Public Art: Community and Politics

On Monday, February 21, 2011 at 4:40 pm, I attended at collaborative art lecture about how public art plays a huge role in community and politics.  The four panelists that spoke were Diana Boros from the Political Science Department, Lisa Scheer and Billy Friebele from the Art and Art History Department, and Katie Ganz from the Languages and Cultures Department.

Diana Boros discussed how politics is prevalent in public art.  She defined politics in this setting as a multitude of unwritten rules and interactions that affect the way people interact with the world around them.  Politics affects the public because it beautifies spaces, creating pride within the community, it is a direct political critique, inspiring protest, and it is a demonstration of new ideas a viewpoints, introducing new concepts to others to share. 

Lisa Scheer then discussed what makes public art public, sharing with us her various sculptures that she had been commissioned to make for the public.  To her, public art usually incorporates the environment and identity of the location as well as the people living in it, making this piece special to the locals who come to feel as if the artwork is also theirs.  Lisa personally adds abstraction to her work.  In her opinion, abstraction is evocative and has many meanings due to latent imagery (i.e. her sculpture outside of the New York courthouse that resembles a flaming torch but also has helping hands which were inspired by the aftermath of 9/11).  When viewing public art, Lisa states that the viewers are not the audience, but instead participants.

Billy Friebele went on to discuss his experiences as an artist, getting his audience to become participants, as Lisa had discussed.  He had his viewers explore the site itself as an artwork.  In doing this, the entire landscape becomes public art.  Another project he did was site-specific mapping in Washington D.C. which was projected onto a library wall.  This is a new age for public art because up until now, that wasn’t something that could be done.  Another interesting thing to note is that public art doesn’t have to just be outside anymore, it is virtual as well.  It truly is a new age for public art.

Katie Ganz brought a new perspective on public art by describing public art in Paris, France in the past and in the present.  She spoke about how Napoleon III hired Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann to put an end to Paris’s identity crisis and create a new sense of pride and community between citizens and government officials alike.  The Baron created new and efficient roadways with monuments at each end, creating a sense of symmetry the city had lacked beforehand.  He also made it so that treelines were even with the sight of a building, again adding that layer of symmetry.  Because he increased the aesthetic beauty of Paris, he relinquished some of the unrest that the city was experiencing at the time period.  Fast forward to now:  direct political critique is rampant in Paris.  There artists have placed all kinds of statements on these 19th Century monuments.  One of the more popular ones that people really enjoy interacting with is the invader art (pictured below).  However, there are more radically political statements seen around the city such as "Je ne veux plus [I don't want any more of...]" which are little pieces of paper in which people write what they don't want any more of in the city.  Also, artists in this day and age do not put their art up in the air but closer to the ground because this is where the modern day viewer is looking.  In these ways, Paris's art is extremely participatory.

After this lecture, I found myself wondering if my art that I consider to be public is interactive.  I made a postcard for class which in its own way is public art because it isn't meant to be hung on a wall or plopped in the middle of a room.  My postcard is meant to be something plain on the outside, but as you open it up (in an unconventional manner) you are forced to view each part of the picture separately.  Also, the motion of opening this card is meant to emulate wind because my card is about how windy it is at St. Mary's. Although the visual aspect of my card didn't come out as nicely as I would have liked it to, the concept still made sense and it still forces the viewer to participate in my work of art.  Going to this art lecture has given me some more ideas about how to present my artwork next time and it has given me a much better perspective on public art.

Artist Talk With Ryan Browning

Artist Ryan Browning visited our campus last Wednesday, February 9, 2011.  He presented his artwork from 2006 to 2010 and some of his plans for 2011.  I found it interesting that Dungeons and Dragons as well as the emergence of 3-D graphics in video games had influenced a lot of his artwork. 

In 2006 the first piece of art that he had been truly proud of was a map that he had cut up and pasted back together.  He said he really liked the idea of crossing boundaries or eliminating them completely.  This got him thinking about spaces in proportion to where they belong.

In 2007 a game called EverQuest came out that changed Ryan’s perception of space.  He said he liked the idea of spending time with others in an artificial world.  He also enjoyed the polygonal imagery and the fact that you could make yourself whatever you wanted.  However, he has chosen to use his digital influence in a traditional medium. 

In 2008 Ryan created a polar bear sculpture to explore the interaction between virtual imagery and real space.  At this time he was also exploring the creation of the persistent world.  This is apparent in his painting, “Birth of an Island” which is like a Genesis story.  This is also where Ryan begins using polygonal shapes to represent his main focus in his artwork.

