15- Final Response: Blog

15- Final Response: Blog

Jennifer Jeong

 

            I first signed up for this class because of its title- Sculpture and the Public Imagination. My works mostly consisted of three dimensional paintings and drawings therefore I wanted to get an actual hold of information on other sculptors and sculptures. I hadn’t really had an idea of what was out there at least with the sculptures now. When I first started going to class, I thought it was going to be just a boring lecture in the classroom looking at sculptures on the PowerPoint. However, that thought came to an end pretty soon. We had more field trips then we had class and I enjoyed and learned so much more from just that experience. I also got to actually learn famous and amazing sculptors whom I never even knew of.

            When we did have class, the class was never boring. Our professor made everything interesting and got a lot of the students involved. I thought the class had a very good back and forth discussions and it was really nice having discussions about our weekly blog posts. I also enjoyed having reading leaders because we were not listening to what our professor just had to say but from another point of view from the chosen student. I was glad to have shared my thought when I had to do the readings for Maurizio Cattelan. I think the blog posts helped more to get to know the works at the field trip more because I had to dig deeper to write about them. However, it did get a little hard to keep up with them from time to time.

            Even with the challenge of getting up real early on a Friday morning, I really enjoyed the Noguchi Museum visit, MoMa, the Highline, and the lower Manhattan trip. The highlight of this class was I think the visit to the Noguchi Museum. I never even knew there was such museum in New York. Although the museum was a bit far, I fell in love with the peaceful atmosphere as soon as I entered the museum. This gave me a different perception on museums and how it could be a private space of an artist. This class actually gave me a chance to appreciate and learn about sculptures that we pass by everyday without any acknowledgment. I learned how site-specificity is important to the sculptures also. I also felt that the site could affect the sculpture either negatively or positively.  

            An issue that we discussed in class was the relationship between sculptures and the public. I thought the main issue was how public sculptures were exposed to the public yet most times exposed very unsuccessfully. I could not find one proper signage at the Highline or the lower Manhattan sculptures for example and I thought that this was very upsetting because public sculptures can have so much more potential for educating the people if it is done the right way. I had a friend who lived right on Wall street and never knew what the sculptures were and who they were by. Also I have been to the Highline a number of times but it was during the field trip when I noticed that I had passed by more than half of them without knowing they were even pieces by a group of artists. I believe that the public sculptures when poorly publicized and labeled could make art a waste because nobody cares because they do not understand why it is there, or what it is. Now that I know that these problems are issues of public sculptures today, I immediately look for more information when I am passing by the sculptures. Now that I know, I want to understand and actually look out for the sculptures because I am used to it now.

            I think this class really opened my eyes to the public sculptures as well as sculptures that have been around in history and today. I believe my apathy towards whatever information there is for sculptures turned in to acknowledgement and interest. I’ve been to so many places to look at art this semester and hopefully I could continue my blog about my findings throughout New York.

14: The High Line!!

14: The High Line!!

I have been to the High Line quite a few times now but I honestly have never noticed the arts at the Highline except for the ones next to the benches. Last time I’ve been there, I was too busy eating lunch and watching Katie Holmes and Suri Cruz just chill next to me with mad paparazzi taking photos. I have never been to the start to the end of the highline. I have only been to the middle area few blocks after and before the start and the end.

The art at the Highline was somewhat “eh” despite its great purpose and site. I believe that New York really needed that Highline and it was a very smart idea to transform the old railroad tracks. However, the art at the high line was like going on a scavenger hunt. Our class even though looking at the map just went right past the sculptures and had to go back and half the time, we were wondering, “is that it?” “We found it!” It was hard even with the map our professor kindly printed and provided us.

Since the map of where all the art is located at the very beginning of the highline, I don’t even think that people could actually even know that there are permanent and temporary art up for display. I think the main problem is in the signage. Since most of these sculptures are site specific, the sculptures are made for that particular space. Since this is a park, without a signage, people are most likely to just walk right past by is because it somehow blends in with the setting and the place of the art works. The worst one to find was the Virginia Overton’s “Untitled” which I wrote a blog about before this one. Nobody would have known unless they studied the map real closely that there was a sculpture of a truck located in the parking lot that is up for view next to the Highline for the people at the park. Again, no big signage of that anything is in display. What is really sad is that there is signage on every art but it is just made to camouflage with the rails and does not grab any attention what so ever.

