Adam Putnam

"Green Hallway"

Putnam acknowledges that the obelisk may remind viewers of the Washington Monument in DC, but he is less concerned with politics than with the ineffable quality of space. This is evident in the Magic Lantern installations he has been producing since 2004, named after the protocinematic theatrical device that uses an oil lamp and painted slides to project images. In Putnam’s versions, a low-wattage bulb is suspended inside a transparent boxlike container resting on a pedestal. The light passing through the structure’s internal supports and sides limns a ghostly illusionistic architectural image on the walls. Pieces of opaque tape a≈xed to the container’s surface cast shadows that appear as phantom doors and other architectural details. By installing mirrors inside, as he does for his Biennial piece,Green Hallway (Magic Lantern) (2007), Putnam is able to multiply the illuminations, creating illusionistic architectural spaces on the surrounding walls. “These are small, virtual rooms, and you project yourself into them imagining yourself into the space,” he says.

"Feeding Pigeons" Allen Street Lower East Side

Carl Pope

“The Wall Remixed: The North Philadelphia Small Business Advertising Campaign”, 2009-10

Carl Pope and Mari Hulick with Homer Jackson

Pope’s project brings the unseen small businesses that define neighborhoods to the scale of public advertising with this project. Working with students from the Mural Arts Program, he has collaborated with business owners in North Philadelphia to develop a brand for each as well as advertising materials, and placed them in locations usually occupied by the images of multinational corporations. By insinuating neighborhood anchors with great local significance into these commercial marketing spaces, Pope celebrates the dynamics of community and substitutes their productive values for easy consumption.

Art & Audience

1. How does an artist benefit from the audience giving their participation? and visa versa?

2. When the audience is a voyeur to a performance, is their presence still necessary in the piece? Isn't the participation of the audience always necessary for art to exist? Or can art exist without an audience?

Shazia Sikander

"Pleasure Pillars" 2001

Anish Kapoor

"Vertigo" 2008

Art & Spirituality

1. Is there a separation between one's spirituality and one's reality? I guess this void or transition can be found in the artwork itself? (ex. Anish Kapoor)

2. Is the art world a practicing religion on its own? Is the institution a religious one? Are we its followers? Is art a faith?

Barbara Bloom

"Safe" 1998

Dan Graham

"Curves for E.S." 2005

Thomas Struth

"Audience 6 (Galleria Dell'Accademia), Florenz" 2004

"The Restorers at San Lorenzo Maggiore, Naples" 1989

Jenny Holzer

"Projections" 2007 at Mass Moca

Art & Its Institutions

The Museum is an institution to preserve and protect the history of art as well as provoke a scene of the art in "the contemporary", as Heartney describes "a center for cultural provocation". I find it as a protector, a safe place where expensive things are kept. I want to know how museums find a balance between displaying the old and new? How do they rotate?

How will the growth of galleries and biennials effect the traditional museum?

I think that artists today are trying to break the conventions of "normal museum routine" by pushing performance art as well as abandoning the museum itself and creating work that can not be captured and displayed within its walls.

How has globalism changed the economic standards of a museum? of the Western, Eurocentric institutions?

How much of an established institution is part of a "great artist's" life?

Do we need to be established by institutions to be recognized?

Andreas Gursky

"Toys 'R' Us" 1999

''Pyongyang I'', 2007

"Dubai World III" 2008

Alfredo Jaar

"One Million Finnish Passports" 1995

Alighiero E Boetti

"Untitled" - Victorian Boogie Woogie 1972

5042 envelopes, 35,280 stamps

Find more of Boetti's work at the Sperone Westwater Gallery: http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/artists/record.html?record=17

Art and Globalism

Here are some questions to think about before our discussion on Monday....

What is the difference between globalism and globalization?

What are pros and cons of globalism, who are its benefactors?

How how does this shape the identity of the western art world?

How does globalism affect the inclusion of women artists?

Is globalism a freeing up of art venues or an invitation to more competition between the others and established art institutions?

How does globalism affect your point of entry into the art world?

Is globalism a new means for pushing western ideals?

What traits make up a global artist?

Exhibition Review: Criteria

• What is the natural audience response of the exhibition's viewers? Immediate response? Overall response?
• What was the curator trying to say about the layout and settings of the exhibition in comparison to its content? Does anything stand out? What is the most prominent medium? 
• What is the underlying message? Common trends? 
• How does the work correlate to one another? How do they relate to current topics, events, social, political, environmental status?
• If there are multiple trends or messages, do they contrast? mislead? or work together?
• Does the exhibition flow?
• Which works stand out? Which works fall flat? This includes describing in detail how the work comes across to the viewer. 
• How does this exhibition work into the art world of today? How does it relate to the past or present?

Carl Pope: The Mind of Cleveland

The Mind of Cleveland Website: artist Carl Pope's mission to raise awareness of publics thoughts through graphic art and design.

http://www.themindofcleveland.com/archive_intro.html

Art and the Quotidian Object: Response Images

Gabriel Orozco "Extension of Reflection" 1992

Variations of Marcel Duchamp's "Bottle Rack".......

Bethan Huws "Tour (Weiss)" 2007

Huang Yong Ping, "100 Arms of Guan-Yin" 1997

Andre Raffray, "Shadow of the Bottle Rack" 1993

Haim Steinbach, "OneStar Assisted" 2007

Art and the Quotidian Object Response

I'm thinking about art and its question of limits like I think about the limits of our world. The idea of what art can and can not be is like thinking about the dimensions of our universe. The unknown vastness is comparable to the possibilities of art, it is just up to artists to push the boundaries. Is there an end of the road?

When is an art object not quotidian? When it is not considered art? When the quotation marks are removed?

Is Gabriel Orozco trying to capture the action of an object or trying to make it stuck in time? The photograph really changes a piece. Does an action become an object when it is photographed?

"It is the focus of an opaque, if suggestive, sensory experience. And it is this opacity that stimulates the free play of imagination and understanding." Margaret Iverson

How would an opaque sensory experience be different from a transparent sensory experience?

Iverson goes onto explain how each object suggests an opposite subject that is different from its appearance through reaction and inversion of our perception. Is she considering that nothing is what it seems? Does every object suggest something different and not obvious?