I know I know.. We All Were There...

So we went to the BMA, over the river and through the Ghetto... but we made it!
My sweet reward: Franz West.

http://www.artbma.org/exhibitions/special/fw.html#Share

The Ego and the Id was by far my favorite piece. For me it is reminescent of a Dr. Seuss world. As we all know I am working on the shamble of an installation that lays in pieces in my studio. So for me to see Franz West and the way his environment was constructed and how his pieces interact both with one another as well as the viewer was a much needed experience. It was the boost that over the last two weeks I have been searching for. His ability to manipulate the materials, (there are SO MANY) was inspiring. I really enjoy that he didn't use one media, I enjoyed the wacky combo of plaster, paint, cardboard, stickers, photo, found object, video, metal.. you name it! He's a maker, I can see that in myself, I simply love to make! (Thanks Abby for suggesting that we go to this exhibition!)





Yet while there I was oddly enough attracted to... a LITTLE more art.
No really, it's small, real small but I love it. I am into meticulous things, and making miniature doll sized sets, well if that doesn't take time and patience what does?
I couldn't stop grinning over Eugene Kupjack's commissioned miniatures. I was amazed.. I couldn't find any pictures, yet I doubt that a photo would do them any justice, so next time you are in Baltimore check those puppies out!

franz west deux

I'm embarrassed to say that i was told to stop climbing on the large, aforementioned "dr. suess" construction, but i thought that was the point? (i don't mean to exhaust this exhibition)

i'm not sure why i've never heard of franz west.
there's a general freedom that exists in the way he's makes. i want to work like that.
(on saturday my friend Ted said this, 'the travesty of modern art is a finished piece.')
the objects shouted for interaction:
delicate white instruments out of plaster--like ear extensions. you could touch almost everything. there was also a video. a woman and a man and some "adaptives." there's something really nice about the way the objects become a mask, a costume, a choreographer, a stage. what does it mean to give up power and be driven by something else? what does that dance look like? where's the line that you tip-toe around? when do body and mind detach? but also, the inherent attachment. there's something so beautiful about that connection. powerful and sometimes disturbing. and definitely beautiful. the honesty of a video camera.

back to franz west.

Brittany and I shared a disappointment with the curator's solution for interacting with the "adaptives" (adaptives = plaster forms that beg you to swing/wear/walk/play/move/move around/dance with.) especially after seeing that video. hm. a dressing-room covered in newspaper with a mirror on one side so you can watch yourself? and not be seen? how sad.

the exhibition

ps. does anyone know the artist who constructed the extremely long finger extensions, and that image of her touching two sides of a room at the same time? i tried to find her, and instead i found "phone fingers." apparently, when you wear these you won't smudge your iphone.



(on the right is a Franz West. i thought there's something between these two images)

Ernesto Neto ...Ai...ai... at Tanya Bonakdar

Super-beautiful, scented (sweet cooking spices), translucent, stretchy fabric wrapped around the belly of a whale. Being inside this environment made me feel like I was part of some sort of organism. Not just inside it, part of it. 

That works out well considering this quote he made about another piece, "I don't want to make work that depicts a sensual body - I want it to be a body, exist as a body of an idea of it." 

The piece also included an interactive area upstairs where I got to play with sort of 3D puzzle pieces and sit beneath a screen of his fabric. 

At the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea. You can (and should) look at more images here, including one piece that kind of reminds me of the bathtub Britt and I just did. I've been looking at other exhibits of his and the I keep finding that his work seems to be doing the things I've been thinking about lately (the senses, environment, experience, the body), and the things I wish I been thinking about lately...

FALL 2008 5TH blog assigment

DUE DATE: postings must be up by 9 PM Monday, November 24th.
postings must be at least 200 words, include at least 2 different images, and at least 2 links to different websites related to the content.

talk about an exhibition you have seen this fall and give us more information on the art or artists .

YOU HAVE TO HAVE SEEN THIS EXHIBITION IN PERSON. could be here on campus, could be in Wilmington, Philly, NYC, or if you happened to zip over to Dubai for a long weekend--but you and the art had to be in the same space breathing together for a bit.

just keep swimming...

I completely forgot to do the blog post... my mind has been just that scattered over the past few weeks. Its been crazy, the end of october always is for me. Anywho, now that all of my responsibilities have been met for the stuff I was doing outside of school, i can be a little less scatterbrained about everything. Oh, and I voted, and things came out the way I wanted them to so I'm a little less anxious too, yay!

I'm a little behind where I want to be at the moment... I feel like the pieces should be bigger by now, I'm having trouble really knowing how many I've made or if I've even spent enough time working on them. Right now its foggy and I can tell that I'm in the thick of this process so maybe thats a good place to be. I'm incredibly lost in what I'm doing, but that was sort of the point of doing it, so I'll just stay lost for now. Having written my artist statement for Lance's class kinda backed that up for me. Another batch just got bisqued today, although I'm waiting until I have more of them to do glazing. I want to consider at least most of them together when I go through the glaze step with them. At the moment, the forms are getting bigger, they're being constructed to act as bases for the smaller ones that have already been done... hopefully they'll interact better with one another this time. I'm also considering how I want to display them, I'm not so certain about the floor thing anymore. I like the visual layering that I get when I look at them on my shelf.

The double walled technique experimenting has worked well for me and I enjoy using it along with single walled vessels for carving... still left to do is to make up some porcelain and find that glaze recipe that I wanted to do. I lost the website >.< Karastan rug that is a family heirloom in my mom's family

Visconti's book of hours

Henna...mmmm (thas mah hand!)


Better late than never :)
-Jen Hintz

so i went out and voted today

didn't take my picture inside, but right outside next to a vote here sign, richard nixon "i am not a crook" style.

ooopssssie!!!

so, i forgot to post the blog this past friday... better now than never i guess though


Experimentation seems to be going well. Pit-barrel firing was a blast, and now I want to set up an area outside to do like 6, 7, 8, 24!! pit fires at the same time (more like 4 or 5 realistically). One of my overall goals as an artist is to not use machines when making stuff, and I don’t even know if I would keep with that, I just want to do it at least once, so I want to fire my pieces all the way in just a barrel, even if it means that most of them will explode.
I also have been taking photos of the little pieces I’ve been making (as I continue to also make new ones) and I’ve noticed that some actually make really good pics, so I might just try printing the best ones and think about how to display them and stuff to see if they can actually just stand like “good photographs.” I’ve also been working on the surfaces of the pieces that have been bisque fired already, which has proven to be fun, as well as I try to make something out of the pieces that exploded or broke. I also have this immense face that I’ve been “molding”; I put it in a plexiglass box, cover it with plastic to keep it out from the light, and put foam as a lid to pour small amounts of hot water every so often. Right now I have to figure out how to display the face. Also, I’ve been working on this installation that I want to make with the little objects I’ve been making, a corner-mud-K-mart-type-of-thing.
I started running out of money so I haven’t bought any cool gadgets to insert into the new objects I’ve made, but something is happening with the way I make them and how I manipulate the original pre-historic design’s, and that is pretty exiting. I do expect myself to do this for a while longer, probably extending into next semester, as I also work in other ideas I have. For example, I got this random-cliché idea to disguise myself as different personalities, take portraits, and then make small busts from the images.