Other sculptures that were hard to find was Spencer Finch’s The “River That Flows Both Ways” located at the Chelsea Market Passage. They are window panels each with different shades of the river. If it would have not been on the map, honestly, I wouldn’t have thought it was part of their art collection. I think this is because this work blends perfectly in with the architectural building on the side.

Highline also had small sculptures, which was their “Lilliput”series of placing very small “Gulliver world like” sculptures. Two other sculptures were really hard to find which was the 22inch urban guy sculpture by Tomoaki Suzuki named “Carson.” I think this was because the signage was really small and behind the tiny sculpture. The other one was Allyson Vierira’s “Construction” which was bronze paper cups.

I think signage is a very important part of site-specific art because it either blends in with the setting or it pops out. The only signage I could see before I saw the artwork was of El Anatsui’s “Broken Bridge II” although the signage looked temporary. I feel like if the art is specified as “Public Art” and it is for the Public to see it, then that place has to try to grab attention to let the public know that such art work is on display with maps in the middle and attention grabbing signage. I think it is also a challenge because it is a park and people are having their leisure time. Overall, it was a great trip and it was a good last field trip to end my sculpture art history class. It was my first time going from start to the end of the park and with that said, now I know where to find art at the Highline!

 

13 Free Blog: LEE JAEHYO

13- Free Blog: Lee Jaehyo

I am obsessed with the works of Lee Jaehyo. His work arranges from wood to steel and stone. Every time I look at his work, it makes me wonder on how someone could create such a thing.

A lot of his works are in hotels around the world and I have seen some at the W in Korea a lot. My favorites are the wooden pieces. Lee cuts the trunk of the wood to create organic shapes. His doughnut shapes also reminded me of Noguchi’s marble piece at the Noguchi museum in Queens.

Born in 1965, Lee is a Korean born artist. All of his pieces are made of natural materials that come from the earth. What really interest me are the shapes of his sculptures. They are mostly all organic and this is why I think a lot of the hotels have his works permanently installed in the lobby and in their interiors. The organic shapes juxtaposed with natural materials bring serene sense of ambiance to its surroundings.

His furniture pieces, which I wish to own someday, are also fun to look at and surprisingly look very comforting even though they are made out of wood. They look very modern despite the fact that they are made out of trunks of trees, even more modern than fancy chairs made today out of synthetic materials. His stone and steel pieces are also AMAZING.

I believe Lee’s pieces work also because of its scale and how they are installed. They are very large and just amazing to look at. I wish I could own everything and all his pieces are breathtaking to look at!!!

12: Off to Lower Manhattan!

Blog 12: Sculptures @ Lower Manhattan

We met at the Louise Nevelson Plaza to explore the Wall Street area early Friday Morning. Friday morning field trips are the worse to get up to but once I get there, everything changes. It is worth every trip and I always learn plenty of new things about sculptures.

We made the pit stop at the Chase bank inside the plaza to see the Noguchi “Sunken Garden” fountain piece and after that, we went to the streets to see the Red Cube by Noguchi and the Di Suvero piece. The water was not running through the piece since it was winter, which makes me want to go see it again during the summer.

 

The Di Suvero piece is called “Joie de Vivre” which is right in the middle of the Zucotti Park. Zucotti Park was also the site of Occupy Wall Street last year.  Every time our professor mention how Di Suvero was crippled yet managed to build such large steel sculptures always amaze me.  

 

I would have never thought that Noguchi made the “Red Cube” by just looking at it. I think it is mainly because I’ve been to the Noguchi museum with the class and his stone sculptures look nothing like the futuristic, geometric, and contemporary red cube in the middle of the skyscrapers.

 After this, we went to the Trinity Church graveyard and went down to Ground Zero to see the 9/11 memorial. Going down there is always gives me lots of emotions. I have not been there since the memorial waterfall was finished. The waterfall fountain was the exact diameter of the twin towers. It was very large in size and very peaceful. There were names of the lost ones where we could touch them and the piece was so beautiful yet very sad and upsetting. The sound really played a big part in this memorial because the sound of the waterfall made everything very peaceful.

Even though it was really cold outside, the trip was worth it. I always passed by these sculptures without knowing who made them but looking at them this past trip made me realize that I pass by so many things without knowing that they are there. After this trip, I went over to my friend’s apartment to eat lunch located at Wall and Water Street and told her about the sculptures near her house. I was surprised to hear that she didn’t know any of them really even though she lived right next to them. This also made me think how important signage is to public sculptures as well.

