Monday a.m. Artist Post 8/31

Sarah Oppenheimer, mixed media artist, received her BFA in 1995 from Brown and her MFA from Yale in 1999. She has been a part of shows at places like the Bronx Museum of Arts, Yale Art Gallery, the Sculpture Center in New Jersey, Ostrobothnian Museum in Finland, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Massachusetts. She has received grants from The Space Program, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation and the Schoelcoff Travel Grant to China from MacDowell Colony Inc. Oppenheimer currently lives and works in New York City.
Often described as an artist who creates interactive sculptural installations. A very popular current installation is one titled VP-41 and was shown at the Art Unlimited at Art Basel in June of this year. This is a “periscope embedded within a particular architecture. The periscope itself is constructed out of bent plywood and two mirrors” (Vernissage TV). Also included in this article about the VP-41 piece is a short video interview with Oppenheimer at Art Basel giving a brief overview and conceptual background information on this piece. The project took four months of detailed planning and a great portion of that work was done in Ohio and New York, and then shipped to London in pieces to prepare for the show. Also, her pieces were the only interactive sculpture at the art unlimited. “The importance of his focus lies in the fact that whereas most contemporary installation artists talk about their concern for the viewer Oppenheimer is demonstrating it. The viewer’s movements in her installations observed-directly or via video- become the input for her sculptural sensibility and the output is expressed via her alterations to the sculptural-architectural environment” (Hidrazone.com).
One of her pieces that I felt I could identify with was the performance titled “Lecture Hall.” This performance involved a group of people in a lecture hall and they were instructed to give a talk about Oppenheimer’s work. “Placing casting calls in StagePool, Oppenheimer auditioned Swedish performers to present a single lecture on her work. Four selected lecturers present an identical power point presentation” (artist website). “The audience became increasingly bored, and then aggressive…leaving the lecture. One later returned to remove her clothes while the lecturer diligently continued their presentation…This piece was ultimately exhibited as a two-channel video projection in which video documentation of the audience was projected on the side of the room and the lecturer the opposite side. The work, accordingly, positioned the viewer in a virtual space in between audience and lecturer” (artist website). Because I am now playing the part as the director and not the performer, I enjoyed how Oppenheimer did the same but still maintained her presence in the piece by prompting the performer to make a lecture about her work. Also, since I am considering changing my methods of presentation, I enjoyed the idea of projecting both the lecturer on one wall and the audience on another. I feel that that presentation utilizes space well and keeps the viewer’s eyes moving and entertained.

Artist Website
Artist Statement
Link to Interview with Oppenheimer
Lecture Hall Article by Graham Coulter-Smith

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 08/27

At the conclusion of the previous semester, I wrote my last blog about holding myself accountable to being aware of how important growing in this contemporary art world is and maintaining awareness of the strong peers and professors that surround me and how we can only aid each other in our roads to success. With that said, keeping myself accountable also means being willing to accept the incredible amounts of change that are occurring in the transition from one semester to the next. Different peers, mutating concepts, and personally being in a different location. Because situations change, picking up where you left off is not always the ideal situation one would expect to be waiting for them and in turn can hinder one from pursuing that growth. For example, I recently moved from the Fan area to Midlothian and in that move I also had to move my cat with me. Like humans, animals sense change equally and my cat tended to remove himself from the world that continued on around him the days leading up to our move. Transporting him, the initial change of scenery, shot a rush of uneasiness and worry through him that his entire body rebelled and any sort of bodily projection that could happen, did. Once arriving at the house he did what any human or animal would, he clung onto the only familiar physical object that now was in this new place; a comforter that smelled of the old house. That familiar comforter is my metaphor of my work from last semester. I became very acquainted with my process and my motives for those performances that up until recently I have clung onto them and feared moving forward. However, with the start of a new semester and still holding myself accountable for how pertinent growth is, clinging onto the familiarity of last semester is doomed to stunt that growth of my future work and me. After that realization, I am pumping myself up for a new installment of work to add onto my last while keeping the same concept but giving it a face lift and a bit of freshening up.

Change is defined as “to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of something different from what it is or from what is would be if left alone” and “to substitute another or others for; exchange for something else, usually of the same kind.” This word pertains quite well to my new work in that my new ideas are branches of my old ideas but reaching into other areas in hopes of bringing in new and different feedback from my viewer.

