Post-Modernism, Ai weiwei and Banksy

  post-modernism building    Frank O Gahry

1. Define Post-Modernism using 8-10 bullet points that include short quotes.

• Modernism is riddled with doubt about the continued viability of the notion of progress, post-modernism is the philosophical movement away from the viewpoint of modernism.
• Post-modernism for some it means anti-modernism, for others it means teh revision of modernist premises.
• According to Witcombe, C (2000) Modernism & postmodernism : "deconstructive postmodernism is seen perhaps as anti-modern in that it seens to destroy or eliminate the ingredients that are believed necessary for a worldview."
• According to James mORLEY (2000) Postmodern Culture: "post-modernism was a movement in architecture that rejected the modernist, avant garde, passion for the new."
• According to web (www.allaboutphilosophy.org): "post-modernism claims to be the successor to the 17th certury Enlightenment." It connected with the "new age" thinking.
• Web (www.pbs.org) said: "post-modernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, objective, efforts to explain reality."
• In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality.
• According to web (www.britannica.com):

         "in western philosophy, a late 20th century movement characterized by broad sleepticism,       subjectivism or relativism, a general suspicion of reason and an acute sensitiviy to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power."

•   Post-modernism as a philosophical movement is largely a reaction against the philosophical assumptions, values and intellectual worldview of the modern period of western history.
• Brittney Betbeze (2010) "Banksy: A postmodern pioneer” gives an opinion: "Postmodernism is a term that gets tossed around a lot these days, usually by people who are trying to sound intellectual, hip, or otherwise superior to the average conversationalist."

post-modernism building     Noam Chomsky

2. Use a quote by Witcombe (2000) to define the Post-Modern artist.

The post-modern artist is "reflexive" in that he/she is self-aware and consciously involved in a process of thinking about himself/herslef and society in a deconstructive manner, "demasking" pretensions, becoming aware of his/her cultural self in history, and accelerating the process of self-consciousness.

post-modernism building    The Hearst Tower in Manhattan

3. Use the grid on pages 42 and 43 to summarize the list of the features of Post-Modernity.

• postmodernity more focus on the society and reality, each part changeto more pluralism and confluent.
• excavale surface value without dig in depth.
• plagiary inundant and legal.
• pursue hyper-reality authenticity of originals became unacceptable.
• diverse culture.
• art not as mysterious as before, more public opinions involved.
• break the form of seriousness.
• do not have main and rounded system.

             vase with coca-cola logo      Ai Weiwei

4. Use this summary to answer the next two questions.

5. Research Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's 'Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola logo'(1994)
in order to say what features of the work are Post-Modern.

Ai Weiwei (1957) is one of the China's earliest and most influential avantarde artist. In the later 1970s, he was a member of the "the stars", a group of largely self-taught artists who challenged official communist icons and ideology and helped spark the modern art movement in Berjing.

According to Witcombe, C (2000)  Modernism & Postmodernism: " in the later half of the 20th century there has been mounting evidence of the failureof the Modernist enterprise." In a lot of Ai Weiwei's works have modernism in them, but the Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-cola Logo i can see post-modernism, it breaks the traditional form of seriousness which is anticent product just match with outdated extras, and coca-cola's logo is one of the most recognising in the world, put it on the urn can attrack more public attention.

the process of drop and break a vase                 Ai Weiwei

Han Dynasty Urn with coca-cola logo (1994)    Ai Weiwei



6. Research British artist Banksy's street art, and analyze the following two works by the artist

to discuss how each work can be defined at Post-Modern.

Banksy is the driving force behind the explosion in the Urban Art movement, his style and energy has been responsible for opening the eyes of the masses and creating the platform for other artists.

His worldwide popularity is often put down to his ability to encapsulate the way people feel about today’s tainted world with poignant clarity.

 He has also gained great acclaim for his ‘crude oils’ – reworked traditional oil painting, often classics, with a special Banksy twist.

'Flower Riot', Banksy



Los Angeles (2008), Banksy

Banksy as a pioneer of post-modernism, his works usually be referred to as low form, or even anti-form art, graffiti is Banksy’s chosen medium for many, seemingly obvious, reasons. The process, which is often championed over the product from a postmodern perspective, and in his book, “Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall,” Banksy writes:
" Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors. Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren’t listened to. Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make somebody smile while they’re having a piss. "

He put more attention to the public thoughts and altitude，and mix projects of incompatibility, broke the form of seriousness, like these two works above, robber with a bunch of flowers, ape man with fast food.  These works are stencil based, often hand finished, this style translates naturally to the screen-printing process.