Blog 11: Virginia Overton’s “Untitled”

Blog 11: I could not make it to the trip to Dia: Beacon due to emergencies so I am really regretting that. Hopefully I will make a trip there before this year.  I went to the link on the LMS http://www.nycgovparks.org/art and decided to write about the public sculptures on display in New York currently.

I chose Brooklyn based artist Virgina Overton’s “Untitled” piece at the High line Park. What the piece is a pick up truck on top of Edison Park Fast stacked parking lot. The pick up truck has bricks filled on the bed of the truck and it is located on the very top of the stack.

 

I found out that Overton works a lot with pick up trucks in her works. She uses raw and found objects and recycled items in her works. Her pick up truck series usually have different materials in the bed of the truck usually located in a site-specific location.

 

This piece is located on West 20^th street and could be seen from the platform of the stairs.  This piece is presented by the Friends of the High Line and it is part of the commission of the park. This piece is on display from September 13- Spring 2013. This piece is really easy to miss because it is not “part” of the High Line and is part of the parking lot next to the High Line. If it wasn’t for the sculpture map provided by our Professor, we would not have found this or even knew such sculpture existed. The truck piece blends right in with the other cars in the stacked parking lot and the viewer has to look down from the attached platform to see the truck. I also wondered if the parking fee was part of the commission because it is a lot of money to park there or if the owner of the parking lot let them park the truck free. I also wondered if the stack parking lot moved, if the workers had to place the truck to the very top again so people would be able to see it better.

 

I think this piece was very unique because it was art blended in with the environment. However, I wish that this piece could have better signage for example some big stand up sign by the platform. Even with the map it was so hard to find and I took some guesses where this parking lot was based on the thumbnail picture of the truck on the map.

Week 10: Free Blog: Kang Ik Joong

The artist I chose to talk about for this free blog is Kang Ik Joong. He is a Korean born artist living in New York. He attended Pratt Institute in the 1984 and graduated with a MFA degree. Kang in known mostly for his mosaic like pieces made out of wood that are small in scale but when installed all together side to side, create a larger narrative and phenomena.

            Kang is mostly known for his installation. As Kang was studying in New York, he was working to earn money while attending Pratt at the same time and to use his travel time wisely on the subway, Kang carried around 3X3 inch square canvases that he could easily work with. This in time became so large in quantity that he became mainly known for his small squares made out of wood, ceramic, chocolate, and etc.

            I was first exposed to his work at my mother’s gallery back home in Seoul. His piece “Happy World” which had square wooden pieces next to each other making it a whole amazed me when it was hanging up on the white wall. Each square had a story, a different color palette, with some with objects on it and they were so delicate individually. Together, these unique individual pieces made one strong piece. Immediately, I fell in love with the wooden pieces and I think this was when I decided that I wanted to make art with using wood. Although I had nothing against using canvases, the three dimensionality of wood, and the texture of the surface were very seductive to me.

            His content of these installation are very different. Kang’s contents could be just a small scale and can be a very large scale. For example, Kang has a permanent piece that contain 100,000 pieces of wood in Korea where he worked with more than 50,000 children and their drawings to make an installation called “100,000 Dreams.” He also works with large murals and installations in public places for example, his large mural of “Happy World” is located in Flushing Main Street Station in New York, and he made an installation of little squares covering the main gates of Kyung Bok Palace in Korea. His work content on his wooden pieces includes Buddha, Moon Jars, Korean letters, and etc.

            Looking at his work, I really began thinking of my work as a three dimensional piece and I also did not work really large but slowly began to work larger and larger because I was driven by the size I was working with and the physical presence of my work. Also, looking at his work, I began thinking of all my works as series based on my ideas and patterns. With a set content of my ideas, I began to think of new ideas and ways to generate what I wanted to make and this was when I started using the laser cutting machine and mostly wood for my projects at school.

            I want to have continuity in my work like Kang does with his 3 X 3 inch squares. I also want to make a lot of series because I know repetition can be powerful looking at his works. Something different about his work and my works is the fact that my woods have abstract shapes and patterns where he has a set size for his squares. Where Kang individually makes each peace special in each square, I tend to try to make my own shape.

