A Canvas of Humanity's Imagination

Kyle Gowen's Creativity and Culture Portfolio - Spring 2013 "The world is but a canvas to our imagination" ~ Henry David Thoreau

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"DNA: The Molecule of Life"

The finished 3-D double helix design made out of pictures

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Art and Religion: The Line Between the Sacred and the Blasphemous

            In 1987, American photographer Andres Serrano created a series of pieces that depicted the image of Jesus Christ on the cross submerged in various substances. The most popular one, which happened to be the most controversial, was entitled Immersion (Piss Christ) and featured the crucified Jesus floating within a glass of Serrano’s urine. This photograph, which was originally shown in Australia, was received with heavy criticism and threats against Serrano, and the exhibit eventually closed down because of its shocking subject matter (Nakajima 2011). More recently, the piece was physically attacked while on display in Avignon, France and now features giant crack fissures across its surface. Serrano’s Piss Christ reveals an interesting limit between what is considered sacred and what is considered offensive in the religious art world. The piece depicts one of the most famous Christian images, the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in the form of a small statuette. However, because the statuette is associated with urine, a bodily waste product, the image is instantly converted into an ungodly image. Images like Piss Christ, while depicting sacred iconography, are considered odious due to their humanization of sacred elements, their use of repulsive materials such as urine, and the “call to arms” effect they invoke within the faithful.

            Serrano’s Piss Christ is an interesting example of elaboration between the sacred and the mundane. Jesus, as accepted within the cultural realm that defines Christianity, is seen as an almost paradoxical figure. While Jesus is obviously a man, he is also the physical embodiment of the Christian God. He displays a duality that gives him power; he is seen as fully human, as well as fully divine within the Christian literature. Clifford Geertz has elaborated on the connection between art and culture; he supports the idea that art will reflect the culture the produces said piece of artwork (1974). Utilizing Geertz’s idea, the artwork of Jesus Christ should reflect the power he has from being divine while remaining human. One of the defining characteristics of art like Piss Christ that paints it as blasphemous is that it humanizes Jesus in a way that is non-conforming to Christian canon. The humanization of Jesus Christ ends up “bring[ing] together two elements that should remain apart [and] in their hybridity, refusing what might be termed the ordinary integrity of things,’ (Verrips 2008:210). By embracing the humanness of Jesus, his divinity is refused; this is unacceptable to Christian dogma and is thus marked as offensive. Jesus is held in the minds of Christians as being pure and untainted; he is like us in all respects, except he lacks sin (Rambuss 2004:513). Depicting Jesus as a simple man who “bled, ejaculated, shat, wept, bled under Pontius Pilate… [and] voided himself on the cross [as] blood and urine smeared his legs” (Rambuss 2004:514) presents the faithful with a Jesus that is ‘too human’ for the them to accept. They reject this shockingly human Jesus and they label artwork that depicts him as being less than fully divine as sacrilegious.

            Another characteristic of Serrano’s Piss Christ that converts it from the sacred to the blasphemous is the fact that Serrano used a material that most would consider disgusting: Serrano’s urine. The urine in and of itself is a bodily fluid, which connects back to the idea that Piss Christ humanizes Jesus to a level that the unfaithful do not agree with. The use of urine in the image is also a contributing factor to the image’s categorization as blasphemous because urine is a substance that most people do not enjoy or associate with being holy. If Serrano had submerged the crucifix in a different substance, such as blood, there would probably be little controversy. Blood is still a bodily substance; however, it is one that the faithful are much more used to. The faithful “are used to seeing crucifixes running in blood and the wounds of Christ spurting blood,” (Williamson 2004:116). It is the fact that Serrano is associating the image of Jesus Christ with a bodily waste product such as urine that characterizes the image as blasphemous. Another famous example of this idea is Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary in which the Virgin Mary’s exposed breast is actually made up of a chunk of elephant dung (Rumbass 2004; Williamson 2004). In both the Ofili and Serrano pieces, it is the use of a bodily waste product that makes the image so shockingly offensive to the religious. By using a waste product, it ‘dirties’ the purity of the sacred ideal, and thus, the religious react unfavorably to the piece.

            A third major factor influencing Piss Christ’s fall into blasphemy is the fact that it produces a “call to arms” effect within the faithful. As David Morgan elaborates, “belief happens in and through things and what people do with them… the deity sees what the believer does,” (2005:8). This ‘belief as action’ idea produces an interesting quandary for the believer. They obviously do not agree with the image; they do not believe in Serrano’s portrayal of Jesus Christ, but refusing to do anything about the image is also unsettling. The believer will see their “silence [as] a symbolic ratification of the insult” and that they have “a duty to respond violently to a certain class of insults, whether [they] want to or not,” (Coleman 2011:73). Because of this idea, Serrano’s piece has to be considered offensive by the followers of Christianity. If they refuse to acknowledge Piss Christ’s degradation of their divine Jesus, they see it as a betrayal of their ideals and religion. The deity is watching them; they must defend their deity’s honor if they are to be considered ‘true’ believers. This “call to arms” effect is characteristic of those images that the religious community sees as blasphemous. If Serrano’s piece depicted a crucifix submerged in blood, there mostly likely wouldn’t be a “call to arms” effect. The religious community would see the image as staying true to their dogma and doctrine and the deity’s honor or divinity would remain pure. Another idea that supports the “call to arms” effect utilizes Morgan’s idea about the function of images; Morgan stresses the point that one of the functions of religious iconography is that it will embody the forms of communion with the divine (2005:55). The communion between the faithful and the divine is one of the most revered unions; it is considered sacred and holy, and images like Piss Christ blatantly attack this communion. The Jesus in Serrano’s piece isn’t holy and divine; he is man and dirty and nowhere near the ideal of Jesus for the faithful. When the faithful imagine their communion in some Christian traditions, they imagine the body of Christ on their tongue in the form of a piece of bread. Serrano’s image replaces the bread with rancid urine, and the faithful violently react from the whiplash of the humanization of Jesus. This ties into the idea that their deity is watching them (Morgan 2005) and thus, they rise up against these images and deem them as sacrilegious.

