Public Art

This week I gave my PGC seminar! I didn't end up discussing feminism through the lens of instillation art, as I had previously mentioned, rather I spoke about "Creations of Cultural Collisions: The Art of Intercultural Interactions." I discussed the ways artists respond to the range of reactions to cross cultural contact, from the most detrimental, such as obliteration and colonization, to the most healthy, for example acculturation and multiculturalism. Sadly my PowerPoint didn't translate from my Mac to the PGC's PC, but I think the talk was successful nonetheless because it provoked interesting conversation amongst my audience of fellow interns. I'm hesitant to share my thoughts on the subject of my seminar through my blog, as my peers suggested I turn it into something more than a presentation at some point in my life, so if you are interested in learning about this topic feel free to shoot me an email or give me a ring.

Anyway, the real reason I'm writing this post is to share with you what I learned from Mark Rosen, who gave his seminar just after mine. Mark was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, when they received a long-term loan of twenty-eight sculptures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, (mind you the largest loan of this sort that the Met has ever offered). In an effort to help his fellow students and visitors understand the meaning and the importance of the works that were strategically placed around campus, Mark created a docent training program by researching all of the pieces, movements, and artists by whom they were made and subsequently devising extensive educational materials. During his seminar, Mark took us on a virtual tour of the UT campus, explaining each of the sculptures he finds most interesting along the way.

In an effort to feature women artists on my blog, I will share with you what I've learned about a piece by Louise Bourgeois called Eyes (1982), which Mark brought to my awareness during his talk/tour. Eyes weighs over 11,000 pounds, which is so much that the infrastructure of the building in which it's housed actually had to be strengthened in preparation for it's placement in the atrium! At age 71, Bourgeois hand carved this mammoth block of marble to appear as though eyes are bulging from the top of a dwelling structure. Eyes are a popular Surrealist theme that tend to symbolize perception and the female anatomy. Seeing as feminist messages can be found in many of Bourgeois' works, art historians have suggested that this work is intended to raise questions about the role of women in relation to the home. The work also touches on the theme of the interaction between nature, human creations, and machine made objects - as you can see parts of the block of marble appear to be incomplete, referencing their natural origins, while the parts that are complete, so to speak, appear to be smoothed by machine, though the work was completely finished by hand.

An interesting note about the placement of Bourgeois' sculpture is its relationship to the work that lies in front of it, just outside of the building, which is by another female artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz and is called Figure on a Trunk (2000). The work proudly stands blocking pedestrians from entering the building using a direct route, but despite its unavoidable presence, the figure has no head and looks as though it could easily be knocked right off of the wobbly logs on which it is balancing. Thus, to get into the building you must first face the flimsy headless man and then bypass the 11,000 pounds of (female) eyes. I'll leave you to make of that as you wish...

As I mentioned above, there are 28 works on the UT campus that are on loan from the Met, however UT hasn't stopped their public art endeavors there... They have sponsored three more artists to infuse their campus with additional creativity. To learn about artists 1 - 28 check out the UT Landmarks website at landmarks.utexas.edu . As for artists 29 - 31, some pretty cutting edge players, here is a brief rundown. 29 is Mark di Suvero with his work Clock Knot (2007). Clock Knot's title was given by a poet who saw in the work both the hands of a clock, as well as a knot. Whether you see the clock, the knot, or not, you have to admit that the play on words is kind of cute. Interestingly, di Suvero is handicapped, but still physically engages in the productions and installations of his works. Another nice anecdote about the artist is that his materials are almost all recycled and the creation of his works always have some community service aspect to them. ALSO, fun fact for all of you UofM folks out there, that huge piece that was installed in front of UMMA upon its reopening is called Orion (2006) and it's by di Suvero! (And on a cute side note, one of the artists from the original 28 at UT is Tony Smith, whose Tau (1961-2) is outside of the main building of Hunter college, where I "studied abroad!" Represent.)

Because I want to save best for last, artist 31 is James Turell. His project is called Skyspace and won't be actualized until 2011, but seeing as he has done other skyspaces before, I feel confident saying that the premise of the project is to utilize light and space in art, as apposed to just alluding to, or discussing light and space, as so many artists do. To achieve this goal, Turell essentially frames the sky by creating a space with an opening in the roof! (Think ultra-modern Pantheon...)

And last but not least, artist(s) 30 is David Ellis & Blu. Radical, psychedelic, down right awesome... Watch this video of the work the produced for UT, it speaks for itself:


1. Louise Bourgeois, Eyes, 1982. Marble. The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York.
2. Magdelena Abakanowicz, Figure on a Trunk, 2000. Bronze. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
3. Mark di Suvero, Clock Knot, 2007. Painted Steel. Mark di Suvero & Spacetime C.C., courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

Peace

Now aren't you in the mood to listen to The Ballad of John and Yoko (1969)? "The newspapers said, say what're you doing in bed, I said we're only trying to get us some peace... You know it ain’t easy, You know how hard it can be..."

Women Artists

Guerrilla Girls, Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met?, 1989. Advertisement on NYC buses.

Feminism: a concept that's on my mind for a number of reasons: 1) On Wednesday I am giving my final PGC seminar on the topic of instillation art produced during the three waves of feminism. 2) The Pompidou, which I just visited is having a major exhibition on feminist art. 3) The feature article in December's issue of ARTnews is titled "The Feminist Evolution." 4) I'm working for the PGC, and while I wouldn't call Peggy a feminist, Peggy was a strong, independent, charismatic, opinionated woman, who has had a lasting impact on art history. (Although people often attribute the success of her collection to Marcel Duchamp, her art advisor and friend, because somehow despite feminists' efforts, women just can't seem to gain credit, even when and where credit is due.) 4) My new favorite artist in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is Pegeen Vail, one of only approximately three female artists represented by the collection.