            Like Kang, I hope that I could collaborate my works too with other people and make a large scale out of it. His repetition in quantity and his quality is what really makes his work interesting and powerful to look at for a long time because there is just so much interesting qualities to each and every pieces he has.

Abstract vs. Figurative Art

This was the blog that was holding me back. I did not know how to approach this subject matter and procastination and I just let it hang over me. I got out some key points from the reading but it took me a while to actually read it throughly.

From the readings, it had said the painting threatened sculpture. It talked about how sculpture was not interesting and that abstraction was the transformation of the sculpture towards modernism. The readings described that starting from 1950’s sculptures had begun to have “new forms” from what was described as  “monolith” sculptures from before. The readings had grouped renissance and up to Rodin to be traditional and from then on, described sculptures as the “new kind” of sculptures claiming that this all had to do with the product of cubism.

Smith and Greenberg both talk about how sculpture became a “new” thing since abstraction almost degrading painting. Since painting was the “main” subject in salons before the 1950’s it was interesting to learn that abstraction was the rudiment to the development and popularity of sculpture.

I do agree with some of the points made in the reading. I am afraid to say this but this is because classical sculptures although they are marvelous and flawless do not get me to think more than its perfection when I see them. Abstract sculptures interest me more in a way because it gets me to think. I, in my own opinion think that it may be easy to make a sculpture proportional and perfect if one tries very very hard but to make something abstract, it takes something extra with meaning for the sculpture. I think abstraction makes sculptures more personal in a way and somewhat more engaging for me because it gets me to think: what was the artist thinking? what is this?.

Free Response: Stray Light Grey: Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe

                During the Art Seminar field trip, my fellow classmate Cara and I were late and were trying to catch up with class. We heard the class was at the Marlborough Gallery and went inside and this is when the whole journey began.

                The Stray Light Grey exhibition by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe opened in September 13 and this exhibition run until the 27^th of October in the Marlborough Chelsea Gallery located at 545 West 25^th Street. This is a collaboration exhibit and this exhibit will be remembered for quite a while.

                When one walks in to the gallery, those who have been to the gallery before can be quite confused. The gallery space is entirely cut up and the space what looks like a gallery is very small compared to the big open space Marlborough offered in previous exhibitions. Those who have never been to the Marlborough could simply think that the exhibition was just over after 4 pieces of painting on the wall. Viewers need to be very careful and not be fooled because if they just walk out, they will be missing a whole lot of everything.

                Even though we were very confused on what had happened to the gallery and was about to leave, the curator stopped us and told us to keep going through what looked like a back room with construction. This room then led to a broken dirty bathroom and we were still confused. The Art Seminar class was not even in this gallery as they had moved on to the next so the exhibition was seen with just only two of my other classmates which was very scary and uncomfortable to begin with. Then, we saw the hole in the wall where people could walk through and quickly realized that this was going to be a trip. Long hallways and dark alleys, stairs leading downstairs and stairs leading upstairs and completely different rooms adjoining each other one after the other was what was of the exhibition.

                This resembled my experience going through a haunted house or a very confused and a scary bad dream.  Rooms or what is called “period rooms” had all different themes as we walked in to it. These rooms were supposed to be an “alternate world that reimagines culture through subjects such as rogue science, psychedelic drugs, mega-conventions, and hypertrophic urbanism”. It was basically a feeling of being alone in a movie set with changing sets.  I also thought of Red Grooms when I saw this exhibition because Red Grooms also have the “creepy” sense. I thought that this exhibition was Red Grooms but we were not viewing it but were “in” it alone, which was even creepier.

                These “time-locked” rooms consisted of a library, bathroom, dentist’s office, cake shop, and a basement dungeon and more.  The rooms also consisted of real objects but also art too. For example, at the cake shop, the paintings and drawings on the cake were very real. This exhibition was very surreal and disjunctive. It was as if one was dreaming walking through rooms and the maze like feature that Lowe and Freeman made really worked on disorienting the viewer’s spatial comfort zone. This was a huge installation with lots of sculpture sense to it as everything in this exhibition was a three dimensional object. This was a very new type of exhibition and it was so good we went through the exhibition twice.

MoMA: Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone 1955-1972

As a class, we went to visit the new exhibition that had opened in MoMA by Alina Szapocznikow. I had a very little understanding of the exhibition before but I knew this was a woman sculpture and I thought that was very interesting because I haven’t been to an exhibition with the works of one woman.