            Ultimately, Serrano’s Piss Christ did more than present the topic of how taxpayer money should be utilized within the fine arts; it brought forth the delicate line between the sacred and blasphemous. Images like Piss Christ force the religious to evaluate what is truly holy and sacred and what pushes the edge too far. For Serrano, the submersion of the crucified Jesus into a vat of urine humanized Jesus in a way that was antiparallel to the ideas of Christian dogma, featured a substance that was too ‘dirty’ to be associated with Jesus’s purity, and produced such a strong response effect that the religious community united together to attack and criticize his piece. In the end, Serrano’s image was so detested that it was condemned, showing that the blasphemous is almost as powerful as the sacred.

  References:

    Coleman, Elizabeth Burns. 2011. “The Offenses of Blasphemy: Messages in and through Art.” Journal of Value Inquiry, 45(1):67-84

  Geertz, Clifford. 1974. “Art as a Cultural System.” Modern Language Notes, 91:(1473-1483).

  Morgan, David. 2005. The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice. Berkeley: University of California Press

  Nakajima, Makiko. 2011. “Contemporary Art and Censorship: The Australian Museum Context.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum. 3(4):129-146.

  Rambuss, Richard. 2004. “Sacred Subjects and the Aversive Metaphysical Conceit: Crashaw, Serrano, Ofili.” ELH: English Literary History, 71(2):497-530

  Verrips, Jojada. 2008. “Offending Art and the Sense of Touch.” Material Religion, 4(2):204-225

  Williamson, Beth. 2004. Christian Art: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Art Exploration: Evaluation (3/3)

The first thing that I thought about whenever I finished the 3-D double helix model for my picture project was that it really didn’t turn out the way that I expected it too. If I had to define it, I would say that the pictures are good, but the piece is definitely structurally ugly. When I imagined it within my mind before starting it, I imagined that the pictures would flow together seamlessly and that there would be at least two twists of the helix. However, as the project became increasingly more frustrating and unstable with each additional picture, I decided to only make one turn of the helix towards the top. This was kind of a disappointing point of the artwork; I couldn’t build it as tall as I wanted it to be, but ultimately, the piece didn’t turn out too awful. I also thought that my finished project really doesn’t look that much like a strand of DNA, as pointed out to me by one of my friends. The finished 3-D model was also interesting because even when finished, the piece was still fairly unstable and needed to be enforced. I started building the helix from the bottom up, so whenever I made the twist of the helix, it was unstable and unsupported and ended up simply falling in on itself. This was fairly irritating and I needed to find something that could support the piece without interfering with it. My roommate ended up suggesting a tree branch from outside, which I thought wasn’t going to work. However, much to my surprise, I managed to use a ton of hot glue and make the branch free-standing. I thought that this inclusion of the tree branch was not only effective and practical, but it ultimately connected with the theme of my project. My project focused on the presence of DNA within various types of living cells; the tree branch’s cells were full of DNA when attached to its tree and were promoting normal cell function. Though the tree branch was originally included for a solely structural purpose, the tree branch ended up taking on a new meaning simply by its inclusion within the project. The cardboard box that the 3-D model is set up on also serves this purpose; originally, I was looking for something stable and solid to act as a base for the model. However, this cardboard box was once part of a tree, which happens to be a DNA –wielding organism; the cardboard’s meaning also evolved with its involvement in the project from a simple base to an example of the many fates of DNA and the organisms that have it in their cells.

This evolution is something we’ve discussed in class before, especially towards the beginning of the semester. Various pieces of our Creativity and Culture literature have shown that art’s meaning changes depending on the context that the artwork is found in. This was particularly easy to see in the case of the stolen Nataraja; in India, the piece was a famous religious icon and was considered sacred and a vessel of the Hindu god Shiva. However, after it was stolen and moved into England and English culture, it lost its sacred meaning and simply became a cultural icon of India and was more connected to British involvement in India than a holy space for Shiva. Simply by moving the Nataraja to England changed its meaning; similarly, by involving the tree branch and the cardboard box within my 3-D helix model, their meaning changes. By becoming involved with my piece, the meaning of these organic materials changes; they are no longer simply pieces of nature. They are physical examples of what I’ve been taking pictures of; they are real life examples of the presence and omnipresence of the DNA molecule within living organisms. Ultimately, I think that my project could have definitely been better, but I’m generally proud of it. For all of the effort I put into it, it turned out fairly well and it’s still standing by itself in my living room, so I count that as a great accomplishment.

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Art Exploration: Creating (2/3)

Creating my art project was an interesting adventure simply because it required me to take some time out of my day and actually get out and see the world. During the past two semesters, I’ve been so busy that shooting pictures has been almost impossible. However, I found myself not really ‘getting’ into the project; my mind was so preoccupied with other classes that I wasn’t really having fun with it. However, shortly into my adventures of picture taking, I happened upon a wolf spider that happened to be carrying babies on her back. My first instinct was to step on her, but then I thought ‘pictures!’ I got really close and snapped a fantastic picture of her, and after that, it was sort of like an a-ha moment. I was motivated and excited to complete my project because I developed some faith and actual investment in the project. The picture of the wolf spider helped me see what I could create if I really just put some effort into my piece, and it helped motivate me to continue to take photos that I personally think are pretty good. Not all of them are as good as my wolf spider picture, but I enjoy all of them on some level or else I wouldn’t have included them within the final project.

