WHAT IS ART?

PHOTOS OF FACES INTERPRETED BY DIFFERENT CULTURAL PERCEPTIONS OF BEAUTY.

R. Mutt 1947 Duchamp

Duchamp challenged us with R.e. Mutt,

many artists to day challenge us even Thomas Kinkade

Thomas Kinkade 

with his realistic light pictures that he literally mass produced.  Many people not in the art world might think any realistic picture is art sitting next to a

Jackson Pollock, Abstract Painter

Pollack or Kandinsky, but in my opinion they would be very wrong. Art is not about realism, nor do we need it to be after the invention of the camera that was no longer necessary as a prime function.

Karen Honig is a journalist from Kansas City.  She got an idea about sending a photo of her self to many different countries and asking them to make her beautiful.  (as in for a magazine shot or advertisement).  The result shows vividly our differing views of beauty depending on our own cultural background.  

The differences in culture continue to mesmerize me.  I have lived in other cultures for extended periods of time in my life.  It has led me to want to study and explore the differences of all cultures, and how those differences effect us. Colors, images, sound, and even how close you stand to a person when you are talking to them can have such different meanings.  I think it is part of what led to the idea of the "Ugly American".  Americans, at one time, were not interested or nor sensitive to cultural differences when traveling and many misunderstandings ensued. There were many a time in Asia I just wanted to crawl under a rock and hide because the horrible behavior of some Americans overseas. To me Karen's idea is a work of art, as in a conceptual view of culture.  It help us see and understand how other peoples view beauty. And I present it here as such, a conceptual work of art.  

25 FACES IN CULTURE

Karen Honig, 25 faces of beauty in culture              google image for express purpose of art advocacy

"The project, titled Before & After, originally came to Honig while she was working as a social media manager for a small startup. Her boss introduced her to Fiverr, an international freelancing website where anyone can hire freelancers from around the globe to complete almost any task imaginable. While browsing the site, Honig realized the prevalence of those offering Photoshop skills. “It immediately occurred to me that in this pool of workers, each individual likely had an aesthetic preference particular to their own culture,” Honig told BuzzFeed. Thus, the idea for Before & After was born." from Buz Feed, Ashley Perez 

WHY YOU SHOULD TRY TO UNDERSTAND TO THE ART YOU HATE!

I know what I like!

Art is in the eye of the beholder.

A child could do that! 

These are all expressions one hears about art and often it is in response to art that we either don't understand or that we have a strong reaction to.

Art is constantly evolving and changing as well as peoples reaction to art. TODAY Impressionism is still one of the most popular art forms, but only a short time ago it was rejected by the art critics and public of the time.  Impressionists had to hire their own space to show their work to even have it shown to the public. Before Impressionism art was less colorful and more exacting in realistic replication.  It was called sloppy, junk, and blurs in the newspapers in Paris and art collectors snubbed Impressionists artists of the day. So why the strong reaction of the critics, the public and the news papers...why were people so stunned by this new art style?

If anything, what came to be called Impressionism was a natural consequence of confluent forces, social, technological, and economic, as well as aesthetic.

Monet's Water Lilly's      Impressionism      
from google only for the purposes of education

"Change was inevitable. Whenever art becomes institutionalized and rigid in terms of what is and isn’t permissible, artists are going to seek new solutions to old challenges. The history of art is a continual response to changing social conventions, political events, and cultural influences, and the second half of the 19th century in Europe was especially volatile.
Among other things, technology was developing rapidly and dramatically. Industrialization had taken hold, and the steam engine was becoming practical, facilitating rail and ship travel. Most important to the history of art, photography had made enormous strides since its introduction by Niepce and Daguerre in 1839,² and it contributed to the rise of Impressionism in a surprising way.

For the Impressionist painters photography could tell them what something looked like, but not how one saw it.

It’s easy to think of photography vs. painting in terms of reality vs. a transformed version of reality, but that’s deceptive. For the Impressionist painters photography could tell them what something looked like, but nothow one saw it. Early black and white photographs were a record of what was at the moment the photo was taken, but it couldn’t come close to replicating the experience of seeing." From the article by  by John Crowther  

Neo-Classism was the accepted art of the day
from google image for education only

So we evolve from handprints on caves to Egyptian body image to Da Vinci's anatomically correct bodies, from the Greeks' perfect proportion to raised perspective to 3 dimensional.  We learn more, we invent something else and things change along with peoples ideas about art.  Even artists disagree about what is good art and what is not.  We ask our selves the basic question of what is art.   Duchamp's r.e. Mutt presented confronted us with that dilemma.

Marcel Duchamp, Surrealist questioning " What is Art"

So do you have to like something you do not like, No.  But you do need to ask yourself why...why do I react to this?  Is it because I can 't understand it or is it another reason?  To have an open mind, to be curious and to react are what artists hope for in their public.  

