Dina Chang's Painting II Manifesto: What do I want to explore?

·      PAINT (as a material, as a being)

o   How much can I manipulate before paint’s qualities take over?

§  Color

§  Saturation (How much acrylic I mix into the pouring medium)

§  Technique (How I mix the acrylic into the pouring medium)

·      Keep it swirled (with the palette knife, suspended in the medium)

o   Translucent

·      Mix it completely (by shaking the jar of paint and medium)

·      TIME

o   The clear pouring medium captures time within its layers

§  Ephemerality

o   I lose control with time

§  Time takes over

§  What I originally draw is not what comes out

·      What is the final product?

§  Time takes over, I lose control

·      LIGHT + INSTALLATION

o   If there is no controlled light, the sunlight that shines through the windows takes control

o   If I can control the light source, do I want it above the plexiglass, so the shadow extends downward

o   If the viewer can control the light source with a flashlight, then every viewer’s experience differs

§  Will they be more able to see the overlapping layers of paint suspended in pouring medium?

o   Shadow

§  Shadow is enhanced the closer the plexiglass is installed on the wall

§   The shadow’s color depends on the saturation and color of the paint

Artist Statement Gemma Gené

Blurry Memories

They say that the biggest change in the past 30 years has been the iphone. Since everyone is carrying a camera in their phone, memory is no longer needed. People take thousands of pictures a year, of every detail of their life that they don’t want to forget. Camera phones are used as part of human memory. We relate to our phones to take pictures of the everyday life things we would forget otherwise. We take pictures and post them for the world to see, and we expect this way they will not be forgotten.

Pictures are no longer a tool to remember special moments like birthdays and trips. They work as a report of every detail of everyday life. They say that when you post a picture on instagram you have 30% more change to forget that moment. Your brain feels like this memory is safe, but chances are, you are not going to review this picture again.

This series of paintings talk about how our memories are recorded by non professional photographers. They are blurry images with filtered colors of memories you don’t need to remember.

Artist Statement (Lisa Zhou)

Art is said to be one of the most enlightening forms of personal expression, yet much of what I see within the contemporary art world feels commercial and dead. For me, art should have inner life that radiates beyond the confines of the canvas, summon indescribable emotions and challenge the viewer to reassess conventions.

I create figurative art because it is most intimate to me; through painting the human body, I am also reflecting and commenting on the human experience. Given this interest in the figure, my next step is to find out how far I can push the boundaries of representational art making. I've realized I’m not at all satisfied with strict photorealism, and that my reliance on this technique is only because I have grown familiar with it. But to me, painting is not about being comfortable and making art that is easy. I am not following a foolproof formula for success that can be mechanically applied. There is no scientific method for how I create a successful painting. Surely, some of my artwork is visual barf, but others are masterpieces. My process of painting lends itself to great amounts of self-discovery. Because I am my art. Through creative expression, I am able to pull my young, curious, and constantly wandering thoughts toward a positive direction. I breathe in inspiration and exhale through different mediums not to find what form I can master but rather where my creative brain can flourish. 

My artwork directly reflects my surroundings—the environments I expose myself to and the people who affect my perceptions. As I discover more about myself, these truths are subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) channeled into my artwork. 

I am often asked the age old question: What does your artwork mean? 

My answer is nothing more than an honest portrayal of my mind.

De Stijl Manifesto, 1918

Rebecca Morris, Abstract Manifesto (2000s)

Rebecca Morris: Abstract MANIFESTO

MANIFESTO
For Abstractionists and friends of the non-objective

BE A FORCE

Don't shoot blanks

Black and Brown: that shit is the future

Triangles are your friend

Don't pretend you don't work hard

When in doubt, spray paint it gold

Perverse formalism is your god

You are greased lightening

Bring your camera everywhere

Never stop looking at macrame`, ceramics, supergraphics and suprematism

Make work that is so secret, so fantastic, so dramatically old school/new school that it looks like it was found in a shed, locked up since the 1940's

Wake up early, fear death

Whip out the masterpieces

Be out for blood

You are the master of your own universe

Abstraction never left, motherfuckers

If you can't stop, don't stop

Strive for deeper structure

Fight monomania

Campaign against the literal

ABSTRACTION FOREVER!

Claes Oldenburg Manifesto, 1961

I Am For… (Statement, 1961)

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting point of zero.
I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap and still comes out on top.
I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.
I am for all art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.

I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.
I am for art that spills out of an old man’s purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.
I am for the art out of a doggie’s mouth, falling five stories from the roof.
I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.
I am for an art that joggles like everyone’s knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.
I am for art that is smoked like a cigarette, smells like a pair of shoes.
I am for art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses like a handkerchief.
I am for art that is put on and taken off like pants, which develops holes like socks, which is eaten like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt like a piece of shit.

I am for art covered with bandages. I am for art that limps and rolls and runs and jumps.
I am for art that comes in a can or washes up on the shore.
I am for art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for art that sheds hair.
I am for art you can sit on. I am for art you can pick your nose with or stub your toes on.
I am for art from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from the edge of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on the wrist.
I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches.

I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind man’s metal stick.
I am for the art that grows in a pot, that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for art that is flipped on and off with a switch.
I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your sweetie’s arm, or kiss like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on like an old tablecloth.
I am for an art that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste with, file with.
I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is.
I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.