While taking the photos was fun, the real challenge of this project was actually creating the 3-D double helix structure out of these photos. Needless to say, I had a lot of difficulty with it, and realized that glue guns are incredibly hot, especially when you manage to shift all of your weight into your hand, only to have it fall on said glue gun. The difficulties I faced while creating this double helix structure were so irritating that I was getting increasing frustrated as the structure continued to collapse on itself and the glue continually scalded my hands. However, these challenges helped reinforce the idea that art and culture are very adaptive. When faced with new situations or new influences, culture will modify itself so as to accommodate the changes, and the art work produced by that culture will slowly change as well, integrating in the culture change. During the creation of the 3-D model, I was forced to adapt to the situation; as the structure began to collapse and refused to stand up straight, I had to figure out a new way to approach the situation. To rectify parts of the collapse, I realized that taking two fuzzy ties and coiling them together would produce a much thicker and stronger strand to use as a base for my pictures. I also realized that I could use the fuzzy ties as bridges between the photos on the ‘legs’ of the DNA helix. The assembly of the helix was also an interesting connection to class because it reminded me of the Of Life and Thangka reading that we explored as both that article and my project were examples of artistic resiliency. While assembling my helix, I had to constantly fix things and try to stabilize the structure due to its relative instability from the pipe cleaners. In the reading about the Thangkas, the author constantly had to redo her Thangkas as her master declared that they weren’t good enough, or that she had accidentally done something wrong. In both cases, we artists continually got up and continued to persevere; I refused to give up on my helix and found new ways to stabilize it and keep it from collapsing while the author of the Thangka piece continued to redo her work and strove to become more skilled in her abilities as a Thangka painter. Ultimately, creating the 3-D model was incredibly frustrating due to its unforeseen problems, but it was a lot of fun. It was fun to actually see the project come together, and looking at the completed piece definitely was a sigh of relief.

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Art Exploration: Preparation (1/3)

Planning out this Art Exploration project has been an interesting adventure for me simply because I’ve never really done anything like this before. During high school, I was interested in the biological sciences and my high school’s newspaper; I avoided art classes like the plague. During my college career, I’ve never taken an art class, so I’ve never had to actually create an art piece for a class. Thankfully, my project involves photography, which is an artistic avenue that I happen to love and am familiar with. In high school, I always had a camera in my hands as I worked for our high school’s newspaper, and during my college career, I’ve had the amazing chance to work as a photographer for the K-State Collegian. For me, this project will be a chance to take pictures again; during the past two semesters, I’ve been so loaded down with classes that I no longer have the time to shoot for the Collegian and only pull out my camera in small random bursts. Thankfully, I’ll be heading to Denver for Spring Break to see an old high school friend of mine, which will give me the chance to take some pictures of the organic matter in Colorado instead of Kansas. While I love Manhattan, I also kind of hate it, so it’ll be fun to get out to Denver and see what my camera can pick up while I’m there.

This project will also be interesting because I’m going to have to come up with new ways to look at organic matter and find new things to take pictures of. I can’t just take a ton of pictures of people; I have to explore the fauna and flora of the surrounding area and find interesting angles to take pictures from. I think that since I’m focusing on such a common subject, organic matter that contains DNA, I have to be inventive in my photos so as not to have a million pictures of just one thing. However, I do predict that my project will include lots of plants, as plants are highly variable and their colors and flowers are very beautiful and fun to take pictures of. I think that this challenge in my project can be seen in some of the literature we’ve looked at, especially in the article featuring the Asmat people by Layton. The Asmat people are restricted to using the same significantly cultural symbols, but each person if free to combine them and arrange them in ways that are interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Similarly to Asmat woodcarving, my pictures are of a common subject matter (DNA containing organisms), but it is my interpretation and manipulation of them that will make my pictures interesting. I think that my project also relates to the Asmat in that I’m taking different types of organisms and smashing them together to show an interesting parallel: the presence of DNA in their cells. The Asmat take different cultural symbols, and through their individual manipulations, combine them to create a unique piece of art, while I’m combining pictures of organisms to make a comparison between them.

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Journal 6: The Beach Museum Collection Piece

This particular Portfolio piece is attached to the picture above; this particular image is of a piece of art in the Beach Museum entitled Good Boy, Bad Boy. This title is extended to the entire exhibit, which is called “Good Boy, Bad Boy: The Prints of John Boyd” and happens to be currently featured in the Beach’s Ruth Ann Wefald Gallery. Instead of talking about the piece, I’m actually going to talk about the exhibit in general and how Good Boy, Bad Boy is an accurate representation of John Boyd’s intent for the exhibit. The collection within the gallery is of John Boyd’s various prints over the past 30 years or so, as Boyd just recently died last year. All of Boyd’s work is a type of printmaking; instead of painting these images, the images are formed by making the image on a plate and then transferring it onto a piece of paper or some other media. The collection’s information bulletin states that the collection is a way for Boyd’s sense of humor to come out, but the collection is also meant to dive into the duality between good and evil that happens to be found in individuals and the environment. I find this concept particularly interesting because, while Boyd’s work is completely foreign and kind of strange to me, the pieces within the collection actually ring fairly true to the information bulletin. For instance, one particular image is a print of King Kong; it’s easily recognizable, but it’s also fun and a clever way to look at the classic movie. However, the duality between good and evil is reflected in other images, such as the attached Good Boy, Bad Boy. Good Boy, Bad Boy features a profile shot of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with the words love and hate surrounding them. If this isn’t a clear indication of duality, I don’t know what is. Love and hate are polar opposites, and the concept of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are also polar opposite concepts. Dr. Jekyll is seen as a good hearted, kind doctor, which could easily be representative of the word ‘Love’ which hangs above and below him in Boyd’s image. Mr. Hyde, on the other hand, is seen as vengeful and wrathful, and generally seen as a threat to the public, which could easily be representative of the word ‘Hate’ that hangs above his head. There’s another image in the collection, entitled Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est, that features a picture of people in gas masks surrounded by a black and red border. This could be seen as the representation of evil within both society and nature. The people in the gas masks are very scary and look to be people of disputed character, while the presence of a gas mask insinuates dangerous environmental conditions, which could also been seen as representative of the evil within the environment. I think that Boyd’s collection overall is very strange; the images feature bright colors and some of them are very hard to ascertain a type of deeper meaning to them. However, some of them are much clearer, such as Good, Bad Boy and the Wilfred Owen piece. I will add that, in general, I didn’t really like the artwork. I thought that the colors were interesting, but overall, it seems to lack the finesse of what most people would consider “art”. For instance, there is another exhibit in the museum entitled “An American in Venice” that features sketches of Venice on pieces of paper that are very fine and detailed. I would consider that art, but Boyd’s pieces are so strange and outlandish that it’s hard for me to call them art. I was with a friend when I viewed Boyd’s collection, and my friend agreed that Boyd’s work was strange. Neither of us really ‘got’ it, especially the humor pieces referenced in the information bulletin, which we saw as pointless goofing off.

