Fred Tomaselli at the Tang

When picking which local art show I wanted to attend I decided on Fred Tomaselli's display at the Tang on the Skidmore College campus. I decided on this because his works are a marvel and they gave him a huge time span for his show. I mean February til June, my god.

The above piece named, Echo Wow and Flutter, is truly a masterpiece, he once again uses his pills technique making this wild piece of art. It is just ridiculous.. I cannot stop looking at it, its freaky. Hes got hundreds of pills, all shapes sizes and colors and also puts eyes on some of them. Seeing this piece in real life was so cool and awing. I think how he creates his art is so creative and the attention to detail is tremendous. I can't even begin to understand where his inspiration comes from, except maybe for some hallucinogenic drugs.

This piece below is one of his pieces where he uses the human form. He has many of these but this one in particular name, Fungi and Flowers, is just so appealing. I mean the mash organs, flowers, butterflies I am so just intrigued. Not to mention he even felt compelled to throw in s downstairs organ.. I don't know whats with the sexual things to artists but this guy gets a pass. Tomaselli, after visiting his show, is truly my favorite artist.

Alright anyway, back to the art.. what is with the head part of this piece. Its like roots of both the flower he is holding and roots from his face connecting. What does this signify? Hell if I know.. the dude uses pills to form acid tripping-like art pieces. It reminds me of the movie Avatar because he is connecting to nature.. literally just like they do with the hair thingamajig. When seeing this piece up close there is just more and more things you notice. It is absolutely insane.. you see a mans' actual upper body, more eyes, a real foot inside of the outer foot I just cannot wrap my head around it.




This next piece has a slightly different taste to it but he still uses his pills. I make it seem like hes taking them.. no hes uses them to create this wild pieces. It looks like a constellation in space somewhere and the piece is named, "Leo." I suppose it is probably based around that constellation. The pills are just so perfect for this type of piece and it looks that much better in person. I don't know where he finds these pills but the color and shapes he makes to connect the stars are perfect.



There were about 20 pieces he had at the exhibition but these were a few of my favorites. I would suggest anyone who has any interest in Tomaselli's work, to go to the Tang and walk around. It would be a worth while trip and you will see how much of a genius he really is. I am by no means an art expert or even a novice but I having seen a decent amount of artwork from numerous dead or recent artists.. this guy stands out and above most.

Illustrations

Talking about drawing as a form of art in our last class got me thinking back to our original question when starting this class, What constitutes art? Can illustrating for things likes comics or movies or TV shows be considered art?
The question of purpose comes into play here. Because the reason for drawing these figures is commonly to compliment a plot. what is often missed when thinking about illustrations though is how much they in fact can mean to their respective plots.
While many comics focus on the text as a way to facilitate their humor many of these comics give us iconic images much like the one shown here of Carlie Brown.
Many of these comics' illustrations can be considered art in my opinion as it is a practice often related with art (drawing) along with a meaning associated, even if that meaning is just an attempt to make its audience laugh.

Tang Teaching museum is presently showcasing artist Fred Tomaselli. His work is very interesting containing actual objects mixed into his paintings. In this picture to the left Untitled (expulsion) he incorporates different types of pills and plants to create an intricate design.
I enjoyed this work in particular as it reminded me of a simplistic art activity practice. The image that stuck out in my mind while looking at this piece was one of children gluing macaroni to plates in arts and crafts. His work goes a step further, however, taking a simplistic idea of collage of materials into such a complex design. His work provides a unique experience and I would definitely recommend someone to check out his work.

Fiona Rae who we talked about in class recently is a member of an influential art group known as the YBAs or Young British Artists. The group originated out of Goldsmiths College. The artists are anything but young know most of them around middle aged now. The group also contains Damien Hirst who we talked about earlier this year. Although the name didn't originate until the early 90s the group started off in 1988 at the Freeze exposition which was organized by Damien Hirst. This first exposition did not receive a lot of press and was mostly an underground event. Since then many of these artists have achieved fame especially Damien Hirst.
Groups like this are important as they help to familiarize the public with more artists. If a group like this produces a famous artist more of its members will be looked at because of the success of its style.

