This collector set explores new ways to consider contemporary art. The concepts go beyond the basic building blocks of art--line, shape, color--allowing students to have a richer conversation and deeper understanding of the art they are viewing.
The tour, designed for the Art Today and Tomorrow pilot, focuses on appropriation, hybridity and performance. At the end of the set there are suggested works that illustrate the elements of time and space. It would be possible to fashion a survey tour of all 5 elements. Many of the artworks explore more than one of these elements.
Should art be original to the artist?
Is it acceptable for artists to borrow from other artists or media?
Have you ever borrowed from another source to create artwork?
What is the difference between appropriation and copying?
How might you compare appropriation to "sampling" in music?
Appropriate: To take for oneself; to take possession of. To take without permission.
The element of appropriation concerns the use of images and objects from other sources. This includes other artists, art history, books, films, newspapers, magazines, advertising and everyday objects. The appropriated items may be combined with other images or placed in a new context, or simply retitled. Artists do this to pay homage or tribute to another artist, or make fun of an image or an idea, or to cause the viewer to look at the subject in a new way.
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Artist: Mark Bradford
Date: 2004
Medium: Paintings
Size: overall 125.5 x 125.375 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 2006.2
Analog: an object, concept or situation which in someway resembles a different situation.
What materials did the artist use?
Where do you think he collected these materials?
Bradford calls the materials he appropriates "materials with memory". What do you think he means?
Mark Bradford identifies himself as an artist from South Central LA, the neighborhood where he lives and grew up. Do you see his neighborhood in his art? In what way?
If you were to use found materials from your neighborhood for a work of art, what would you use?
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Artist: Andy Warhol
Date: 1964
Medium: Paintings
Size: unframed 80.375 x 64.375 x inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 1968.2
Where did the artist find the images he appropriated?
Why did he repeat the images?
How does it make you feel?
"The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel." Andy Warhol, 1975
"When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn't really have any effect." A.W., 1963
"Sixteen Jackies" also illustrates the element of Time. Who is the subject of this painting?
Do you know the historical event that is recalled in this painting?
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Artist: Robert Gober
Date: 1992
Medium: Mixed Media, Multiples, Other
Size: unframed 4.25 x 15.75 x 14 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 1994.162
What do you see?
What does it remind you of?
Robert Gober carefully hand-crafts all of his sculptures that replicate everyday objects, except that there is usually a detail or two that is a bit off. Why do you think he does this?
How might he have altered the image or the text (the details that are just a bit off)?
What questions does this work of art raise for you?
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How do you define yourself?
Are you from more than one country?
Do you speak more than one language?
How do you define culture? Your culture?
If you have traveled to other countries, how are they different from your own?
Hybridity in art might be described as art composed from two unlike cultures, traditions, or materials.
As a result of travel, technology and the Internet our world seems smaller and smaller. Artists move from place to place, for personal or political reasons, or may live in multiple locales. For many artists who live a cross-cultural life, their experience becomes part of their art. (Cultural Hybridity)
Contemporary artists feel very comfortable mixing materials and methods to create their own style. If there are written or unwritten rules of art making, contemporary artists will break them. As new materials and technologies appear they are quickly embraced by artists working today. (Material Hybridity)
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Artist: Kara Walker
Date: 2005
Medium: Prints, Edition Prints/Proofs
Size: each of 11 39 x 53 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 2005.69.1-.15
What do you see in this artwork?
Look closely at the background. What do you see in the details? Is there anything missing?
Have you seen silhouettes before? Where?
(This would be a great piece to also talk about appropriation.)
What part of this print is appropriated? Where do you think Kara Walker found the appropriated material?
Referencing the background prints Walker said: "These prints are the landscapes that I imagine exist in the back of my somewhat more austere wall pieces."
The title of this series of Prints is called "Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)". What does "annotated" mean and what does that suggest to you?
Annotated: To furnish a critical commentary or explanatory notes.
Walker's prints can be considered hybrids in several ways, what are the ways?
How do Kara Walker's prints make you feel? Do they raise any questions for you?
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Artist: Cao Fei
Date: 2007
Medium: Media Arts, Videotapes/Videodiscs, Audio-Video
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 2009.14.1-.2
Have you visited Second Life on the Internet? Do you have an avatar? Have you seen the movie "Avatar"? (Explain what Second Life is, if visitors aren't familiar with the web site.)
Avatar: an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user.
Do you think the avatars look and act like their real-world counterparts?
The artist uses a combination of sampling, role play and documentary to create an alternative world where cultures mix. Do you think she is optimistic or pesimistic about the real world? Why?
Is fantasy or dreaming necessary in our lives? Why or why not?
In What way is "i.Mirror" a mirror?
How would you say this video is an example of hybridity? In addition to cultural hybridity, the artist has a dual role of participant (China Tracy) and viewer (Cao Fei).
