Project Description

Project Description

Title: As of the moment, it is ‘Capital Vices’, but this will most likely not be the title of the work. I would like to resolve this title to help guide the viewer into the mental space I want to create without spelling it out for them.

Project Description: I want to create several diptychs within domestic settings, or at least to give the feel of that space. I want the images to be of a psychological and atmospheric capacity. The palette will remain the same as my midterm showing, only I will lighten a bit. The images will be neutral and unsaturated. Each diptych will not clearly state two separate images, but flow together in creating this space. Upon engagement, the images should be thought provoking and each attract the viewer on an aesthetic level, but give a feeling unique to itself. For example, some would make a viewer anxious or angry or disgusted, but it is not immediately obvious why one would feel that way. Just as sin is skewed in principle and perception, so should these images.

Conceptual Concerns: I do certainly need to enter this mental space. I think this will be my greatest challenge. I think I need to push the vulgarity and strangeness. Making these images in my own mental space is going to be very difficult to speak to others in that same language. Somehow I think this could resolve itself when I engage more deeply in the concept of sin and how it relates to me as a human and in relation to Catholicism. I think that resolving one-word solutions will be an issue throughout the project. My main concern is not being afraid to shoot ever idea I have to open the doors for unsuspecting diptychs and relationships I could not otherwise achieve.

Technical Skills Covered: I will be making sure I am printing in the proper color palette because that alone could change the perception of the work, especially in this particular series. I will be tedious and patient in working to get the diptychs to compliment each other. I still would like to bring some sort of distortion into this project because I would like to learn how to master this effectively and I think it would work nicely in this context.

Formal Guidelines: I am shooting digitally and printing 12x18 as of midterms. I would like to print larger, but unfortunately that will be decided upon fiscally.

Artist Reference: Shifting to Andres Serrano, Jenny Saville, Joel-Peter Witkin and Lars Von Trier seeped in there. A great contrast, but also Alex Prager maybe just to keep it light in my head.

Readings: Environmental Law, War Photography, and Curatorial Practices. Unfortunately all very uninspiring, but my dreams have been taking over and just pulling from everywhere to make up for the lack of creative reading.

Due Date: December 7

Ever week I want to shoot at least three to four images. Just rapidly produce many ideas a try different things. This method would be different for me, but I think this goal would be more attainable.

Grade: Should be based upon my final ability to pull it together. As much as I hate to admit, I really struggle with this. I don’t necessarily have a problem committing or engaging, it is more in not being ashamed to talk to others and get feedback so that I am stuck in the same rut for so long. If I could resolve all these issues and pull together a successful, cohesive project that I do not hate, I would be happy.

I want my art to be atmospheric, beautiful, vulgar, playful, limitless, authentic

Andres Serrano

Serrano's work is conceptually in the same ballpark for what I am going for in my 'Vices' work. This does make me think that I could push the graphics and still make seductive work. In this way, my images could read more negatively in a secondary thought as opposed to only thinking in terms of sin with the aid of text. Some images from him that I thought best suited what I should be looking at:

Shit series

Dream Interpretation Series

Antichrist… my thoughts will be a spoiler

Upon attending this film, I was expecting a psychological space in which a couple goes together to survive some sort of tragedy. In this realm that they experience together would be almost romantic in the sense that they drag each other to hell and yet their feelings are authentic. Briefly, the film was about this couple whom loses their son. This tragedy renders the woman incapable to carry on with her daily life. Her husband, being a therapist, tries to help her work through this difficult time. He finds out what her fears are and then they go to this space to work through her fears to get her anxiety and panic to subside. This space is where her demonic ways thrive and the rest of the film is her husband discovering who she is or who she has become. Although, the film was visually stimulating, I was disappointed in the film for several reasons. I feel that Lars Von Trier did not trust his viewer on an intellectual level and that we needed explicit visual to understand the depths of this kind of dark. The visual exploitation was of a thriller's caliber and seemed to be a copout for resolving the film in this beautiful atmospheric, psychological space he had set up in the beginning. The grotesque became more of a gut-wrenching experience and completely jeopardized the surreal potential that the concept of the film had. In theory, this was an intense story and could have absolutely been resolved at the volition in which the film began. I have heard that the first half was supposed to be when man is in control (rational, logical, urban space) and the second half when the woman is in control (irrational, satanic, natural space) and that seems to hold true. This film is undeniably created from a chauvinistic mind space. Woman is the source of evil. She seemed to constantly be using sex in order to gain power and as a distraction tactic. At one point she says "a crying woman is a scheming woman" and at this point the viewer thinks back throughout the film to all the times she was crying and the things she would say were lies. These were her manipulative ways that makes you think that she was just as evil in her daily life, but disguising and suppressing these ways. The thought that we all have evil tendencies and the possibility that we could be suppressing them on a daily basis because we scare ourselves is the most terrifying concept in this film.

Antichrist with Amanda and Mike tonight!

http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/antichrist

unforeseeable weight of the obstacle

I was under the impression that the thinking of subjects to shoot would be the greatest challenge. Not undermining that as a challenge, but the dialectic qualities within the diptych has served much more of a challenge. I have all of these almost stock images for what I consider to imply sin, but then merging of two changes everything! So I have come to the conclusion that the best and most efficient way to go about this is to shoot everything I think of (quickly) and devote my time to finding the best possible relationships. Mike really helped me realize all this with his great insight and after 24 hours of really letting that settle in, it has become even more clear.

Thanks to...