Alison Watt

Moving into painting I was intrigued to what kind of works recent painters have done. I was absolutely captivated by Alison Watt's works. Whenever I used to doodle, even if it was just a doodle, I had great troubles with shading. What I think of shading is obviously giving your drawing depth, shadows and just plainly bring it into a 3-D world or to make it look real. Now I struggled with this.. this girl has it down. I have never seen such life like work before. Her sheets etc seem like something so plain, well she makes such a plain concept or focus on her work so
incredibly awesome.



The one above just looks like I could grab it of (even from my computer screen) and take a nap. I think she is incredibly talented and is a bringer of realistic paintings extraordinaire.

I am a computer science major so I enjoy the advancement of technology and as the years roll by I can see how computer design and graphics have soared. Now painting is very different obviously but it is still nice to know by not using technology things like this can still be created. I wish I could have visited her unveiling of her "Sheets," it would have been an experience.

Ursula von Rydingsvard

Going along with the art form of sculpting, a woman by the name of Rydingsvard caught my attention. She creates these huge sculptures that are very gothic or an older styled sculptures. Many of the pieces she created went up in public places such as Madison Square Part etc. This piece in particular intrigued me, its called Czara z Babelkami. I have not a clue what the name of it means and couldn't find a source to shed some light. However regardless the first thing I thought when I saw it was.. "Beehive!" Then quickly noticing that the "dimples" in my imaginary hive are actually faces.. maybe? Well anyhow they look like simplistic faces that are scattered all round this big orifice of backwards pyramid. It is fascinating that this structure is just completely tiled. From top to bottom, it is sectioned into small squares and I become mesmerized by it.

I believe the size of sculptures are very crucial to how you perceive them. Take a small work of say, a puppy. Now take that image of a small, stuff animal vision and blow it up so that the puppy is now 30 feet tall. I would obviously take them very differently. However I now look at it in a very different artistic manner. When pieces are much larger you can just see more of it even if you must walk around it to see everything.

Art Crimes: Graffiti Art

After lecture today, I was intrigued with the graffiti art and decided to research and find out more information about graffiti all over the world. I stumbled upon Art Crimes, an online gallery of graffiti art from the US, Europe, and many other cities around the world. This project was founded by Susan Farrell in May 1994 with a handful of photos from Atlanta and Prague. In September, after her project went public, Brett Webb teamed up with Farrell supporting the site until 2005. Art Crimes has won various awards, such as; Cool Site of the Day (1994) and Top 10 nominee for Best of the Web (1995). It has also been featured in several publications such as, Flashbacks, Newsweek, Discovery Channel, Radio France, New York Times, and USA Today. 10 years later, Art Crimes had thousands of images from 445 cities around the world. It was the first graffiti site on the net and has since inspired others to be created.

The purpose of this website was to publish and preserve the graffiti that one walks past every day. In several locations graffiti is illegal and the website does not advocate breaking the law; however, they think that this art belongs in public spaces and more legal walls should be available for these expressive artworks. Art Crimes wants support in their effort to preserve your local graffiti history. Another main goal of Art Crimes is to provide cultural and scholarly information and resources along with helping to preserve and document the constantly disappearing painting. They also want to inform people that this kind of graffiti, known as, “writing” is being done by artists who call themselves “writers” not by gangs.

Art Crimes is a collaborative and ongoing volunteer project and holds great respect for the writers and their artwork. Terms such as, "graffiti," "artist," "spraycan art," "graff," are objected by many writers. However, this website but a lot of thought into its name using the term “writer” which does not adequately set graffiti writers apart from other book authors or journalists. Also the term “graffiti” is used because it is thought to still have the most recognition and using it makes Art Crimes more findable with search engines. I found this site to be extremely interesting and full of graffiti from all over the world. It is a shame that it illegal in so many places and that it is constantly getting erased. However, this also allows for more graffiti to be created so I feel that this website does a great job preserving this art. When people think of art, graffiti typically does not come to mind but it one of the most visible art throughout cities and I will not notice and appreciate it. I also looked at the art from the different cities and it was remarkable to see all of the different artworks created and how there were some similarities and differences based on the cities. For example, many of the art in New York and LA had similar styles verses the art in Kansas which I felt a different vibe from.