In 2009 he begins to seriously consider character, using his polygonal figures as human surrogates.  The reason why he chooses to use surrogates in place of humans is because he feels that people in pictures are limited.  The main goal here is to get his audience to interact more with his artwork.

As Ryan moved into 2010 he decided to take his artwork a step further and loosened up his geometric images, flattening out space, and the incorporation of motion.  A very interesting piece he did called “Time Machine”, which also happens to be his favorite, includes many non-geometric images in it but they are more of the background to offset the loosely geometrical time machine that has been defaced with graffiti due to the fact that time travel never happened in the future. 

For the coming year Ryan has some interesting new inspirations.  He is now working on incorporating a moody, romantic darkness coupled with gothic cathedral architecture to his artwork.  I cannot wait to see what he decides to do next; his work is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

After the Futurists PowerPoint in class yesterday I noticed some similarities in that they use a lot of geometrical shapes to represent other things just as Ryan does.  I think that this type of abstraction is appealing because it is like looking at the world with different eyes, perhaps even kaleidoscope eyes.  It forces the viewer to look at the world in a way they never had before, allowing them to absorb the beauty of the artist’s depiction of the world through his or her eyes.

Ryan Browning’s artwork relates to mine in that we both have been influence by similar things.  I have been influenced by video games (as well as the bright colors that I see in them).  I too enjoy the old crappy graphics of the original 3-D games.  What I truly take away from his artwork and artistic experience is that I can include character in seemingly inanimate objects.

I Think It May Be Nine In the Afternoon

It’s been a while since our last class but that doesn’t mean I have been up to nothing at all.  Our first assignment was to practice drawing the negative space.  I found this exercise very enjoyable because for once I felt like I could draw!  It’s amazing how your perspective changes from drawing the space around the object instead of the object itself.  This method works for me because it forces me to stop paying attention to all the small details.  The small details are most certainly important but it’s impossible to consider the smaller details when you don’t even have the broader subject drawn yet.  I’m sincerely glad that I was taught how to do this; it feels as if my artistic skills have dramatically increased.

The second assignment was a reading from John Berger about the importance of visual arts.  The very first thing you read is:  “Seeing comes before words.  The child looks and recognizes before it speaks.”  I’d never really thought about the fact that we first see before we learn to speak.  Yet, the words we learn to use to communicate and to describe our emotions cannot even begin to describe the true extent of them.  Love, the obvious example, happens to be one of the hardest emotions to capture with words.  That is because love is such a physical and deep emotion.  It certainly cannot be described by words alone.  The same goes for heartbreak, depression, and despair.  These emotions have plagued many artists throughout history, all of them trying to capture this emotion, their art speaking to many viewers.  The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” comes to mind, now that I think of it.  Visuals truly do speak volumes more than texts have the ability to.

The reading also brought up a good point about cameras.  They destroy a painting’s initial meaning because they take away from the fact that it is unique.  Even if a painting was meant to be transportable, it still was the one and only copy.  It never occurred to me that the invention of the camera could be a bad thing.  I have always viewed the camera as one of our greatest inventions.  I still believe it is, but now I can see why taking a picture of another piece of art takes its true meaning away from it.  Since I was a young child I can remember seeing pictures of the Mona Lisa in textbooks, on televisions shows, and such, which has made me realize that I have no proper appreciation of the painting, which in my opinion is just wrong.  However, I am still split in that I probably would have never seen this picture in my life unless we had cameras that have allowed me to see this painting.  This reading really got me thinking; I liked it.

I really wonder if our perceptions of major artworks would be different if we never had preconceived notions about them thanks to the availability of them due to the invention of the camera?  Also, do you think it is possible to only communicate with visuals or are words necessary for higher level communication?

Our third assignment was to draw a nude model.  I have to say this has by far been the most interesting experience of my life.  I kind of felt like I had no idea what I was doing but I found that I really enjoy drawing torsos, legs, and arms.  Also, I was very thankful that I had learned how to draw negative space because this really helped me to be able to draw the model’s figure.  I will admit that prior to attending the drawing session I was incredibly nervous that I would completely suck at drawing.  However, after the session I was quite proud of myself! :)

For the final segment of this post I would like to share with you some drawings I stumbled upon that I thought were fantastic!  They are all called "Fingerings" by Judith Braun.  I can't even explain why I love them, they just appeal to me.  Perhaps it is because I have never seen anything like it.  She dips her fingers in either charcoal or pastel and then draws in either abstract forms or bilateral symmetry.  Here are some of my favorites of hers:

(Images taken from Google Images)

Stay

Watching Momento in all its confusing glory made me think about one of my favorite movies called Stay starring Ryan Gosling and Ewan McGregor.  It's an awesome movie.  Though the perception of time is not as predominant as the perception of reality and the psyche, the movie still pertained to the subject matter so I thought it would be worth posting about it here.

