Art and Globalism October 27, 2009

Art can shape the environment and also help us interact with and perceive the world. Internet as a global medium connects with people worldwide. I’ve selected 4 artworks related to different political issues and posted them on this blog. I’ve also created a new Link Category-Global and Political Arts for people browsing more information about political artworks, and created a link of this blog on my facebook to invite all my friends to visit my blog and leave a comment. I believe more and more people can pay close attention to these issues via browsing Internet. Please comment any opinions after you read my blog.

Political Issues October 27, 2009

Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. Jaar’s work bears witness to military conflicts, political corruption, and imbalances of power between industrialized and developing nations, often taking the form of an extended meditation or elegy.

I selected two of his works which relates to political issue and post them here. He aimed to attract global attention on the  genocides and famine issue of the third world countries through the photography and installation which has exhibited extensively internationally.

The Eyes of Gutete Emerita, 1996

The Eyes of Gutete Emerita is the signature work of a series entitled Rwandan Projects. It serves as witness to one woman’s suffering in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. When Jaar visited Rwanda in August after the genocide of April and May, he traveled to Kigali, where the violence was centered. On August 29 he went to the Ntarama Church, forty miles south of this city, where four hundred Tutsi men, women, and children had gathered to escape the killing and instead were brutally slaughtered on April 15. When Jaar and his interpreter were there, they met a woman named Gutete Emerita. She told them about seeing her husband and sons murdered during the massacre and escaping with her daughter. In creating Eyes, Jaar made the decision not to show the results of the carnage, the bodies that still lay rotting at the site; instead he describes it in text. Then he shows the eyes of the woman, whose expression he cannot forget. It is an attempt to fix and convey the horror of systematic violence by focusing on one survivor. He purposefully names the people in his work—they are not anonymous victims.

Another one :

The Sound of Silence, 2006, mixed media installation – wood structure, zinc, fluorescent tubes, LED lights, flash lights, tripods, 8′ video projection, looped, overall dimensions variable.

The Sound of Silence is one of six works which were shown in Jaar’s solo exhibition – Politics of the images, at South London Gallery, Season 4 in 2008. This work sets up the space of the image in a large cube. One of the external sides of the cubic structure is illuminated by a series of blinding white neon lights, violently contrasting with the dark interior of the cube. It takes eight minutes in this small camera obscura to understand and experience the multiple and interwoven tragedies of the Kevin Carter photograph. The story of Kevin Carter unfolds in writing and silence on the screen.The image won a Pulitzer Prize, but the South African photographer Kevin Carter committed suicide after being vilified by the public for not having intervened to save the child’s life. Jaar’s poetic but hard-hitting work highlights the problematic issues surrounding the image – from personal history to copyright law – to unearth some of the broader socio-political concerns related to the West’s responsibility to Africa and the developing world.

Political Issues October 26, 2009

Jonathan Barnbrook is a British graphic designer and typographer. A major recurring theme of Barnbrook’s graphic design is political work and work with a social conscience. He makes powerful statements about corporate culture, consumerism, war and international politics. He describes as a major influence to his work ‘an inner anger which is a response to all the unfairness that is in this world’.

I posted two political animations created by Jonathan Barnbrook here. The artist uploaded his works on Youtube website, enabling people globally to view his works.

The first one is titled “global…”, 2004. A very simple idea putting over the message that globalization leads to banality. The style of animation is internationally slow. It represents the opposite of the fast, paced advertising messages we normally see.

Another one is named “American war machine”, 2004. The American empire was driven by the desire for new markets and new resources – a bar code sticks on USA President Bush’s face. The bar code represents the consumers desire for more resources, pasted on American’s president George W. Bush’s face standing behind America’s flag indicates the desire of America on dominating world’s first consumed energy and resource – fossil fuels.

Drawing with Photocopy October 26, 2009

We can change the original look of our works by photocopying.

Here is the original drawing

The new work after photocopying the collage which are collaged and mixed other images from magazines, newpapers etc.

A work (title: artchaiqueo1) with a similar form but in color from Artchaique, a graphic designer:

These photocopy arts were created by Tony Calzetta and Gabrielle de Montmollin, 2 artists living and working together in Toronto, Canada. These works are pretty cool and interesting with photocopying the collage of drawing and cut-out images. Title (from left to right) is: At the ALtar; A Star is Born; The Calling.

Perspective Drawing October 26, 2009

One of the uses of perspective was in “School of Athens” by  Raphael.

Artist: Raphael

Title: School of Athens

Year: 1509–1510

Media: Fresco

Size: 500 cm × 770 cm (200 in × 300 in)

Location: Apostolic Palace, Rome, Vatican City

‘School of Athens’ fully displays the architectural grandeur that could be achieved with this method, as a background for his evocation of the pantheon of ancient Greek philosophers. The central vanishing point is at Socrates left hand, close to the eye height of the standing figures in front of the steps, and just where it should be if the viewer was standing with them on the lower floor. This piece of art has great composition and depth. The color work and lighting really work well and draws the eyes all around the painting.

Another one is a two-point building perspective drawing with ink and pen by Nazareth Morris. In two point perspective, there are two vanishing points on the horizon line. Every line except vertical ones will converge onto one of the two vanishing points.

In my work, I have done a similar version.

Drawing with a tree branch October 26, 2009

We are drawing machines. Using our body as the power to drive the mark, with a stick that becomes as arm extension. We are now become a machine.  I drew a picture as big as body size by using a tree branch with ink.

Here are some artists’ works drawn with  a stick or tree branch tips.

British artist Tome Knowles has created an amazing project to create Tree Drawing — images created by pens attached to tree branch tips! Tree drawings are produced using simple drawing tools attached as freehand extensions to the tips of tree branches. In collaboration with the wind and local weather conditions, calligraphic gestures and automatic drawing readings are recorded on paper. Like signatures each drawing reveals the different qualities and characteristics of each tree. The image is drawn in random, like a kind of automatic drawing.

Victoria Park, London
24/08/2005
Ink on paper [on MDF] 5100 X 5100mm+print

Stonethwaite Beck, Smithymire Island, Borrowdale, Cumbria
Ink on paper, 1/07/2005

Stick & Ink drawings by Janis Burgin

The process is to use a stick, just like the ones you find outside your door. No particular type of tree is necessary. The stick is sharpened and dipped in drawing ink, then used to draw the desired project. This leaves a very loose type of drawing.

Rose, 2003