The Courbet and Poussin exhibition at the Met was an educational and intriguing viewing experience, an inspiring appreciation of formalism and psychological intensities.
While Courbet is engrossed in role playing turning every painting into narcissistic self-portraits, Poussin takes a modest approach thorough painting romantic narratives. They both singular intense emotions and psychological conundrums, depicting the intangible in opposing styles, Courbet with close perspective, simple, muted, and intense in limited use of color, Poussin with layer upon layer of hills and mountains in a vast landscape with multiple scaled figures and structures.
Courbet's multiple self-portraits often delve into fantasy as the artist depicts himself as wanderer, cello player, and madman. The hazy, sexy, stylized rendering gives Courbet a rambunctious arrogant look, a much intended representation. The fare skin, the seductive gaze, wide eyed, sharp nose and shaped lips are mesmerizing and relentless in enticing the viewer to come closer and be tempted to touch the realistic portrait he makes of himself.
In Self-portrait with Pipe, the figure sits very close to the canvas, taking up all foreground and background of the painting, ready to spill out and greet us with his awesome presence. The colors are dry and muted, monochromatic and thinly painted, his face lit from above as if shined on by the gods.
His pioneering Realism is tainted by the fantastic and lush, adding spice, delicacy and vibrancy to each portrait and landscape that he creates. The Meeting, or Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, 1854 presents the artist as the lone wanderer in a happenchance meeting with a patron and manservant. The outline of the figures are extremely clear cut making it seem as if theyve been collaged onto the generic landscape surface, barren for the panting dog peering curiously at the bearded man with the walking stick. In Sleep, Courbet delves into the controversial and pornographic as he depicts what seems to be a lesbian couple in deep sleep, their bodies entangled in each other, within in a muted regal setting. The elements are again limited, a bed, 2 figures, and 2 tables in front of a shady monochrome background. The voluptuous figures float on canvas, delicate and peaceful in their embrace, a dreamy addition to a realistic brothel environment.
The works of Poussin are comparatively dense in its formal qualities and displays the physical and emotional narrative with subtlety and bountifulness. Landscape and narrative painting is merged to form a detailed and expansive palette, a multiplicity in scale of numerous figures, hills, mountains and skies that prance around the canvas simultaneously. The sheer scale alone can be daunting and can result in sensory overload but upon learning to appreciate one element at a time, the overall scheme of each work is perfection.
In Sight of Death, T.J. Clark writes about 2 Poussin paintings extensively over a long period of time in journalistic format and 1 of the paintings he discusses is included in the exhibition. Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake consists of multiple layers of paths and hills with a lake as middle ground, more hills behind that, and a mountain above, then finally the sky. Three figures are placed in the foreground and near middle ground, 1 dead wrapped by a menacing snake, a man with arms and legs extended in opposite directions, running and warning/reaching out to the woman splattered on the floor with clothes basked next to her, her arms gesticulating in correspondence with him. We are not certain if he is fleeing from fear or if he in an act of heroism is warning the woman, refraining her from coming any closer. The right side of the frame is rife with trees and clouds, and the wind blows from right to left, in the direction the man is going, the direction his hand is gesturing, as if the whole of nature has come to warn the public the atrocity that is at coming. Each figure is placed on a different escalated hill, as if creating a series of events, and everything behind the woman is oblivious and at peace.n The subject of the painting is a myth amongst art historians, as there is no clear identification of the characters. Nonetheless it is a narrative strife with trauma, fear, death, and bliss.
Both artists has contributed to art history by providing realism and romanticism that incorporates and reveals psychological tension with the self and other. Each created a technique that allowed for multiplicity in identity and vision. They are masters of their time and have influenced many future artists. Each painting is refreshing and simply beautiful.
Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Jasper Johns at the Met and Matthew Marks
The Jasper Johns exhibition at Matthew Marks is an appropriate extension of his gray retrospective at the Met, both shows reveal with variety and precision his interests in literal execution and contemplative self-expression.
As a widely studied figure, Johns has been historicized for his use of representational icons such as targets, numbers, the alphabet, and the american flag. These motifs are easily recognized and the viewer is familiar with these representations creating singular interpretation through the view of universal symbols. He often gives new meaning, whether multiple meaning or non-meaning, to everyday objects incorporated directly onto canvas such as brooms, rules, strings, and household utensils, giving them triple functions as image, tool, and text. Johns reverberates the multiplicity of function and interpretation thru creating series after series of sketches and paintings, as if fighting each element for perfection.
