Monday entry (for 11/23/09): Artist of interest: David LaChapelle

David LaChapelle is an American fine art and commercial photographer, as well as a music video, commercial and film director. LaChapelle was born on March 11, 1963 in Fairfield, Connecticut. He attended the North Carolina School of the Arts as well as the School of the Visual Arts in New York City. LaChapelle is most well known for his outrageous and humorous tableaux portraits of celebrities in unique and sometimes surreal settings. Because his subject matter is weighted heavily in pop culture featuring pop culture icons and showcasing the exploitation of wealth and fame, his work has often times been considered borderline kitsch. According to LaChapelle's biography on his official website, "LaChapelle's work continues to be inspired by everything from art history to street culture, creating both a record and mirror of all facets of popular culture today. He is quite simply the only photographic artist currently working in the world today whose work has transcended the fashion or celebrity magazine context it was made for, and has been enshrined by the notoriously discerning and fickle contemporary art intelligentsia."

LaChapelle's official website.

Interview with LaChapelle by DesignBoom.com

LaChapelle's work was recently exhibited at the Sebastian Guinness Gallery in Dublin, Ireland.

Miracle Tan, 2004

Houston, We Have a Problem, 1999

Amanda as Warhol's Marilyn, 2002

Jesus Is My Homeboy, 2009

Grad school application

VMFA application.

Artist lecture: Leigh Ann Craig, PhD, 11/19/09

I attended Dr. Craig's lecture titled "From Holy Matrons to the Sine Sensu: Nine Medieval Women, Pilgrimage, and the Negotiation of Boundaries in Later Medieval Europe." Dr. Craig's lecture dealt with material from her recent book titled "Wandering Women and Holy Matrons: Women as Pilgrims in the Later Middle Ages." She discussed nine women from Medieval European history that went on pilgrimages and the negotiations with their husbands that they had to endure in order to be granted permission in order to attend these pilgrimages. Dr. Craig explained that women were expected to stay home and care for their husbands and children and provide sex to their husband so as to help their husbands avoid sinning by engaging in sexual relations with a woman other than his wife.

One particular story she shared was of a woman named Margery Kempe (1373-1438) who is most famous for the fact that she wrote what is considered the first autobiography in the English language. Her autobiography titled "The Book of Margery Kempe" went into great detail about the pilgrimages she took throughout her life. For her first pilgrimage she had to negotiate with her husband in order to have his permission for her to travel without him. After what she considered a conversation with Jesus Christ, she asked that they have a celibate marriage, even though they had already engaged in sexual relations, asked that she be able to fast on Fridays and go on the pilgrimage. He of course told her in order for her to go on the pilgrimage, she must continue to engage in a sexual relationship with him, eat and drink with him on Fridays, pay his social debts and then he'd grant her permission. All she got out of the deal was the ability to go on the pilgrimage in exchange for paying his social debts and giving up a celibate marriage and fasting on Fridays.

The lecture revolved around eight similar women and their stories of how they attained permission to go on pilgrimages, including one woman named Christina Coppir who was forced to go on a pilgrimage by her husband because six days after they married, she became possessed by the devil.

Monday entry (for 11/16/09): Artist of interest: Candice Breitz

Candice Breitz is a Berlin based South African artist. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1972. She holds several prestigious degrees, starting with her B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, which she received in 1993. Later in 1995 she received a M.A. in Art History at the University of Chicago. In 1997 she received a M.Phil. in Art History at Columbia University in New York. From 1998 to 2002 Breitz was a Doctoral Candidate in Art History at Columbia University. Breitz is best known for her video works and installations, though she also has created several photographic bodies of work that have varied greatly from one another in both subject matter and style.

One common theme throughout Breitz's work is focusing on the world of fandom in relation to pop-culture icons. In 2006 for her video installation Working Class Hero, Breitz invited a diverse community of John Lennon fans to pay tribute to the late musician by performing his first solo album, 'Plastic Ono Band,' from beginning to end on camera. In addition to offering intimate portraits of each participant, the resulting 25-channel video installation forms a survey of fan culture and reflects on the complex threads of identification that often characterize the relationship between celebrities and their public.



A year earlier in 2005, Breitz created King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson), a similar video installation of fans singing along to Michael Jackson songs while attempting his trademark dance moves.