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Cao Fei created this documentary film for the China Tracy Pavillion. Secondlife, at the 2007 Venice Bienale.
Below is Part 1. Parts 2 and 3 may also be found on youtube.
Part 1 is captioned by a poem by Octavio Paz, "The Balcony". Paz was a Mexican diplomat and writer who spent many years in India and was captivated by the country and it's culture. "The Balcony" is from a collection of poems about India for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
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Artist: Udomsak Krisanamis
Date: 1998
Medium: Paintings
Size: unframed 72.0625 x 48 x 1.5 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 1998.115
What do you see?
What does it remind you of? (Outer space? A city at night? The ocean?)
Include a description of the artist's history and how his artistic practice evolved from the way he taught himself English when he came to New York for art school.
Now that you know the artist's story, what do you think is hidden or partially hidden under the paint or ink?
"...most of the paintings are improvised....you have some structure and then after you lay out all the structure then comes the improvisation part." U.K.,2003
The above is a musical analogy that goes hand in hand with Krisanimus' practice of naming paintings after song titles. How does the title give us clues to how the artist might feel about the two cultures he inhabits?
What Questions does it raise for you?
"Everything is in the painting." U.K.
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What is performance?
How do you define the word performance?
Have you ever been in a performance?
Is it important to have an audience? (Or will a mirror suffice? Camera?)
Should there be evidence that a performance occurred?
The element of performance refers to an artists actions, movements and processes. It may include the use of dance, sound, music, ritual, expressive gesture, spoken word or staged public or private events. The evidence of a performance may or may not result in a work of art, documentary or archival materials. The activity itself may be more inportant than the resulting object.
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Artist: Ann Hamilton
Date: 1993
Medium: Mixed media, Media Arts, Multimedia
Size: screen size 3.5 x 4.5 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 1995.25.1-.3
What do you see? Hear?
What does it reming you of?
How does watching the stones tumble around in the artist's mouth make you feel?
Notice where the LCD screen is placed on the wall. Why do you think the artist chose that placement?
Ann Hamilton created this work for an installation called "Aleph". Aleph is the first letter of the hebrew alphabet. In what ways might this video relate to the title?
Much of the artist's work before and after she made this piece concerns nature and ritual (as in everyday ritual, rather than religious ritual) and language. Do you see any of those themes represented here? What do you see that makes you say that?
"I think its really interesting that as a culture we spend so much time in language--in reading, writing, speaking and in print culture--whether its on the screen or paper. We are communicating all the time with words, trying to find the words in which we can recognize our experience. Can we think of something if there is no language for it? How do we understand experiences we can't name" A.H., 2007
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Artist: Niki de Saint Phalle
Date: 1964
Medium: Mixed Media, Multiples, Other
Size: framed 28.375 x 21.3125 x 2.8125 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 1966.16
What do you think was the artist's process for creating this work?
What happened?
The artist was responding to the politics of a post-World War II world. Can art be a political act? Should it?
The artist often invited others to help her create these works in public. What is more important the performance where the artwork was created or the resulting painting?
What role does chance play in the creation of this work?
How do you respond to the performance and the painting?
In the mid 1960's the artist stopped making these paintings because she said: "I had become addicted to shooting like one becomes addicted to a drug."
What questions does this work raise for you?
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Artist: Olafur Eliasson
Date: 1995-2000
Medium: Sculpture, Sculptures
Size: mirror 63.375 x 63.375 x 1.125 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 2002.67.1-.7
What do you notice when you are looking at this work? What do you hear? Feel?
What does it remind you of?
What is the role of the participant/viewer(that's us!) in "Convex/Concave"?
How does the artist direct or manipulate us?
What happened before we stood in front of this work? What will happen after we move away?
How does this artwork make you feel?
This work also could be used to talk about the elements of Time and Space. How does this work expand or dissolve time? In what way does it alter the space we are in?
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Artist: Robert Gober
Date: 1982-1983
Medium: Photographs
Size: each slide 2 x 2 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 1992.152.1-.89
(Allow some time to view the slide series.)
What do you notice about this painting/these paintings?
What are some of the recurring images or themes?
In what way might we consider this artwork a performance? Do you think the artist had an audience?
The paintings that Rober Gober created over a year's time no longer exist. Does that raise any questions for you?
"I knew in the beginning what the end form would be, that they (the paintings) would be slides. I always thought of myself as a painter, but would never make paintings. I was never interested in the physical objectness of a painting, but the process and imagery really interested me." R.G., 1999
This work is also an example of the element of time.
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Where are you? Are you alone or in a group?
Where is the art that you are viewing?
Are you inside or outside or both?
Do you need to stand still or move to see the work of art?
Is the art moving (kinetic)?
Is it real or imagined? Is it in an alternate universe or on the Internet?