Each flag, target, alphabet motif is generously represented in the Met, except with the absence of color. This thesis oriented exhibition breathes fresh air, albeit a foggy, thick and humid air, into all his signature works. The lack of primary and tertiary colors usually represented are silenced and choked by an overwhelming barrage of gray.
In Fool's House, 1962, a broom with wooden handle hangs vertically by a hinge at the top of the canvas, its body stained and used by the paint. It is also used as a mark maker evident by the scratch swooshy pattern made by sweeping the broom dipped in paint across the bottom of the canvas. A spontaneous and effortless gesture made by the artist, the broom seems to breathe life marking its presence, its significance in the back and forth act of sweeping. Johns uses text to label each item on canvas, a towel, stretcher line the bottom with a cup hanging off the tip by a hook. Each is labeled in a sloppy sketchy manner with an arrow relating the text to each item. A diagram, presentation, statement of the obvious, an inventory of belongings inside a fool's house, the fool most likely being the artist himself as he presents us with objects in his studio, the objects that he is most intimate with, the most widely used and functional. The oversimplification and literalism of the works are rife with dead pan humor mixed with somber meditation on the meaning of things.
A more recent work, Untitled, 1992-1995 keeps to the idea of using familiar icons, such as a floorpolan, stick figures, and eyes, and mixes with abstract figurative and non figurative motifs, the use of line as it billows around the canvas and makes for a surrealist take on object making. The background is split in three shades and patterned with dots, text and lines. A ladder sits diagonally on a cross, and somber stick figure prances around out of the cross as if just stepping off this ladder, a fallen man entering a surreality encased with abstraction. A geometric symbol consisting of two circles supported by diamond bodies and triangular wings float above this figure as if angels in duality representing his conscious. The colors are muted and thick, the motifs are plenty, overlapping and tumbling within each other's presence. The scattered positioning seem to be a reflection of the happenings within a mind, the thoughts and emotions presented in a conglomeration of literal and fantastical images.
These symbols of ladder, stick figure, and angelic form are also presented in a sketch shown at Matthew Marks, a repetitive positioning of scattered images, spontaneous in placement, a marking of the mind.
The drawings in the Matthew Marks show reveal the artist's interests in mark making in the last decade, many with references to Matisse and Picasso, an ode to modernist expression. There is also presented a few works on gray, the cross hatching and rectangular shaping create a field of abstracted infinitum. The exploratory referencing reveals the artist's recent interest in back tracking to history of mark making and representing.
Both exhibitions reveal an artist always at work, his never ending curiosities an impulse, a statement to the exploratory learning process of an artist who has himself made a mark in history.
As a widely studied figure, Johns has been historicized for his use of representational icons such as targets, numbers, the alphabet, and the american flag. These motifs are easily recognized and the viewer is familiar with these representations creating singular interpretation through the view of universal symbols. He often gives new meaning, whether multiple meaning or non-meaning, to everyday objects incorporated directly onto canvas such as brooms, rules, strings, and household utensils, giving them triple functions as image, tool, and text. Johns reverberates the multiplicity of function and interpretation thru creating series after series of sketches and paintings, as if fighting each element for perfection.
Each flag, target, alphabet motif is generously represented in the Met, except with the absence of color. This thesis oriented exhibition breathes fresh air, albeit a foggy, thick and humid air, into all his signature works. The lack of primary and tertiary colors usually represented are silenced and choked by an overwhelming barrage of gray.
In Fool's House, 1962, a broom with wooden handle hangs vertically by a hinge at the top of the canvas, its body stained and used by the paint. It is also used as a mark maker evident by the scratch swooshy pattern made by sweeping the broom dipped in paint across the bottom of the canvas. A spontaneous and effortless gesture made by the artist, the broom seems to breathe life marking its presence, its significance in the back and forth act of sweeping. Johns uses text to label each item on canvas, a towel, stretcher line the bottom with a cup hanging off the tip by a hook. Each is labeled in a sloppy sketchy manner with an arrow relating the text to each item. A diagram, presentation, statement of the obvious, an inventory of belongings inside a fool's house, the fool most likely being the artist himself as he presents us with objects in his studio, the objects that he is most intimate with, the most widely used and functional. The oversimplification and literalism of the works are rife with dead pan humor mixed with somber meditation on the meaning of things.