Before I walked in to the exhibit, there was a video playing outside. I thought this video was a really nice beginning to the exhibition because we not only saw the pieces that came out in the video but it also gave a really good idea of what the exhibition would be like. I also thought that this video was really well shot.

As I walked in, I immediately knew her main theme was human bodies. These sculptures were very dark, and disoriented. They were as if they were creatures of their own, demented with pain or impact yet strong enough to survive on their own.

Alina Szapocznikow was a polish sculptor and also a survivor of the concentration camp during the holocaust. Szapocznikow also was diagnosed and struggled with breast cancer. This could be shown in her works as well. They are dark, full of flesh, and somewhat abstractly abnormal.

Her polyster resin pieces were my favorite. They looked as if they were real. Most of her sculptures seemed like real lips, real breasts, and real skin. It was amusing to see her pieces because it was very scary to look at but I kept finding myself looking very closely.

A Lot of her pieces also could be product design in a way. For example, her sculptures light up and actually looks like a body lamp. I thought this looked very abstract yet a product with a purpose. These lighted up ones in the dark room is where I stayed the most because I enjoyed looking at the polyster resin being lit up giving her piece another look to it.

Other pieces also included a quite a bit of car parts in it giving the sculpture more of an architectural look with factory kind of feel to it. I could also see that Szapocznikow was all about the material as she used marble, rocks, polyster resin, car parts and more to make her sculpture be more interesting.

Another favorite piece was the photograph engraved in the polyster resin. There were several ones but my personal favorite was the Twiggy one. I thought this was very Pop Art of Szapocznikow. Her embedding photographs in the polyster resin three dimensionally really gave that combination of popular culture and art.

Alina Szapocznikow deserves more recognition. I’ve really enjoyed her abstract, pop, and painful sculptures as they speak for themselves. I felt very missed out not seeing her work more sooner because I really did enjoy this exhibit even though I wished I could see more of her works at the MoMA. In the future, hopefully, I will be able to see her works even more in a bigger scale. I am very glad to have went to this show.

Journey to the Noguchi Museum

Last Friday for our class, we visited the Noguchi Museum. Getting to the museum was literally the biggest journey of my life. I did not know the museum was this far until I got on the F train. This was during the rush hour so I stood half way there and when I got off at the Queensborough bridge stop, I had no idea which bus to take. When I finally figured it out, I was packed inside again in the bus and had to walk about 10 more minutes afterwards.

When I walked in the Noguchi Museum to find my classmates however, my frustrations and anxiety quickly died out. As I looked around, the musuem itself gave such a peaceful vibe. The high ceiling, the half outside and the half inside type of interior, and most of all, Noguchi’s stone sculptures all began to work as a whole and quickly calmed me down.

What was even better was waiting afterwards. The garden inside the Noguchi Museum is taken by such surprise. I had not seen what the museum had looked like before and it was so nice to see a secret garden like space inside a very architectural building. The garden was covered in rocks and the juxtaposition with the floor and the rock sculptures were just something else. The benches were also beautifully placed and the whole ambiance of that place was just so perfect.

Through the garden, we walked in to the building where the inner part of the museum started. His works were very different from the works outside. The inner part works were more manufactured than having natural marks that the outside sculptures had. The outside sculptures had chisel marks and it looked very raw. On the other hand, the inside sculptures were very smooth and most of them were marble and metal. These also looked more conceptual when the outside sculptures were based on nature and zen.

We learned about several methods that Noguchi used in his sculptures. One of the methods included the “post-tensioning” method. This was used in most of his marble pieces to connect them without any creases or lines. Post tensioning was basically screwing the marbles together with a central part. (You can see this hole in the either side of the sculpture in the middle). Another thing we found out that Noguchi had invented was the white lantern that we see in Ikea and our households every day. Noguchi had redesigned this lantern in to white and had hand built them with bamboo sticks. This was very interesting to know because I own one in my living room from Ikea. We also learned that by reading several exerpts of paragraphs per room, Noguchi had practices basically all over the world. These places include New York, Italy, Japan and etc.

This trip was very nice depite that fact that the museum is located really, really far from Brooklyn. It was worthwhile to go see if also because I did the reading study on the interview with Noguchi. The musuem was very different than any other museums I’ve been to.