Guest Lecturer

Aunrico Gatson came and give a lecture for us last Thursday about his work. When I had walked into the lecture hall he was already well under way presenting and had one of his video pieces already playing. I will be honest in saying I wasn't totally impressed with what I initially saw. Then he spoke. I was even less impressed. With an name as fancy as Aunrico Gatson I was expecting some energetic and spicy individual who just loved to talk. Instead I found a man who was well groomed and shy. He fumbled a lot with his thoughts and words and sometimes didn't even make sense. He also seemed to forget a lot of the names of his pieces. He made some awkward jokes and tended to laugh at himself a lot. I did find him pretty funny I'll admit because he was just so damn honest about things! I could tell he was super nervous but dude at least take some notes! All the video pieces he showed seemed very amateur to me and looked like something anyone could make if they had a simple video program. The pieces didn't even seem very thought out aside from 'oh this just looks cool with I'm put them like this.' Sure, the videos created stimulating images, but the concept behind it just falls short. It shook me a little to find that all the videos he took clips from were videos that were extremely racist towards blacks and he is a black man. It wasn't exactly explained why he chose any of these videos or what their purpose was in terms of his work but I can't really find any sort of logical reason myself for picking such films...

I did, however, like his other work such as his paintings and sculptures. They seemed to have more reasoning and thought behind them and on top of it, Aunrico seemed more comfortable talking about these pieces. His personality seemed to shine through as he talked to us about these pieces because they were solely his ideas and weren't appropriated from others. Most of his paintings consisted of the same colors as the piece above or were all black and white with a splash of red. He was fairly limited in terms of exploration but he seemed to at least know what direction he was going with his art and found a style that worked for him. I mean, hey, he's had 5 or 6 exhibitions and he seemed to not even be working for very long. Maybe 10 years? I looked up his OCD dot work and it's really beautiful. I actually enjoy looking at those pieces over almost all of his other work. The dots are just so time consuming and almost mind-numbing that I can't help but appreciate it more. It was hard to tell where he was joking and where he was telling the truth, but I kind of admire the reason for doing art is because he was just sitting around and was like 'wow. I need to make some art.' I do nothing but make art because I'm going to school for it and sometimes it's a little exhausting and since I make so much of it, I sometimes always don't want to make it. When I have spare time I don't always think 'man I need to do some more art.' Whether he was joking or not, that was somewhat inspiring to me. And the fact that he picked something so tedious is inspiring that much more.

As with his videos, it's hard for me to determine whether Aunrico is somewhat glorifying black abuse, bringing attention to it, or showing how it's wrong. His videos seem to glorify it with all it's psychedelic style. His paintings involving black individuals are both neutral but also grab your attention like the piece above called Nape of the Neck, Small of the Back. To me, it's a hard read. The colors are fairly bright and vibrant and outside of my association with whippings as painful, I feel nothing towards this piece in terms of my view of black slavery outside of being subjective about it. Sure I could look up an explanation of the piece, but should I really need to do that about a work of art based on a topic like this? 

I felt bad listening to him talk because he seemed to be so gifted and talented and really had a lot of thought put into his pieces but I believe he felt very crunched for time. Throughout his lecture, from about halfway to the end, he kept saying how he wouldn't explain everything because he didn't want to keep us long. I would have loved to hear thorough explanations of all his pieces because he put so much thought into them that glazing over them with a shortly worded explanation doesn't give them justice. He seemed uncomfortable answering questions about his art. Anything that was about a specific piece he would start out with a confident response, but then slowly weeny out and come out with babbling words that didn't make sense. I feel like many people who sat in that lecture are going to give him a harsh critique because he presented himself poorly. But I believe if he was confident with his work and comfortable with us, our opinions of him would totally change. As someone who is very shy and hates talking, I have to give the man some slack and applaud him for standing up there because I don't like giving my opinions in front of people I'm not comfortable with.

 I feel like I could have really learned from him had he of been more confident with what he was showing us. What I've taken from his lecture is that I shouldn't see art as a chore, but something I want to do. I should be confident in all the work I do because if I don't, my ideas won't come off as I intend them. And what I really liked from his presentation was that he refers to himself as a maker, not a painter or a sculptor or anything. A maker or art. A maker of art allows a person to be more well rounded and free of limitations. It makes me want to explore all the talent I have in all the areas I can.