A more recent work, Untitled, 1992-1995 keeps to the idea of using familiar icons, such as a floorpolan, stick figures, and eyes, and mixes with abstract figurative and non figurative motifs, the use of line as it billows around the canvas and makes for a surrealist take on object making. The background is split in three shades and patterned with dots, text and lines. A ladder sits diagonally on a cross, and somber stick figure prances around out of the cross as if just stepping off this ladder, a fallen man entering a surreality encased with abstraction. A geometric symbol consisting of two circles supported by diamond bodies and triangular wings float above this figure as if angels in duality representing his conscious. The colors are muted and thick, the motifs are plenty, overlapping and tumbling within each other's presence. The scattered positioning seem to be a reflection of the happenings within a mind, the thoughts and emotions presented in a conglomeration of literal and fantastical images.
These symbols of ladder, stick figure, and angelic form are also presented in a sketch shown at Matthew Marks, a repetitive positioning of scattered images, spontaneous in placement, a marking of the mind.
The drawings in the Matthew Marks show reveal the artist's interests in mark making in the last decade, many with references to Matisse and Picasso, an ode to modernist expression. There is also presented a few works on gray, the cross hatching and rectangular shaping create a field of abstracted infinitum. The exploratory referencing reveals the artist's recent interest in back tracking to history of mark making and representing.
Both exhibitions reveal an artist always at work, his never ending curiosities an impulse, a statement to the exploratory learning process of an artist who has himself made a mark in history.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
More Highlights on Dia
Some more reflections on my recent visit to Dia:Beacon…
There was the general theme of geometric abstractions, of calculated and crispy clean shapes with a limited outsource of energy minus John Chamberlain’s contorted automobile parts, which were nothing but streaming color and vigorous movement.
The most mind-boggling works must be Sol Lewitt’s Drawing Series… , composed of 14 large wall drawings executed by a dozen or so assistants working on location at Dia. These obsessive and deliberate works reflect the Conceptual artists’ notion of executing an idea or concept onto a tangible surface. Squares and lines create gridded patterns on the wall arranged in colors limited to graphite and primary shades of red blue and yellow. They are at once visually engulfing, with viewer (me) hypnotized by the realization of a simple idea made existent in a serial manner. The determination to create these grids were rubbed off onto me and I am considering creating the same works with the guide of Lewitt’s instructions. That was his point, that it’s not the wall you take home but the conceptual idea he created. The drawings are merely the documentary evidence of Lewitt’s idea reduced to a written set of instructions, realized recently from concepts created in the 60’s.
Dia has exhibited extensively on Agnes Martin’s minimal stripe paintings in here they stood out as most gentle and feminine, differentiating from other geometric works such as Blinky Palermo and Robert Ryman. Large squares and horizontal grids were colored by soft pastels, barely significant lines drawn with graphite, serene and ephemeral in execution. I wonder why the initial graphite sketch weren’t erased one she painted over with these light colors, creating a second dimension of textured canvas and creating a music paper rendition of painting. Colors were neutral and peaceful creating a very subdued and almost ambivalent environment but simultaneously expressionistic. The delicate and painterly compositions creates a meditative and emotional environment distancing itself from the cold and rigid and mechanical works of fellow Abstract Expressionists and Minimalists.
Blinky Palermo’s series of mechanical abstract paintings titled To The People of New York City is composed of 39 individual paintings in varying sizes divided into 15 parts painted on aluminum panels and disposed onto the wall in calculated arrangement and placement. Colors were limited to red yellow and black arrangement in horizontal 3 part grids, usually 4 in a row in various combinations with equal distancing between them. They were repetitive and serial and captivating for this reason, the effect of the banal, the everyday experience of wake, work, eat, sleep expressed in this dedication as referred to the title. There is no gestural activity except but the slight slip of paint upon close observation between 2 colors, otherize a regularized and inflexible system occurs that is mechanical and inexpressive, reminiscent of a flag of some nonexistent country.
Gerhard Richter’s installation was comprised of large glass surfaces mounted and angled from the wall at various angles, all a consistent opaque gray, reflecting the surrounding environment but simultaneously silencing what enters the medium. There are 6 large panes in total intimidatingly surrounding the viewer in unison and consistency. Light from the ceiling window was reflected off the surface casting looming shadows and brightening with crystal focus on other parts. It is an example of the artist’s notion of painting as either a window to reality or a mirror reflection of the self. There is no sign of expression of pictorial language in and of itself and engages only with the viewer and its immediate surrounding. A contradiction between opacity and reflection, Richter’s Six Gray Mirrors offer no definite conclusion as to whether we should or shouldn’t regard these pieces as a window to a view of the world or as a mirror reflecting the self-conscious presence of whatever subject engaged with the artwork itself.