Artists working today have gone beyond creating works for the pedestal or wall to making works that fill a room or gallery, or works that can be found outside. Perhaps the artwork will move or the viewer will move through the work. Some artists define a space with light or sound. At least one artist creates her work in Second Life, using an avatar.
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Artist: Peter Fischli, David Weiss
Date: 1995-1996
Medium: Sculpture, Sculptures
Size: see element sizes
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 1996.132.1-.156
What do you see? Can you make a mental list of all the different objects hidden beneath the gallery stairs? What does it remind you of?
Fischli and Weiss delight in objects of everyday life. Their art explores unremarkable and often trivial subjects and scenes.
Do you think you would have found this object "on your own"? Why do you think the artists or curators chose to put this work of art in this space?
"Empty Room" was commissioned for a 1996 retrospective of the artists' work. Using the artistic tradition of "trompe l'oeil" (fool the eye), Fischli and Weiss created 150 hand-carved polyeurathane sculptures that look like objects used by the Walker's exhibition crew.
Consider the title of this artwork: in what ways is this an empty space? Is the coffee cup really a coffee cup? What doesn't happen to the sculptures over time that might happen to their real-life counterparts? How would these objects feel if we could touch them?
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Artist: Paul Chan
Date: 2007
Medium: Media Arts, Videotapes/Videodiscs, Audio-Video
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 2008.1
This work reveals itself slowly. Take some time to watch it.
What do you see? What is happening? What is the artist trying to show us? (Light-dark, dawn-dusk, destruction-rebirth, Dream-nightmare, creation of the world-end of the world.)
In the artists words, the series is about "light and light that has been extinguished." We are in an empty room with a work that is made up of light and shadows. How do these materials delineate a work of art? Could this artwork be placed anywhere? What would be necessary and important?
"6th Light" is from a series called "The 7 Lights". What might the title refer to?
The artist started working on the series in 2003, two years after 9/11. Do you remember 9/11? What other events does this recall for you? For many people events like 9/11 are markers in their lives, as in "before..." and "after..." Can you think of another event that is a marker for you? How would you create an artwork to commemorate that event?
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Does anybody know what time it is?
When do you lose track of time? When does time drag?
What are the best/worst times of your day?
What are the important times of your life?
Do you have any photographs that remind you of a particular time or event?
Do you ever think of particular events in terms of "before" and "after"?
Do memories (or objects) change with the passage of time?
Artists today create works of art that document a moment in time or the passage of time. It might be an everyday event or something historically important. Film and video artists can use the tools available to them to manipulate or document time. Other artists "use" the passage of time to alter their works of art.
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Artist: Daniel Spoerri
Date: 1964
Medium: Sculpture, Sculptures
Size: overall 21.25 x 25.1875 x 11 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 2001.126
What do you see? What do you think happened here? When did it happen? How can you tell?
Daniel Spoerri made a series of sculptural paintings he called Snare-pictures in 1964 for a special exhibition that year. He invited artists and art-world figures to eat a meal at his home. Because the artist had made snare-pictures before, the guests knew there was a possibility that their meals might become art.
How do you think that knowledge affected the guests at the dinner party?
What role might "chance" play in how the artwork came to be?
" The settings had the same silverware, dishes and glasses, napkin on each one...I chose to eat bread and red wine and refused all the enticing well-prepared delicacies that Daniel prepared. I did not use any glass on the setting except the wine glass...I did take the heart-shaped ashtray/candle holder from the center of the table and moved it to my setting. I kept changing everything and then stopped when everyone had finished eating. I left the apartment immediately." -Bruce Conner interviewed by Joan Rothfuss, 2001
How do you think the artwork has changed since 1964?
"Don't take my Snare-pictures as works of art...(but) a way and a possibility of living." -Daniel Spoerri
What do you think the artist means in this quote?
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Artist: Andreas Gursky
Date: 1999
Medium: Photographs
Size: framed 81.3125 x 103 x 2.25 inches
Institution: Walker Art Center
Accession #: 2000.25
What words come to mind when you look at this photograph?
Does it remind you of anything?
What do you see? Look closely at the details of the photograph. Do you think the artist altered the photograph he took to make this artwork?
Gursky's photographs have been called cleverly constructed collage and art-directed spectacle. Why do you think critics have said that?
Gursky has said: "reality is multi-layered and complex". How is his point of view represented in the artwork?
What is the observer's (us) point of view?
Panopticon: to observe all, possibly with the sentiment of invisible omniscience.
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Today we talked about art referencing some new elements of art: appropriation, time, space, hybridity and performance. Did this make it easier to understand what you were looking at, or was it confusing?
Can you give an example of a work that you felt had an impact on you today and why? What do you think was the artist's intention with that work of art?
If you were going to create an artwork, which new element(s) would play an important role in your art? Why?
Did this tour raise any questions for you or cause you to think about art in new ways? Ask each student to complete the phrase "I wonder....".
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