I am for the art of the washing machine. I am for the art of a government check. I am for the art of last war’s raincoat.
I am for the art that comes up in fogs from sewer holes in winter. I am for the art that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worm’s art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops between crossed legs.

I am for the art of neck hair and caked teacups, for the art between the tines of restaurant forks, for the odor of boiling dishwater.
I am for the art of sailing on Sunday, and the art of red-and-white gasoline pumps.
I am for the art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs.
I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel. I am for the art of worn marble and smashed slate. I am for the art of rolling cobblestones and sliding sand. I am for the art of slag and black coal. I am for the art of dead birds.
I am for the art of scratching in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down.

I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids’ smells. I am for the art of mama-babble.
I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beer-drinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a barstool.

I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic art of dog turds, rising like cathedrals.

I am for the blinking arts, lighting up the night. I am for art falling, splashing, wiggling, jumping, going on and off.
I am for the art of fat truck tires and black eyes.
I am for Kool art, 7UP art, Pepsi art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol art, Dro-bomb art, Vam art, Menthol art, L&M art, Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx art, 9.99 art, Now art, New art, How art, Fire Sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art, Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art.

I am for the art of bread wet by rain. I am for the rat’s dance between floors. I am for the art of flies walking on a slick pear in the electric light. I am for the art of soggy onions and firm green shoots. I am for the art of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and go. I am for the brown sad art of rotting apples.
I am for the art of meows and clatter of cats and for the art of their dumb electric eyes.
I am for the white art of refrigerators and their muscular openings and closings.
I am for the art of rust and mold. I am for the art of hearts, funeral hearts or sweetheart hearts, full of nougat. I am for the art of worn meat hooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue, and yellow meat.
I am for the art of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. I am for the art of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of rectangles and squares. I am for the art of crayons and weak, gray pencil lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the art of windshield wipers and the art of the finger on a cold window, on dusty steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub.
I am for the art of teddy bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, exploded umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, burning trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes with men sleeping in them.

I am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums and tambourines, and plastic phonographs.
I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharaohs. I am for an art of water tanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.
I am for US Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-Eat art, Best-for-Less art, Ready-to-Cook art, Fully Cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, Ham art, pork art, chicken art, tomato art, banana art, apple art, turkey art, cake art, cookie art…

Chelsea pics& names

Chuck close @ pace

Pat Steir @ cheim & read

Ross Bleckner

Sharon Hayes @ Andrea rosen

Rene Daniels @ metro pictures

Hmm... Can't remember. 

@ luhring Augustine

Cindy Sherman @ Robert miller

Dina! With Michel majerus @ Matthew marks

Lauren silva @ zieher smith

Not pictured: Kiki smith @ pace 

Jordan wolfson @ David zwirner

Tomma Abts abstraction

She paints extremely flat, opaque, planes of color yet is able to create such a multidimensional, overlapping effect. Really neat!

Joan Mitchell -- images related to "A Rage To Paint" by Linda Nochlin

 Joan Mitchell

 Canova--Ercole & Lica

 Willem DeKooning Woman, 1949

 Willem DeKooning Woman, 1949

Jackson Pollack by Hans Namuth

Joan Mitchell, installation

Joan Mitchell, 1961

"Little Weeds II"

Joan Mitchell, To the Harbormaster

Bedford Series

Model in front of Pollack

Joan Mitchell by Rudy Burckhardt

Palette shot

WEEK 5: self-directed 3 week projects

Come to class next week ready to present your proposal for your 3-week project. You should also have a painting completed (or at least very-well underway) to share with the group. Your project should be comprised of a group of 3-5 paintings, conceptually or thematically linked. The 2nd half of class next week will be a studio session, so please be prepared to paint. I will also schedule a figure model for those of you that would like to incorporate life painting into your projects. If you have any questions regarding your project ideas please be in touch.

Also: read "The Wise Old Man and the Young Giantesses" Gilles Neret on Henri Matisse

Go to Barnard library and check out art books that you are interested in and bring them to class.

LIAM GILLICK–ASSIGNMENTS ARE HOMEWORK

Assignments are homework. They remove the responsibility from the cultural producer to devise their own context, and create an artificial power relationship to replace the real power relationship between student‐artist and older ex‐student‐teacher‐artist. The assignment replaces the potential for real work and real recognition of power dynamics. The assignment allows the student to avoid taking responsibility for his or her own critical awareness and replaces that with a set of directed “potentials” that are actually rehearsals for future instructions from various powers, i.e. galleries, institutions, and various “clients,” all of which are in direct conflict with the potential of art. Therefore I do not give assignments, I don’t acknowledge work done as an assignment, and I don’t find them funny. 

POSTED NOVEMBER 20, 2013 TO NON ASSIGNMENT

0 COMMENTS 1 NOTES

MICHELLE GRABNER–NO ASSIGNMENT: THE MEDIUM OF INDIRECT TEACHING

Only dead fish follow the stream.

—Finnish expression

The most effective and trustworthy “assignment” I have honed over my twenty years of teaching studio arts is simply: NO ASSIGNMENT as a form of indirect teaching.

A “no assignment” method does not guarantee a Socratic debate, yet it does cultivate critical thinking while eschewing the authority of the teacher and rebuffing the pedagogical misadventure of assessment outcomes.

Critically, indirect teaching emphasizes the weight of work, supporting self-directed knowledge that is shaped by the limits and freedoms of the student and the institution. Work and assessment are the responsibility of the student.