Fred Sandback’s signature use of string as art and the framing of non-space, negative space is displayed here in a rather hectic arrangement, scattered between multiple galleries, attacking the walls, floors and ceilings in a hap hazardous manner. Sandback created an environment of volume-less sculpture, space less and yet full of content based on perspective and concept. The outcome is in his words a “material relationship with my environment…part of a continuing attitude and relationship to things…” , here being the work in active participation with the space and viewer. It brings to mind of concept of sculpture as installation, no longer standing on a pedestal self-imposed and irrelevant to the space it is surrounded in. Here it is no participatory and shares the same space as the spectator.
Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses consists of a series of gigantic steel plates lined next to each other willowing from side to side like flowers against the wind. Each shape has a narrow entrance for the viewer to step in and experience the space within the piece, and become one with the art, experiencing a push-pull relationship to the winding of the steel plate. It’s an adventurous task and certainly claustrophobic, especially once reaching the center of the piece and you realize you’re in the center of a huge contained circular sculpture. Scary. This self-consciousness and hypersensitive awareness of the viewer’s placement within the sculptures gives Richard Serra the ability to engage what in his words are “ways of relating movement to material and space”.
There were many men artists represented in this exhibition. The only female artists would be Agnes Martin and Louis Bourgeois, the latter of whom was situated in an upstairs attic-like area and works that did not communicated with the overall minimal geometric abstract theme of the works downstairs. Overall the show questions the relationship and interaction between consciousness and space, between viewer and artwork and their awareness with the space and environment surrounding them. The messages are subtle and subdued, beautifully abstract and minimal, cool and calculated, theoretical and simultaneously simple. A splendid show and a peaceful perfect one day getaway upstate.
There was the general theme of geometric abstractions, of calculated and crispy clean shapes with a limited outsource of energy minus John Chamberlain’s contorted automobile parts, which were nothing but streaming color and vigorous movement.
The most mind-boggling works must be Sol Lewitt’s Drawing Series… , composed of 14 large wall drawings executed by a dozen or so assistants working on location at Dia. These obsessive and deliberate works reflect the Conceptual artists’ notion of executing an idea or concept onto a tangible surface. Squares and lines create gridded patterns on the wall arranged in colors limited to graphite and primary shades of red blue and yellow. They are at once visually engulfing, with viewer (me) hypnotized by the realization of a simple idea made existent in a serial manner. The determination to create these grids were rubbed off onto me and I am considering creating the same works with the guide of Lewitt’s instructions. That was his point, that it’s not the wall you take home but the conceptual idea he created. The drawings are merely the documentary evidence of Lewitt’s idea reduced to a written set of instructions, realized recently from concepts created in the 60’s.
Dia has exhibited extensively on Agnes Martin’s minimal stripe paintings in here they stood out as most gentle and feminine, differentiating from other geometric works such as Blinky Palermo and Robert Ryman. Large squares and horizontal grids were colored by soft pastels, barely significant lines drawn with graphite, serene and ephemeral in execution. I wonder why the initial graphite sketch weren’t erased one she painted over with these light colors, creating a second dimension of textured canvas and creating a music paper rendition of painting. Colors were neutral and peaceful creating a very subdued and almost ambivalent environment but simultaneously expressionistic. The delicate and painterly compositions creates a meditative and emotional environment distancing itself from the cold and rigid and mechanical works of fellow Abstract Expressionists and Minimalists.
Blinky Palermo’s series of mechanical abstract paintings titled To The People of New York City is composed of 39 individual paintings in varying sizes divided into 15 parts painted on aluminum panels and disposed onto the wall in calculated arrangement and placement. Colors were limited to red yellow and black arrangement in horizontal 3 part grids, usually 4 in a row in various combinations with equal distancing between them. They were repetitive and serial and captivating for this reason, the effect of the banal, the everyday experience of wake, work, eat, sleep expressed in this dedication as referred to the title. There is no gestural activity except but the slight slip of paint upon close observation between 2 colors, otherize a regularized and inflexible system occurs that is mechanical and inexpressive, reminiscent of a flag of some nonexistent country.
Gerhard Richter’s installation was comprised of large glass surfaces mounted and angled from the wall at various angles, all a consistent opaque gray, reflecting the surrounding environment but simultaneously silencing what enters the medium. There are 6 large panes in total intimidatingly surrounding the viewer in unison and consistency. Light from the ceiling window was reflected off the surface casting looming shadows and brightening with crystal focus on other parts. It is an example of the artist’s notion of painting as either a window to reality or a mirror reflection of the self. There is no sign of expression of pictorial language in and of itself and engages only with the viewer and its immediate surrounding. A contradiction between opacity and reflection, Richter’s Six Gray Mirrors offer no definite conclusion as to whether we should or shouldn’t regard these pieces as a window to a view of the world or as a mirror reflecting the self-conscious presence of whatever subject engaged with the artwork itself.