Naked Night

As part of class, we had to go to the MFA thesis show called "Naked Night". This show took up all 3 rooms in Tyler's small gallery. The name of the show itself is enough to give someone a certain expectation of what they would find on the inside but all expectations will be let down, in a good way, by what's actually going on. From outside the gallery, the rooms all appear to be empty. But upon walking in you find very little in the first room and since the second room is blocked off, it leaves you hoping to be bombarded with some answers in the next. There was a scattering of items on the floor such as shoes, an ash tray, jars, vases, records, and grapes. To the one side items were placed on black yoga mats and cider blocks on the other. The items on the black yoga mat were completely covered in what I'm assuming is black paint. Each item was evenly spaced and given it's own spot on the mat; nothing was on top of each other or sharing a spot with another item. The items ranged from being unrecognizable to being the actual object without being modified. On the other side, items were placed on cinder blocks. There were little wooden sticks on the cinder blocks (which was in a semi-circle) that, if I remember correctly, were the colors of the rainbow. There was also the bristles of the broom and another black object. Placed away from this semi-circle of cinder blocks was a small stack of cinder blocks that had what almost looked like crushed charcoal spread over it. In the center of the room was a peace sign made out of rope. In the center of the dividing wall was metal rods that spelled out "I <3 U 4E" which one can only assume means I love you forever.

The second room you walk into with hopes of getting some answers as to what the first meant, only to find even less in this room than the first. There's a poorly made table that is holding up a marble slab with some sort of crater-like thing in the center of it that I really can't give a name to. There is a piece of paper that is torn a little on the table and I'm not really sure whether it wasn't supposed to be there or if it was intentionally put there. I looked around and there was nothing but a few spot lights on this poor excuse for a table. I didn't really notice until I came out of the third room that there was a black flag hanging on the dividing wall between rooms 1 and 2. The flag is held from a single point making it almost impossible to see the ying and yang symbols on the flag. 

The third room is dark and lonely. A single wall is lit up with a blurry looking projection. It's really slowed down. There's a new overwhelming sound in the room. But in reality, it's always been there but now it isn't just a background. You can tell they're supposed to be words. There's a somewhat meditative quality to the words that are slowed down so much it's impossible to comprehend. There is a white and black woman and what I think is an Asian man. There is a lot of tension between the two women. The black woman is doing a dance. The Asian man pops up and turns his head, his mouth going along with the slowed down words. At the end, the women have a passionate kiss and the white woman looks at the screen as if to challenge the audience. 

There are links between all the rooms but they are somewhat easy to overlook. For one thing, the sound is heard throughout all the rooms. The less stuff in the room, the louder the sound is. There is a similarity in a photograph on the wall in the first room of the mixed race couple in the video in the third room. The black from the first room is found in the second room on the ying yang flag. The marble on the table in the second room resembles a photograph in the first room that one could easily claim was marble. The ying yang symbols on the flag go with peace just like the peace sign, perhaps even the yoga mats. The yoga mats go along with the meditative feel you get in the third room. These parallels are small things. Things one might easily overlook and think nothing about if they missed a part.

Everything just feels very empty and solemn. But is that because there isn't much in the gallery? Is that because galleries always feel that way to me? Or is this the feeling she created? How am I actually supposed to feel about it all? How am I supposed to read it? There are so many things one could draw from this exhibition. I think everyone can draw that it has to do with a lesbian relationship, but that's only if you look very very closely and think about it. Is this a statement for or against a homosexual relationship? The black and lack of color could be interpreted as sinful or as mournful. The blurriness and slow-motion of the video could be interpreted as our blurred views in society or it could be viewed as craziness as if people were on drugs to consider this type of relationship. I don't really know which side to fall on.

Good art doesn't always need to have a clear message, but it at least needs to be able to communicate to it's audience. I'm sure there were handfuls of people that left feeling moved and inspired. I will be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what was going on in there. Maybe it's because I'm narrow-minded. Or because I don't think everything should be considered art. I don't really know the answer. But as I walked around that gallery I was confused. It's taken me days to even come up with this because I've dwelled on the title and it's really not even a reaction with much substance; I'm rambling. There were many parts that were just utterly confusing to me. The piece of paper on the marble counter top, the difference in the items on the mat, and what the table was supposed to be. There is a very strong message here; I know there is. But it's just in some foreign language.

Museum Vist

Another museum visit assignment! I decided that in case we need to visit the piece again it would be in my best interest to go somewhere where I know the piece will always be there no matter how many times I visit.

So today I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with everyone else and their mother. I spent a decent amount of time in there navigating through crowds and trying to find the perfect piece to write about. Tons of pieces caught my eye and I must have walked around and sat with about 5 or 6 different pieces multiple times before I decided on this one. The Agnew Clinic by Thomas Eakins was the winner.

