Sontag Writing

Plato- believes art not useful and not true

Aristotle- does believe art is useful as therapeutic and purges dangerous emotions

This brings in form and content= giving meaning

Our brains are always trying to make sense of things and using our familiar to start filling in the gaps and we constantly constructing up something that we can understand. Interpret.

“ Rules of Interpretation” –Things are therefore altered now through this

-it must be also evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness.

We can never go back to the time before theory we will always be justifying things and feel the need to defend it. I feel that many artists try to achieve this idea of being unconscious, but I feel that could never be really completely pure.

Art w/o implications – not possible!

“To understand is to interpret. And to interpret is to restate the phenomenon, in effect to find an equivalent for it.” (Paragraph on Freud & Marx)

Agnes Martin Video

• She paints with her back against the world
• starts to paint after she is inspired
• She mentioned that artist today get inspired but by the time they get to the canvas 50 more ideas pop up into their mind.
• know what you want
• she mentions education being bad because it makes you think that everyone can do it that way and succeed
• art is made through inspiration
• todays art is mostly ideas> conceptual art
• the only real high art left that is pure is music, its abstract
• art is a response to the emotional

I feel I can safely agree to what Martin says very easily. She is simple and right to the point.

"It takes a while to get the hang of it, to learn to listen carefully to what an artist is saying, to suspend judgement, to avoid thinking about whether or not you can "use" the art you're looking at."

"I needed to find out what the work's terms were, and then see if I could stretch my own understanding to meet them."

-A short life of trouble

Forty years in the New York art world

By Marcia Tucker

Mechanical Reproduction- Benjamin

"We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art." - Paul Valery, Pieces sur L' Art, 1931

This was a very long article that I had to read a few times in order to grasp it all with understanding. The comparison of marxism vs. capitalism to printmaking, photography, and film was a bit overwhelming. I see though how printmaking started to change the way of the art world and where that took us from there. This all was the outcome and start of the mechanical reproduction. This was a great thing to happen to the American people and the world, mass production was the answer. We want more, faster and begin to lose a sense of tradition and the unique existence of a piece of art. Benjamin talks about the aura of a piece has been lost through the mechanical reproduction. Each time a piece of is reproduced it is degraded more every time until it becomes nothing more than part of the mass media.

Death of the Author-???

The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes really is the death of the author. This reading was spent mostly looking up words and by the end of it all I did not retain any of the information read. I am not clear on exactly what this article is about. Can someone please explain what Barthes last sentence is talking about? I feel like this information went right over my head with the language and vocabulary used in it.

Critique Me!

• September 22, 2010- Michael Wyshock
• October 7, 2010- Nathan Skiles
• October 11, 2010- Kim Russo
• Between this time I have had Studio visits with Michael Wyshock, but do not have exact dates.
• November 4, 2010- Kim Russo and Britany Hollinger
• November 11, 2010- Kevin Costello
• November 18, 2010- Nathan Skiles
• December 1, 2010- Chris Gentile

- I have had studio visits with the following people throughout this semester but did not record the dates:

• Vanessa Meraz- some time in September 2010
• Harmony Hammond- some time in late September 2010
• Jeremy Fisher and Therese Mcpherson
• Kris Brian
• Jill Hoffman

Getting to the core of it all...

Why am I really doing this? What exactly am I trying to accomplish? I could have been very well a doctor like my parents wanted, I could have followed through with their idea of success. Why am I telling you this now? Well I guess it is to say I am and will always be a creative thinker. I need to make art. I want to make art. The art I am about is the art that creates an environment that persuades the audience to hopefully move to change or at least think about it. Its about reaching down to the root and loving it tenderly with real affection. You may be wondering the root of what? The root of humanity. This current body of work will be made up of bringing people together, the idea of community and traditional humane connections. Take a moment to become "fleshy" to connect without the direct technological interferences and really communicate with one another face to face in the flesh. This is what I want to accomplish by my art, to make communities that connect in a direct way using the senses (touch, smell, see, hear, taste.) Maybe get back to some basics in order that we don't forget it completely. Technology has been great and opened many doors, but I do believe we should not forget how to read body language and also be able to have social interactions of everyday life. When was the last time one of you actually wrote a letter to someone by post or even received one from someone other than the bills and the "junk mail" as some refer to it? Think about it emails are great but imagine how excited you are when you do get that occasional card or personal letter in the mailbox amongst the bills and "junk mail", don't you smile?