Modern Art Blog

ANDY WARHOL: IMAGES OF AN IMAGE

The features of a face have been repeated 10 time in black in two horizontal rows. The rest of the surface is covered in silvery white paint. The work is entitled 10 Lizes, painted by Andy Warhol in New York in 1963. He enjoyed a career as a commercial artist. He cut out ads in newspapers and used them as his subjects. He collected pictures of actors since his childhood. He selected a picture of Marilyn Monroe and used it to print a whole series producing many versions of the original picture. Her face made Warhol famous. He began with a simple idea, the immense power images have acquired in out society. He cropped pictures, simplified them, colored them, etc. and continued this technique. He also took an interest in Elizabeth Taylor. He produced a silk screen image of one her pictures. He silk screened a picture of her with her husband and another couple. He reproduced the front page of the daily news covering Taylor’s breakup with her husband. He also created a large canvas depicting Taylor as Cleopatra. He also used pictures of her from 4 years prior to create more silkscreens. For 10 Lizes, he had a screen and canvas made and covered with silvery white paint. He applied his frame to the surface 10 times. He reused the same silkscreen frame on different colored backgrounds, according to the same principle as the Monroe motif. This printing represented a brilliant commercial idea; he could reproduce images and meet clients needs in no time. The repetition causes a sort of dizziness; it distracts the eye and eliminates the initial exceptional nature of the original photograph. He also took an interest in other celebrities. He produced many variations of the Mona Lisa and Jackie Kennedy. His loft on 47th St was used as his studio and became known as the factory. It became a place for artists to hang out. He was obsessed by the idea of celebrity. He also published his own magazine and made a film with Liz Taylor in Rome. He had become an international superstar. He decided to use polaroid pictures as a basis for some works. Rich clients were willing to pay a small fortune for their portraits. In his portraits, only the basic traits of the face survive. Silkscreen printing erased Taylor’s smile. She no longer has a complexion, color, or skin. There is no feeling or radiance, just an imprint. Death was one of Warhol’s main themes. Plane crashes, car accidents, electric chairs, suicides, and human skulls were some themes. 

UNCERTAINTY: MODERNITY AND ART

Art has it’s own memory of itself. In it we see human consciousness changing, idealized versions of what we could be if we were better than ourselves. We see an unquestionable set of values carried through art. But then art changes, because everything changes. WIth industrialization, art changed. Modern life eventually emerges. Consumerism arises and new ideas change how we live. We then see art as it describes us and freedom to be what we want to be. The big thing that modern art tells us is that there is no single code for living, the burning thing to us is uncertainty. What will future civilizations see when they look back to us and art? A changed society. They will be interested in how we showed ourselves to ourselves. Art becomes the conductor for changing values. Modern art is a tradition when art is transformed. It never stops changing, it keeps responding to the same problem; modern life. Because its difficult, people wish it would pull itself together. Modern art took off when they felt art had to go deeper than mass culture. Hitler tried to make art exist in a world where it never really can. We live in a world where nothing lasts and doubt exists. Modern art became an icon for moral goodness. Abstract art is where the look of the world is left behind and you’re in an experiment where you’re being asked to see beyond the illusion that art has always dealt with. An abstract artist says, this is the experiment, what is it telling you? We’re uncertain because we know there’s an inner light. Modern materialists take an interest in their urban environment. Their shapes and designs are intriguing to them. Artists were outcasts because they couldn’t accept the values of consumerism. We can measure our individuality by the consumer products that surround us. We learn to live with the doubt that goes along with it. This feeling is communicated in art through pop art. There is a change from a belief in higher values to accepting that we really don’t believe anything. There is no reliable truth except that nothing is true is a theme of pop art. We look at our own disillusion. Modern society disillusioned abstract artists. Consumerism says there are no values except the values of the free market. We should look within and see new freedoms mean there is no high and low anymore, we are all the low. We think out art is weird but we’re weird because civilizations model of art has changed. We see new dreams and questions we’re ready to ask now. We look, we think, we enter the future. 