I did a small amount of research on it because I was curious about it. Thomas Eakins is an American artist who actually lived and worked in Philly (which is a bit more appealing to me than other artists). This piece was completed in 1889 for the Medical Class of 1889 who would be graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. The subject matter is fairly self-explanatory, but what I found fascinating was why it was painted in the manner that it was. In the source I was looking at The Agnew Clinic was compared to an earlier piece Eakins had done called The Gross Clinic. The reason the two were being compared was because of the contrast between the two in terms of the one being really dark and the other being lighter. In  The Gross Clinic, Dr. Gross is wearing dark clothes that he might typically wear on any ordinary day. When compared to The Agnew Clinic, the manner in which the doctors are working seems very unorganized. In The Agnew Clinic, on the other hand, Dr. Agnew is in a clean, white outfit. The doctors are also in white and a nurse is present in their group. The reason? In 1875 when Eakins had worked on The Gross Clinic, antiseptic surgery and hygiene wasn't as big of a deal as it was in 1889. Due to this new interest in hygiene, Eakins painted the doctors in a more "sterile" manner (lighter colors/white). Eakins also made the compositions pretty similar on purpose to show this contrast between the two. Interesting stuff. 

The Gross Clinic

I had somewhat gotten lost when I was in the PMA so I'm not exactly sure where the heck I was when I found this. All I remember is that this enormous painting was to the left of a doorway and, if I remember correctly, was the only piece on that little section of wall. Standing in front of the piece made me feel small. The doctors were a little less than life size, but it was still somewhat creepy. And, if my memory serves me correctly, this piece may have been the biggest piece in the room. The scale of it was something that really attracted me to the piece. I'm a bigger fan of larger pieces that I can still appreciate from far away as well as up close. With smaller pieces I hate how much detail or color I lose when I walk further away from it.

 I think one of the things I rather like about this piece, or rather what I find very amusing, is that the elderly man (Dr. Agnew) kind of looks like a baker or a chef to me. Which is comical to me because he's performing a surgery. To me it just looks like he's about to make a delicious meal in front of a studio audience. I also rather enjoyed looking at the different faces of the people in the class. They aren't as detailed as the people in the foreground, but each person is an individual with a different look and a different expression. The people range from boredom and being asleep to attentiveness. Most of the people seem to be uninterested though, which is interesting. I think I liked everything about the piece. I like the way it was painted. I like the composition. I like the colors. I like the feel of the piece. I dare say I love this piece. It's big. It's dealing with a subject matter I'm really interested in. The colors aren't overwhelming. It has enough detail that it looks realistic, but not so realistic that I can still appreciate it as a painting and not a photograph. Every part of this piece looks like it was worked on with careful observation and isn't generalized. I love it!

 But what really got me was that the 4th time I had sat with this piece was that the room smelt like death with a combination of gagging perfume that smelled like chemicals. Someone must have nuked the room or was carrying around a corpse... Whatever the case, it made my decision to pick this piece a sure thing. Having that terrible smell around me when I was looking at the piece made me feel like I could have been a student in that class watching this surgery happen. To me, if that room didn't have the death smell more powerful than that chemical smell, it would have smelled exactly like Hahnemann Hospital's morgue. This association of smell reminded me of my visit to the morgue with my forensics class my senior year. I'm really interested in forensics and all that goes along with it so seeing something that, to me, looked immediately like an autopsy caught my attention in a heartbeat. The body laying on the table is what initially caught my attention and brought me to look at the piece. That's also probably ultimately what made me decide on this piece as opposed to the others.

I heard people talking about how the piece was disgusting and wanting to know why someone would want to paint anything like this. Others were about two finger-lengths from the piece talking in a technical manner about how it was painted. I don't think I saw one person pass by it who didn't look at it. I think this will end up being that one piece I have to go and seek out every time I go to the PMA for the rest of my life.

Mid-Term... sorta...

I had missed my mid-term crit so I decided to put up the work that I have in my possession and can find at the moment so my teacher sorta has something to reference... even though I missed class 'cause I was sick :/
I also don't have an insane amount of work because I missed one figure drawing class....

In order:

 Obstruction Drawing: Acrylic

Black Drawing Without Using Black Fail: Chalk Pastels

(teacher has the better one!)

In-class Still Life Drawing: Oil Pastels

In-class Figure Drawing: Chalk Pastels

In-class Figure Drawing: Chalk Pastels

In-class Figure Drawing: Oil Pastels

In-class Figure "Remix" Drawing: Vine Charcoal

Figure and Pattern Drawing: Oil Pastels

Maggie

Assignment: Draw a figure surrounded by patterns. Figure can either be nude or clothed. Must be 5x5 feet

Again, a late assignment... This is a drawing of my suitmate Maggie done in oil pastels.

The color never looks as good on a computer or in a photograph....