Fred Sandback’s signature use of string as art and the framing of non-space, negative space is displayed here in a rather hectic arrangement, scattered between multiple galleries, attacking the walls, floors and ceilings in a hap hazardous manner. Sandback created an environment of volume-less sculpture, space less and yet full of content based on perspective and concept. The outcome is in his words a “material relationship with my environment…part of a continuing attitude and relationship to things…” , here being the work in active participation with the space and viewer. It brings to mind of concept of sculpture as installation, no longer standing on a pedestal self-imposed and irrelevant to the space it is surrounded in. Here it is no participatory and shares the same space as the spectator.
Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses consists of a series of gigantic steel plates lined next to each other willowing from side to side like flowers against the wind. Each shape has a narrow entrance for the viewer to step in and experience the space within the piece, and become one with the art, experiencing a push-pull relationship to the winding of the steel plate. It’s an adventurous task and certainly claustrophobic, especially once reaching the center of the piece and you realize you’re in the center of a huge contained circular sculpture. Scary. This self-consciousness and hypersensitive awareness of the viewer’s placement within the sculptures gives Richard Serra the ability to engage what in his words are “ways of relating movement to material and space”.
There were many men artists represented in this exhibition. The only female artists would be Agnes Martin and Louis Bourgeois, the latter of whom was situated in an upstairs attic-like area and works that did not communicated with the overall minimal geometric abstract theme of the works downstairs. Overall the show questions the relationship and interaction between consciousness and space, between viewer and artwork and their awareness with the space and environment surrounding them. The messages are subtle and subdued, beautifully abstract and minimal, cool and calculated, theoretical and simultaneously simple. A splendid show and a peaceful perfect one day getaway upstate.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Dia artist of the day: Walter de Maria
Recently I’ve had the opportunity to visit Dia: Beacon twice in one month. It was a most serene and contemplative experience, a much needed relief from the labyrinth that is the New York art scene, or the chaos that is city life in general. A quaint and delightfully lit space, the museum was refreshingly open and void of clutter, crowd, and conundrum. It contained an assortment of minimal and abstract artists active in the 60’s and 70’s creating a unified stream of objects in varying mediums, giving the overall exhibition a simple, calculated and contained theme that was very much clear and straightforward.
Upon entrance I was greeted by a massive floor installation of Walter de Maria’s geometric sculptures, 2 rows of circles and squares lined parallel to each other in a large space divided by a wall. At first glance I was unmoved and was tempted to roll my eyes, but as with majority of the pieces at dia, they require meditative participation and keen observation. The Equal Area Series are excruciatingly calculated in their size and placement, each pair of circle and square differentiating another by couple inches. I’ve tried to walk along a single thin wooden vertical floor panel to see if the sizes differ from one circle to the next but it was impossible to tell. Perhaps this was that artist’s intention: to have the viewer participate with his/her own exploratory endeavors and expand on the concept of stillness, repetition, and calculation. The beauty of this piece resides in the progression of patterned geometry: circle square, circle square, male, female, yin, yang, positive, negative…all the polarizing forms of nature reincarnated through these clean stainless steel simple structures. Michael Govan states: “Within the powerful sense of dramatic scale and seemingly absolute geometric perfection…there are many dynamic relationships, for example, the play between the universal underlying cosmic continuum of natural abstract mathematics and our arbitrary culturally defined units of measurement”. One question I ask is: What would the triangle signify and why is it not primary enough to be included in this series of equal areas?
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Ecotopia and the function of art
While everyone was away at Miami having nervous breakdowns and going delusional from the bright lights and sleep depravation I got to enjoy a week of relaxation and focus on writing a small piece on ICP’s “Ecotopia”. Here it is:
The current exhibition at the International Center of Photography features the increasingly catastrophic relationship between human life and nature. “Ecotopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video” running through January 7, 2007 combines public discourse and political agendas with artistic statements and aesthetic creation. Many have argued that contemporary art has been displaced by such specificities as politics, global warming and other social/environmental issues, which ultimately questions the role of art either as autonomous and nonfunctional, or a common participant to the everyday workings of society. During an evening discussion held at ICP, a scientist, journalist and photographer came together to share their perspective about the role art plays within the social system. I will attempt to review highlights of the exhibition in a most descriptive and informative manner, then discuss the issue of power dynamics between human and nature, and conclude with the function of art in relation to public discourse, politics and everyday societal perspective.
