Thursday entry (for 10/29/09): Populist artists

Quote on topic by an expert:

"Artist? Says who? Critics, art historians and fine-art galleries cringe at the thought that any of these "populist artists" should be taken seriously. In the highbrow art world, accessibility and affordability are often inversely proportional to merit. The populist industry's aggressive replication strategy, on the other hand, is designed to move the merchandise. "Limited editions" from populist artists are often released in quantities of 20,000 and up, using a variety of formats that range from canvas to three sizes of paper prints. Throw in the T shirts, mugs and pillows with the same images, and limited looks limitless. "These guys haven't invented anything, they've just discovered an image that's salable, and they pump the market until they can't sell any more," says Herbert Palmer, owner of a gallery on Los Angeles' Melrose Avenue that sells works by the respected contemporary abstractionists Gordon Onslow Ford and Choichi Ida at prices as high as $200,000." --Dan Cray

Annotated bibliography:

Cray, Dan. "Art: Art of Selling Kitsch". Time Magazine. 10/29/09 .

In this article, Cray explains the phenomenon that is populist artists who are making millions of dollars by marketing their art and their name and reproducing their original artwork on a large scale for mass consumption. The artists he includes as way of example are Thomas Kinkade, Terry Redlin, Bev Doolittle, amongst others. Cray points out that these artists are successful not only because of their aggressive marketing but because the kitsch imagery they create appeals to the masses, thereby making them populist artists: artists whose work was created for and bought by ordinary people.

"The art-vs.-commerce debate isn't a new one--Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is said to be the most reproduced painting in history--but the corporate approach of Media Arts brings the argument to a new level. 'I have an N.C. Wyeth hanging in my office that was a tire ad in 1916,' says Scott Usher, president of Greenwich Workshop, a publisher in Shelton, Conn., 'and very few art critics are going to say Wyeth was just an illustrator.' Norman Rockwell battled the same demon, and Andy Warhol took heat for suggesting it was O.K. to have assistants do some of the work--a tactic several populist artists now use. Collectors such as Bob and Cathy Adorni, a Castaic, Calif., couple who own 58 Kinkade prints, view such techniques as an acceptable means to an end. 'You can't blame someone for earning a living with their talent,' says Bob Adorni. Or can you? 'People say I've sold out,' says Kinkade. 'But not reproducing my art would be like telling a writer not to publish a manuscript because it's one of a kind.'"

How this topic relates to my work:

The core of my concept is poking fun at all sides of the argument for and against kitsch art, which is an art form that appeals mainly to ordinary people without art backgrounds. I find it interesting that kitsch artists are deemed populists artists, which was clearly meant to invoke a negative connotation because their artwork is kitschy not only in subject matter but also due to the fact that their work is bought on a large scale by the masses.

Monday entry (for 10/26/09): Artist of interest: Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo, Japan on February 1, 1963. He studied traditional Japanese art at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts. Afterwards he received his doctorate in Nihonga, the study of traditional techniques and methods of Japanese painting. Murakami is well known for straddling the borders between fine art, low brow and commercial art, though Murakami doesn't think of it as straddling borders but rather as "changing the line." His work combines themes from Western pop culture with an Eastern edge. Murakami is well known for his highly erotic sculptures titled Hipron and My Lonesome Cowboy. Hipron features a woman portrayed as an anime character, squeezing her nipples on her gigantic breasts to form a rope of breast milk behind her with one leg suspended in the air, as though she is about to use the breast milk as a jump rope. My Lonesome Cowboy features a man, also portrayed as an anime character, who is completely nude and squeezing his erect penis, from which a rope of semen has formed, surrounding the man as though it were a lasso. Murakami is also well known for his "Superflat" paintings, a style he created that is influenced by manga and anime. The style depicts "the shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture" by flattening forms and giving them no spatial depth. Murakami has also created art for commercial purposes when he collaborated with fashion house Louis Vuitton in the early 2000's, as well as creating the album cover for Kanye West's third studio effort, Graduation.

Takashi Murakami's artist profile on the official Kaikai KiKi Co., Ltd. website, a company of artist production and promotion that Murakami created in 2001.

Murakami's work was recently exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Interview with Murakami by Index Magazine.

Hipron, 1997

My Lonesome Cowboy, 1997

For Louis Vuitton, early 2000's

For Kanye West, 2007

Thursday entry (for 10/22/09): Camp

Quote on topic by an expert:

"Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility -- unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it -- that goes by the cult name of 'Camp.'" -- Susan Sontag

Annotated bibliography:

Sontag, Susan. Against interpretation: and other essays. New York: Dell Pup. Co., 1966.

Against interpretation is a book comprised of several essays written by Sontag in the 60s on art. One article included in the book is titled Notes On Camp, in which she explains what is camp and how these objects, ranging from art, films, household items, et cetera, are considered to be campy.