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Journal 5: Fashion and Creativity

The fifth journal entry within this Portfolio also has a picture attached to it; this particular image is of a fashion runway and five different models that happen to be walking it and displaying off their new and fashionable clothes. I included this picture and annotation within the Portfolio because the creative realm that fashion has constructed around itself is incredibly interesting and very high pressure. In the fashion industry, everything is always changing; new styles have to be created, broadcasted, and advertised in a matter of months, and then everything has to be redone for the newest season. On top of this high stress schedule, the fashion industry also has to determine what is “in” this season, which is a very interesting concept. When a fashionista says something along the lines of “this season, purple is the new black,” who really made this decision? What group of people made the decision that the color purple was suddenly fashionable? This concept is one of interest to me because in other case studies we’ve looked at, those who make the decisions on “what is art” are the upper class elite. When we watched the Jackson Pollock documentary, Teri and her painting are rejected because the upper class art work decides that her painting isn’t a real Jackson Pollock and therefore unworthy of their attention and money. Does this upper class classism also apply to the fashion industry? The fashion industry obviously requires a lot of money for someone to work within it, but who really gets to make the decision regarding what is fashionable for a particular season? The incredibly rich, well-known fashionistas and the fashion designers obviously don’t get to decide this; they simply have to accommodate the decision and incorporate it into their designs.

Another thing that I find fascinating about the fashion world and its creative realm is that, unlike most of our case studies, there seems to be a lack of a creative limit when it comes to designing clothes. If someone searches for the term “crazy fashion” on Google Images, the results are literally endless. There are costumes that look like food, costumes that blind the wearer, costumes with spikes and crazy colors, and the list goes on and on. One of the most noticeable “crazy fashion” pieces that I can think of is Lady Gaga’s strange meat dress from a couple of years ago. What I find interesting is that while people may think that Lady Gaga’s meat dress is weird and inappropriate, they don’t really classify it as being “not-fashion”. Rather, it’s simply classified as belonging to the fashion world, as if it’s perfectly acceptable for people to wear dresses out of meat. I find this interesting simply because in other case studies, there’s a general line of what’s accepted and what’s not accepted within a particular cultural realm. However, in the case of the fashion industry, anything seems to go. Even if the piece is outlandish and crazy, the words used to describe the fashion designer by their peers are “riveting”, “revolutionary” and “genius” instead of something much simpler, like “crazy.”

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Journal 4: The Creation of Video Game Art Realms

Above this block of text is the concept art for a character named Fran within the game Final Fantasy 12 for the PS2 gaming system, which happens to be sitting on my DVD and video game shelf. While I was trying to think of something to discuss for my journal entry, my eyes fell upon this shelf, and I was caught up on the idea of concept art and video games in general. What fascinates me about the video game genre in relation to this Creativity and Culture class is that, in video games, the video game designers almost have a free reign to do whatever they want. As we’ve studied in class, various realms of creativity have certain restrictions; for instance, in our storytelling unit, we uncovered the idea that a folktale could be outlandish, but it couldn’t be too outlandish. This concept is seen in the Kansas tornado folktales, in which a tornado plowing a widow’s field is considered almost too outrageous to be accepted as a folktale, and in the native stories of Eatonville, Florida, which were discussed in Zora Neale Hurston’s piece. Comparing video games to the creative realms that we’ve discussed, a surprising difference is unveiled. The difference I’m referring to is the fact that in video games, there really can’t be a limit of what’s too outlandish to be accepted into the video game because you, as a game designer, are physically creating the realm of the video game. Because you are physically creating the video game, you are also creating the creative realm within the video game. For instance, the picture that I’ve included with this journal entry is of a character named Fran; she happens to belong to a species known as the Viera, which are very humanoid in appearance, but feature very large rabbit ears. Some people would think that putting bunny ears on practically human people is going to far; but in the video game world, you’re free to do whatever you want. Humans with bunny ears are fine, lizards with three heads are cool, etc etc. I find this concept of concept art and video games interesting because in the case studies that we’ve looked at, there’s already an established tradition and cultural realm that provides a base for what we’re looking at. For instance, when we read Zora Neale Hurston’s article, the reader could already tell that there was an established cultural realm with set rules and limits of what was allowed and what wasn’t. Stories that went too far and passed the limits of that realm were readily shot down and called out for being a flat out “lie.” In video games, the video game designers are creating the realm of creativity; they are literally free to do whatever they wish. There’s no real precedent for what they’re doing; if they want to add creatures that happen to wear high heels and have bunny ears, there’s nothing that could stop them. They literally have to create the cultural realm and its limits, which is unique. Out of all of the case studies we’ve considered, none of them are physically creating an entirely new realm of creativity; there may be outliers that are pushing the boundaries of that cultural realm to expand, but none of them are actually creating an entirely new set of rules for creativity.