references

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/postmodernism.htmllaboutphilosophy.org/postmodernism.htm
www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postmodernism -body.html
http://elab.eserver.org/hfl0242.html
wikipedia.org/wiki/postmodernism
Witcombe, C (2000) Modernism & Postmodernism
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1077292/postmodernism
http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/culturefashion/arts/art/banksy-a-postmodern-pioneer/
Banksy "Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall"
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090303234311AAgv7UV
http://streetart.co.nz/oi-you/competition/inspiration/banksy

week 1 Nathalie Djurburg's 'claymation'

                     Nathalie Djurburg
1. what do you understand bt the word 'claymation'

'Claymation' is the generalized term for 'clay animation', it is a form of stop animation using clay. According to the web (http://www.wisegeek.com/):

"claymation involves using objects or characters sculpted from clay or other moldable material, and then taking a series of still pictures that are replayed in rapid succession to creat the illusion of movement."

Nathalie Djurberg “Still from There ain’t no pill”  Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery, New York

2. what is meant by the term "surrealistic garden of eden" and "all that is natural goes awry"?

Djurburg's works be set up in a strange room named "Experimentet", according to web (http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/):

"Experiementet is an installation recreating a Garden of Eden from hell. It is a garden covered with creepy flowers. They are so big they dwarf visitors, their colours and sharps are nauseating, sun never lights up the garden, it is set in a perpetual crepuscular in the basement of the Padiglione delle Esposizioni."

I feel this representation very interesting, Djurburg put niceness into creepy theme to against the rude reality.

 Nathalie Djurberg  "Feed All the Hungry Little Children"  2007

3. what are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurburg confronts us with

People describe life is a drama, but some critics review Djurburg's work is a drama, even titled her as "the fairy tales gone mad". The story line in her work always simple but also complicated, suddenly chang between good and evil, light and dark, beauty and horror, like a tiger licking a ctie's bottom or a father who will eventually be killed by his own daughter. Emotion is a big topic, it is complicated and volatile.

  Nathalie Djurberg  "Still from I Found Myself Alone"  2008

4. how does Djurburg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work

Djurburg always make short films which no longer than 5 minutes to present a story about the investigation of the dark side of the human soul, and children's story can showing the idea very well, because it always take place in a forest or somewhere claustrophobic rooms where grotesque episodes playout. According to web (http://www.artists.org/):

"Djurburg's stories have a lot of in commont with traditional folktales, they deal with archetypical themes and involve traditional roles as the good, the bad and the kind helper, such as bear and tiger."

Nathalie Djurberg "Snakes knows it's Yoga"  Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

5. there is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing, why do you think this has come about?

"The innocent and sweet" is the dream of adult, but it is just belong to children, in natural world full of terror and death, stir and chaos, so people start to fascinate, thus through artists put these childlike theme into their works, positive always can attract public's eyes, anyway, turning the innocence and sweet into something disturbing is good to the views, also good to these artists themselves, positive products trend can change to a beneficial outcome.

Nathalie Djurberg  "Snakes knows it's Yoga " Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

6. in your opinion, why do you think Djurburg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale

As the catalog of the biennale says:

"Through these minutely composed sequences of stop-motion animations, Djurberg toys with society's perceptions of right and wrong, exposing our own innate fears of what we do not understand and illustrating the complexity that arises when we are confronted with these emotions."

To me, i think the greatest artist is the one who can present work in a simple but very hard to simulate way, the essence of Bjurburg's work capture viewers.

   Nathalie Djurberg   "hungry hungry hippos"   2007

7. add some of your own personal comments on her work

She is talent person, the using of a variety of media like stop motion animation, installation, sculpture and drawing really inspire me, her works motive me try more new things in my own art works.

        Nathalie Djurberg  "Experimentet"   2009








references

www.wisegeek.com/what-is-claymation.htm
www.we-made-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/10/nathalie-djurburg-who-won-the.php.
http://www.designmate.blogspot.com/
www.the-artists.org/artist/nathalie-djurburg.
www.oremierartscene.com/magazine/biennales-own-pavi.lion
www.artnews.org/artist.php?i=1211

Industralisation,Modernism and Architecture

The Eiffel Tower and the Guggenhein Museum

Research both architectures in order to comment on:

——the im portance of the design and constructure

——significance of the materials

——significance of the designers

——function for which each was built

——function now-has it changed

The Eiffel Tower built by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, he was a master of elegantly constructureal wrought-iron lattices, in 1864 he established a career as an engineer constractor. It was built for the International Exhibition of Paris Revolution. From beginning it was used for telegraphy, then in 1910 it became part of the International Time Service, from 1918 the stature of Eiffel Tower be used by French Radio and French Television (since 1957). The design was too stand out in that time, however it was not accepted by most architects but from nowadays eyeview it is a very important, gorgeous and unique symbol.