In her 2007 photographic body of work Monuments, she continued her anthropological survey of the devotee. They are melancholic and funny portraits of how someone that a fan has never met can overwhelm their personality and become "an ever present soundtrack to their life.”

Britney Spears Monument, Berlin, September 2007

Iron Maiden Monument, Berlin, July 2007

Breitz's official website.

Interview with Breitz by Kopenhagen.com

Breitz's work was exhibited earlier this year at the Yvon Lambert Gallery in New York, NY.

Thursday entry (for 11/12/09): Middlebrow

Quote on topic by an expert:

“It must be obvious to anyone that the volume and social weight of middlebrow culture, borne along as it has been by the great recent increase in the American middle class, have multiplied at least tenfold in the past three decades. This culture presents a more serious threat to the genuine article than the old-time pulp dime novel, Tin Pan Alley, Schund variety ever has or will. Unlike the latter, which has its social limits clearly marked out for it, middlebrow culture attacks distinctions as such and insinuates itself everywhere …. Insidiousness is of its essence, and in recent years its avenues of penetration have become infinitely more difficult to detect and block.” --Clement Greenberg

Annotated bibliography:

Holbo, John. "Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow". Out of the Crooked Timber of Humanity, No Straight Thing Was Ever Made. 11/12/09 .

This is an article discussing an essay titled Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow by Russell Lynes. The essay itself goes into great detail, describing the differences between each class of "brow" and references several different essays on the discussion of each class with an emphasis on middlebrow, which is thought to have been coined by Virginia Woolf.

"It is the doing of the middlebrows. They are the people, I confess, that I seldom regard with entire cordiality. They are the go–betweens; they are the busy–bodies who run from one to the other with their tittle tattle and make all the mischief — the middlebrows, I repeat. But what, you may ask, is a middlebrow? And that, to tell the truth, is no easy question to answer. They are neither one thing nor the other. They are not highbrows, whose brows are high; nor lowbrows, whose brows are low. Their brows are betwixt and between. They do not live in Bloomsbury which is on high ground; nor in Chelsea, which is on low ground. Since they must live somewhere presumably, they live perhaps in South Kensington, which is betwixt and between."

Artist lecture: Shimon Attie, 11/11/09

This was by far my favorite artist lecture this semester. I was intrigued by all of the bodies of work Attie presented in his lecture but especially by his video installations "The Attraction of Onlookers" and "Racing Clocks Run Slow." I found myself tearing up while watching "The Attraction of Onlookers" with the knowledge of what this Welsh village had gone through and the scrutiny they've had to deal with since the disaster forty-three years ago. I felt he absolutely did what he set out to do and that was to help the citizens of Aberfan move on from the disaster that has plagued their lives for over two decades and to help give them a new, more simple identity as being a Welsh village without the heartache.

I was also captivated by his video installation "Racing Clocks Run Slow," which surprised me since like Attie, I've never had an interest in racing. I loved the drama in the piece with the use of horizontal and circular movement and sound. It definitely had more of a plot compared to "The Attraction of Onlookers" and was just as powerful despite it's subject matter.

Monday entry (for 11/9/09): Artist of interest: Alex Prager

Alex Prager is an American contemporary self-taught photographer. She was born in Los Angeles, California in 1979 and raised by her grandmother. Prager experienced a nomadic upbringing, which found her living in California, Florida and Switzerland. Prager began to seriously pursue photography in her early twenties after becoming a fan of William Eggleston's work. She forewent art school due to having never stayed in one place long enough to pursue a college education and taught herself the technical aspects of photography and lighting through trial and error. While producing and exhibiting her own body of works, she contributed to such magazines as Details, i-D, Elle Japan, Tank, MOJO and Complex. She released her first book The Book of Disquiet in 2005, which led to her first solo show, Polyester, at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, California in 2007. Her next exhibition, The Big Valley, was shown in 2008 at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London, England and received critical acclaim. London Times magazine said, “That she has buckets more vision than credentials matters not, it helps to retain the rawness and individuality of her eye. She is uncertain and dizzy – and very capable.”

