Show Submission-Anderson Gallery

These are the images I submitted for the Annual Juried Student Show this year

The last one got in! Yay! The two black ones did not.

Idea-Alone

I came across this quote by Hunter S. Thompson this week, and when I read it the issues I deal with in my artwork immediately came to mind:


""We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."  - Hunter S. Thompson 


At first, the statement seems negative or cynical, but once I made it to the last sentence I realized that it should feel inspirational. I often talk about the struggle to fight against that urge to find happiness within others instead of ourselves. I emphasize the importance of  personal space and separation from people who comfort us in order to find strength on our own (even though it might feel like the less desirable thing to do). Being alone is often seen as negative because the natural human condition urges us to find mates and  reproduce, therefore, time spent alone somehow instinctually puts us farther away from this goal.

Artist-Annette Messager

I am so excited about Annette Messager's work. Her themes, which speak about women's roles, feminine relationships, and yearning, are very interesting to me as an artist and in relationship to my own work. She seems to say the things that I sometimes want to say but am unsure of how to express. Her art is provocative and brave. I am also very interested in the way Messager presents photographs. I am experimenting with fragmenting my own images so seeing her sculptural instillations are inspiring. I enjoy he way the artist organizes photos in groups of frames and sometimes with other objects that give the work context. 

Bio:

Annette Messager studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. She won first prize in the Kodak Photography International competition in 1964. In 1995 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York's Museum of Modern Art co-organized her first major American retrospective. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires (1999) and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2004). She also exhibited in the Biennale de Paris (1977), Documenta VI (1977) and XI (2002), the Biennale of Sydney (1979, 1984, and 1990), the Venice Biennale (1980, 2003, and 2005), and the Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon in 2000. She won the Golden Lion Award at the 2005 Venice Biennale.

(Marian Goodman Gallery)

Quotes:

"At first, I felt proud when someone said 'Your work looks like a man did it.' Then I realized that was stupid"

"The path Messager chose instead was to embrace her gender, to become an artist who interpreted life - sex, love, beauty, pain, yearning, power - through the eyes of a woman. In this narrative, the petite, bright-eyed artist could be the fictional storyteller, and she would play all the roles"

-NY Times 

 

"Her work often involves fragments, such as My Vows, which includes an large number of small close-up pictures of parts of the body. This tendency to fragment and catalog is everywhere in her work." 

-http://www.oneroom.org/sculptors/messager.html

Annette Messager, instillation views from "Mes Voeux (My Wish)"

Annette Messager, instillation views from "Them and Us, Us and Them" 2000

Annette Messager, instillation views from "Mes Voeux (My Wish)"

Gallery

http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/annette-messager/

Review

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/arts/25iht-messager.1.6316141.html

Artist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Messager

Artist-Sam Taylor Wood

I was interested in Sam Taylor Woods work when Denise Markonish came to VCU to give a lecture about the shows she has curated. Woods work looked different than most of the work I'm initially drawn to as it has more energy and is more provocative. 

bio:

Sam Taylor-Wood makes photographs and films that examine, through highly charged scenarios, our shared social and psychological conditions.  (white Cube)

Still Life is one of the most classical works of contemporary art I know. It inscribes itself in art history with hardly any commentary. This is not just a Still Life. It is a vanitas, a particular type of still life developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Flanders and Netherlands. Its specificity was the showing of the vanity of the worldly things through often subtle signs of elapsing time and decay. Some of the vanitas had obvious references like skulls, but others yet had simply a watch, or a slightly rotting fruit. Sam Taylor-Wood's work is another step in that direction: the image, beautiful as ever in Taylor-Wood's universe, decomposes itself. By the end, nothing is left but a grey amorphous mass.

On closer inspection, one thing distinguishes this picture from its predecessors. The ball-point pen. A cheap, contemporary object. One that doesn't seem to decay. That is not part of the universal, self-disappearing life. Is it here to stay? This nothingness, this ridiculous signature of us?

This is a poor vanitas. We are more accustomed to rich interiors with gold and crystal. But we don't need more: we got the point. And nothing more is necessary. A simple basket, some light. Time. And a cheap pen. Oh, and lest I forget: an extremely good camera, top of the line, to catch this delicate, beautiful insurgence of death. (http://new-art.blogspot.com/2007/02/sam-taylor-woods-vanitas.html) 

Quotes:

"Taylor-Wood’s work examines the split between being and appearance, often placing her human subjects – either singly or in groups – in situations where the line between interior and external sense of self is in conflict." white cube

stills from the film Vanitas 

escape artist 1 and 2 

Self Portrait Suspended II, 2004, Edition of 7, C-print

53 3/16 x 63 13/16 in. (135.6 x 162.8 cm) (incl. frame)

Poor Cow, 2001, Edition of 6, C-type print

41 3/4 x 51 9/16 in. (106 x 131 cm) (inc. frame)

artist 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Taylor-Wood

gallery

http://www.whitecube.com/artists/taylorwood/selfportraitsuspended/

review

http://new-art.blogspot.com/2007/02/sam-taylor-woods-vanitas.html

Idea-Dependence

I have been researching a psychological condition called Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD). Most of my work leads me back to psychology because I am always searching for the reasons behind thoughts and actions. I didn't know this condition existed until I read an article recently where it was mentioned and I was surprised that I had been representing similar feelings in my photography. This disorder is rather on the extreme side of some of the problems I represent, but it is always better to push things a little to the extreme side right? 