THE POWER OF ART: ROTHKO

9 paintings by Rothko arrived at London’s Tate Gallery after his suicide. Money follows art. There is nothing a painter wants more than a wealthy patron. Representing American, another 5 of Rothko’s paintings were in tour in Europe. He was the greatest living American painter. His was commissioned to provide paintings for the Four Season’s restaurant in the Seagram Building. THe architect approached Rothko about his work to decorate his restaurant. In exchange for paintings, they agreed to pay Rothko 35,000 which is about 2.5 million today. Rothko thought long and hard about this because he was insecure about American capitalism. He was born in Russia in 1903. Beating up Jews filled his memory and took over his childhood. He was brought up by his mother among his arrival to the city after his father has died. He went to school, read every book he could get his hands on, and played instruments. He wanted to please his mother. He dropped out of Yale. He had a creative itch and thought art could change the world. He really believed this which is why 30 years later he couldn’t walk away from the Seagram job, the greatest challenge of his career. He rented space in an old gym and went to work. As he started work, he envisioned the Seagram murals as a teaching, a tribute to modern life. He taught kids at a Jewish community center to make ends meet. He dabbled in expressionism. The Subway serious were the first painting that would catch you off guard. The people have a compelling strangeness. He insisted that his paintings reflect the values of society. There was no interpretation to his art. He wanted to establish human values, nothing related to psychology. It’s about and of the world. Sexuality to irony to death and a sense of tragedy is what he painted. He he almost completed work on the Seagram job by 1959. He had always wanted to give his paintings the emotional force of the old maters. He visited Michaelangelo’s library for inspiration on the Seagram murals. They were both after the same feeling. He [Michaelangelo] made the viewers feel that were trapped so all the could to was hit their heads against the wall forever. This is the feeling Rothko wanted to give the people who ate in the Seagram restaurant. He had become the maker of paintings that were powerful and complicated. His feeling he’d been striving for finally revealed itself. They were unmistakably deep. What Rothko makes his paintings do had an effect on our senses. They come and get us and we surrender. He stated that his paintings would be hanging in a place where the richest people would come and dine with them. There were things about the commission that were challenging in a positive way. He wanted to work in a public space, his place. A curator came to invite him to exhibit in a fair in Germany. He offered to paint for free if this curator built a chapel of expiation for the Holocaust. It never happened. With success, his life got shabbier. He developed alcohol problems and his chain smoking brought him lung and heart problems. His work got darker and more intense just as modern art was going. His work was always an alternative to pop culture. He was defensive and angry. He went raven black, as black as Texas oil. He created murals, only in black. But before he died, these murals took a turn and evolved slightly with added shades of gray. 

ISAMU NOGUCHI: THE SCULPTURE OF SPACES

The idea he had, he never lost. It’s an overall concept for treating the earth. Everything else comes out of sculpture. Self expression didn’t interest him enough. Sculpture was something different than painting. He wanted to extend what sculpture may be. He went around the world and landed in Japan. A new era started there. He found gardens upon stone gardens. This took on aspects of sculpture, as evidence of sculptural instinct. The UNESCO garden was his first big chance to do something outdoors. It was his homage to the Japanese gardens. There is a youth to his madness. It is a humanizing of sculpture. It is something a part of peoples lives and it comes from his own background, the need for belonging. He always felt uncertain as to where he belong and was always looking for someplace where he would be at home. This holds many clues to his interest in sculpture and his feeling of isolation. He became the typical American. He was in NY when he was out of high school. He was nobody but people wanted to help him. He got a scholarship and went to Paris. He returned to NY dead broke. This influenced his work and how he thought. Noguchi was summoned to Miami to redesign Bayfront Park. His work spanned 2 generations. His late works were covered on the news coverage, giving the public insight to the work he can potentially do. However, he threatened to quit unless city commissioners tore down the public library. The light will become more apparent. It was hidden by the library. The library was ripped down. Art has to do with discovery of the character of a place and enhancing it. It’s the differences that make the difference, not the sameness. Work began on Bayfront Park. He is constantly moving from one medium to another as a manifestation to sculpture. He is always concerned with peripheral relationships and perimeters. He spent time working on the shape of the lake before he got to the business of the fountain. His playground sculpture steps outside traditional art and work that can be found in a museum. He wanted to create something that can be useful to people. His water sculptures reveals that imperfections are better than perfections. We can’t perfect nature because nature is perfect with those specific imperfections. Noguchi perfected Jerusalem. His sculpture respected the Holy City. He built three hills in the sculpture garden. You must climb up. As you ascend, you come face to face with the sculpture as the sculptor wanted it to be seen. The gardens he lives in represent a celebration of life, just by it’s mere creation. Elements refpect serenity and calmness. The composition that nature completes is a way that no one can imitate. This is real sculpture. The energy of matter and grass create a harmony and appreciation of life. When he was first given the commission of the Moere Numa Park in Japan, he was excited. He created a 3-D relationship between pieces.