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Images 6: "Dirty Piggies" and Food Art

The last image of this Portfolio is of some cute little edible pigs. These pigs happen to be contained within a display case, along with various other chocolaty goodies, within a small candy and ice cream shop in Manitou Springs, CO. During my adventures in Denver over Spring Break, my friends took a trip down to Garden of the Gods outside of Colorado Springs, and Manitou Springs is just off of Garden of the Gods. It contains a lot of local, small town shops, and this one happened to grab our eye, so we hopped in for some ice cream. I saw these cute little pigs, and I snapped a picture for this Portfolio. I think that this image is worthy of inclusion within the Portfolio because it brings to mind the idea of food art, and how we classify food art, and if we even consider food art “art”. To make this discussion similar, let me first clarify what I mean by food art; I see food art as something like these little pig creations. They’re obviously food (it’d be hard to be food art without actually being edible), but they also have an aesthetic and creative appeal. These pigs could just be lumps of marshmallows covered in chocolate, but they’re not; they’ve been creatively stylized to resemble pigs, and the shop calls the marshmallows covered in milk chocolate “dirty piggies”. Now that the concept of what food art has been clarified, it leads to the discussion of if we really consider food art to be real art. I personally think it is; there’s a level of creativity that’s involved in making food. It doesn’t matter if your food tastes extremely good; if it doesn’t look good, at least a little, nobody is really going to want to eat it. If you watch professional chef shows, they make exquisite pieces of food, but you’ll also notice that there’s level of artistry along with it. When the chefs present their food to the judges, it’s not just about the food; it has to look good and catch the eye for the judges to give the chef a good review. If we’re rolling with the idea that food art is truly art, which makes sense according to my given argument, then how do we go about classifying and rating food art? I love to cook, but I’m not a chef; is my modified version of beef stroganoff artistic and considered art? I personally don’t think so, as the Cream of Mushroom soup that I use isn’t really a pretty color or a pretty consistency. How do we go about ranking food art? What is good enough to be considered art in a food context, and what isn’t? This also brings to mind the issue of class that we have consistently seen throughout our semester. The art world is generally dominated by the upper elite, and food art is no different. The chef shows that you see feature chefs that are all working in five star restaurants and make a lot of money. Would food connoisseurs see the “dirty piggies” in this ice cream shop in Manitou as artistic? Or would it be too low in status to count as truly being art?

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Images 5: The Case of the Pendulum

The fifth image of my Portfolio happens to be a public work of art. The image is of a two headed stone, with the heads opposite of each other; however, the large stone has a section of it pulled out from it, and inside, hanging in a cavity, is a very large gold pendulum. I snapped this particular image as my friends and I were passing this artwork in my car while in Denver, CO a couple weeks ago for Spring Break. My friend that we were visiting, who goes to school in Denver, gladly pointed out that the building that this two headed piece was sitting in front of is the building “where you pay all of your parking tickets.” As my mother worked for the official city governing body of my hometown while I was growing up, I can infer that the building my friend is referring to is most likely some kind of general court for the city of Denver and its subdivisions. The statue is quite large and takes up a lot of space within the courtyard, and doesn’t have any distinguishing marks, obviously excluding the two faces and the gold pendulum.

I thought this particular art piece was worthy of inclusion within my Portfolio because it demonstrates how cultures can come together and mutually agree on certain cultural symbols. What I mean by this can be seen within the very general meanings associated with the stone head. The stone heads can obviously represent a person; however, inside of the stone piece is a giant pendulum. This pendulum could be seen to represent the brain or the mind of the person. But why a pendulum; what makes a pendulum so important and worthy of being included in this art piece? The reason the pendulum is there is because of the building the art piece is attached to. The art work is just outside of a court house, the center of law and order. The pendulum is a widely recognized sign for balance; it swings between two options if you hold, and in this case, it could be seen as swinging between good and evil, guilty and not guilty, etc. etc. The pendulum is also an image that is associated with the idea of the Scales, the sign of the Libra horoscope. While the art work isn’t trying to connect with people born under the Libra sign, it is showing a connection to the concept of the Scales of Libra, which are a common sign in the Justice system as you weigh the guiltiness of a person. This concept even connects across cultures, as Egyptian death lore includes Anubis weighing a person’s heart against a feather to see if they’re truly good. The pendulum contained within the two figured head piece is a connection to the ideas of justice and decision, which connects to the role of the court system, which the art piece is located outside of anyways. Basically, while I thought that the piece was kind of strange, I could understand it. The piece represents the court; the court represents the piece. Justice, verdicts, guilty, not guilty, the good, the bad; it’s all contained within the idea of a pendulum, which is a representation of the very court that makes those decisions just steps away from the art piece.

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Images 4: A Nataraja in Denver, CO

This particular image is of a popular and well-known Hindu image known as the Nataraja. In it, the figure, who happens to be the Hindu god Shiva, dances on the head of a demon to essentially restart the Universe. While this particular image is of a Hindu god and an important aspect of Hindu mythology, I am the one who snapped the picture of this Nataraja. I took this picture in what could be defined as a “New Age” or “hipster” store while on Spring Break a couple of weeks in Denver, Colorado. I find this image interesting not because of the story behind the Nataraja, which we discussed in class, but the context in which I found this image and the changing connotations that follow it. The Nataraja is an important part of Hindu mythology; it is literally a representation of Shiva helping restart the Universe. However, the store that I found this Nataraja in it wasn’t a Hindu store in Denver; rather, it was “New Age” store, full of candles, incense, spirituality books, magic stones, and things people would generally consider “New Age”, pagan, or “hipster.” I found this particular Nataraja on a shelf towards the middle of the store; in front of it was a card describing, very generally, what the Nataraja was depicting. However, on top of this information, the notecard also told me about what the statue of the Nataraja could do for me; if I remember correctly, buying the statue and keeping it in my home or with me would promote good happenings, and the statue was generally seen as a promoter for new beginnings and promoting change.

