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Contemporary Artist Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni famously states “Arrive In your Body” while talking to PBS. It was a new way of thinking about the way every day objects without intent. “ We go around the world dealing with objects made out of, how there made, and who made them, it’s an alienated relationship. I want to give you an object where you have the history on it’s surface, and that you relate to it threw your own physicality” (Horodner, Bomb Magazine). She Calls it an object that makes you think of the origin of the object.

I actually got intrigued and flabbergasted as well as her intelligently stated quote and it too got me thinking, half the stuff I hold I don’t even know the history, the meaning, the root word or the origin of the word of the actual object.

For example, a paintbrush, which is a simple object. We would say paint, is to painting, and brush is to glaze something over. It got me thinking as to when the first paintbrush was made? What was the original purpose of a brush? Was it an accident? Another example could even be the research I did this past year on a word we had to break apart which was disorder. Simply meaning “no order” the root word dis means no or none, which came from the old French originating from Latin. Simple mundane words taken out of context can mean so much more and that’s what Antoni wants people to realize. Antoni was born in January 1964 and raised on the sunny shores of Freeport, in the Bahamas. Now she lives in the chaos of the busiest city in the world, New York. At the age of 49, she considers herself a “Performative object artist,” or better known as a sculpture, photographer, and a performer. She graduated with a BA at Sarah Lawrence, than got her MFA at Rhode Island School of Design at 1989. In addition she mentored at the Columbia University school of the Arts. Her work is about using everyday objects and making her viewers think of the origin of the object. She uses a wide range palette of medias, from horse saddles, pigments of lip sticks, soap, chocolates and even lard. Not only does she use these objects but she makes a big statement because those mediums in large amounts. Her techniques of creating these works through her body physically and mentally. she wants to use her body to create a “natural” art piece. Antoni uses many different parts of her body to execute her works, like her hair, eyelashes, and even her mouth to eat and chew the sculptures. For her unique and creative concept, her works have been shown and mentioned in The New York Times, PBS, Bomb Magazine, Books like the “Women and Art in the 21 Century.” She had performed her works at the Metropolitan Art museum in New York and many other wonderful places. Antoni’s philosophy was mostly concentrated highly on the importance of feminism, and the role is has in the 21st century society. Her pieces vary with her ideas as well as her thoughts. She started creating the feminist performances in the 1970s. She has a close relationship with the emotional, symbolic, and physical idealized society we put ourselves in.

Loving Care was a very uniquely interpretive, performance, using her long brown hair as a mop, while showing the inconsistency of “dirtying” the floor with hair coloring. When first performing this piece, Antoni repeatedly stated that this was NOT a performance and that she wanted to create the sense of “relic” morality. Something as simple as beauty and mopping is what relic simply means.

After slowly going back and fourth, she gradually pushed the audience out of the room of where the hair color first originated to the end of the door. People thought it was a shocking that she “kicked” them out.

She strives for reaction from others for all of her works, but especially from this piece. The audience’s was that , yes, something as simple as mopping a floor can get a simple reaction of getting work done by getting all of the floor mopped. Her response to her admirers was simply “Because it’s both intimate, and destructive " (Horodner, Bomb Magazine). This piece as simple as mopping a floor had a very symbolic message.

She wanted her viewers to imagine something as simple as a mop for the use of it, the reasoning for its existence, and the goal and satisfaction one gets from using it. To have that satisfaction of using a mundane object Antonia says that to really understand an object one must learn the object through their own bodies, that is when one will understand the object. At that time, Antoni used to talk more about feministic views and what many women still do presently. She accentuates the stereotypical views and reactions that are “usual” while mopping a floor, or the way we portray ourselves to society, also how one has to color their hair to represent themselves.

Why is the stereotype of women seen as one who is always cleaning, and having to please others by looks. This is the philosophy question I ask myself all the time. It’s usually because not one else would, do that “dirty” work. For centuries, homework has been considered women’s work.

After watching the clip of Loving Care on YouTube, I’ve come to the conclusion, about Antoni is work of LovingCare that it is like dancing. While mopping the floor, she has a sense of grace to it, swaying in her movement, it isn't sloppy, it’s very long and drawn out. She seems to not mind “mopping” the floor, with the lack of verbal language, and the repetitive motion of dipping her head in the bucket without verbal langue, and at the same time a good way to color one’s hair. She killed two birds with one stone; she talked about the important of “role play” and the simple objects we take for granite.

My favorite piece was called Gnaw. It was hard to imagine that these two oversized, 600 pound, what looks to be like stone is actually made from chocolate and lard. Sounds yummy, am I right? You should ask Antoni how it taste, yes you guessed it. She nibbled and chewed parts of the block, spat and swallowed different sections to create the different textures.

She used these food pieces to show her weakness, and the weak for many other men and women in the world. She knows for women the stereotypical coping mechanism of abusing chocolate and sweets for dealing with emotions, and the inability to fulfill what one woman desires whatever it may be.

