Monday, May 3, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Art & Narrative
Pictures tell stories, they have for a long, long time. With Post Modern thought, the story no longer had to be sequential or logical. The allegorical became conceptual. Artists began creating their own mythologies and basing their works on these self-imagined worlds. The same has been true of great literature since the time of Homer. So what has changed now that the narrative is back in action, reborn from the ashes of modernism in the 21st century? Do we focus on the macro view of human existence like Matthew Ritchie or do we get micro about it and focus on the re-telling of a specific bank robbery like Pierre Hyughe? Which is more relevant and does that matter?
Art & Representation
We look at the world and make art to represent it, but to what end? At once it is a way to index the world around us, to interpret it and internalize it. But does this representation have a value? We say that it enriches our view of the world to see alternate representations of it created by others. This process allows us to idealize our reality and elevate it from the banal or the everyday. Will representation go out of style? It seems that during the Abstract Expressionist movement that it did. However, one could argue that those paintings were representations of the post-war mindset translated onto canvas. Now we rely more and more in icons and logos to represent our beliefs and affiliations. Team logos, religious icons, corporate slogans and even online avatars have become our representative stand-ins in the real and virtual communities we inhabit. What is the overall effect of this branding we're doing to ourselves? Is there something that can't be branded?
Art Review Criteria
A review of an art exhibition should be at once informative and also somewhat vague. It should explain what is on display, but require the reader to become a viewer at the venue of the show. The main theme of the show should be communicated with limited descriptions of works that catch the writer's eye. In reading reviews in the Washington Post, the NY Times and even the Los Angeles Literary Journal, I discovered most of the reviewers comments were affected by who was paying them to write. Ideally this is not the case. However, in our economic system, the personal opinion of the art reviewer does not hold too much sway. So, to break it down a successful art review should be:
unbiased
informative
enticing
descriptive
opinionated
unbiased
informative
enticing
descriptive
opinionated
Art & Identity
If our identities are ultimately hybrid, then is our American ideology of continual self-reinvention valid? At some point in a person's life, parts of their identity become fixed. At some point we have to choose who we are and stand up for that choice. Or do we? In the background of this conversation about identity and art is the everpresent spectre of existentialist thought, throwing doubt and confusion into the mix. What's the point of claiming an identity if you have no control over how long you get to live? Or how you'll be remembered? I think that's another important part of identity. How long does it last? How long will stories be told about each one of us? When does identity end?
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