Cindy Sherman

Lately I have been looking at the work of Cindy Sherman, particularly the retrospective exhibit at the MOMA. http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/cindysherman/#/0/

Online at this web address you can view the exhibit in its entirety.  The exhibit really does take us through her entire career starting with work she did before Untitled Film Stills up to her most recent work in 2010 of Cindy ounce again dressed in ridiculous outfits in mural type arrangements with fake backgrounds.  The reason for my sparked interest in Cindy Sherman is that I needed to write a paper based around art criticism and Sherman happens to have an extremely large amount of feminist theory written about her work as well as psychoanalytical theory.  Most of this theory has been written about her Untitled Film Stills, which I find to be her least interesting body of work personally.  Through reading this theory and also reading interviews and watching videos of her talking about her work I have come to the conclusion that while these critical writing were important for Sherman’s career they really are not important for the viewer to understand her work. All feminist theory aside, Sherman really created her images because she wanted to create characters in a narrative that the viewer creates. If you watch the videos of her talking about her work on PBS 21^st artist series she talks about how and why she made some of her work and nothing that she says is based in art criticism.

 http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-cindy-sherman-in-transformation

Personally, I really enjoy her latter work from the 2000s as she plays the part of different women sitting for their portrait.  These women are quite hilarious and sometimes I actually see a person I know within one of these portraits. I know I definitely see the woman who works at the gas station back home in Untitled #355.  One thing is for sure , I’m creating a narrative in my head, which was Sherman’s primary goal.

  Untitled #355

Castaldo/Dettmer

"Diseases of the Eye" Brain Dettmer

As I walked through the SCAD halls at Open Studio, I discovered multiple works that I found extremely interesting. Some of those works are by a printmaking graduate student by the name of Elizabeth Castaldo, who has a SCAD portfolio online that you can view through this link. http://portfolios.scad.edu/elizabethcastaldo

She creates collages with drawing and watercolor to create very interesting and seemingly symbolic imagery. She does not have an artist statement so I don’t know what her intention is however; personally I find the work to have feminist undertones.  Looking at her work motivates me to consider incorporating drawing and other mediums within my photo collages, but perhaps at a later date.  I also really enjoy her sketchbook project and am inspired to create my own art sketchbook.  This got me thinking about artists who use the sketchbook as their work of art. I specifically remember Forest telling me about Brain Dettmer who creates sculpture/collages out of books using intricate cutting that creates a dynamic layering technique much different than a sketchbook that one would flip through.  Although extremely different in technique, the one of the things both Castaldo and Dettmer have in common with their books are that they both started with a book already in existence.  This is a technique that greatly interests me that I plan on trying out in the future.  However, as much as I love artist’s sketchbooks and the work of these two artists I do have to think about how my work would sell if I chose to make books and even if I kept working in the same manner I have been with my collages, because although making art is something enjoyable I also need to make money with it.  Thus, I would need to figure out a way to reproduce my images to make them more easily sold without an outrageous price tag because of the unique quality of the handmade object. Then again Brain Dettmer is doing more that pretty well and he does not mass produce his work but he does make a lot of them which I think is the key.

Small Works

Recently I was given advice by Hank Willis Thomas to make my work bigger.  I have been advised to do this before by both my peers and my professors but have ignored the advice.  It isn’t that I am opposed to working big. When I was working more as a painter, I produced many paintings that were at least five feet tall.  I think the reason I have been so reluctant is because I feel as though the work might lose some of its intimacy.  In the case of Thomas’s work I think printing large images is appropriate because it draws our attention to the fact that the images are appropriated from magazines as we can discern a certain amount of grain in the image that tells us so.  Actually, I can think of quite a lot of photographers who print images large due to the content of the images: Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, Marilyn Minter.  However, after I thought about it and went on a google search for photographers who print smaller than a standard print I could not find a single photographer who did.  So, then maybe bigger is better?  Are people more apt to find an image fascinating when it’s large?  I’m not sure, but I’m definitely going to give it a try and although my search produced empty results as far as photographers go I did find an interesting illustrator who works small. Jason D’Aquino creates his small works on matchbooks and other found materials.  I find his drawings amazing, as they are extremely tiny and detailed.  However, I’m not sure how the content of his images relates to the fact that they are so small or that they are on matchbooks.  Either way, he is worth checking out. 

 http://www.jasondaquino.com/matchbook_gallery2.html#page

Deconstruction?

