Blank spots

Edward Ruscha leaves blank spots usually in the form of a rectangle or square in some of his paintings including the painting I am writing about for this class. (look below for Home Power) I have no idea why he does this. The blank rectangle is obviously an integral part of the painting because it stands out so much but I don't want to end up 'over interpeting". Why does he do that?!

Here are some others...

Why I like photography

I must say photography is my favorite medium of art. Now you may agree or disagree but here's why I like it.

1. It's "real"
2. I grew up with it  (myspace, facebook, etc)
3. It's art I can produce, sometimes

Now having said that, Roland Barthes in this section of his book writes about the spectator. He says, "And I, the spectator, I recognize them (functions of photography) with more or less pleasure..." (pg26) He stands neutral in his stance of photography, at least if I understood the main idea correctly. He talks about themes of photography, principle of adventure, and how these concepts make him more or less inclined to like or dislike a picture. I think we do all of these things unconsciously but thank God for art critics for writing and naming all these processes down in a book right? So anyways, my point is that I fully love being the spectator. Like Barthes, there are certain pictures that I like and dislike for various reasons and I love that this medium of art is personal, more so than other mediums. That's number 4 for why I like photography and this list is elongating as I learn more about art.

One of the pictures of the week from TIME magazine. I just thought it was funny, really funny.

Check out time for legitimate pictures under today in pictures, pictures of the week, or pictures of the year, unlike the silliness above.

click to add title

I'm realizing as I analyze my painting that the title plays such a crucial part in forming my interpretation and analysis on an artwork. This could be related to the discussion we had on captions and additional notes and information on specific artwork sometimes provided by museums or art critics, but titles written intentionally by the artist are a different story, no? I know we're supposed to analyze the image but the title gives so much insight that I cannot ignore it. On that note, good luck to all those with untitled artwork!

language language language

I just finished reading Patterns of Intention by Baxandall and what do you know, language is really important when you're dealing with art. Sound familiar? All the past readings we've done in class say a thing or two about language. I guess this is reasonable. First comes the art. But what good is art if everybody kept their thoughts to themselves? So directly following art are words. Whether we're interpreting or describing, key words attach themselves to pieces of art. Baxandall talked mostly about describing art. This too is a personal experience along with interpretation, in a way. It is a personal experience in that descriptions are biased and may or may not fully follow the artists' intentions. I thought that was interesting.

So the artist I've been introduced to as a result of this class is Edward Ruscha. I mention his works a couple of times in previous entries but he is definitely a special case in the way that he is known for his art with language as his main subjects. He literally paints words. So for him, language does not follow art. Language is art. Word.

by Edward Ruscha

Las Meninas, the movie.

So there was a movie made in 2008 titled Las Meninas by a Ukrainian director. I read the plot summary and the director seems to have been inspired by the painting's structure in the way that the audience must figure out and piece together the story from what they see, much like how viewers see only pieces of the painting then interpret the story. I'll have to check out this film sometime.

Las Meninas

Las Meninas. I've realized by now after reading the essays by Bal&Bryson and Foucault, the painting is famous. Not to mention, Picasso, the Picasso, painted a rendition of the original that is just as famous. You know a painting is legitimate when Picasso paints his own interpretation of it. Just kidding. But, this painting is legitimate in many, many ways, especially in the way Foucault describes the intricate connection between the artist and the viewer within the painting. The first thing I noticed was the fact that there was an artist in the painting, complete with his paintbrush and easel. I usually think of the artist as a third party when I view an artwork. He or she is sitting there with a paintbrush in hand, painting the painting, not painting himself painting the painting. But that is essentially what Velazquez did. That forces me to think of the artist from the beginning and now the artist's intent becomes my intent when viewing the artwork. I think about why he painted these subjects, who these people are in relation to Velazquez, and so on and so forth. Because there are so many other subjects in this particular painting, my mind will wander off to different people in the painting but it's interesting that the artist will situate himself or herself among the subjects, creating a sort of depth and level.

Speaking of depth and level, I just wanted to post a picture that I took at the High that illustrates the concept. Yay for visuals!

For Interpretation

Since seeing Edward Ruscha's work in the High Museum, I decided to do a little research. I came upon a quote by Ruscha in which he said, "Art has to be something that makes you scratch your head." As a class, we recently read Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag in which she makes a solid argument that as viewers, we tend to over interpret content instead of seeing art as it is. For artists like Ruscha, he welcomes interpretation which I will gladly give him.

Edward Ruscha is well known for his images of words and phrases which may be ironic, satiric, or just simply random. I found this article about him and it's interesting that the journalist tries to interpret the images below but Ruscha only laughs and leaves the meaning up to whoever is seeing the art.

La visite première.

So my first visit to the High Museum was much like visiting a foreign country. In light of this, I title this post in french because french is a foreign language to me and "la visite première" sounds much cooler than "my first visit". So there you go.

I felt like a foreigner as soon as I stepped into the museum. You see, I am not much of a museum-goer. Artists like going to the museum. People who like art go to the museum. I am neither. So truthfully, I felt extremely out of place when I walked in and was at once surrounded by artsy looking people including a boy maybe nine or ten years old with what appeared to be an extremely professional looking camera with which he was taking pictures, holding out his hand and making an L shape with his fingers before snapping a photo or two. He knew exactly what he was looking at. For me, not so much.

At first, I strolled. I strolled past paintings and ambled past sculptures. My first thirty minutes or so at the museum was leisurely paced, glancing at this and that- until I got to the painting below.

This painting titled Home Power by Edward Ruscha made me stop and think. Much like the study of structuralism in the field of psychology, I saw the painting for it's basic elements such as it's color. For this painting, the contrast between dark and light was overwhelmingly apparent and it was in it's basic elements that I found this particular painting powerful. Albeit the darkness surrounding the house, the light from within the home made me feel safe. There was power in this inner light. Home Power made me feel a bit more at home and a little less like a foreigner.