Video Review: Module 12

Andy Warhol: Images of an Image

Key Points:

Ten Lizes is the repeated face of Liz Taylor in black 10 times with a silvery white background by Andy Warhol.

With mass consumerism reaching its height, the American model was taking the world by storm.

Warhol collected images of famous people and actresses since he was a child.

In august 1962 the death of Marylyn Monroe inspired Warhol to used her face in repetitive silkscreen images

Elizabeth Taylor was all the rage so Warhol started working with images of her face, producing a 3.6-meter high silkscreen image of her face repeated.   

He reproduced pages of the daily news covering her breakup.

He created the Double Liz, the Blue Liz, always repeating a cropped image of her in rhythm. Liz Taylor was the most famous and top movie star at the time, also the best paid.

Warhol cropped the faces of the actresses he reproduced with silkscreen.

Silk screening- Enlarges cropped original image, contrast can be lightened or turned down. Originally silk, now a synthetic material. The chemically light sensitive material is exposed to light, rinsed in water, and the white parts harden. Image obtained on screen is a negative image. Ink is forced through the unhardened parts to create a positive image. The screen can be used over and over again.

Warhol played with the unpredictability of the technique of silkscreen painting.

The Ten Lizes picture forces the viewer to move, the light changes the shade of silver/gray. The canvas creates small wiry patterns. He used his Marylyn motif on the print of Liz Taylor with the plays of different color in the background.

He desired money; silkscreen enabled him to mass produce paintings and satisfy his clients’ demands. He could now use his images as a consumer product. ‘Anyone can reproduce the motif just as well as I can.’

Repetition is a parable of mass production and the assembly line. It conveys a world where quantity and the assembly line have invaded everything. He reprints and differences represent the defects in mass produced objects. He destroys the image by reproducing it and rendering it even more superficial.

The repetition is to create a decorative motif and a sort of dizziness. The process detracts the eye and eliminates the unique initial image and turns into just an image or an image of an image. It is as simple as a simple product like Coca Cola or Campbell’s soup

The ten images of Liz Taylor in Ten Lizes were described by the film as the ‘ten commandments’ to look, consume, dream, etc.

He created many Mona Lisa variations

Kennedy’s death inspires Warhol’s Jackie Kennedy series.

His loft became known as the ‘factory,’ he used it as his studio and to hold parties.

When he got a movie camera he would shoot his friends reenacting scenes and turn them into superstars

He was obsessed with movie stars and celebrities.

Rendezvous of the rich and famous in his new magazine

Used Polaroid photos and tuned them to pictures with the silk screen process

Added thick strokes of paint to images sometimes

Rich clients would pay a small fortune for a Warhol image of them because of how famous the portraits became and how it would give them their 15 minutes of fame.

Society and most highly rated painter.

His photos were the act of portraiture in the modern world, they had to be a likeness of the subject while revealing the character and the soul of the center.

Hollywood stars replaced portraiture.

Only the basic traits of a face survive in silkscreen paintings. There was no expression, no color, no skin, no feeling, no radiance, just an imprint; a recognizable image.

Marylyn and Liz have become icons just like the Mona Lisa

Everything about Andy Warhol was on the surface in his opinion, nothing underneath. Simple images, no metaphor, no message.

Warhol became the ‘depersonalized’ artist. His work was about pop art, consumerism, and mass production.

Unlike others before him, he often made himself the subject for much of his work.

He was also a photojournalist as his work addressed politics, history, and the domination of the U.S dollar.

His work at some times was morbid and obsessed by or marked with death. He only started working on Liz when everyone thought she was going to die. Marylyn when she had already died, and Jackie when her husband did.

Silkscreen can be interpreted as the image stripped of its flesh and only the bare bones or the skeleton remaining.

In the Ten Lizes, flaws and marks reveal nothing more than the technical genesis of the silkscreen work. Despite it’s metamorphosis the face remains an identifiable icon. The face is Liz Taylor AND Andy Warhol.

I chose this movie because I’ve always loved Andy Warhol’s work but I had no idea about what thought process went behind it or the meaning of the repetition. It was interesting and slightly disappointing to learn about some of his motifs, including his desire for money. I did like some of the logic used in the beauty of his repetition and the simplicity of his process though. This film related to the text because we discussed the pop art movement and Andy Warhol in the text and this gave us much more perspective on the identity of him as well as his subjects and art. We also revisited silk-screening here, a process that we explored early on in this text.