Lately I have been engaged in the study of semiotics, specifically structuralism and deconstruction, for my art criticism class.  After multiple readings of various sources I am confident that I mostly understand structuralism, especially after stumbling upon this explanation by Daniel Chandler, if you are interested. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html    However, I am having a difficult time wrapping my head around deconstruction, especially when asked to write a deconstructionist analysis of a piece of artwork considering that deconstruction is not actually an analysis or a critique but more like a taking apart of another analysis.  So, I was thinking about my own work and how this critique and non-critique would work with a piece from my latest work.   Using the work I posted previously, depicting myself in a struggle against myself, I would say that the structuralist reading of the image is very straightforward.  The two selves symbolize an internal struggle which results in a killing of one part of the self, with the pillows being a signifier for the concept of suffocation and thus a sign or symbol of repression.  Thus a metaphor for the self being the only thing that stands in the way of ones successes is created.  So, the structuralist approach to reading a work of art is essentially just a way of putting meaning into a structure.  I think that this is a facet of human nature that is instinctual; we all want to put everything in an order or a category so as to make sense of the world.  However, when I attempt to take this same work and make a deconstructionalist reading of the work, I find myself questioning the purpose of deconstruction.  Deconstruction works by finding binary oppositions, placing importance on one and then reversing the meaning.  So, if the primary binary opposition is suffocation or repression vs. surviving or expression and emphasis is placed more on suffocation or repression when reversed the work is read to be about surviving or expression.  So then I suppose a deconstructionalist would read the work as two selves not in a struggle but in an agreement with the self that is lying down being in acceptance of the situation in order for the other to live?  After my own struggle with the deconstruction reading the only thing I can be sure of is that there are multiple interpretations to any work of art and that interpretations are not really right or wrong.  In any case I don’t really think it matters in the end, expect when I write my thesis. 

Framing

This week I have had to make choices regarding framing my artwork for the open studio show. I’ve always thought the standard was a white mat and a black frame and while I still believe this is the standard I don’t necessarily think it is the best or the only choice for some presentations.  So, this weekend I went to several galleries and while I was there I paid more attention to the presentation of the work to see what other choices I might want to consider.  I went to Ben Rollins show at Twin Kittens and was quite impressed with both his work and presentation.  Rather than using the traditional black frame, Ben opted for a white frame, which went well with his work, creating an overall sensation of being surrounded by white.  The adjacent gallery also presented nicely framed consistent pieces, although there seemed to be a wide variety of content among the work.  In stark contrast to these galleries, the work at the Granite Room in the Castleberry Hill district was rather inconsistently presented.  Their show, Exploring the Shadows, presented the work of five photographers all working in the same surrealist vein.  One artist, seemed more interested in selling his book than in displaying his work and had his work on what appeared to be foam core without any frame, giving the appearance of a poster rather than a piece of fine art.  Another photographer chose to hang their work unframed as well but in a strange hanging arrangement, which I think was due in part to the fact that the wall is rock. There was also calendars and other smaller prints for sale on tables throughout the space.   As a whole, the show seemed more like tables at an art fair than an exhibit at a fine art gallery.  Another gallery I went to this weekend was the Seen gallery, which had a nice presentation of professional quality work and framing. The only problem with this gallery was the presence of ceramic works and other artworks that had nothing to do with the exhibition and only served to clutter the space.  While I was there I was most impressed with the work of Thomas Hager, who not only produces amazingly large alternative process prints but also makes his own frames, which are well-made metal frames. His work can be found here. http://www.thomashager.com/index.php#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=0&p=5&a=0&at=0

This is a direct link to my personal favorite of his series: Catharsis.