Studio Project #2: Response Artwork
For the final studio project of this course, I want you to reflect on the artist you are researching this semester. From this artist’s production, choose a particular artwork or body of work that is of genuine interest to you. Consider carefully the concepts, materials, processes, and presentation strategies involved in this particular artwork or body of work.
Using the artwork or body of work you have chosen as a reference, you will design, construct, and present an artwork in response or conversation with this artists work.
Please continue to explore at least one of the processes or techniques we have learned in this class so far in the making of this artwork. Other materials and process outside of what we have covered in this course are also welcome to be used, however, whatever you decide to make and how you decide to make it should relate in some way to your reference artwork.
Why are we doing this?
1.) Art is a conversation. Don’t be afraid of influence.
2.) Because you are not making art in isolation: You are artists who are making work in light of an entire history of art that informs how your work is understood and accrues meaning. I want you to understand and use this history to become better at what you do.
3.) This response structure forces you to deepen your understanding of artwork, to really know it well enough to respond to it. It also forces you to know an artwork in a bigger perspective: where is the artwork situated in art history? How is it written about? What other artists/works/movements/theories/concepts are discussed in conjunction with it? This assignment functions to force you to know the artwork as well as it’s larger territory within art discourse.
4.) This assignment allows you to isolate your own position as an artist in relationship to another artist and distinguish your own point of view.
5.) The structure of response can teach you a lot of practical things about making an artwork.
Step #1: Choose your Source
Select a particular artwork or body of work by your research artist that you want to make an artwork in response to. Spend some time making sure that you understand the basic ideas behind the work, and the conversations in art the work was made in relationship to, as well as any other artists who are frequently referenced in relationship to the work.
Make a list to help you concisely collect all the key aspects of the work, such as the conceptual framework, formal aspects, scale, materials and processes involved, presentation strategies, etc.
Step #2: Define your Response
What is your position in relationship to these ideas? How do you disagree or find yourself to be different as an artist? How can you make your own voice heard, while making sure that a clear reference is present to your source?
Refer to the list you made about your artwork and choose 1 or 2 aspects to respond to. You do not need to respond to every aspect of the artist’s work. Just think about how much quoting is necessary to help your viewers to recognize your starting point. There is a fine line between response and imitation. This is not an imitation project.
The final artwork should be more about YOU than about your source artwork. Determining specifically what will mimic your original artwork and what will be different is an important thing to define early on.
Studio Project #2 will be critiqued in class on December 5th. Please be prepared and have your artwork installed and ready to be discussed at the start of class. Any unusual installation scenarios will need to be discussed and approved by the professor before the day of the critique.
Images above from top:
The first image is a 2019 artwork by Paul Chan from an exhibition titled “The Bather’s Dilemma”. The next image is “Dance (1)” by Henri Matisse from 1909. Can you see how Paul Chan’s work, though utterly his own, is in conversation with this work from art history?
These next two sets of images are other examples of artists making work in direct response to other artists. Both of these examples are the most direct and obvious kind of quoted response. You can make a work with a more nuanced and subtle responsive strategy. This is just to help to make clear some ways that artists respond to other artists with the work they make.
The first images set shows an artwork by Los Angeles based artist Aaron Curry made in response to a cubist sculptural work of Pablo Picasso, an example of which is shown here.
The second set of images shows a sculpture from art history by Carl Andre and a work made in response to it by contemporary Los Angeles based artist Rachel Lachowitz. Her strategy of response was to mimic the form of the original work but switch the material, her version, made of cast lipstick.