Women figure primarily in Prager's work, all donned in 60s inspired wigs and clothing in the staged tableauxs that Prager creates. Her work has a retro flair with a modern execution. Her series Polyester, The Big Valley and her most recent body of work Week-end all capture the vulnerable side of women who happen to be trapped in their own private hell and are on the verge of giving up or already have. Prager, who currently lives in LA, has explained, "I’m documenting a world that exists and doesn’t exist at the same time; the world in which these girls live in is made up, but the illusion they’ve created is so constant that it became more real to them than the world they actually live in. That’s L.A. for you!"

Prager's official website.

Interview with Prager by Juxtapoz magazine.

Prager's newest body of work, Week-end, will be exhibited at M+B Gallery in West Hollywood, California on January 30, 2010.

Undo, 2006

Susie and Friends, 2008

Julie, 2007

Desiree, 2008

Thursday entry (for 11/5/09): Elitism

Quote on topic by an expert:

"Elitism in the art world is the insistence that art is somehow out of the realm of common experience, that its pleasures are not available to everyone. It has become increasingly necessary to read texts (artists’ statements, wall labels or plaques, articles of art criticism, etc.) in order to understand certain works of art, but this is what great contemporary art does: It advances through ideas, by engaging our minds. Art galleries, because their offerings are commodities, are invariably commercial enterprises, but they are among the only places where the public can see art free of charge. Museums serve comparable roles as a community's storehouse of art, exhibiting works to their vistors, educating visitors to the works’ significance, garnering support in ways unlike the galleries'. Wherever encounters with art occur, they always demand the viewer's attention and receptivity. Failure to embrace those opportunities are at least, simply that: losses of opportunities,significant as those can be." --Michael Delahunt

Annotated bibliography:

Sen, Kunal. "Art and Elitism: A Form of Pattern Recognition." 2007.

In this article, Sen describes a form of pattern recognition that we all must employ in order to differentiate between lowbrow and highbrow art.

"As we come across paintings, sculptures, stories, poems, music, cinema, we are told where they stand in terms of quality. When we hear of a novel, we are told if it is a 'classic.' When we go to a museum, we are told that these are examples of some of the best of the breed. Even before we can decide whether we like Mozart or not, we are informed that he is one of the best we have ever produced. It is impossible for us not to use our pattern-recognition machine in these situations as well – we are programmed to do so – our survival depends on successful and efficient pattern recognition."

How this topic relates to my work:

The topic of elitism plays a role in the background of my concept. Highbrow art is linked to elitism and kitsch is viewed negatively in the eyes of the art world's elite.

Monday entry (for 11/2/09): Artist of interest: Yumiko Kayukawa

Yumiko Kayukawa, born and raised in Naie, a small town in Hokkaido, Japan, is a Japanese artist who "juxtaposes the in-your-face raunchiness of American culture with the delicate folklore and symbolism of the Japanese aesthetic." When Kayukawa was a teenager, she fell in love with American pop-culture via her exposure to American rock n' roll, films and fashion. She deems herself a media junkie. At 16 she entered the art world with her own Manga comic book. She spent a great deal of time drawing Manga, which portrayed westernized characters created in a Japanese style of drawing, though she admits that at the time she didn't think of the style of drawing to be Japanese. It wasn't until she saw a photograph of a unspecified American rock star wearing a traditional kimono that she was inspired to bring the two influences of western pop-culture and traditional Japanese culture together in her art work. Her most recent body of work titled "Wild, Wild East" hones in on the melding of these two cultures. Kayukawa moved to Seattle, Washington four years ago and has said that now living in America and viewing the country she grew up in from the outside has inspired her and helped her create a more striking juxtaposition in her art work. About her artwork, Kayukawa has said, "I'd rather my paintings hang next to rock star pin-ups than on museum walls. Ultimately I want to connect with people all over the world on that level."

Kayukawa's official website.

Interview with Kayukawa by Juxtapoz magazine.

Kayukawa's most recent body of work "Wild, Wild East" is currently being shown at the Shooting Gallery in San Francisco, California.

Wild, Wild East, acrylic and ink on canvas, 2009

Read It To Me, Read It To Me (Ocean), acrylic and ink on canvas, 2009

Have You Ever Been a Foreigner?, acrylic and ink on canvas, 2009

Cat Cookies, acrylic on canvas, 2006