The Guggenhein Museum designed by Frank O Gehry in 1997, he was the legenary figure in the architecture intire world, it forever changed the way people think about museum, also it challenges our assumptions about the connection between art, architecture and collecting. The important of the construction is discover the best possible atmosphere that connected by art galleries , museum, music halls and theaters.

                                                       Four Stages of Construction

Eiffel Tower is 300 metres, 700 tons, it used 2.3million rivets, 15000iron pieces, the height varies up to 15cm depending on temperature, 1652 steps to the top.

The Guggenhein Museum used stone, glass, titaniun curves, also added computers to complex the mathmatics.

Both of the two extraordinary architectures still occupied the high value in recent society, whatever from career study to tourism business, they cannot be bitted whole over the world.




http://www.parispages.com/
http://www.guggenheim.com/
http://www.greatbuilding.com/
http://www.destination360.com/
Frank O Gehry: The Complete Works
Gustave Eiffel at Archiplanet

Landscape and the Sublime

1.what and when was the Enlightenment?

Accoding to Hamilton:

“The Enlightenment si generally described as taking place during thr 18th century and is centred in France. Like the Renaissance, the values and ideas that developed during the period of the Elightenment are described as having a major influenceon current ways of thinking in the west and therefore the production of contemporary western visual culture." 

Charles Natoire   "The expulsion from paradise"    1740

2.define the concept of the sublime

For the political theorist Edmund Burke " Sublime connect to landscape. The association between the power of nature and a recognition of the divinity behind it was a constant theme of early Romatic writing." Also he found that the sublime was “the ultimate experience of divinity, a mixture of awe, fear, and enlightenment produced by the contemplation of a powerful, terrifying nature”

 "Gamba"   2009     Robert Marchessault

3. how did the concept of the sublime come out of the enlightenment thought?

 Sublime appeared in the 18th century, some as the Enlightenment, after Renaissance, people first time painted landscape and looked at things more realistically, traditional religious thought fell down but another new kind of thought which still had connection with religion raised.



"Thunderstorm at sea"   1804   Allston


 4. discuss the subject matter, and aesthetic (look) of Misrach's work to identify the sublime in his work. Add

some more images of his work.

 From 1970, Richard Misrach helped pioneer the Renaissance of colour phtography and large-scale presentation that are widespread practice today, he is an icon in landscape phtography history, he shouted the natural power and the relationship with human or human world, through took pictures he saw the natural beauty, also understood that behind the beauty is danger and terribleness.

5. indentify some other artists or designers that work with ideas around the sublime, from the Enlightenment

era as well as contemporary artists                                                                                                      

John Martin

                                                                                                     

Detroit Bike

Cali Bound

6. how does Misrach's photography make you feel? does it appeal to your imagination?

His phtography to me like a serious and funny thoughts mixed, because the atmosphere always very solemn, like desert, mountain, ocean... but put those subjects into these screeens, the impact point out new unique imagination. Im not very uausl to combine this kind of extremely different matters, i prefer harmonious with a little bit humorous.

7.add a sublime image of your choice

Oscar Prinsen (Netherkands)

references

http://www.scribd.com/

http://www.artnet.com/

http://www.arteness.com/

http://www.artthreat.net/

www.ilike..com/artists/sublime

www.flikr.com/photos

Hamilton, P. (1992). The enlightment and the birth of society science, in Hall, S. & Gieben, B. (eds)., Formantions of Modernity. Cambridge: Open University Press

The Status of The Artist

1. Indentify aspects of Durer's self portrait that shows a changing view of the artist's view of himself as an individual

In Renaissance, the view of art work changed from religious judgement  to mercantilism to capitalism then developed to individualism.  According to William

"the emergence of the notions of individuality, in the morden sense, can be related to the break-up of the medieval social, economic and religious order. In the general movement against feudalism there was a new stress on a man's personal existence over and above his place of function in a rigid hierarchical society."

we can see that Durer paied  a lot of attention to his individual porpose in hiself portrait, he made himself as an artist and creator, and even use the role of Jesus Christ. Also the unusual signiture in 15th century enough to prove in that time artists changed their view to themselves and the society.

        self-potrait  1498  Mardid

2. Explain how the artist's social status increasd during the Renaissance period. Briefly explain why this happened.

According to Blunt's text: "during the Renaissance period the image of artist as an individual of genius, they are creative, different, transferring own unique imagination to pamel or canvas, is a mordon one." So he suggests that they wanted their profession to become a member of the libra arts which would raise their social positions.  And it took an advantage of a big opportunity which has release the freedom of be controled by power.

          self-potrait    1493  Paris

3. Comment on Gavin Turk's work in relation to individualism, status of the artist and egotism.

According to www.individulism.com: "Individualism is best defined as a political philosophy which holds supreme the right of an individual to act as he or she wishes as long as his or her actions do not impinge upon the freedoms of other individuals." Turer's work often involves his own images disguised as that of a more famouse person. He has cast himself in a series of detailed life size, including Sid Vicyous, Jean-Pal Marat and the leftist revolutionary Che Guevava. The ambiguity features as much as self-obsession throughout Gavin Turk's work, it obviously present the individualism, status and egotism.