Mike!! What would I do without you!!?!?!

T-Tris exhibition in Belgium

Big exhibition that they do every four years. The name of the exhibition refers to the game Tetris and like the game every piece has a certain opposition or relationship to one another. So the whole exhibition is carefully orchestrated so that these relationships between artists make the whole show coherent. Like a giant game of Tetris, to piece them all together is the objective of the game. It is meant to weave many different meanings and be open for interpretation based on the dialogues between the different works. Of course, all work is strategically placed so the institution still is pushing some sort of agenda for interpretation.

A couple artists that are showing:

Chad McCail

Thierry De Cordier

Andrea Fraser, Gilbert & George, Jacques Lizène, and Cindy Sherman will all be showing at this exhibition as well.

Michaël Dans

On Dans website he only has two of these skeletor women on there and I think there should be more. They are so simplistic and yet heavy with content. Since the only images are of women, it makes me think that it is supposed to be a woman's reaction to expectations set by society. But after seeing all of his images, I don't think he would put that much content into an image. My final conclusion is that he did a general outline of the skeleton. Cute.

The two above just make me laugh. I simply enjoy people as animals. At this point, where I am ripping my hair out making attempts at content, this is a break for my brain :)

Anne-Marie Schneider

Anne-Marie Schneider

I happened upon her her drawings and immediately enjoyed her expressive display of a sort of personal daily journal. As most would write down thoughts or ideas, she draws them as they pop into her mind. On a daily basis she is recording her thoughts through imagery. I like that every picture varies so much in the dreamscape it provides. Some remind me of Ed Templeton and then some remind me of 'The Little Prince'- I love that variety. I also love the fact that there is not such pressure to make such a structured type of drawing. This approach to art making speaks to me on the premise that it is not conforming and rich with passion.

I am having trouble downloading them, so hopefully I can get them in the next post.

Permanent collection at Xavier Hufkens Gallery in Brussels. This gallery has many artists that may interest a wide spectrum of people.

Schizophrenic gift

I am going to be a child right now and say there is genius in the world, but I can't say anything about it. haha

I met an artist and he is in the preliminary stages of a graphic novel. His ideas I think stem from a somewhat controlled schizophrenia. He perpetuated so much thought for me for what creativity really is and how destructive restriction is on the creative mind. I wish you guys could encounter such a human.

Progress!

After much brainstorming, I think I have reached a decisive moment. It was too late for me to stray my original idea and so I had to really decide how I could make these seven sins less of a one word solution. I had a number of options, but what I have settled on is the diptych approach. This way in the end, it will not be exactly seven images to title with the name of these sins. I feel that with this approach the series will better have a chance to blur the lines of sin. I think that 'sin' is not necessarily something that we should be able to so clearly define. I mean how can cheating in a marriage be described as only 'lust' when it is also greed? After so much thought on the term sin and how it applies to human nature and the times in which we falter from desirable behavior, I feel that sin should be confusing. The diptych will also add an element of relationship between the two images that can suggest two separate sins that together equal one action that the viewer may clearly see. Quick example, if I had an obese person which may suggest gluttony and a messy house which may suggest sloth, one may see that and think "stoners" hah! I am hoping to make the imagery thought-provoking. That would be absolutely ideal! If I could just get a couple people to read different things from each of the images, I would feel it was a success. Next week, I will have two diptychs, mayyyybe three.

Frustratiion

As this day comes to an end, I feel more frustrated than ever with my progress thus far. I have all these sporadic ideas that seem so fantastic, but are not cohesive in any way. I am waiting on this epiphany that always comes too late. All that I have shot does not seem to add up to what I thought it would. Boo hoo.

Jenny Saville!!

Amy Runyen used to talk about her in my life drawing class two years ago. I loved her work, but completely forgot her name. On several occasions I have searched for her over the past two years and thennnnn tonight on the shuttle I overheard someone say her name! I am so lucky!!! It is like Freud's work but more grotesque and so beautiful...

Jeff Wall- Thanks Amanda.. :)

So I had these light bulb ideas and then this image came into my life and ruined it. So glorious. I forgot about this image.

Chicago, Chicago that toddlin' town

I spent the past few days in another city and was able to experience the contemporary art museum. I was so excited because they have a photography-specific exhibition there right now. I was generally unimpressed, but they did have Sugimoto (above) there which was pretty cool to see in person. I was surprised how small they were, but other than that- exactly what I expected the images to be.

I enjoyed their permanent collection. Some real gems there that I was super excited to experience in person and not a textbook.

Above: This was not the image Matta had displayed (I was unable to find the exact one), but the paintings are huge and so futuristic and surreal. It seemed to be exactly how I imagine the writings of Vonnegut.

Above: Lari Pittman's painting I could not walk away from! It was a mixture of technically complicated portions to basic flattened areas. It was enthralling because there was so much to look at and to try to comprehend. It was violent and feminine. It is strange but it felt harmonious.

I love Chuck Close! This was the main reason I walked in the rain to go to MCAC. Seeing his work in textbook form does it NO justice! First of all the size is gigantic so it truly sucks you in. From across the museum I saw it and it looks like above, but when I stood a foot away from it, it makes no sense. He paints these very strange pixels making up the image and each pixel is bursting with color. Color that shouldn't be there. It was the highlight of my trip because it was seriously that moving to see in person.

Above: Alexander Calder had a few pieces up and although his work doesn't speak to me, it was also cool to see in person. I really did not feel that it was that much more exciting than what you see above.