Antoni realized after gnawing constantly, and aggressively on these un-healthy, fattening foods that she felt more stressed. Her anxiety sky rocketed with the foods she was ingesting as she was creating a deviant act of self-purging. The sores around her mouth, which was the number one tool to create these pieces where imbedded in different parts of the blocks as well at teeth marks. She states how, “ We’re a bulimic society” --- how everyone creates a close relationship to an object or objects and how we in a sense throw them away at the end of the day.

You see a repetition of emotions pouring out throughout her works, with a wide range of feministic beliefs by her body, her thoughts of our social world and how it contributes to our everyday mundane tasks and goals. Antoni want’s people to not see objects for the simplicity of their usages but get to know the reasoning’s and the background of it. Antoni’s ideas come from her curious questioning and spontaneous ideas. Some are from her life experiences, and some from interesting facts she found throughout her life.

Antoni reminds me of two famous well-known characters, Lady Gaga, and Alice from Alice and wonderland. Lady Gaga for the intensity of her ideas and the outrageous ways of portraying them with lots of hidden meanings in her songs. The song Bad Romance is a symbolic representation of Lady Gaga doing everything to keep her fame and idealizing more the “bad qualities,” of the media. In a sense

She’s a “ psychopath” according to vigilantcitizen.com. At first, I thought she was talking about a boy that she liked, but was bad for her. Really analyzing this Lady Gaga is talking about society as a whole and wanting more of it and doing so in bad ways. I mentioned Alice and Wonderland because she’s always questioning, and wondering what if, or imagine if. At first it gets her in a lot of trouble but the she accepts her surroundings and adapts to it accordingly. Also Antoni, Alice and Lady Gaga observe life through a different lens than an ordinary person. Alice asked her father if she’s gone mad, “ I’m afraid so, But all the best people are.

Works Cited:

"BOMB Magazine: Janine Antoni by Stuart Horodner." Atom. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

Danto, Ginger. "ART/ARCHITECTURE; Life as a Tightrope: Weave,

Walk And Fall." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Aug. 2003. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

"JANINE ANTONI;Rich Woman, Scrubwoman." The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Jan. 1996. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

Glueck, Grace. "ART IN REVIEW; Janine Antoni: 'Imbed'" The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 Apr. 1999. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

"Http://vimeo.com/48913765." PBS Eight. AZpbs.org. Arizona State University, n.d.

Television."Janine Antoni." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

"Janine Antoni." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 Aug. 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

"Lady Gaga's Bad Romance - The Occult Meaning - The Vigilant Citizen." The Vigilant Citizen RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2013.

Menkes, Suzy. "The Modern Blouse Strikes Out on Its Own." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Apr. 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

"Open File: Janine Antoni - Gnaw." Open File: Janine Antoni - Gnaw.N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

#janine antoni #artist #contemperary #contemporaryabstract #feminist

Dancers Life

Few know the true art, the blood and sweet it takes to become a dancer. The instructors’ techniques that the instructor gives are gold, not matter how strange, or how hard they sound. No one sees how difficult it is to become a dancer, the countless hours, no social life, or the long list of foods that are banned. So next time you see a dancer lift their legs up in the air, or do twenty pirouetts think of the hours they worked on it. If you dare mention how easy that looks you know nothing!

Imagine that it’s summer, in 98 degrees weather, with no air conditioner, and twenty other sweaty girls surround you. You are all crammed in one small room, for eight or more hours a day. That was my life.

The crinkle in her old but mature 32- year-old-face scared me the most. Her crooked smile, if she ever showed, was rare. The deep dark circles under her eyes, her unevenly bleached hair, the tan lines around her shoulders, the roundness of her body and face made it uncomfortably hypocritical for her to tell us to stop eating fast foods, or to stop eating in general. Andrea was my ballet teacher.

I almost burst into tears. “HIGHER ARCH. HIGHER. HIGHER… HIGHER!!!” My legs were shaking tremendously. My calves felt like someone stuck a knife in them, then pulled the knife out quickly and then again and again. My back, my face and my palms were drenched with sweat. My face was purple, like a sun dried grape. My stomach felt like it was on fire. The heat was rising through my head. Releves are supposed to help make your calves strong and big. I never had a problem with building my calves. My calves were strong and Andrea admired them. The question that was racing throughout my head was how long was I in releve? The next question later in class, was am I going to pass out?

Stomping her angry, Ugged shoes, Andrea ungracefully, in her sweatpants stopped the music player. The pleasant but faded Mozart was abruptly stopped. “ Ladies, there is no effort when you all are doing your relves. How much do you want this?” She yelled crudely. No one answered. Again, she put the music back. This time she started it over. Mozart, Sonata NO. 13 is a really annoying long song. The countless seven minutes and forty-five seconds seemed like light years long. Too much repetition is never good for dance; you want long lean bodies not short and stubby muscular looking bodies. We all knew it was that long when we’d hopeless look at the clock. I liked doing grande battements and that is what I wanted to be doing. I wanted to kill myself, or kill her. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse as I and everyone else who was sweating like a hog smelled her McDonalds. I was salivating excessively smelling her hamburger and French fries and probably donning it with a nice cold tea.