"A work can come close to Camp, but not make it, because it succeeds. Eisenstein's films are seldom Camp because, despite all exaggeration, they do succeed (dramatically) without surplus. If they were a little more "off," they could be great Camp - particularly Ivan the Terrible I & II. The same for Blake's drawings and paintings, weird and mannered as they are. They aren't Camp; though Art Nouveau, influenced by Blake, is. What is extravagant in an inconsistent or an unpassionate way is not Camp. Neither can anything be Camp that does not seem to spring from an irrepressible, a virtually uncontrolled sensibility. Without passion, one gets pseudo-Camp -- what is merely decorative, safe, in a word, chic. On the barren edge of Camp lie a number of attractive things: the sleek fantasies of Dali, the haute couture preciosity of Albicocco's The Girl with the Golden Eyes. But the two things - Camp and preciosity - must not be confused."

How this topic relates to my work:

Camp and kitsch are closely related in the fact that they are both not to be taken seriously. There is a difference between the two but it's subtle. The kitsch artwork I've chosen to use in my body of work often has campy undertones in it's outrageousness.

Monday entry (for 10/19/09): Artist of interest: Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons, born in York, Pennsylvania on January 21, 1955, is an artist whose work has earned him copious amounts of attention and controversy and has art critics divided on whether he should be taken seriously or not. Koons received his B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1976 where he majored in painting after spending a brief year studying painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Koons is most famous for creating giant brightly colored sculptures of banal objects out of stainless steel with mirror finishes. The piece he is most famous for is titled Puppy, a forty-three feet tall stainless steel sculpture of a West Highland White Terrier puppy made with an internal irrigation system, live plants and soil. The surface of the sculpture is covered in live plants, thus the need for the irrigation system. Koons has a studio in Chelsea, Manhattan where he has employed more than 120 assistants who, under his strict supervision, create his art pieces ranging from sculpture and glass work to photography, inflatables and painting.

The subject matter of Koons work has varied greatly with no real common theme to speak of except that it is almost always random and vapid. His work has featured naked provocative women, balloon animals, inflatable pool toys, the cartoon icon Popeye and himself in various sexual positions with his then wife Llona Staller, amongst other objects. Koons' work is art for art sake. He has made it clear that there is no meaning behind any of his pieces and that they are completely free of concept. Because of this, Koons has been accused of elevating unashamed kitsch into the high art arena. He has been dismissed by several art critics as creating work that is artificial, cheap and unabashedly cynical and catering to tacky rich people.

Jeff Koons official website.

Interview with Jeff Koons by The Art Newspaper.com

Jeff Koons work is now on display at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, California.

Inflatable Flower and Bunny, vinyl and mirrors, 1979

Hulk Jungle, oil on canvas, 2005

Dirty - Jeff On Top, plastic, 1991

Puppy, stainless steel, 1992

Thursday entry (for 10/15/09): Lowbrow

Quote on topic by an expert:

"To me, Lowbrow art is what the scene originally started as…work that stayed true to it’s more 'working class roots' more or less, and focused on the fetishization of counter-cultural icons (such as hot rods, surfing, rock n roll, monsters, drugs, ect). I find this work to be more transgressive, provocative and very non-polite…it has a purity underneath because it was never intended to be anything other than what the artist was responding to in his or her life. I can’t see this type of work ever truly being accepted by the 'high' world." --Kirsten Anderson

Annotated bibliography:

Anderson, Kirsten. Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art. San Francisco: Ignition Pub./Last Gasp, 2004.

Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art begins with an essay written by lowbrow artist and Juxtapoz magazine founder, Robert Williams. In his essay he recounts the event in which art history writer Nancy Dustin Wall Moure contacted him for his expertise on the California underground art movement for a book she was writing that covered the past 430 years of California art. In the essay he later goes into detail describing where lowbrow art, also known as pop surrealism, stemmed from and the genres it includes.

"I belong to a rather loose-knit group of artists that, because of a fifty-year dominance of abstract and conceptual art, have been left isolated from the more conventional academic mainstream. All of us, with few exceptions, function in the craftsmanship-based realm of representational art. To better understand this, you have to realize that we gain our source material and inspiration from some of the most illustrious, colorful and controversial influences and graphic traditions that one could possibly emerge from."

How this topic relates to my work:

The concept of lowbrow art plays an important role in my body of work, because while lowbrow art has it's own art genre, it is also closely related to kitsch art for they are nearly one in the same except for the fact that lowbrow often times will have deeper intellectual thought behind the art object whereas kitsch is art for art sake. But both are regarded negatively and both are considered below high brow art.

