Tuesday, December 13, 2005 9:25:16 PM
Have you ever read Insomnia by Stephen King?
I am less than a fourth into it right now and I have to say it is making me feel like I am suffering from insomnia. That's not saying that King is a bad writer, in fact I think it is saying just the opposite. I am really feeling the main characters pain. Talking about it right now is making me yawn. So far so good though, if you get a chance to pick it up please do.
"Please God, just forty winks," he muttered as he turned off the light, but he strongly suspected that this was one prayer which was not going to be answered."
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 6:16:15 AM
art, blog, me, blogging
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Do older styles of art have any place in the Contemporary art scene??
Recently I had the opportunity to listen in on a lecture given by the curator of Artists Space gallery (http://www.artistsspace.org/) located in New York City. The title of the lecture was something like emerging artists and art. What I was expecting to hear was this mans perspective about what was on the cutting edge of art and which artists were pushing these things. However, the lecture seemed to be predominantly focused on advertising Artists Space, which doesn’t seem necessary considering some of the now famous artists who were once affiliated. Cindy Sherman (www.cindysherman.com) for instance, who is very well known in the photography world for being not only the photographer but also the subject of all her photographs; not only showed work at Artists Space early in her career but also worked there as a secretary. Despite the speakers inability to communicate with enough eloquence to keep all of his audience awake, there was something said that I thought was worth thinking about.
Someone had asked him a question which led to him attempting to define contemporary art as it is seen by Artists Space, although his definition wasn’t exactly clear to me, there was an interesting mention of Robert Rauschenberg (www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/rauschenberg_r.html) and his current work. The question he posed to us was, “If Rauschenberg were to make something in 2003, would we consider it contemporary, or just an echo of his work done before it?”
The question that had spawned in my mind from this question was, “If Rauschenberg is making the same type of art now that he was in the late 50’s and 60’s, is his art still relevant to art?” I think his art can still affect people, although the affect is probably proportional to the amount of his art the viewer has been exposed to. That is to say the more of one artist’s work you see, the more stale it becomes. On the other hand, if you take a look at Picasso you will see someone who was constantly reinventing themselves and always pushing art to a new level. So, at least two different factions exist on the matter, the static and the dynamic.
I would guess that any given individual’s point of view would decide whether or not static or dynamic mattered when viewing art. Some may say that it does not really matter how art affects art, but only how it affects people, where as others may say art is most important in how it influences other art. I would say that it is inevitable that old art will always feed new art, and that there must always be an evolution present for fear of a regularity like Egyptian art had held for several thousand years. In the end I think that maybe the most important factor as far as relevance is concerned is a works ability to engage a culture or group of people on a spiritual level; not spiritual as in religious, but spiritual as Kandinsky might define it.
“In his writings Kandinsky emphasizes this superiority in advancing toward what he calls the epoch of the great spiritual.” (http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kandinsky.html)[/FONT]
Monday, November 28, 2005 1:20:09 PM
blog, blogging, general, life
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It seems to me that an appropriate way to start things off here is a little rant about who and where I am right now.
I am 22 years old and I have lived in the same county (For those of you who think I forgot to put an r in county, I didn't) my entire life. I'm not exactly sure that it is sad yet to anyone else, but I am slightly ashamed. Rural IL has been my prison for all this time, and I am sorry to say that convenience has held the key to my cell thus far. In the big picture, where I live is a pretty strange place. The commercial hierarchy starts somewhere around "Tractor Depo.", moves up to "Rural King", and tops off at what the area perceives as god of merchandise, the ever popular "Wal*Mart" (a.k.a. culture killer) The main industry in my small town is the local dairy queen, which means that this little town doesn't really contribute much at all on the whole of things. There is a cole mine, however, and I believe I am related to at least 25% of the employees. If you drive 5 minutes in any direction you will see at least 5 corn fields, and the local cinema is literally a big red barn. It's a place where everyone is partially racist and only some deny it, although, how can you even be surprised when you can count the number of races represented here using two fingers, and you can count the population of that minority using the same two fingers. If the United States is the "melting pot", where I am at is the empty ladle.
Good news though, only one semester left.
-Pip Andrew
My Opera