Hockney on Photography

Key Points:

David Hockney is one of Britain’s greatest painters but he is also talented in the art of photography.

The camera is older than photography, as the chemical process was invented in the 19^th century but painters used the “camera obscura” to create an image with a small box. The chemical process just made it possible to produce and preserve that image on paper.

Hockney uses photographic images and creates art that pertains more to painting. He uses photography as a tool in a ‘different’ way. He has taken series of images with a camera and rearranges them on a surface.

He didn’t care if it was art or not, he made a lot of discoveries.

He experimented with photography for 4 or 5 years with a Polaroid to create collage like images. He also super imposes these images over each other.

Some of his first experiments were done with a Polaroid using a grid to create a large image made up of a series of small square polaroid shots.

He doesn’t take a bunch of pictures at once; he examines each print before taking the next picture, composing the final product in his mind.

The collages he made were more sporadic, the grid was not as present and every picture did not have equal value like they do in the grids.

The photograph is a photograph is not of people he knows posing, it’s a moment in time captured by dozens of pictures. He made a larger picture using this concept because this perspective of perspective appeared to be very interesting and revealing.

“Every image is a masterpiece” it provided a new view of what the camera could do with each shot.

His works had a cubist technique as you could see all sides of each section of each part of each piece. Cubism is unfortunately names as it’s not about cubes.

They were the first pictures that would confuse a viewer, as they didn’t know what they were. The viewer was forced to piece changing shapes together.

He was inspired by the movies and the moving picture. Shadows made him more curious and aspiring to create reality.

He likes to play with different ways of representing space. He says the camera is not capable of showing grandeur, but certainly for perspective.

He uses movement in ways others haven’t, this is apparent in his 30 page spread for Vogue magazine.

He creates perspective in motion; one walking by a chair and looking at it, all angles are shown, not one as if they are standing or looking down at it. He recreates one of Van Gogh’s chair in The Bedroom as If you were in Van Gogh’s painting walking around the chair.

He played with this concept of the chair for a while, reproducing it multiple times now. This copying of his led to a fascination with the copy machine and the fax machine, as it is both a camera and a printer.

He runs into a lot of happy accidents just by playing like with the picture of the flowers versus the painting of the flowers. The real flowers look fake while the unreal flowers look real.

He plays with spaces and edges as they define space. The Grand Canyon became a fascination for him, as it’s the biggest filling of space people can look into. The thrill in looking at it is due to the defined edge, looking at that space in the ground is more exciting than looking up into the undefined space in the air. He also painted the Grand Canyon with no focal point to give it more visual reality. He gives the perspective of no perspective, the perspective of looking everywhere to appreciate the Grand Canyon’s grandeur.

The 35 ml camera made it impossible to see the picture emerging before he took the next so he had to work by memory when creating a visual in his head. Technology has reduced the cost of creating photographs and also made the variety of sizing greater.

On the way to the Grand Canyon he aspires to capture the up close point of view. His photographic collages inspired by this feature ‘things done up close.’

Hockney illustrates the passage of time by photographing a landscape over a period of 2 months.

He likes the idea of husbandry and caring for the land, a series of image he takes pays homage to this concept.

Hockney keeps changing his mind about photography, going ‘hot and cold’ about it.

He compares one of his painting styles with the art of Chinese scrolls, which he became interested in for some time.

He gives a much different perspective of Los Angeles with his paintings than most people who live there see from their point of view.

He created a painting of a scene in desert high way and a collage of putting small bits and pieces together that forms this huge panoramic scene. He took 7 days photographing this and actually needed a ladder.

He became interested in theater art as it is about illusion and the movement and perspective as well as dreams and things ‘out of control.’

He is constantly interested in new things and his talents are so varied and diverse, he never knows what will capture his interest next, he has currently abandoned photography.

He believes that ‘visual silence’ is part of the artistic experience.

I chose this movie because I did a project with assembling multiple photographs together to make one picture and Hockney is the genius behind this concept. This film relates to the text because we studied cubism and this is a really innovative and creative way of using cubism. He is truly talented and I was inspired about how he just did what felt interesting and good and these thoughts or ideas turned into masterpieces. In a lose context he reminds me of Leonardo De Vinci in the modern world.