I found this Nataraja to be interesting because of the changing connotations and general meanings associated with it. In Hindu, the Nataraja does represent change and rebirth, but it represents that on a grand and religious scale. The statue literally depicts Shiva destroying the old, worn out Universe so that it can be recreated. However, in Denver, CO, in this small shop in a worn down part of town, the statue loses this religious context entirely and is simply meant to symbolize change and rebirth in a more general sense. The Nataraja that I snapped a picture of was actually on a shelf of similar Hindu religious icons, but their meanings were lost to me because I’m a Midwestern Kansan, not a Hindu. I just simply wonder what Hindus think of the generalization and paganism associated with their objects. Their objects are no longer seen as Hindu; the people in the shop in Denver wouldn’t associate the Nataraja with the Hindu religion. Rather, they would associate with paganism and spirituality. Isn’t that kind of insulting to the Hindu religion? I understand that images and their meanings will change as they move through cultures, but even this seems almost like it’s gone too far. It’d be similar to taking a statue of Jesus and saying that it brings good luck, and that’s it. No back story, no religious influence. It’s almost kind of robbing it of its full potential and meaning.

[humanitysimagination]

News Item 6: San Francisco Turns a Bridge into Art with 25,000 Lights

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/06/tech/innovation/bay-bridge-light-installation/index.html?iref=allsearch

San Francisco turns a bridge into art with 25,000 lights by Heather Kelly details the work of the artist Leo Villareal. Villareal, an artist who has works in New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has been designing the Bay Bridge light design project for several years. His goal is to highlight San Francisco’s Bay Bridge as a tourist attraction while also celebrating its 75th birthday. The light project is designed so that every night, starting at dusk and lasting until 2 a.m., the lights will go through a unique pattern. This lighting up of the Bay Bridge will continue for two whole years, and the lights will feature absolutely no repeats. The Mayor of San Francisco has wholeheartedly accepted the project and endorsed it, and he hopes to continue the project even after the 2 year run of nightly light shows ends sometime in 2015. In total, the project cost approximately 8 million dollars, but thankfully for Villareal and San Francisco in general, 6 million dollars have already been collected through various organizers and supporters, indicating that the Bay Bridge light project has been received generally well among the citizens of San Francisco.

I really enjoyed this article and I feel that it’s worthy of inclusion within this Portfolio because I feel that it’s a good example of a group of people coming together to accept and promote art. Villareal has been working on this project for an unmentioned number of years and in the end, his designs would cost the city 8 million dollars. However, this price tag has been almost nullified, as the community has managed to raise 6 million dollars to help pay for the project. I feel that this is truly impressive as it shows the power and scope of what people can do when they come together and work towards a common goal. These citizens of San Francisco wholeheartedly accepted the project and from then on, they’ve worked diligently to raise enough money to already pay off 75% of the project before its debut night. This unity in the art world of San Francisco is positive; however, through our class discussions, we’ve seen when unity in the art world can be used to suppress art rather than promote it. The example I’m referencing for this is the case of John Ahearn’s Bronx statues, which was discussed within Jane Kramer’s Whose Art Is It? I find it important to mention the Ahearn case study in relation to the Bay Bridge light project because they display two polar opposites on the spectrum of community art acceptance. In the Bay Bridge light project, the people of San Francisco came together and supported the project; using this unity and energy, they managed to pay off 75% of the project before it even debuted. In the Ahearn case, the majority of the community united in a negative way; they disliked the statues so much that they were able to suppress them and have them removed by Ahearn himself within a week of debuting. No matter what, I find these examples to be important because they show how important community acceptance is when an art piece is made. If the community accepts the art piece, it is a much smoother ride and the art becomes much easier to finish and distribute. However, if the community responds negatively, it can suppress and even kill the piece of art, as seen in the Ahearn example.

[humanitysimagination]

News Item 5: Tilda Swinton, MoMA's sleeping beauty

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/25/tilda-swinton-momas-sleeping-beauty/?iref=allsearch

Tilda Swinton, MoMA’s sleeping beauty by the CNN staff introduces one of New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) newest exhibits: artist Tilda Swinton sleeps for eight hours a day within a glass box within the museum. She’s in full view of anyone and everyone that happens to pass by the box, and all she does is sleep. The art work is titled “The Maybe” and has been done before in 1995 and 1996 in London and Rome respectively. An interesting thing about this particular art piece is that Swinton didn’t want it to be advertised. Instead of turning “The Maybe” into a huge deal with a lot of press release, MoMA and Swinton have kept it relatively low key. To see the piece, someone actually has to walk by it, instead of being drawn to it by something like a newspaper ad. This appears, at least to the CNN writer, to be a key point to the art piece, though Swinton has failed to elaborate.