Artist lecture: Brian Ulrich, 10/14/09

I was intrigued by Ulrich's photographs and how clean and straightforward they were. His concept dealing with abandoned retail stores made me feel incredibly melancholy because I've worked in retail in the past and there is nothing worse than looking out of your store front and seeing a barren parking lot. For me it was great on one hand because it meant you didn't have much to do and the possibility of dealing with annoying and irate customers was slim to none but at the same time, it made you feel almost empty inside, as though you were wasting your time standing there, hoping for a customer to walk in, knowing that if sales didn't pick up for the week then hours would most likely be cut the following. I felt like Ulrich definitely captured this feeling in his photographs.

Monday entry (for 10/12/09): Artist of interest: Mark Ryden

Mark Ryden, born January 20, 1963 in Medford, Oregon, is an American painter. Ryden graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California in 1987, where he majored in illustration. His style is considered lowbrow surrealism and is best known not only for his striking imagery but also for the traditional painting technique that he utilizes. His success is owed to such lowbrow art publications such as Juxtapoz magazine, for publishing his work frequently. He's designed album covers for musicians such as Michael Jackson, Ringo Starr, Red Hot Chili Peppers, amongst others. Themes that are often depicted in Ryden's work are meat, children, Abraham Lincoln, bunnies and alchemy symbols.

Mark Ryden's official website.

Interview with Mark Ryden, conducted by Art Space Talk blog.

Mark Ryden just recently had his "The Snow Yak Show" held at the Tomio Koyama Gallery in Toyko, Japan this year.

Thursday entry (for 10/8/09): Kitsch

Quote on topic by an expert:

“Kitsch is certainly not ‘bad art,’ it forms its own closed system, which is lodged like a foreign body in the overall system of art, or which, if you prefer, appears alongside it.” --Hermann Broch, 20th century Austrian art theorist and writer

Annotated bibliography:

Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Theodor Adorno, 1903--1969, was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist and composer who also wrote essays and books on several different topics, including social theory, aesthetics and mass media.

In Aesthetic Theory, Adorno defends both illusion and modernism and covers concepts of the sublime, ugly and beautiful within art and defines these concepts as reservoirs of human experience.

"One of the defining characteristics of kitsch may be that it simulates non-existing emotions. Kitsch neutralizes them along with the aesthetic phenomenon as a whole. Kitsch is art that cannot, or does not want to, be taken seriously, while at the same time, through its appearance, postulating aesthetic seriousness." --Theodor Adorno

How this topic relates to my work:

I've decided to drop my original concept and move on to another that deals with juxtaposing kitsch art in settings which you would normally not find them as a way to force these two parallel worlds to co-exist.

Artist lecture: Penelope Umbrico, 10/5/09

I found Umbrico's lecture and work to be refreshing and extremely playful. I experienced a great sense of déjà vu throughout her lecture because I found myself nodding my head and agreeing to the many sentiments she brought up, such as finding photos of babies and pets in catalogs to be sad because they are unaware of what is going on around them and for contemplating about fake families and people associated with monograms that are stitched on items for sale in catalogs. These were things I had never actively thought of before but that I agreed with immediately when she brought them up. That sense of understanding of something so trivial with a stranger and artist was uplifting. At first I struggled with the knowledge that she doesn't shoot any of her own images but once she used the example of anything you upload on the internet is the equivalent of leaving garbage on the street for anyone to pick up, I found myself no longer struggling with the method of her production and came to accept it.

Monday entry (for 10/5/09): Artist of interest: Olivo Barbieri

Olivo Barbieri, born in 1954, is an Italian photographer well known for his body of work titled Site Specific, which he started in 2006. Site Specific features aerial urban landscapes that were manipulated upon creation with a tilt swing lens in order to make the landscapes look like toy miniatures. Barbieri has stated, "I was a little bit tired of the idea of photography allowing you to see everything...after 9/11 the world had become a little bit blurred because things that seemed impossible happened. My desire was to look at the city again." Barbieri used this technique again a year later when he created his next series The Waterfall Project, in which his subject this time around was waterfalls.

Interview with Barbieri, conducted by TheMorningNews.org.

Barbieri's work has been exhibited at The Yancey Richardson Gallery.

Thursday entry (for 10/1/09): Fear

Quote on topic by an expert:

“To require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do - away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes.” -- David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Annotated bibliography:

Bayles, David and Ted Orland. Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. Santa Barbara, CA : Capra, c1993.

Art and Fear is written by David Bayles and Ted Orland, both who proclaim themselves to be working artists. The book is written in a straight forward manner, illuminating issues that matter to and hinder the development of artists and explains why artists stop creating art. It isn't meant to be a self help book for artists but rather points out the problems that artists face when attempting to create art and offers strategies to get around these pitfalls.

“What you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about your materials is in the last use of your materials. The place to learn about your execution is in your execution. Put simply, your work is your guide: a complete, comprehensive, limitless reference book on your work.”

How this topic relates to my work:

Fear is an overarching theme in my concept. Fear from the realization that we may have made the wrong decision to attend art school. Fear that we'll never be good enough and succeed in the art world. Fear that we'll never figure out what it is we want to do with our lives.