In short, the movie is about a psychiatrist (Ewan McGregor) that is trying to prevent one of his patients (Ryan Gosling) from committing suicide while trying to maintain his grip on reality.  If you want to know more about Stay you can read this.  Don't read too far into the summary though because there will be major spoilers.

I highly suggest you watch this movie if you enjoyed Momento.  There is a lot more symbolism in Stay, making the movie slightly harder to understand, but after watching it a couple of times you will really appreciate the genius of this movie.

Time Is Running Out

Last class we discussed J.G. Whitrow’s What is Time: Time and Ourselves.  I enjoyed Kant’s idea that we all possess innate faculties such as the perception of time.  Humans are able to conceptualize that life does come to an end, time is essentially running out.  By looking at artwork through the ages, one can see that many artworks deal with the ensuing threat of death and the memories that artists would like to preserve.  Our death and our birth, they are the markers that we existed here on earth.  The time spent in between—the memories made—they are up to us.  By using art, memories can be preserved in time, keeping them from being altered in our minds, perhaps even conveying truths or greater truths.  I believe that everything that happens in our life is recorded into our brains but only the outstanding memories are the easiest to access. 

In the reading I learned that “time is not a simple sensation but depends on processes of mental organization uniting thought and action.”  This is our reaction to change.  The changes in life are often documented and preserved through art of all forms. Be it song, painting, or sculpture, life is instilled into these mediums by the artist. By creating his or her own works of art, an artist is able to impart a part of his or herself unto their medium, effectively ensuring their immortality through a permanent and beautiful piece of art. This immortality gained through remembrance, although not a true immortality, gives the artist a sense of pride and value in his or her work.

Upon reading this article, I began to question whether or not I believed in Déjà vu.  I feel that our brain connects certain similar situations to present events, leading us to falsely believe that we’ve seen that very situation occur before.  I find it slightly ridiculous and hard to accept as true.  If it is true, is it a product of human evolution?

Also, I liked the verse by Guy Pentreath:

“For when I was a babe and wept and slept, time crept, and when I was a boy and laughed and talked, time walked, and as the years saw me a man, time ran, and as I older grew, time flew".

I wonder why as we get older, our sense of time changes?  Is it because we come to the realization that “time is running out”?

So, since I've been talking a lot about how time is running out, I decided that I wanted to know more about the song "Time is Running Out" by Muse.  

These are the lyrics:

I think I'm drowning

Asphyxiated

I wanna break this spell

you've created

You're something beautiful

A contradiction

I wanna play the game

I want the friction

You will be the death of me

Yeah you will be the death of me

Bury it

I won't let you bury it

I won't let you smother it

I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out

Our time is running out

You can't push it underground

You can't stop it screaming out

I wanted freedom

Bound and restricted

I tried to give you up

But I'm addicted

Now that you know I'm trapped

sense of elation

You'd never dream of

Breaking this fixation

You will squeeze the life out of me

Bury it

I won't let you bury it

I won't let you smother it

I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out

Our time is running out

You can't push it underground

You can't stop it screaming out

How did it come to this?

Ooooohh

Yeah you will suck the life out of me

Bury it

I won't let you bury it

I won't let you smother it

I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out

Our time is running out

You can't push it underground

You can't stop it screaming out

How did it come to this?

Ooooohh 

First off, upon listening to the song you will notice that there are a series of clapping/clicking noises meant to represent a ticking clock.  When you watch the video you will notice that the band is playing on a conference table and that all the political heads in attendance do the exact same things (implying conformity and unwillingness to change).  The significance of the band being in attendance, playing this song, is that they are trying to give a wake-up call but they are completely ignored (implying the underdogs of society need to be listened to).  Then you see the political heads kind of strip dancing.  I think this is to show the corruptness of the "people in charge".  The end of the video emphasizes the lyric, "How did it come to this?" because it shows the political heads throwing their papers in the air in a deranged manner, and then leaving the scene.  This symbolizes their inability to deal with the world's problems and so they therefore ignore them despite the fact that our "time is running out".  I wish I had more insight into this video and song but it was very difficult to find information on. Hopefully, though, this helped to raise some questions.