Performance Art

For this activity, I worked with Sarah and Claire. We decided to try all three of the activities. My favorite was the shadow activity. I thought it was actually really challenging to stay with the other person's shadow, and make sure you didn't run into anything while looking down to stay with the shadow. The part about banging the rocks together was a little bit weird. But, I think that the point of it was more to create a reaction from people who were around.

Iconography

Logos are the central focus of advertising. Logos are how we associate a certain brand and it's product. We have almost become obsessed with what logos we wear on clothes and what food we buy. Logos make people want to buy one product more than another, simply because they are more visually pleasing. Many Americans can recognize a brand simply because of the logo, they don't even need to see the name. Like these...

Future of Museums

I think the articles both have very valid points about the future of art museums, and the expansion of art museums. I think museums are going to change a great deal throughout the 20th century. Because we have so many new forms of technology that are rapidly being considered art, galleries and museums will have to accomodate for these new forms. Should we have a whole new category in photographic art that pertains solely to photo manipulation in photoshop? Because it seems as though this has become an entire artform of it's own. Will there be art galleries that show only films in the future? I think that expansion for traditional art galleries and museums, ones that contain classical painting and sculpture, and even some modern works, should stay at the size they are now. I think it would be a better idea to create new gallery spaces for new forms of art. I also don't think expansion is a good idea because I think it would take away from the experience. It may make it so there are crowds, which isn't really desirable either, but I think if a museum or gallery is too large, people will not want to walk through the entire building.

Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp's work The Large Glass is um...interesting. I almost don't even know what to think when I look at it. It's kind of confusing, and a little dull. I think viewing the piece in person would make it much better, but seeing an image of it makes it very hard to appreciate. There are so many things in each pane, it's hard to know what is there and what is going on. I don't feel at all inspired by this piece. The dull colors make it feel kind of boring. Duchamp does make good use of lines, creating a feeling of space in the background and to create elements in the work.

One of the things Marcel Duchamp is most famous for is his collection of "readymades," where he found objects and presented them as art. Duchamp began this project in 1915 with a bicycle wheel assembled on a stool. Duchamp began creating readymades to stray away from 'retinal' art; art that Duchamp believed was only visual. He selected the pieces on the basis of visual indifference, and the selections reflected his sense of irony, humor, and ambiguity. Duchamp limited the yearly production of readymades, and produced no more than 20 in his liftetime. He submitted many to art juries, challenging the public and his patrons to question what conventional art is, and is not. Many of his early readymades have been lost or discarded, but Duchamp commissioned reproductions of originals years later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp


In advance of a broken arm (1915) http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/articles/merritt/images/04_shovel_big.jpg


Bicycle Wheel (1913) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Duchamp_wheel.jpg


Fountain (1917) Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz. Source: http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/blindman/2/04.htm

Patterns

• The tile I chose is called a "Moroccan Flower" design. I really like the color that is used in the tile, as well as the lines. The colors are very bright and loud, but also contrast each other very well. I think it looks very different than most tiles because of the very curvy lines, that almost make it look like it is hand painted.

• Moroccan design includes qualities of pure forms and free hand, but also a lot of mathematically precise geometric shapes. Geometric patterns are a principal element in Moroccan design, using a lot of repetition and symmetry. Zillij is an ancient Moroccan technique that applies these techniques using hand-cut ceramic tiles, and dates back 1000 years.

• I really like the elements of Moroccan design, after researching more about them. They are a good mixture of clean geometric lines and free-flowing organic lines. The designs are also made so there can be countless numbers of patterns throughout.

Moroccan Flower Tile:
http://www.bolarttile.com/pages/moroccan_flower.html

Moroccan Design History:
http://www.maroque.co.uk/patterns.aspx

Gestalt

Gestalt is a pretty general term....but in art sense, it's one of those funny pictures that has negative and positive space. When you look at the negative space you see one figure, and when you look at the positive space you see another.