Disagreement with the Concept of Feminism - Assignment Example

?Blog Post Pacific Standard Time: Chasing the wave in the new American Dream The exhibit at the LACMA, d Pacific Standard Time exhibits artwork that creates a discourse on modern life as it is expressed in a multitude of California lifestyles and cultures. In an interview with John Van Hammersveld, Lauren Cullen for Examiner.com revealed that his poster “The Endless Summer” would be on display within the exhibition. In the interview, Hammersveld discussed the way in which the exhibit held a post-modern view on modern life, answering the questions he put forth by saying “What is Southern California but an ever-changing dreamscape backdrop for the postmodern ideal? The psychology of the postmodern world is the continual state of change as we live in its idealist manufactured dream, built by developers” (Cullen). The poster in the exhibit reflected this statement through a number of fascinating ways. The first way in which it reflected this statement was through its graphically perfected nature, the art of the poster defined by edges that were uneven, but perfect, text that was bold, but rendered through the use of a typographically rendered font. This work was developed through the use of technology that separated the user from the medium, a brush or a knife not the connection between the artist and the medium, but the printing tools performing as the artist commanded to render what the tools were already capable of performing. The work feels manufactured, which is directly juxtaposed with the theme which expresses the freedom of the surfer. The surfer represents the extension of youth, the ‘Endless’ not only about time in a year, but about time in a life. Looking at the poster is reminiscent of the dream of the wave as it endlessly crashes against the sand, the heat of the sun as it beats out the color of the day until the ocean is a part of every moment of a day that will never end. The feel of heat, the grit of the sand, and the idea of following the waves is expressed through color and silhouette within the graphically rendered poster. Not only is the theme expressed, but the post-modern world in which technology and youth crashes into nature and defies it, is expressed. The work is an expression of a new world as it was emerging in the most socially volatile time in American history. The film that the poster was made to express was released in 1966 in the middle of a revolution that changed culture towards a more youth oriented aesthetic, even as it changed race relations, gender relations, and the relationship that the American people had with their government. Chasing the elusive dream, the next wave and a summer that never ended was emblematic of the new American dreams of freedom. Seeing this poster in the midst of the exhibit created a feeling of hope in which that dream of freedom could be discovered. See Pacific Standard Time at the LACMA which opened on October 1, 2011. (The images for the blog are easy to find, but I don’t know what parameters your professor gave you for copyrights, so I cannot help you with this. Since you didn’t submit the information until yesterday, my time to try and comply with this has been limited) Cullen Lauren. Interview with John Van Hammersveld on Pacific Standard Time. Examiner.com 30 September 2011. Web. 2 November 2011. Blog 2 Big Black Sun: The Loss of the Master Narrative within a Collective of Artists Minds The Geffen Contemporary at the MOCA is hosting an exhibition entitled “Under the Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981”. Paul Schimmel in his article on the exhibition website page quotes critic Arthur C. Danto as he discussed the idea of pluralism as “the implication that there was no longer any historical direction. That meant there was no longer a vector to art history and no longer a basis in truth for the effort to spot the historically next thing” (Schimmel). In looking at the works within the exhibit, the division of artistic direction is clearly evident and the works speak and reveal a wide variety of ideas from which their themes are derived. If there is a way to suggest a theme for the period, it would be ‘the time of confusion’ when the world was digesting all the changes of the hopeful period it had just slipped from and was trying to find a way in which to conservatively navigate the new ideas of social construction. This state of confusion can be seen through the various mediums, themes, and methods of expression that artists were using during this period. The works by Edward Ruscha that were different viewpoints of the Hollywood sign provide some context to the idea that the exhibit displayed a lack of narrative that is based upon real experiences. Ruscha is quoted as saying about the work he did painting his viewpoint on the Hollywood sign as reminiscent of a time that he spent in Venice, looking out at the sign from his window. He claimed “that he used the sign, which was visible from his Venice studio, as an indicator of the weather – if he could see it on a given day that meant the Los Angeles smog wasn’t so bad” (MOCA. The confusion of man created fog and naturally created weather is symbolic of the confusion of the ideas of the period, this quote giving a whole new perspective on the backwards view of the iconic textual commentary that the sign makes upon the landscape. A coming together of the natural world and the manufactured makes a statement about the nature of the time period and the post-modern development of an unclear narrative within the artworld. The exhibit “Under the Black Sun” can be seen at the MOCA from October 1, 2011 – February 13, 2011. MOCA. 2011. Web. 5 November 2011. Schimmel, Paul. “Under the Black Sun”. MOCA. 2011. Web. 5 November 2011 Blog 3 “Now Dig This!”: Pain and Pride Expressed in a Mixture of Emotions The work seen at the Hammer Museum within the exhibit titled “Dig This!” held a group of works that explored the work of Black artists between 1960 and 1980. These works had a great deal of emotion, all of them having some sense of connectivity to race and nation as they worked on the feelings that they had from living and experiencing that which related to their lives as a minority in which discrimination is a constant shadow over their lives. This was best expressed through the lithograph that was done by David Hammons as the image of a man is draped by the flag. The man seems to be ethnically within the minority race and is both overwhelmed by the flag, yet wears it as his nation and his source of identity. In walking through the exhibit, I felt the oppression that is symbolically expressed in the work by Hammons as