While we are on the subject of Pegeen, I'd like to share an anecdote: In a recent staff talk with Dr. Rylands, director of the PGC, one of my fellow interns asked how many works are owned by the collection. Dr. Rylands hesitated for a moment and then said , "about 350, but the precise number is debatable... It's dependent on whether we count photos, etc, and Pegeen's works." A groan passed through the room, as everyone lamented the fact that Pegeen's arts and crafts projects occupy an entire, though small, PGC gallery space.

Maybe I'm on a feminist rampage right now, but honestly is pisses me off that there is even a question regarding the legitimacy of Pegeen's work, (a frustration that is compounded by the fact that images of Pegeen's works aren't even available on the Guggenheim or PGC websites, though the rest of the collections are easily accessible.) Peggy exhibited Pegeen's work in both of her galleries, Peggy bequeathed Pegeen's work to the Solomon R. Guggenheim foundation along with the rest of her collection, as far as I know Pegeen had no other job besides painting, and honestly no one has any good response when I ask why Pegeen's art is not considered art. You know what that means? It means her work is not considered art because she's a woman, and as the Gorilla Girls point out in the poster above: women are not artists, women are just the subjects of art.

In an effort to fight the stigma against women artists, I would like to tell you a little bit about artist Pegeen Vail. Pegeen was one of Peggy Guggenheim's two children, and her only daughter. Born in Switzerland in 1926 to Peggy Guggenheim and Lawrence Vail, and raised in Paris and London by Peggy alone, Pegeen had a tumultuous childhood. Pegeen was artistic from a young age, and her talent was fostered by Peggy, who showed Pegeen's works at her galleries in London at the Guggenheim Jeune, when Pegeen was a child, and in Art of This Century in New York City, when Pegeen was a young women. Like her mother, Pegeen had a number of dysfunctional relationships, which combined with her unstable childhood lead down a path of substance abuse, which undoubtedly lead to her premature death in 1967, just as she was beginning to gain fame in the art world.

As for her art, even if Dr. Rylands and the rest of the PGC intern crew see Pegeen's works as amateur art, I find them beautiful and fascinating. The colors alone remind me of those of the fauvists, bright and symbolic. The figures are soft and wiggly, for lack of a better word, they seem to dance around the canvas as the bask in the sunlight of Peggy's former bathroom, where Pegeen's works are now kept. Though the faces of the characters seem to lack personality, a careful look proves that the works do in fact have emotional depth and perhaps autobiographical relevance. As Peggy said of the works in her own autobiography Confessions of an Art Addict, "...the people in Pegeen's paintings... never seem to be engaging in any conversation with each other, all going their own way," which is likely how Pegeen felt about all of the people in her own life.

So in an effort to do my part in ensuring that we don't allow anymore female artists slip away from the grip of the cannon, I will do my best to feature more works by women artists on this blog... On that note, do check out the Gorilla Girls' website to learn more statistics about women in the art world, such as the fact that there are now even fewer works by women on display at the Met than there were in 1989, when the poster above was first produced...

Music

After posting about Luke Jerram's street piano project, I remembered Mark Johnson's amazing music related social activism project called Playing for Change, which my mom introduced me to this summer. The premise of Playing for Change is to use the common language of music to "break down boundaries and overcome distances between people," to create an international community. To do this, Johnson essentially invented a portable recording studio and carried it around the world in search of talented street musicians - Johnson and his crew compiled tracks of artists whom they recorded and then brought the compiled tracks to the other artists who added additional layers to the song. My description of the process does not do it justice by any means, but I promise you that the product is magical. Below is the Playing for Change "Stand By Me" song and video, check it out to see for yourself!



To learn more about Playing for Change, both the project and the organization, check out the website at www.playingforchance.com .

Bringing Music to the People

My friend Jess knows about the coolest projects! British artist Luke Jerram (www.lukejerram.com) created a traveling instillation called "Play Me I'm Yours" in which he put pianos on the streets in various neighborhoods to give people from all different backgrounds and walks of life the opportunity to make music! Check out the project's website to learn more and to find out about the locations of Jerram's street pianos: www.streetpianos.com .

The Big Draw

Last night at dinner Jess told me about a program that began in the U.K. in 2000 called "The Big Draw." The goal of the program is to utilize the month of October to bring people together through the act of drawing, and to foster human creativity through worldwide art projects and a rejection of the term "I can't draw."

In an art class I took during my freshmen year of college I learned that our artistic skills remain at the level of the time we stop producing art. In other words, as little kids we all draw, but by the end of grade school when mandatory art classes are dropped from our curriculums, many of us stop utilizing our artistic powers leaving them stagnate, and perhaps even causing them to regress. Not that we all need to be master artists, and by no means is that the goal of "The Big Draw," but as Malcolm Gladwell, (referencing scientific studies by neurologist Daniel Levitin,) explains in his book Outliers, 10,000 hours are required to become a master, or expert in anything.

Anyway, the initiative sounds amazing and has received international acclaim. I believe that The Drawing Center of NYC participated in 2009, does anyone else know of other NY institutions that took part? If you are interested in learning more about "The Big Draw," or in registering your organization / institution, visit the website of the Campaign For Drawing at www.campainfordrawing.org .