The exhibition statement blown up and tacked to a grass frame on the wall reads with foreboding fear-inducing vocabulary similar to that of speeches made by government and media imposing paranoia and anxiety onto the public:“…nature has become the focus of increasing cultural anxiety…there is growing alarm at the disastrous consequences of human attempts to harness or exploit nature…The crisis that has resulted from this disruption of the fragile ecological balance between humans and nature require new global consideration”. This narrowing and specified feed-your-thoughts statement was at once repulsive and left me skeptical about the show before even entering the exhibition space. Luckily I was able to put faults aside and indulge in the artificial greenery setting, black Styrofoam bubble layers meant to resemble rocks? and stuffed dodos.
My favorite piece of the entire show was a large panoramic landscape photograph (above) by Clifford Ross who (lucky me) got to speak at the panel discussion this past Thursday. He’s as romantic and delusional as I would’ve imagined, a Jack Nicholson look-alike face wearing a slick black leather jacket with thinning gray hair. He invented a detail-sensitive extreme focus camera labeled “RI” (R for Ross) which allows him to capture an awe-inspiring image of monumental scale with exquisite detail of mountains, forests and sea. A piece such as Mountain XIII reveals Ross’ romantic desire to rekindle human heart with the ancient soul of nature and in his words is “a longing for the past, bringing awe and beauty to the people”. His passion for the environment, the nonessential presence of man within an engulfing and expansive mass of nature is made available to us through the R1.
Another highlight which became an icon of Ecotopia is Mitch Epstein’s Amos Power Plant, Raymond, West Virginia. Here the artist photographs various industrial power plants set behind domestic dwellings surrounding them. It depicts a calm and peaceful middle class American home with all signs of comfortable habitation but resides with a looming backdrop of a power plant creating foggy suffocating clouds. This disturbing but all too real image of potential chaos and destruction is foreboding and contemplative, exposing the need for some serious environmental change. It’s a warning that if we continue to destroy the environment we’ll have green mutant babies that survive on pure carbon dioxide
Sam Easterson’s is a less intimidating and a more informative depiction of nature’s furry little animals. Here the artist attaches mini cameras to the bodies of a range of animals, from an Armadillo, scorpion, chicken to a falcon and a pig. The resulting image is a humbling, simple and reflective viewpoint of the natural world compared to our own egotistical power mongering human world.
Mark Dion’s installation The Bureau of Remote Wildlife Surveillance includes a makeshift nature surveillance office with surrounding images taken with a motion detecting camera used as data archiving the lives of animals such as deer and raccoons. This mode of investigation and process of information consumption is reflective of our current political obsession of the “see something say something” attitude within public discourse. I thought it was a rather mocking and comical portrayal of human curiosity and paranoia.
Harri Kallio combines advanced technology, photoshop and scientific data to create life-size models of the now extinct dodos and restore their presence in makeshift natural settings on photograph. It is amusing and informative like a display in the natural history museum, a warning of a future without shrimps, panda bears, whales and ultimately, humans.
The most “Ecotopian” work is Mary Mattingly’s photographs of a fantasy world with humans wearing khaki outfits that control and protect the body from hazardous exposure reeking throughout the environment. Nomads of this imaginary world travel and navigate toward a “water bound Eden” with the help of their all shielding “wearable homes”. This combination of mastered digital technology and childlike utopian creation is at once witty and successful in portraying the consequences of nature manipulation.
Ultimately, this show is a reflection of an ongoing polarization between the selfish and destructive intentions of humans and the responsive even more powerful influence of nature. It’s a war between the two forces according to such a show as “Ecotopia”, the news, the scientific technological updates, and politics (well, government is reluctant to face such inconvenient truths, but it’s inevitable, they’ll have to pay it some respect). And as much as we take advantage of mother earth’s gifts such as oil and ruin her forests and ozone layer we don’t do it with the intention of being sadistic. We are not the antagonist, but rather just trouble-making children trying to fool our paternal superiors (nature) that we are better, we are right and justified in seeping out all the resources possible from our parents. All in all we don’t need to be so reproachful of our own actions against nature, yes it’s naïve and ignorant of us but it’s all in good reason.