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 04/29

Tonight, marking the last evening of blog writing for the semester, also marks the beginning of very important upcoming months; the months leading up to my last semester as a student. The idea of having four more months to closely work and critique with incredible peers and professors looms in my head and quite frankly saddens me. My class, my peers, the ones I've been with for three years now, have come to be consistent aids in my process of growing and making stronger work. On Monday, in Contemporary Issues, as a class we discussed the importance of being aware of the current state and life you live; the importance of understanding the now in reference to your artistic life. The more I thought about it, the more I understood why it was so important to our growth as contemporary artists. When the week gets real hectic and trying, I tend to block out what is currently taking place and move on to what is going to go on in the upcoming days. With that said, I feel that during those frequent blackout moments I am missing the comments and efforts from those around me; the comments and efforts coming from a peer group that is experiencing the same issues and dilemmas. Whenever again will I be surrounded by such a strong force of talented artists that are on my team?
As I gathered my thoughts for this nights blog, I was comforted in knowing that this was not a conclusion of my educational career tonight...or within the next few weeks when my high school graduation class are graduating from college. Luckily enough, I've been given one more semester in the department to push forward and further my conceptual thoughts while living in the present; acknowledging the now, for the future is quickly approaching.

Monday a.m. Artist Post 4/27

Photography based series artist, Barbara Probst, was born in Munich, Germany in 1964. From 1984-1990 she attended the Akademie der Bilende Kunste in Munich and from 1988-1989 Probst attended the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf, Germany. Barbara Probst is known for striking photographic series work where the viewer has the opportunity to view the scene from multiple different camera angles. Her more popular current series “Exposure” is described as one that “breaks the photographic moment into several points of view through the use of multiple cameras in a single shot.” Probst currently has public collections in many museums and galleries around the world. Her collections are in places like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Illinois, and FRAC Bretagne in Charteaugiran, France.
As new to the contemporary art world as Probst is, she has established a strong name for herself and acquired a good number of awards and grants. In 1990 she received the Sanha Kaimer Fellowship: New York Residency, 1992 the Fellowship of Kunstfonds; Bonn, Germany from the DADD Travel Grant, Rome. Also, in 1994 she won the Photography Award from the Munich Arts Council as well as an award from the Cultural Board of the German Industry, Bund Deutscher Industrie in 1995. Others include, a Fellowship award from Bavaria in 1997 and a Fellowship of Kunstfonds Bonn, Germany in 2002 presented by Philip Morris in Dresden. Probst’s first solo show was at the Murray Guy Gallery in 2004 where she is still represented today.
Critic Reinhard Bryan was quoted when talking about Probst’s current series “Exposure.” “Facticity is enacted in the multipart, large-format tableaux as a construct of photography itself. The exposures show that omissions and contradictions, that replacements and appropriations in particular, are part of photographic practice itself, and that they indicate how a picture not only shows something but also causes something else, an other picture to disappear.” From the Murray Guy website, Probst’s work is described as one of “photogenic truth that is subject to fragmentation and cinematic drama, offering new interpretations of the classical fleeting photographic moment.” Exposure #59, shot in her Munich Studio and around Germany, is one in which the viewer’s eye is brought through the image by the movement that red scarf takes on. The first image of this four image series is the one that introduces a strong splash red color to the very monochromatic following images. Exposure #49, shot in her NYC studio, is a series comprised of 12 images. This series is also a mix of black and white and color images of her shielding the lens of the camera so it cannot capture everything in front of it. There are a few hints of green and yellow in the color images but mostly the palette is simple and colorless. When describing her work, Probst talked about the absurd number of cameras that have been used to complete a shoot; up to 12 cameras. In an interview with her she was asked if she felt her approach is a more complete or reliable representation than a single image from one camera. Probst answered by saying, “I think my work provides us with the implication that there is no reliable representation of “what happened.” Photography is like language: It provides us with an interpretation depending on the intentions and abilities of the person that told the story or made the photograph.”

Murray Guy Gallery: Barbara Probst page
Jessica Bradley Art+Projects
Museum of Contemporary Photography article
The Morning News interview with Probst

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 04/22

At my meetings with three panel members on Monday, Julie Sanders, Page Bond, and Robert Hobbs, I got a great amount of feedback from my work and also got the same question during each meeting. What was I planning on doing next seeing as I have one more semester at VCU? I find my performance series to be very exciting and a great part of who am I right now, however after those meetings I am more strongly considering moving forward and developing a new concept while maintaining the performance sequence composition.
Robert Hobbs and I were talking about potential opportunities for me to see great performance work while I am up in NYC for the summer and he suggested artist Barbara Probst whom is represented by Murray Guy Gallery. Her series work simultaneously depicts scenes with photographs from a few different angles and is presented in diptych or triptych form depending upon the series. She has a strong use of still objects that hold the pieces well together. In her imagery, she has a very striking way of using color and I enjoy how she uses some of the same layouts (the long landscape layout) that I find myself very attracted to with series work. In my series work, I have very few still objects and I would like to explore that realm of self-interaction with objects. Even though I have been considering taking myself out of the shot, I still have convinced myself with valid reasons why I feel that would benefit my work. I think for right now and the near future, I am going to focus on exploring new possibilities using myself and then having the option of rotating someone else in.
An idea of a new shoot that I have been considering involves certain objects interacting with each other, either balancing or leaning on each other. With these objects I want to recreate that same scene but using a person. This person will need to mimic the composition to their closest ability. Paying attention to, color, form, negative space, environment, facial expressions, and the relationship that the body has with the objects it is mimicking. Ideally, I would like to start shooting my series in a studio spaced with controlled lighting and possibly a white background and displaying these as a series of two or more images together.