it was continued through the works of the other included artists. I felt the pride of the people involved the sense of identity and inclusion within the American landscape that they felt, while having it constantly dampened by a vigil of oppression. The gloom that seemed to overshadow even the most joyous works was an ever-present narrative that ran constant throughout the entire exhibit. In choosing the Hammons work to express these feelings, the specificity of the shroud of the flag seemed to best reveal how these works spoke about the experience of being placed in a group and defined as a minority. The information on the Hammer website states that the artists featured were “part of a unique support system that involved a confluence of artists, curators, scholars, and gallerists” which shows in the fluidity of how these artworks fit together into a narrative (Hammer Museum). As I walked through the exhibit, I could sense that these artists had come together to tell a story of how they experienced the world in which they lived. The artists had a common history, even if their experiences were unique, that united them as they voiced how this had affected their life. Hammer Museum. 2011. Web 3 November 2011. Responses: 1. I find it interesting that the writer felt trepidation about going to the exhibit, but they managed to also show that they were delighted by what they found at the exhibit. This shows that the works both interested and moved them and the way they wrote about it reveals this experience. It is possible that the writer should have explored a little bit more about the works that they wrote about not understanding. The experience of the performance art pieces could have been put more into context if they had explored their meanings and wrote about them rather than merely relaying their experiences. While the information is interesting from an experiential point of view, it only reveals the uninformed perspective of the writer and has not sense that the experience had been explored outside of living it. 2. Clearly this writer had an experience that was informed and personal as they experienced the work of Edward Kienholz. The piece of work is powerful, with culturally powerful meaning. While the work was confusing at first, the use of Smartphone technology to enhance the experience was a great commentary on modern life as much as it was a good use for gathering additional information. The question that it brought to mind, however, is how would the attendee have handled the need for knew knowledge if they hadn’t had access to an advanced phone? Would they have asked someone at the exhibit, or remained in ignorance during the exhibit? Would their experience have been more personal and less constructed had they only viewed the work and not looked it up during their visit? It is a commentary on modern life that this was how the exhibit was experienced. 3. This writer expresses one of the things that is often forgotten where art is concerned: sometimes it requires an uncomfortable experience to receive the message. The interesting idea that the writer brings up, however, is that somehow this work is only commenting on things that happened in the past. I think it would be an interesting extension of the experience of seeing this work if the writer would research and find out if it truly is a thing of the past, or if the racism that is experienced in the world that we live in today is just as violent and harsh. It is clear that the writer distanced himself from the experience through a belief that violent expressions of racism are no longer occurring in the world. The truth might be a profound change in the way in which the writer sees their world, the nature of the truth revealed in this piece shedding light on the realities of today. 4 The first question that I have for this writer is, what are the views of today’ feminists? I saw a lot of disagreement with the concept of feminism, but without explaining what views the feminists’ support with which the writer does not agree. The reason that I think this is important is because the writer seems reluctant to identify with these women or what they were fighting for, but also doesn’t explain why they feel the need to express this in repeated passages. I have no problem with disagreement, but often ideas are dismissed without understanding the principles for which they stand. If the writer would either explore further what they mean and substantiate it through research, their interpretation of the experience would be more enlightening. I fully understand the idea that the feminist movement does not necessarily agree with all of the perspectives this person might have about the female gender, but I have no idea what they mean when they mean as they disassociate themselves from the movement. 5. I think this was a well written entry on how this person experienced the show. It is necessary to further explore the works before discounting them as meaningless to him because he isn’t a woman, but the perspective that they appealed to the experiences of women so were therefore difficult to relate to does seem to have some validity. However, I think the reflection on the experience of going to the exhibit does not qualify as one that was written with any sense of information. The humor of the end can be seen as having value, but other than the turn of the phrase within the work, the writer did not engage much of it through an informed experience. The baked works of art that he referred to were discussed as craft work, rather than discussing their meanings. I would ask this writer to explain the meaning of one of these pieces of art, both from his own perspective and understanding and then by looking at something that was written about them so he could more fully explore what he had experienced. 6. This blog was very well written – and completely failed to talk about the most important part of the whole experience. At the end of the blog the writer mentions meeting Judy Chicago. Why was that interview not written out and quoted so that the experience of meeting one of the artists of the exhibit could be incorporated into the writing? Maybe I am confused about these blogs, but I thought they were suppose to express something about the exhibits rather than just give an overview of the experience. I cannot begin to understand why you would not have written about Chicago’s work and related the meaning of the work with the experience of having talked to the artist. So the question that absolutely overrides my feeling about this blog is why would you not have taken such an opportunity and used it as a way to write a meaningful piece of work about the art? Read More