So how relevant, if at all, is art within the public discourse? What is its function and how influential is it concerning such issues as the ongoing war on natural habitats? According to the three speakers at the panel discussion at ICP, art is very influential and relevant in exposing environmental issues to the public consciousness, in addition to their autonomous value as a non-functional work of art. Sanjayan Muttulingam of the Nature Conservancy explained the double role of nature as protector and provider and the need for fields such as art to expose and make the connection to the public, to convey the complex ideas of nature and human interaction and use its power to move people in large numbers and maintain a dialogue with science, politics, and other forms of cultural discourse.
At first Clifford Ross, photographer of the large landscape photographs made with the R1 camera, clearly separated his art making process as first being a passionate aesthetic statement before becoming any sort of political/environmental statement but corrected himself in dividing the two agenda after an audience member commented it made him sound insecure about his work. He defined his photographs as a longing for the past, a “feel for something” rather than a creation of a specific message, a desire to bring his work originating from an experience of awe and beauty in nature made available to the public, his appreciation, passion and adoration for nature brought to the people through the photographic medium. When asked to what extent artists engage in public or political discourse he reiterated being pulled backwards into the environmental movement through his images, starting off with passion and artistic creation which ended up merging with environmental groups who used his passion to reach the public. He emphasizes the importance of artists to become involved, to become a tool and a voice of the people. A passionate romanticist.
Andrew Revkin is a science writer for New York Times, he has a blog and a band, and a book. He’s an award winning author and journalist, fast spoken and very articulate, witty in the Jewish kind of way, and knowledgeable in a vast amount of random topics. After enlightening us of an environmental issue that is invisible and difficult to expose (carbon, ozone, loss of bio-diversity and extinction happens in front of us and we can’t visualize with our eyes the affect it takes, it is hard to find evidence of absence) he emphasizes the role of art as a mode of communication, making visible through images the meaning of environmental degradation and extinction.
Art can impact the public with an iconic image such as Mitch Epstein’s power plant/domestic landscape photographs by extrapolating from one fact a broader issue that is accessible and tangible. Art can be deployed to ply into environmental issues and be used to tell a story that might not have been possible otherwise. It is a challenge for artists to serve the double role as public speaker and image maker without being a sell out.
The current exhibition at the International Center of Photography features the increasingly catastrophic relationship between human life and nature. “Ecotopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video” running through January 7, 2007 combines public discourse and political agendas with artistic statements and aesthetic creation. Many have argued that contemporary art has been displaced by such specificities as politics, global warming and other social/environmental issues, which ultimately questions the role of art either as autonomous and nonfunctional, or a common participant to the everyday workings of society. During an evening discussion held at ICP, a scientist, journalist and photographer came together to share their perspective about the role art plays within the social system. I will attempt to review highlights of the exhibition in a most descriptive and informative manner, then discuss the issue of power dynamics between human and nature, and conclude with the function of art in relation to public discourse, politics and everyday societal perspective.
The exhibition statement blown up and tacked to a grass frame on the wall reads with foreboding fear-inducing vocabulary similar to that of speeches made by government and media imposing paranoia and anxiety onto the public:“…nature has become the focus of increasing cultural anxiety…there is growing alarm at the disastrous consequences of human attempts to harness or exploit nature…The crisis that has resulted from this disruption of the fragile ecological balance between humans and nature require new global consideration”. This narrowing and specified feed-your-thoughts statement was at once repulsive and left me skeptical about the show before even entering the exhibition space. Luckily I was able to put faults aside and indulge in the artificial greenery setting, black Styrofoam bubble layers meant to resemble rocks? and stuffed dodos.
My favorite piece of the entire show was a large panoramic landscape photograph (above) by Clifford Ross who (lucky me) got to speak at the panel discussion this past Thursday. He’s as romantic and delusional as I would’ve imagined, a Jack Nicholson look-alike face wearing a slick black leather jacket with thinning gray hair. He invented a detail-sensitive extreme focus camera labeled “RI” (R for Ross) which allows him to capture an awe-inspiring image of monumental scale with exquisite detail of mountains, forests and sea. A piece such as Mountain XIII reveals Ross’ romantic desire to rekindle human heart with the ancient soul of nature and in his words is “a longing for the past, bringing awe and beauty to the people”. His passion for the environment, the nonessential presence of man within an engulfing and expansive mass of nature is made available to us through the R1.
