is "Is this really art? He hardly did anything! I could do that!" Well, my response is yes, it is. It doesn't matter if he barely did anything. Since this was Duchamp's first readymade creation, I suppose he can call it whatever he likes since he was the one who came up with the idea first, not anyone else. The readymades are almost like an effort to break every rule in art. Instead of catching your eye, it forces your mind to think in a new way.

The readymade is almost like a sculpture. You can almost see the resemblence of a person. The body is the wooden stool, the neck is the bicycle fork, the head is the wheel, and the eye is in the middle of the wheel. Here is a video of the Bicycle Wheel in motion. Duchamp is quoted as saying "I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in the fireplace." Does it remind you of flames?

Yeah, I know it's a short video, but you get the idea. Here's another readymade that really made me laugh when I was told what the letters on the bottom of the picture meant. I hope it will make you laugh as well.

The title, L.H.O.O.Q., when pronounced in French, puns the phrase "Elle a chaud au cul", translating in English as "She has a hot ass" or "Her ass is on fire." Did it make you laugh?

Guernica's Ruin

I remember during my senior year of high school, I was in my spanish class. My teacher started speaking in spanish about the destruction of a little town, Guernica, in Northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War on April 26, 1937. I'm really bad at understanding spanish, (which is disappointing seeing as how I took 4 years of it) but I could comprehend a few words like "bombas," "destrucción masiva," and "mucha gente murió." My teacher told me that the entire town was obliterated and wiped off the map. 1600 people died that day.

Pablo Picasso learned about this atrocity on May 1st in Paris by seeing snapshots of the destruction that was left of Guernica, which inspired him to create a mural in dedication of Guernica.

This tragedy motivated Picasso to create one of his most famous pieces of work. When he began the mural, Picasso changed his sketch over and over again until he could get it just right. It took three months to finish the mural but when he finally revealed the finished product at the Spanish Pavilion in Paris, France, it was recieved with a critical eye. Many people claimed that all the painting was a jumble of mutilated limbs and had no real meaning; "a hodgepodge of body parts that any four-year-old could have painted," remarked a German fair guide.

When asked to explain his symbolism, Picasso remarked, "It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them." Picasso's words inspired me to not take into account other's interpretation of the mural, but instead come up with my own interpretation.

The black and white color scheme in this mural makes me think of death and ashes, symbolizing the rubble that is left in the wake of the bombing of Guernica. The colors create a mood to the painting, they make me feel dread and sadness, which I believe that Picasso was trying to convey. The jumbling of the animals and the people remind me of chaos and madness. You can barely decipher where the horses legs begin and end and if the body parts lying on the ground are still connected to the man lying on the ground or not. By having so many things going on in this piece, it forces my eyes to move around the mural by trying to figure out what to focus on. Do I focus on the bull? Or the woman with a dead child? The man lying on the ground? Or the horse with a spear through it? The woman with the lamp? Or the man raising his hands high in the air?

The bull at the left of the mural is a very emotional and dramatic image of the terror the townspeople experienced. The bull is normally portrayed as a proud and strong animal and in this painting you can see the horror and fright upon it's face.

The light at the center top is like a symbol of hope, along with the woman who is holding the lamp and looking over the chaos below. The woman holding the lamp almost has a likeness to the Statue of Liberty. Another small thing that caught my eye was the flower that is sprouting up by the borken sword and dismembered arm, symbolizing that through all of this pain and destruction, there is still hope and the people will rise above this. I really love this painting and I love how you can find meaning in even the tiniest of details. Picasso is truly a great artist.

We All Are Like Onions... Sort Of

While reading Luigi Pirandello's play, The Six Characters in Search of an Author, one paragraph in the first act stood out to me. On page 29 in Pirandello's play, the Father, one of the six characters, struck a chord with me with this quote...

"This is the real drama for me; the belief that we all, you see, think of ourselves as one single person; but it's not true: each of us is several different people, and all these people live inside us."

The difference between an actor and a character is that an actor is just a derivative of the character; the actor is just an illusion. Without the character, the actor would be out of a job. Without the actor, the character will still continue to live on forever. If Brad Pitt did not play Achilles in the movie Troy, we would still know the character Achilles because of the author, Homer, and the character will continue to exist as along as we think about the character.

Sometimes we don't realize how different we act in different situations with different people. When I am with my mother, I act differently then I would if I was at work or hanging out with my friends. But what we don't notice is that we are not just "acting" life different people when we are around different people; we are different people.

One of Pirandello's points in this play is that we are made up of multiple people with multiple personalities. Those people, all put together make up one whole person. Like Shrek says, "Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers."

Mondrian's Shift to Cubism

In 1911, Piet Mondrian moved from the Netherlands, his home country, to Paris, France. It was in Paris that Mondrian was introduced to cubism by observing the works of fellow painters Picasso and Braque. Before moving to Paris, most of his work was naturalistic or impressionistic, consisting largely of landscapes. He would paint windmills, fields, and rivers with his own personal touch to depictions, creating his own style.

While skimming through my humanities book, my eyes stopped upon Tree by Piet Mondrian. Much different from his earlier work, yet still having the feel of nature, The Grey Tree introduces cubism through the geometric shapes you see in the painting. You can make out rectangles and ovals scattered throughout the branches and around the base of the tree.

What drew my attention to this painting were the swift brush strokes fusing together to create geometric shapes. At first glance, you can tell that Mondrian’s painting is a tree (there is no second-guessing by the audience as to what the artist was trying to depict). You see branches splitting and weaving into the open space starting at the trunk. With Piet’s strong, expressive brush strokes, the branches almost look like veins and arteries, connecting to the trunk as if connecting to a heart.

Mondrian's Tree serves as a transition between his two periods of works. He later on grabbed cubism by the horns and painted his most widely recognized piece, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, in 1921.

In this painting, you can witness how much different this piece is from his previous works. There are no brush strokes evident, almost as if Mondrian was trying to disguise the fact that he even used a paintbrush. In this painting, there are just lines, rectangles, and basic colors/shades. Mondrian had officially transitioned from naturalism and impressionism to cubism.