   Camouflage Fright Wig Gold and Taupe


4. Comment on Damien Hirst's use of his work and the media for self promotion.

"Damien Hirst is someone who really does not give a hoot about being ruthless in his ideas and only cares about things that interest him and things that he likes. He does art for himself and attention even though a lot of the time it is unwanted attention." He became famouse for a series of artworks in which dead animals are preserved, sometimes having been dissected. Death is a central theme in his works, his "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mid of Someone " became the iconie work shows his imagination of beauty. He said: beautiful inside my head forever".

                    Death Denied     2008


5. Find 2 images of work by artists or designers the reflects some of the ideas og individualism, self promotion or egotism.

Helmut Newton
Scene from a Pina Bauch Ballet, Wuppertal,1983
It presented in a show named" Through the looking glass "
Wounderland is becoming more wonderful

Chris Ofili
" She ", Patterns, 1997

6. How do you think artists and designers areviewed in western society today.

They still pay attention on religious area, because western art of today is a reflection of western religion and culture today, but today's western religion is also a reflection of their attitude about the importance of the world in religion, it has more freedom can play around.


references

William, R. (1976). Keywords

Blunt, A. (1962). Artistic Theory in Italy 1450-1600. Oxford; Oxford University Press

www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/durer/self/

http://www.individulism.com/

www.fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG7733481/Maia-Norman-Damien-Hirsts-Californian-girl.html

http://www.traditionaliconography.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

week 2 Barbara Kruger & Mercantilliasm

1. Describe the "style" that Kruger has used in the 2 presented works

According to the website (http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/) " Barbara Kruger's graphic work usually consists of black-and-white photographs with overlaid captions set in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique." The phrases in her works often include the use of pronouns such as"You" "I" "They" "We" "It", and the images always from some magazines which she is disputing. Also her works became the highly recognizable, website(http://www.eng.fju.tw/) comment them like "short, pithy caption-like copy is scattered over framented and enlarged photographs appropriated from various media".

                                                  shepard fairey on Barbara Kruger (2010)

2. What are some of the concepts and messages that Kurger is communicating in them?

I think Kruger's works are telling people that they should face themselves and the reality, you can't slander yourselves and all luxurious material won't make you rich and beautiful. The works  about feminism, classicism, consumerism and individualism autonomy and desire.

                                                             Untitle   1992

                                                 
3. Do these images communicate these ideas effectively? explain...

Yeah she always use some exaggerate parts of pictures, some tips which have
words on them. Also we can find some other images connect with main idea very matching.  Kruger worked as a graphic designer, art director, and picture editor, to the extent that her works have very strong influences, so some of them have appeared on billboards, buscards, posters, a public park, a train station platform and public areas

                                                   we dont need another hero    1987

4. Define the concept of Mercantilism and explain how those 2 examples can connect with the concept

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia:

 " Mercantilism, economic system of the major trading nations during the 16th, 17th, and 18th cent, based on the premise that national wealth and power were best served by increasing exports and collecting precious metals in reture."

Mercantilism is the earlier stage of Capitallism, the motivation about money is purer, not connected with indusrty, politics too much. one image said shoopping, another one showed luxuarious product, all mentioned money.

                                                  W magzine  (2005) 

5. upload a more recent example of kruger's work where she has used a new medium, that is not graphic design. Title your image of the chosen work and comment on your response to the work, How do you think the audience could experience this work...

CIRCUS  2011 Barbara Kruger

This one is Barbara Kruger's newest exhibition work(12th,Jan,2011), it covers the rotunda of the Schin Kunsthalle Frankfurt, this work is not just graphic design anymore, the signature work from the legendary artist presented in a special, unique way, people need visit this work from ground to ceiling, through each piece of machine plotting to understand what happend here, and also you can see the obviously signal of Barbara Kruger's work —— black & white or compared colour. This artistic work be determined as "A must see for everyone in Germany" by audience.

refrences

(www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara Kruger.html)

(www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/feminism/kruger/kruger.htm)

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.(2005) Mercantilism. Retrieved Feb 11, 2006, from:http://www.bartleby.com/65/me/mercanti.html

(http://www.prof.chicanas.com/)