#msu denver

[olowan-waphiya]

‘We got lied to’: Native students find flaws in free tuition program

A public university promised free tuition for Native students. Then the details were revealed.

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Project 3 - Performance Art

The idea of this performance was inspired from one of my essays about the importance of images in media release, such as articles from magazines, newspapers or blog, regardless of print or online. The essay concentrated on the way visual elements attract attention easily, tell stories effectively and covey messages quickly, rather than a box full of text. Through this performance, I decided to demonstrate the idea under my perspective, particularly when I am a design student, about how I usually decide what article I should read just by its visual appeal. As the adage tells us, a picture tells a thousand words.

Apart from that, since we are confronting this crisis, I think this project is going to be interesting for us to have different perspectives and experiences with performance art. Especially when our performance did not happen in an ideal condition like in art galleries, we would have various perceptions when seeing each other projects.

The project includes a series of photos and a short video of the performance. Enjoy! ☺️

Phoebe Ng. - 2020

[thatoneemobooknerd]

MSU Denver

[kjonesmsudenver-blog]

Name Plate Exercise 

A way to mark my territory and potentially look professional.

[olowan-waphiya]

Indigenous People’s Day!

Monday Oct. 11th from 4-5 pm (MST) NISA and MSU Denver welcome all to a free virtual event to honor and celebrate Indigenous People’s Day! The Native Indigenous Student Alliance and the CMEI of MSU Denver are proud to present Sonia aka Ugrunna, as well as other Water Protectors who are currently organizing to stop Line 3 and to protect the ancestral treaty lands of the Anishinaabe people.

To register, please follow This Link!

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Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian, for sale from Perrotin at Art Basel Miami Beach. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

The Art Assignment - “Is it ‘Art’?”

I have struggled a lot while finding a good idea for ‘The Art Assignment’ since the attitudes and strategies of Postmodernism indeed proposed a challenge for its followers. My final project was inspired from Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ (2019), in which the artist provoked an on-going debate and discussions among the audience by simply duct-taping a banana on wall. The installation was sold for $120,000. As a result, different reactions from the audience made me wonder about the true purpose of art: Does it have to imply any meaning? Does the success of ‘Comedian’ rely on the presentation and idea of the project itself, or on the reactions of viewers with its ridiculous price? Or maybe even “Is it ‘Art’?” Therefore, I decided to create a replica of ‘Comedian’, then taped over the artwork with different reactions and comments from the audience, which I have accumulated from Youtube videos and online articles about Cattelan’s art project. Furthermore, I also combined our first assignment from 4D class by making a GIF, in order to somehow include in the visual effect, in which viewers would feel overwhelming of controversial reactions toward a work of art. For this project, I followed two Postmodern attitudes, which were “challenging the art world” and “rejecting originality”; concurrently with a Postmodern strategy “appropriating what already exists.” Above all, I hope the project would leave some thoughts for my viewers about the true purpose of a work of art, especially when we are art students. Most importantly, I wanted to emphasize on the fact that even though people tend to put their perceptions onto our work and maybe leave some mean comments, however, let’s just keep moving forward! :)

Stay safe and healthy everyone! Nice to be your classmate in this semester! Thank you Professor Matthew for your dedicated support and instruction throughout this difficult time :)

Phoebe Ng. - 2020.

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Reading Response #2

“Today/Tänään” (1997) - Eija-Liisa Ahtila (Video Installation)

Chapter #6: Time & Motion

As Terry Barret discussed in his book, as artists and designers, we always have to consider “different aspects of time” (120) and motion while creating our works. This chapter provides me a lot of inspiring examples about how artists include time and motion as crucial components in order to express their intentions through art. I especially enjoy the way Barret used Chris Wedge’s Bunny - an Academy Award winning short animated movie as an excellent example for implied time. For instance, although the film just have seven minutes of screen time, the director can involve the implication of eternity, in which helps the movie “invites interpretations of a serious topic through cartoon character.” (122). In general, this chapter indeed shows me the importance of time and motion, in which they can affect the audience’s experiences and feelings toward the artworks.

Sean Cubitt, “Vanishing and Becoming” (2005)

In the essay “Vanishing and Becoming”, Sean Cubitt proposed his idea about the first medium of art is not drawing, but light and projection. Personally, I find it is prone heavily to philosophy rater than practical demonstration because of its lack of relatable examples, which might be the reason why it is quite difficult to be fully understood. However, by Cubitt’s series of examples about the various potentialities and affects of projection in comtemporary art through a rich history when the artists have used a host of other methods, not just simply project their artworks onto white wall or silvered screen. For example, I am particularly impressed by the idea of projection from the 1994 People’s Show in Manchester; instead of perfect white wall, the artists decided to use a corrugated screen, therefore, with different perspectives, the audience were able to observed a new aspect of their works.

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Reading Response #3

Photo: © Marco Anelli Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives.

Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present

The documentary actually made me think a lot about performance art. As we all know, Marina Abramović is an iconic artist in performing art. I just had chance to know briefly about her shows and always feel curious about her art making process. Through this documentary, I indeed had a in-depth look into that process, specifically about her idea development, or how Marina prepared for the show at MoMA physically and mentally. Seeing different reaction from the audience who was just looking directly at the artist and doing absolutely nothing was really fascinating. I was particularly touched  the moment when Ulay appeared in front of Marina at the exhibition, then she broke into tears and reached out to hold his hands. The idea of replacement between Ulay and “audience” is extremely unique, when he left and the “audience” took over his seat in Marina’s journey. However, after watching the documentary, I was just wondering if the concept of performance art unintentionally draws a borderline and makes the definition of “Art” unapproachable, which also a typical stereotype of folks when they think about this kind of art form (Performance Art). Moreover, I do not really agree with Marina’s manifesto at 2009 Lorenzo il Magnifico Award, when she imposed a rules system for artists in general, because I believe that the creativity and ability of artists should not be limited by any rule. Above all, I learned a lot about the idea of performance art throughout the documentary, as well as the mindset of artist Marina Abramović.

Roselee Goldberg’s Essay about Performance Art

The essay provided the comprehensive look into Performance Art throughout history, which was described as “ a series of waves”. Therefore, I had a chance to broaden my knowledge about this kind of art form and extremely surprised with familiar names such as Leonardo da Vinci or Gian Lorenzo Bernini also were a part of the development of performance art. While it has been becoming more prevalent thanks to the effort of artists like Marina Abramović, performance art is still not considered as one of the mainstreams in art history. Performance is a challenge to the public and art critics because of the lack of criteria; therefore, the audience somehow have difficulty to decide whether the performance is good or not. However, this essay gave me a new perspective in performance art, in which the artist use actions to express their ideas, rather than produce an object in a framework. In general, I advocate with Goldberg’s idea about the potential of performance art and believe it will be a catalyst for the changing of culture in the future.