Greetings fellow 3D pupils! Welcome to my sweet blog upload about none other than Chapter Three of the thrilling read, “Themes of Contemporary Art.” You may have noticed I’m well over a week behind in uploading this, thanks to a combination of horrible procrastination, slight computer/blog illiteracy, and crappy wireless. But! Nonetheless, my edition has finally arrived! My chapter is all about PLACE, so let’s start at the beginning!

The article opens with a rather poignant statement about place - “Where you hail from and where you now reside are two of the most significant facts about anyone” (Robertson/McDaniel). I find this to be especially true for us deep art kids - we need lots of references for creativity and ideas! When looking at art history, this fact is prominent when studying various culture’s art pieces. Africa wouldn’t have the Fresco paintings found in Europe, Native Americans wouldn’t have Japan’s prints, and Russia’s architecture wouldn’t resemble any of the buildings in today’s New York City. Place alters people, and people alter place. The journey between A and B gives the same affect - what influences you at the start, during the journey, and at the final destination?

Another compelling aspect addressed is the idea of maps. A world map we see today is completely different to the way the world used to look millions of years ago (yay Pangaea!) Thanks to internet/cyberspace connections, once distant places are now only a click away.

The book defines place as “…a location. A place can be as large as Africa or small as a closet. A place can be real or imagined . A place is a site of possibility, hypothesis, and fantasy - a somewhere where something might occur. Today, a place can even be a nonplace, perhaps in cypberspace. People interpret places just as they interpret other cultural images, objects, or texts. Place is a function of both perception and cognition” (R/M). Well damn! I think that says it nicely.

Two more interesting concepts were found throughout the first few pages -

One –> “It is common, for instance, to observe that an event “took place.” Saying this, we lay bare a bedrock assumption: something doesn’t happen unless it happens somewhere” (R/M).

Two –> “…suppose a women’s college became coeducational. The buildings and campus grounds would basically remain the same, but a new psychic space for the voices and viewpoints of male students would open up” (R/M) - think about it Saint Mary’s!!!!!

Before divulging further into interesting concepts/ideas, let’s look at some of the artwork by the artists mentioned in this chapter…

Anselm Kiefer

Ed and Nancy Kienholz

“Art about artificial places may examine the artificiality of real places that exist (or could exist) in the world.”

David Hockney

“Places exist out there, external and independent of our thinking about them, but the concepts we use to organize and interpret places are inventions and interventions of human thought.”

Kerry James Marshall

Mona Hatoum

Kathy Prendergast

“Art about artificial places may examine the artificiality of real places that exist (or could exist) in the real world.”

Richard Serra

Tadashi Kawamata (we should try this with all those craptastic old chairs in the sculpture studio!!!!!:D)
Roxy Paine

(<– SOOO pretty!!!! I’m trying this next autumn!) Andy Goldsworthy
Something else I found quite fascinating is that by the 1980s, every kind of artist agreed that no work is seen, understood, or analyzed “independently of its exhibition context, nor is it entirely free of the cultural connotations of the place in which the originated.” In other words a steel cube piece sitting in the middle of an empty gallery created by an Asian person is observed/interpreted/analyzed differently by someone hailing from Africa, America, the Middle East, etc.

Now, I’m sure by now at least some of you know how much I DESPISE winter. After all, I never wear pants…maybe I’ll bust out some sweats every now and then. I can NOT wait to get the hell outta here (though I do love St. Mary’s, don’t worry:)) and move my ass down South fast! Florida is my number one pick, so the next piece I found to be extremely AWESOME. Christo and Jeanne-Claude are categorized as land artists, and with this following piece, I have to agree!

“Surrounded Islands”

Basically, these guys…

used pink woven polypropylene fabric to wrap six and a half million square feet of a series of islands in Biscayne Bay, Florida. I’m also quite a fan of their piece “the Gates…”

(my favorite color is orange!!!:))

Of course, some environmentalists were pretty pissed at all the ecosystems their Island piece janked up, but I’m sure they’ll grow back…

Another artist’s approach that I found to be quite interesting came from Diana Thater, who used various architectural structures to display her large-scale video pieces. Windows, walls, floors, columns, and ceilings were used for projection viewing, rather than a screen, television, etc.

Looking back on artist Tadashi Kawamanta, one of his pieces was almost like a two-for-one special. In 1988, a piece titled “Favela in Battery Park City: Inside/Outside” was installed in New York City. In fact, it was attached to the World Trade Centers. His piece was a reflection on the contrast of urban poverty versus corporate wealth. Though it was no longer installed on September 11th, 2001, the idea speaks volumes since the idea of the World Trade Centers has been forever changed.

Another treat of photos of work? I think so!!!

Hiroshi Sugimoto

“We are touched by the fact that life, even fictional life, can take place in such narrow confines.”

(same)

Piero Gilardi

Richard Misrach

“What does it say about us that make-believe space can seem more real to us, because we know it in more intimate detail, than our neighbor’s house, a place we may have never been invited to?”

“Just as the zone between the real and the artificial is eroding, the borders between public and private have blurred.”

“A home can provide security and safety, but it can also be a place of confinement, of being bounded by rules and shut off from opportunities and possibilities outside.”
To summarize what was provided in the chapter, the following aspects of “place” were defined and discussed: meanings, value, history’s influence, imaginary, existing in the place, looking/viewing, construction/deconstruction, placeless spaces, public vs. private, and the in-betweens. As the world continues to evolve in areas of technology, architecture, mapping/exploring, anthropology, medicine, law, and of course, art, the definition of place will continue to alter. It is my opinion that technology has, and is, playing the biggest part in this change. With the constant “now, now, now” attitude of cell phone texting, Facebook status/Flickr, iPods, etc. the entire attitude of the coming generations may bare little to no resemblance to our parents parents. A rather stark and unsettling thought, but one that gives a great amount of inspiration to us art kids. : )

Till next time my fellow pupils, keep it funky, keep it fresh, keep on keepin’ on.

Yours Funky,
Katie Fisher