I found this article particularly interesting and worthy of inclusion within this Portfolio simply because of its absolutely bizarre nature. Swinton’s piece of ‘art’ is literally her sleeping within a glass box for eight hours while the patrons of the museum get to watch her. I find this piece of art interesting simply because I don’t get the point of this piece at all. What’s artistic about sleeping in a box? Technically, I did that as a kid, but I slept in my school bus toy box, which wasn’t clear, and I didn’t have throngs of people watching me. This piece of art literally makes no sense to me; do people actually consider this to be a piece of art? Technically, I could lay in my bed all day and sleep; if someone watches me sleep, does that make it a piece of art? Or rather, does it make that person incredibly creepy and somewhat stalker like? This article and I don’t sit well with each other mostly because this article makes me evaluate what I consider art. I don’t believe that Swinton’s “The Maybe” is art; it’s just plain weird and there doesn’t appear to be anything more profound to be found within the piece. However, I think that this piece is an interesting point to make in the division between the upper and lower classes when it comes to art. As seen during the Who the F$%K is Jackson Pollock? Movie, the upper class generally dominates the art world. “The Maybe” is located in MoMA, one of the most noticeable and extensive museums in the United States. Obviously, people in the upper class must consider Swinton’s work as art, because if they didn’t consider it art, it wouldn’t even be in MoMA. I, a middle class college student, am obviously not part of the upper class, and I don’t’ see why this kind of thing would ever be found in such a prestigious museum as MoMA. While I don’t understand how it could be considered art, it is an interesting conversation piece to answer the question: what is art?

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News Item 4: Chopper Crash Survivor Helps Others Heal with Art

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/28/health/human-factor-laura-sharpe/index.html?iref=allsearch

Chopper crash survivor helps others heal with art by Laura Sharpe covers the tragedy that befell the author of this article approximately 5 years ago. In May of 2008, Sharpe was in a helicopter crash on Catalina Island, an island just off of the Californian coast. After the crash, Sharpe had to slowly recover her ability to walk and function, and through the use of art, she was able to do this. After fully recovering, she founded the non-profit organization Artists for Trauma; this group is designed to pair up trauma survivors, whether it be military or civilian, with a volunteer artist to help them find an avenue for recovery. Using art, Sharpe hopes to help others the same way that art helped during her recovery. She is using this art as an avenue to express feelings towards the trauma and to overall provide a way for trauma survivors to respond to what has happened to them and learn to live with what has happened.

I found this article particularly compelling because, as mentioned in my first News Item, I find art that actually does something and has meaning to it to be really fantastic art. In Sharpe’s organization, Artists for Trauma, art is being used to actually ‘do’ something; it provides trauma survivors with an avenue for exploration, with this exploration being different case by case as survivors have survived different forms of trauma at different times. This article makes me think about the role of emotion within art, as this art would be completely impossible without the emotions of the artist, which are directly caused by the trauma they’ve experienced. I feel that when emotion is found in a piece, the piece becomes an even better artistic art. However, the emotion has to be real; for instance, if you were to look at a Jackson Pollock painting, would you really say there was emotion in it? Sure, Pollock was probably thinking about something when he flung his paint at a canvas, but he really putting some emotion and meaning into it? The pieces created by Sharpe and Artists for Trauma are pieces that have this powerful emotion and realism associated with them. They are taking the internal, the emotions, memories, responses, etc to their trauma, and turning it into an external form. I find it beautiful and very inspiring; these people are creating beautiful pieces of art while still managing to cope with their trauma.

[humanitysimagination]

Mini-Paper Proposal - Art and Religion: the line between the sacred and the blasphemous

For my mini-paper, I’ve decided to focus on a controversial piece of art by the famous artist Andres Serrano. In the 1980s, Serrano made a series of photographs in which he submerged a white crucifix in various substances. This controversial piece, which is titled Immersion (Piss Christ), depicts a white crucifix submerged in a glass of Serrano’s urine. This piece has received negative feedback and a heavy amount of backlash, including to Serrano himself, and was recently vandalized while on display in Avignon, France in 2011. Using Piss Christ, I plan to discuss the controversial aspects of freedom of speech versus religious censorship and what exactly makes people so upset over religious art pieces. I plan to discuss the power that religion has in the art world and to investigate the idea of a possible line that separates the sacred, the secular, and the blasphemous.

  Three Sources:

1.      Fisher, Anthony and Hayden Ramsay. 1997. “The bishop, the artist, the curator, and the crucifix.” Quadrant, 41(12):48. 2.      Heartney, Eleanor. 2011. “The Global Culture War.” Art in America, October 2011: 119-123. 3.      Nakajima, Makiko. 2011. “Contemporary Art and Censorship: The Australian Museum Context.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum. 3(4):129-146.

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Art Exploration Proposal

What I’ve decided to do for my Art Exploration  piece is to mix my love for science with nature and art. I’ve decided that I’m going to do a photography project and take pictures of things that I come across in my daily life. Whether it’s a person, an animal, a plant, or something else that’s organic, I’ll take a picture of it. When I’ve collected a ton of pictures that represent things that I see or interact with daily, I’m going to print all of these pictures out. When I’ve printed them out, I’m going to craft them into a DNA double helix structure. At the end, the project will be a double helix made up of various pictures of organic things that I encounter in my life, showing that they’re all connected by the small molecules of DNA that we don’t even think about day to day.

The photos that I will take will all be creatively staged, but they will have to be organic matter. The purpose of the Art Exploration is to show that DNA, a very tiny ribonucleic acid, connects all of these various groups of organisms and we don’t even think about it. When crafting the double helix, I plan to take the pictures and either tape or glue them into cylinders. When I make the pictures into cylinders, I plan to tape them together to make the backbone of the double helix. I might also run to Hobby Lobby and buy some kind of sticks to put inside the photo cylinders; my hope is that I can make the double helix a free standing structure, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do it correctly because I’m not sure photo paper is really that resistant to gravity. But essentially, I’m going to tape the cylinders to each other to make the backbone, and then, I’m going to take different photo cylinders and make the “rungs” of the DNA double helix. I’m hoping that at the end, the each part of the helix will be made up of different photos, with each photo being a type of organism that utilized DNA every single day.

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Transcribed Interview

Kyle Gowen: Since you are an amateur artist, when you start to make something, what’s in your head? What do you think about?