Another highlight which became an icon of Ecotopia is Mitch Epstein’s Amos Power Plant, Raymond, West Virginia. Here the artist photographs various industrial power plants set behind domestic dwellings surrounding them. It depicts a calm and peaceful middle class American home with all signs of comfortable habitation but resides with a looming backdrop of a power plant creating foggy suffocating clouds. This disturbing but all too real image of potential chaos and destruction is foreboding and contemplative, exposing the need for some serious environmental change. It’s a warning that if we continue to destroy the environment we’ll have green mutant babies that survive on pure carbon dioxide
Sam Easterson’s is a less intimidating and a more informative depiction of nature’s furry little animals. Here the artist attaches mini cameras to the bodies of a range of animals, from an Armadillo, scorpion, chicken to a falcon and a pig. The resulting image is a humbling, simple and reflective viewpoint of the natural world compared to our own egotistical power mongering human world.
Mark Dion’s installation The Bureau of Remote Wildlife Surveillance includes a makeshift nature surveillance office with surrounding images taken with a motion detecting camera used as data archiving the lives of animals such as deer and raccoons. This mode of investigation and process of information consumption is reflective of our current political obsession of the “see something say something” attitude within public discourse. I thought it was a rather mocking and comical portrayal of human curiosity and paranoia.
Harri Kallio combines advanced technology, photoshop and scientific data to create life-size models of the now extinct dodos and restore their presence in makeshift natural settings on photograph. It is amusing and informative like a display in the natural history museum, a warning of a future without shrimps, panda bears, whales and ultimately, humans.
The most “Ecotopian” work is Mary Mattingly’s photographs of a fantasy world with humans wearing khaki outfits that control and protect the body from hazardous exposure reeking throughout the environment. Nomads of this imaginary world travel and navigate toward a “water bound Eden” with the help of their all shielding “wearable homes”. This combination of mastered digital technology and childlike utopian creation is at once witty and successful in portraying the consequences of nature manipulation.
Ultimately, this show is a reflection of an ongoing polarization between the selfish and destructive intentions of humans and the responsive even more powerful influence of nature. It’s a war between the two forces according to such a show as “Ecotopia”, the news, the scientific technological updates, and politics (well, government is reluctant to face such inconvenient truths, but it’s inevitable, they’ll have to pay it some respect). And as much as we take advantage of mother earth’s gifts such as oil and ruin her forests and ozone layer we don’t do it with the intention of being sadistic. We are not the antagonist, but rather just trouble-making children trying to fool our paternal superiors (nature) that we are better, we are right and justified in seeping out all the resources possible from our parents. All in all we don’t need to be so reproachful of our own actions against nature, yes it’s naïve and ignorant of us but it’s all in good reason.
So how relevant, if at all, is art within the public discourse? What is its function and how influential is it concerning such issues as the ongoing war on natural habitats? According to the three speakers at the panel discussion at ICP, art is very influential and relevant in exposing environmental issues to the public consciousness, in addition to their autonomous value as a non-functional work of art. Sanjayan Muttulingam of the Nature Conservancy explained the double role of nature as protector and provider and the need for fields such as art to expose and make the connection to the public, to convey the complex ideas of nature and human interaction and use its power to move people in large numbers and maintain a dialogue with science, politics, and other forms of cultural discourse.
At first Clifford Ross, photographer of the large landscape photographs made with the R1 camera, clearly separated his art making process as first being a passionate aesthetic statement before becoming any sort of political/environmental statement but corrected himself in dividing the two agenda after an audience member commented it made him sound insecure about his work. He defined his photographs as a longing for the past, a “feel for something” rather than a creation of a specific message, a desire to bring his work originating from an experience of awe and beauty in nature made available to the public, his appreciation, passion and adoration for nature brought to the people through the photographic medium. When asked to what extent artists engage in public or political discourse he reiterated being pulled backwards into the environmental movement through his images, starting off with passion and artistic creation which ended up merging with environmental groups who used his passion to reach the public. He emphasizes the importance of artists to become involved, to become a tool and a voice of the people. A passionate romanticist.
Andrew Revkin is a science writer for New York Times, he has a blog and a band, and a book. He’s an award winning author and journalist, fast spoken and very articulate, witty in the Jewish kind of way, and knowledgeable in a vast amount of random topics. After enlightening us of an environmental issue that is invisible and difficult to expose (carbon, ozone, loss of bio-diversity and extinction happens in front of us and we can’t visualize with our eyes the affect it takes, it is hard to find evidence of absence) he emphasizes the role of art as a mode of communication, making visible through images the meaning of environmental degradation and extinction.
Art can impact the public with an iconic image such as Mitch Epstein’s power plant/domestic landscape photographs by extrapolating from one fact a broader issue that is accessible and tangible. Art can be deployed to ply into environmental issues and be used to tell a story that might not have been possible otherwise. It is a challenge for artists to serve the double role as public speaker and image maker without being a sell out.
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