Artists basically reflect our times, values, and questions back to us, that is their basic function...shaman of their times.  It may be an in your face selection, a pleasant non threatening reflection, it may ask you to think or feel or experience, but art does ask something of us.  Man will always replicate his world and environment in visual elements, as well as, reenactment as drama, and in music.  We constantly seek to understand the world around us and our experiences in that world.  Art is the first language of man and since time began we seek to increase our vocabulary.
by Elizabeth Gordon, Rms

NAME YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS OR ART WORK

Lets start the new year naming our favorite artists or art work. 
 I will go first, then you can add yours.

Charles Demuth       Engine Number 5

Rauschenberg  Monogram
Claus Oldenburg  French Fries
Van Gogh        Starry Night
Calder             Circus
Cornell            Everything he did
Monet             Water lilles 
Duchamp         Re Mutt
Dali                 Psychedelic Toreado 
Picasso           Bull with Bicycle Handlebars
Demuth          Engine Number 5
Johns              Orange and Green American Flag

MAN RAY
hApPy bIrThDaY!

august 27 

from google image

"In 1915, Man Ray met French artist Marcel Duchamp, and together they collaborated on many inventions and formed the New York group of Dada artists. In 1921, Ray moved to Paris and became associated with the Parisian Dada and Surrealist circles of artists and writers. His experiments with photography included rediscovering how to make "camera-less" pictures, which he called rayographs." more..

Wet Dreams

Wet Dreams, Rêves Humides, sueños mojados,влажные сновидения, sogni bagnati,sonhos molhados....That is the title of my piece.

I originally had planned to do a two dimensional piece. The day I walked into the studio I walked past an antique dress form I bought years ago. It was a little more expensive than I had wanted and paid bit by bit until I had paid in full. Then it sat in my studio until I began to work on the piece for the Dali, "Liquid Desires Event". As I walked past, it seemed to call to me. I picked it up, sat it on my studio table and the soft morning light brought out the soft rounded forms of antique cotton and woman's shape. From there I began a ritual I often do for almost all of my creations...I surround myself with possibilities...I try this piece and that, like a puzzle with hundreds of combinations. Then as I work a composition starts, almost like music, it flows, to an upbeat and down, to bass and treble, then each part seems to come together and finally it all seems right and I say aha! There! I see you! And it is then all seems right with my artistic soul.
The photo above is an old image I saved from years ago. I keep a file and when something catches my eye, I keep it, never knowing at the time where it will find its home. The close up is also the pupil of an eye, a double vision that Dali used so often. You also see circles and dots floating thought the piece as a method of unifying the images. I have always loved Dali's painting of his dead brother that is made with a series of dots, and also again in the The Hallucinogenic Toreador

there are dots that begin to transform into other images.On the rear of the Assemblage is an early picture of a Javanese woman from an old 1930's photo almbum I bought at an antique store. The album was filled with photographs of a wealthy man from Miami who evidently traveled the world. Her image is mysterious, looking out at you from the past. She wears a sarong and no top. As you may notice her breast are rounded and circular that repeat again in shape like the circles that transform into her face and then in to black circles.

The black netting has many meanings, like a Spanish woman's mantilla, a fisherman's net, a sexy woman leg hose...but for me it has even more personal meaning-it was my Aunt Josephine's hair net from the 1950's.

This is a close up of a porcelain hand that was originally a glove mold. A close friend bought it for me hoping some day I would use it in art work. On this side of the porcelain hand I had done photo transfers of a crowd scene in Asia. I wanted the repetition of circles, the Asian influence, and the high contrast of black and white. I also wanted the mystic of the past.
On the back side of the dressmakers form the netting does an interesting thing I had not first noticed, it takes the form of a woman's thighs and legs. Sitting above the dress form is an old drawer to a peddle sewing machine. My Mother was an an accomplished seamstress among many of her talents. In another view you will see a close up of the metal and stone artifacts on the sewing drawer which have phallic and sexual references as much of Dali's art does.
The miniature glass bottles refer back to a assemblage art that Dali did with a black coat and shot glasses filled with green alcohol. These were originally a watchmakers collection filled with parts for repairing watches.
Dadaism evolves into Surrealism in a time when the world seemed askew, not unlike the present. Dali, Breton, Duchamp and Giacommeti were influenced by the times that seemed so chaotic and the thinkers of the day. Freud's psychological theories of dreams symbology and sexuality all play into the art that they are creating. If you are interested read more about the revolution of objects and Nadja. This work of art is influenced and gives a nod to these men and their times. I find myself very comfortable in the world of surrealism. As I look back at my art over the years I think I have been a surrealist more often than not.