Anna Confer: I think about… I try to think about what I’m trying to make, the end product. And I try to think of how to get there and what I could do to either make it look better or if it turns out to look like shit, how to make that look better. Because a lot of the times, when I have something in my mind, it doesn’t turn out like that at all; sometimes it’s kind of good and other times, it kind of sucks.

K: Alright, so what happens if… is there a difference between if someone asks you to make something specific or if you’re just creating art for your own? Is there a difference?

A: There’s such a big difference.

K: Ok, so what’s it like?

A: If somebody asks me to make them something, then I literally put it off as much to my ability. I’ve been asked to do so many things for people and I’ve never gotten around to it. It’s just… even if I see something that they tell me to do and I see it, well it’s just not in me because a lot of the times that I try to do something, it’s what I’m feeling or something and that makes me want to do it. But if it’s for somebody else, I can’t feel like I want to fucking finish it.

K: So you can’t really get in the mood because it’s not really coming from you?

A: Yeah! And I guess that’s one of the problems with commercial things and why I don’t think I could ever make it [art] commercially because it’s hard for me to produce something that someone else wants. But that’s just personally me; I know other people can work differently.

K: Alright, well let’s go back and assume you’re making an art piece out of your own ideas. So, let’s say you make something and it turns out to be not as good as you wanted it to be. What do you do? Are you disappointed? Are you upset with yourself? What goes through your mind; what do you do?

A: This is why I like to do acrylic painting because when you paint with acrylic, if you fuck up the first time, or the second time, or the fiftieth time, you can just keep painting over it. So you don’t have to buy a new canvas; you just keep painting over it. And you’re like “wow, this looks like shit! Let’s make it all black now!” but the problem with watercolor is that, unless you know how to fix it and use it, but I haven’t taken a lot of classes so I have to learn how to experience water color, when I fuck up, I fuck up. And I’m just like “dude, fuck this shit!” and I burn the canvas and then I have to buy a new one. Do you know how much money canvases are these days?! Holy shit! And then when you’re drawing, you take a lot of time and even though if you finish it, it doesn’t look like what you want… No matter what, it’s never going to look as perfect as you want it to be because there’s always room for improvement but yeah, I get disappointed a lot.

K: Alright, well are you ever like really happy with a piece? If you make it, are you ever just “wow, this was really good.” Or are you always “I could do better! This sucks!”?

A: I have very few paintings that I really like, like that one! *points to watercolor painting hanging to our left* But one of the problems is that when I do art, I have to find references on the computer and I study other people’s work so when I study someone else’s way of painting, I try to replicate it. Not the painting, but how they do it, and that’s when I’m most happiest because I’m like “This is something that someone else could like!” But when I do something myself, it just looks like shit and I give up.

K: *laughs*

A: This is why I’m not an art major! I can’t go through CAR [the art examinations] being confident! Fuck!

K: Alright, so when you think of other people looking at your work, does it make you feel nervous?

A: Well when I do something that replicates another style then I’m not as nervous because I know that if I like that style, that I like it and I’m fine with it, but if I do something on my own, I feel really… blah! Unless I really like it, then I’m like “hey, look at this! I know you can’t paint, but look at my painting!” And then I feel confident, but if it’s someone who can actually do it, I’m like “ugh, don’t look at it! It’s ugly!”

K: Alright, I feel you, I feel you. What about when you sell art? I know you’ve sold some of your art before. How do you feel when you give something away?

A: There’s a few paintings that I’ve been sticking with, and I was like “oh, I really like it” and the idea of selling my paintings was hard for me. But then, after a while, you get used to it I guess? I mean, I did that one painting with the planet and the piano keys and when I sold it, I felt… well it was based off feelings that I used to have but then when I sold it, I just felt that it’s gone, and I can start anew. And I feel that that’s every one of my art pieces per say that I did by myself and if I get rid of it, then I can just start something else. Like a new chapter.

K: But are there some art pieces that you couldn’t sell?

A: Yeah, like I can’t sell that one. *points to same watercolor painting located to our left* That’s just too good!

K: So in reference to this watercolor painting that we’re talking about, why can’t you sell it?

A: I just feel that it’s really sussesful! Oh my god, and when you spell successful on here [the transcript], it’s sussesful!

K: Sussesful with two s’s?

A: Yeah! I just really felt like, you were there when I painted this one, it was really spontaneous and I just felt that I didn’t really use references on this one. I just used face silhouettes and so I felt like I really just did that one all by myself! And it’s just really good and a lot of people like it. Like the first time I did that kind of painting, *points to different water color painting hanging to the right of us* I felt that that one turned out really well too but I could totally get rid of that one. But that one *points to the watercolor on our left* I’m keeping that one forever.

K: So that one [the watercolor on our left] is like yours? It’s a product of you and you have to keep it.

A: Yeah because it’s one of the first really good ones and I really like watercolor now over acrylic because it’s just so pretty. And that one has some feel to it too so…

K: So, let’s say you picked up all the paintings you have in the room and you were going to sell them, you still wouldn’t sell this one [the watercolor on our left] even if it could get you the most money?

A: Ohhhh, that’s a toughie! I’d have to know how much someone would have to buy it for but even then, I would feel…

K: Would there be some problems?

A: There would definitely be a war inside of me! I’d definitely be like “uhhhh! Uhhhhh!”

K: So you grow attached to the painting because, you know, it’s your baby.

A: Yeah, and then a lot of people are like “can you paint it again?” Bitch! Have you ever seen someone paint something exactly the same without fucking using a copier?! Like are you fucking crazy?! Can you make the same child twice?! No! Fucking bullshit people.

K: So you would say that art is pretty much like your child?

A: Yeah, when I want it to be. All of this college shit has just frustrated me because I haven’t had any inspiration lately.

The interview proceeded from there and lasted for a few more minutes.