"Dependent personality disorder is described as a pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that leads to a submissive and clinging behavior as well as fears of separation. This pattern begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts. The dependent and submissive behaviors are designed to elicit caregiving and arise from a self-perception of being unable to function adequately without the help of others."


"Individuals with dependent personality disorder have great difficulty making everyday decisions (such as what shirt to wear or whether to carry an umbrella) without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others. These individuals tend to be passive and allow other people (often a single other person) to take the initiative and assume responsibility for most major areas of their lives."


"Individuals with this disorder feel uncomfortable or helpless when alone, because of their exaggerated fears of being unable to care for themselves. When a close relationship ends (such as a breakup with a lover or the death of a caregiver), individuals with Dependent Personality disorder may urgently seek another relationship to provide the care and support they need. They are often preoccupied with fears of being left to care for themselves." 


Bibliography:
"Dependent Personality Disorder." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 21 July 2008. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.


This article gives a definition of "Dependent Personality Disorder." It gives information for diagnosis of this condition, the treatment, causes and symptoms. It explains how personality disorders are classified and gives an explanation of things someone affected by the disorder would experience. 

Elina Brotherus, Femme A Sa Toillete. Chromogenic Color Print mounted on Aluminum, 80x66 cm. 2001

Denise Markonish-Lecture Questions/Response

Do you feel the need to create your own art while working as a curator? If so, do your own artistic tastes/aesthetics influence the type of art work you chose for exhibits?


How did you land such an amazing position in the arts? What steps did you take to rise up to your level of success? What is it like to work 'behind the scenes' in the art world as opposed to being an artist?


Lecture Response:
     It was so great to see someone from the museum industry speak. I have been thinking a lot about working in a museum, I'm taking a great museum studies class now and have enjoyed the ones I have taken in the past. I love hearing about the logistics behind running a museum and the selection of art works. Denise Markonish seemed to love her job and gave her lecture with enthusiasm. I wished she would have gone over a bit of her history and how she got to the position she has now, but I understand that there was only a short amount of time. I also would have like to know more about her interest in Utopias and why that seemed to be a reoccurring theme in her exhibits. It was great to see pictures of such an impressive museum that I might never get a chance to see, but her lecture peaked my interest. The MASS MoCA was unlike other museums I have been to because of its lack of a permanent collection and mostly traveling exhibits. I was also really surprised to see that a lot of the artists commissioned special pieces to be part of the exhibits, I thought museums were usually a home for works created in the past. Denise Markonish really made me think about my own future in an exciting way. Going to museums as a child had a huge impact on my aspiration to become an artist and I've always been so intrigued by them. I have definitely developed a personal goal to become involved with the museum field.

Artist-Saul Melman

Bio:

Saul Melman (b. 1968, Baltimore, Maryland) makes sculptures and installations that function as mnestic events--works that feel like an event that has already occurred. For PS1's "Greater New York" exhibition, Melman gilded the building's giant, decrepit double furnace with gold leaf. (from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marina-cashdan/top-ten-most-promising-em_b_800299.html?ref=fb&src=sp)

I was also very interested to find out that Saul Melman first went to school in 1990 to get his BFA in studio arts, then went to medical school (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) and served a residency in a hospital  (Cook County Hospital), then went back to school to get a masters in sculpture (Bard College), finally graduating for the last time in 2009. 

Quotes

"... allows a space for the viewer to project their own imagination onto/into the work. This is what it means to me for a work to be 'open' to the viewer, rather than a work that is 'closed.' having a loose or playful process is important in regards to allowing this transformation to occur."

"Using my memory of an event is a frequent starting point for making work. It makes the work personal and work that is personal interests me. Through the process of excavating the memory, playing with it and then projecting it outwards for the viewer to experience, the concreteness/self-referential-ness of the initial memory gets transformed into something else, perhaps something that only has traces of the initial memory." 

(both from an interview with the co-directors or Culture Push, Arturo Vidich and Aki Sasamoto)

I am very interested in what Saul Melman has to say about his work. He seems to think about the same personal factors that I think are so important in my work as well. His work has such a strong sense of unspoken communication and that is what attracts me to it and what I hope attracts others to my work. I am also attracted to the forms Malman uses in his instillations/sculptures. They aren't recognizable objects, but I seem to be relating to them as spaces that make me wonder about their creation and function. The materials the artist uses are intriguing in relationship to each title too, which makes me that much more intrigued by each piece and the thoughts behind it. 

Saul Melman "Geranium" Burnt wood, steel castors, bone marrow, horse skin, waxed thread, silicone, and human hair. 2008, 3x8 feet. 

Saul Melman "How You Hold Something Inside Matters" Skin, dust, and water. 4x3 ft. 2009

Saul Melman "The Best of All Possible Worlds" C-Print, 30x30 in, 2009

"Johnny On The Spot" Tyvek, wood, steel, fluorescent lights, cast polyurethane and water. L-40 ft. H-24 ft. W-32 ft. 2003

Artist

http://www.saulmelman.com/

Review

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marina-cashdan/top-ten-most-promising-em_b_800299.html?ref=fb&src=sp

Gallery

MoMA PS1, NY

Whitney Museum of American Art, NY