Monday a.m. Artist Post 4/20

Associated with the Fluxus movement and an avant-garde inspired artist, renowned artist Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo, Japan on February 18, 1933. The Fluxus movement was founded by George Maciunas and characterized as an association of Dada-inspired avant-garde artists that developed in the early 1960s. However, Ono chose to work as an independent artist and just claimed that she had simple interest in the movement; was not a member of it. Her famous marriage to Beatle John Lennon, Ono has made quite a name for herself in the performance and conceptual art world. While living in NY with her family, Ono attended Sarah Lawrence College where she fell in love with the artistic world and became a follower of La Monte Young, a minimalist composer and a follower of performance art. It was here at Sarah Lawrence that Ono was introduced to Bohemian freedom and would soon charge her peace activist lifestyle.
Ono’s early work can be described as performance and conceptual art. For example, Ono had a gallery opening where paintings were set on the floor and were not officially complete until the viewers walked over them and smudged, smeared, and made footprints on the paintings. Characterized as an explorer of her time, Ono’s performance work is still well known today. Her very famous piece, “Cut Piece”, was performed in 1964 at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo. This performance consisted of Ono, loosely fitting clothes, a stage, a pair of scissors, and an eager and willing seated audience. This piece was described as a “performance in Tokyo by walking on stage and casually kneeling on the floor in a draped garment. Audience members were requested to come on stage and begin cutting until she was naked.” Ono used her performances to solicit help from others to help her form a clearer self-identity. An article from the Media Art Net explained that “Cut Piece entailed a disrobing, a denouement of the reciprocity between exhibitionism and scopic desires, between victim and assailant, between sadist and masochist.”
Ono’s early exploration of performance work, was during a time where series and more abstract performances were not as popular and readily available for the public. Ono began to get out the point of performance work though her book titled “Grapefruit” which was a book that was made up of several different groupings of instructions “to be completed in the mind of the reader.” These ready-made instructions she included in the book became a good basis for a solid amount of her performance work that would come in the future. She actually had a show at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY (one of her instruction based pieces) and because her fan following was getting larger by the day, the show was almost closed due to a fan riot.
On June 6, 2009 Yoko Ono and John Baldessari will be awarded the prestigious Golden Lion at the 53rd Venice Biennale 2009 for Lifetime Achievement. In the article Ono is explained as one who “shaped our understanding of art and its relationship to the world in which we live.” Also, a few years ago, “Yes Yoko Ono” her First American Retrospective” showed from October 18, 2000 to January 14, 2001 at the Japan Society Gallery.
Ono is described as a performance artist who uses her art to communicate her internal suffering with her audience. Her reasoning and emotions behind her work remind me of what goes into my performances. My performances encompass something personal going on in my life and then are translated metaphorically through performance art. I feel that I can learn a good amount more from her and her large role that she still plays in the contemporary art world.
Wikipedia Article
Article: Venice Biennale
Media Art Net Article
"Yes Yoko Ono" Article

Thursday a.m. Idea Post 04/16

Using artist research at last minute.

Sunday as I was becoming increasingly more worried about the presentation of my performance work for both exhibition panel and the juror, I decided to fall back on some previous performance artists I have looked at in the past few weeks. In my last working critique with the class I got a good amount of feedback concerning the one image, the “relic” image, which I decided to place with each series. After that critique I re-shot a few of the “relic” images but then became lost when figuring out how I could incorporate them with the performance series it belonged to. Some suggestions I got during the critique actually involved having the “relic” being present with the work at the show opposed to having it documented as a photograph. So Sunday night, the night before I took all of my images to the printer, I found myself looking at how performance artists show their work and how they essentially sell their work. Because performance work is definitely a “in the moment” genre of art, it can be a great challenge to exhibit the work to its fullest. One artist, Aine Phillips from Ireland, had her website set up with multiple images from the set, the performance itself, and also after images for many of her performances. I really enjoyed getting to see small bits and pieces of these quite elaborate performances that some time took place in multiple locations. Artists who I am very fond of, like Ana Mendieta, almost uses that sort of “relic” idea in a similar sense. For example her ‘Silhueta’ from 1975 were photographs of the imprints her body made in multiple different landscapes. Her images were in a sense the aftermath, the leftovers or result of what had just taken place.

Because of their influence on my work, and me I decided to definitely stick with the “relic” images and build them up. The series in themselves make quite a statement on their own. So for these images that will be incorporated with the series will be framed and matted and seen as a glorious keepsake of what the viewer is seeing in front of them.