Fifteen minutes passed and we finally finished releves and grand battements. Finally, a breather, a cool down moment to do port de bras. I arched my back as my head followed back; I just threw up in my mouth. I wanted to cry even more. That day, I have never felt that nasty before. Two girls fainted and left, one pulled her hamstring , one hurt her back and two hurt their feet. We were dropping like flies and no one cared. We just wanted those two hours to magically fly by. We just wanted a break, for once, because we knew the next day would be the same. We pulled the ballet bar away and moved to center. However, we got yelled at for not putting the bar gracefully back. You know why, are hands were sweaty and our legs were shaking. The bar was covered in glistening shiny sweat. Boy, was Andrea mad at us, she was saying how we needed to be more lady like, I thought we’d never see daylight again. She glanced at us, frowned, then went back to her phone, texting, I assume. We were going to start floor work and do fouettes. I never minded doing those, so it was a breeze. The thing that bothered me the most was how she wouldn’t look at our technique, or even at us, but she’s stare at herself at the mirror and fix her ratty hair. Then she’d glance at us and tell us to focus. I got used to her not fully helping me, which was fine. I learned a lot about myself, I learned my style of learning, my technique, my strengths and weakness. If you want to become better at the things you love, you have to fight for it, no one else can.

When thinking about it now, Andrea never wore ballet clothes or ballet shoes, did she even own any? She always had those same brown boots, Uggs. I like to imagine if I were a teacher my students would get hands on experience, I would wear proper clothes, have my hair in a French twist, always and most importantly I would teach my students what they are doing wrong. Don’t get me wrong, Andrea does one of those four things but only in a very informative ways. When she’d work with a student, do solos or even class, she’d sit on her bum. There has got to be at least five chairs with her butt imprint on them. I’d show my students physically what they are doing wrong and there would be no chairs, at all. Andrea’s way of explaining to us was usually screaming at us, not calling the student who was doing it wrong but to all of us. Hopefully, that person who’s she’d being yelling at is smart enough to realize it was themselves and fix it.

I could rant for days of her teaching methods and appearance which are questionable, but I’ve never mentioned her dancing. That’s because no one has ever seen it. We’ve only scene her choreography. Andrea is known for her impeccable choreography. I don’t want to brag but we always win with her choreography. My senior year of dance from my first ballet solo she choreography has always been new, exciting and exquisite.

It’s not that she’s a bad person; she just isn’t a good ballet teacher. She has good reasons for teaching but executes technique poorly. For ten years I’ve learned to deal with her, know her ways, tricks and her gimmicks. I know when she’s menstruating to stay for away from her as possible and bring extra ice bags and tissues cause she will pounce on you mentally and physically. I know when the best time to talk to her is and when she wants to be alone, because that it when she becomes an artist and choreographs. She cooks up a storm for us. I know when she is daydreaming about choreography and when she’s annoyed with a particular person. Looks can be deceiving when it comes to Andrea. Looking at Andrea one would think she’s lazy, doesn’t like kids, is rude and doesn’t keep up with personal hygiene. I interviewed her. I asked her many questions on those lines. I didn’t care what she thought of me now; after all, I don’t dance for her anymore! “I am a kindergarten teacher on top of being a ballet teacher, which sucks the energy of me. I’ve been so tired for so long. Mundane things are hard for me.” Guilty from her response I asked her if she was happy. “Yes, of course, happy marriage, life, student.. etc.”

Beats me why she’s the way she is. I’d like to believe everything she said in her interview is true. I don’t question it one bit, but it makes me wonder why she doesn’t try new things and explore. She kept saying things were hard. Shirley Schmidt in a tv show I loved stated “We are made up of our experiences.” I believe, Andrea’s experiences are transfered to her students, to us, to me, with her choreography.

I’ve learned to deal with instructors like Andrea. Some teachers are great at teaching technique but are horrible choreographers and vise versa. Maybe you got the really scary- looking tattooed teacher who is an incredible hip-hop teacher, or the ballet teacher who attended the Bolshevik Dance Company and speaks zero English. I love Dimitri, he’s always been an incredible teacher. I’m not sure why the hell we got ride of him and kept Andrea.

As a dancer you deal with a lot of physical and psychological pain and you get over, because at the end of the day, you still love to dance. You put in as much as you get out. People like Andrea get paid to teach you, but it’s what you do with new knowledge that gets you further. You can soar or sink. Don’t take it for granted; if someone has great expertise in your interests and offers you advice, take it.

People come and go in a lifetime, you can learn from them, accept them and relish in the strengths. Don’t focused on weakness from others we are a society that does, so change it! I changed my attitude towards someone; I looked at her accomplishments and soared with them, not against them. I love to dance more than anything and no matter who’s teaching, I will always love it. Andrea’s choreography comes from her heart, as does my dancing.

#dancer #choreography #dancing #lovejoy

I am proud to say I am a Romani Gypsy, one could say it is in my blood to live simply. Looking back over the years I’ve assembled many art forms.

I’ve always been creative, not only in the sense of holding a paintbrush, sculpting a figure, holding a tattoo gun or by picking up my camera. In addition I am a dancer, I play the violin, piano and I cut hair.

For me, it was hard to realize that all of these emotional expressions in my life combine to create the “artistic me.” Therefore, I’m here on this Earth, to share my creativity with the world.