Uncertainty: Modernity and Art

Key Points:

Greek art shows our idealized version of ourselves and the ‘spark of divinity’ within.

Modern art shows idealized versions of what we could be if we were better than ourselves. It’s a contemporary version of the Greek idealism.

Agreed interpretations of life started becoming broken down and the freedom of consumerism helped modern art take hold. The artistic society right now can be defined by change. Change in values, change in styles, change in motives. Market forces have made some of this modern art and it’s ‘uniqueness’ very popular.

Obscurity has been made glamorous.

Tate’s sculpture made of 120 bricks laid in a rectangle is often misunderstood yet it still gets 5 million visitors a year.

Modern art shows reality completely transformed. It never stops changing, just as life never stops changing.

The modern world was based on speed, proficiency, and mass production. Life had become so shallow and fragmented and uncertain that its mysteriousness sparked the deliberate breaking of traditions in art.

Unpredictable, individualized, and radical was the new look that would define the age until Nazism put an end to questioning with the notion that total power and control was the only line of thought. Hitler even put a show of modern art and called it “degenerate art” and declared that this injustice in art was a ‘sickness.’ He believed this deformity in art was impurity. Uncertainty was forbidden in the Nazi regime.

The most consistent feeling in modern art is that the feeling of reality is different and doubtful, nothing is permanent, and nothing is pure. This is the opposite of Nazi art which portrays the very opposite with only pure, exact, and totally ‘normal’ images, or what they decided was normal anyway. Because of this modern art and cubism has become an icon for moral goodness and a different way to approach ‘truth.’ There is no pressure to believe what the picture tells you but rather the encouragement to ask questions and fight anything recognizable.

Abstract artists present an experiment that the viewer participates in. It’s about seeing beyond the image and the appearance and questioning what it means to you.

Modern materialists use the ‘looks’ of the real world such as flat lines, squares, and flat colors.

Modern art takes its place in interior design with ‘modern people living in modern homes having modern experiences and living modern lives.’

Abstract Expressionists are troubled by the complexities of art; they couldn’t accept the values of consumerism. Their reality made more sense than real reality so they channeled this expression through uncertain atmospheres and undefined space and time.

The video explores styles and concepts of Willem de Kooning with his ‘battered’ and spontaneous look and Mark Rothko with his blurred lines giving a vibration of color and an uncertain meaning but very high energy.

The belief in higher values are somewhat diminished by the desire for money in the 1960s consumerism.

Pop art is another movement that questions one own values or disillusionments. The shift of focus changes to literally anything. Warhol’s portraits of Elvis with a gun illustrate how much art has changed and makes us analyze how much we’ve changed along with it. Pop art was about being the total opposite, or totally different from anything before it. Taboos are tested in pop art, and civilization is relaxed.

Art used to be about seeing ideals in humans that were unrealistic, now it’s about wondering if there is any better self at all, it’s also about impulse, whim, and casualness, and less about purity and the ‘ideal.’

China almost immediately embraces Western Avant Gardism, especially after the ‘restless questioning’ not being aloud was removed with the end of certain military reign.

The Chinese also experience a loss of cultural identity with this cultural sweep of Westernization.

Just like Greek values, the image of the body in consumerism is just as unrealistic. The Greek statues are really only illusions, just as people are defined by what consumerism labels them as today.

Watteau illustrates the parable in the relationship between art and life and its harsh realities and strangeness in his painting that is somewhat of a message to future artists, a warning. The whole painting is about disillusion.

Artists make images to connect to the past and so the viewer may do the same. People will look back on our civilization and view modern art as uncertainty, questioning, light heartedness, and welcoming change. The creative chaos is insight into our own questioning, and into our future.

I chose this film because I really don’t have a high respect for much of modern art. I really dislike seeing a dot of color on a canvas in a museum and hearing it regarded as a ‘masterpiece.’ I was hoping the film would give me additional perspective and insight, which it did. I do understand more of what modern arts’ intention is but I think some people take advantage of society’s acceptance of ‘different’ and ‘change.’ This related to the text because we discussed modern art, how it came about, Picasso, and the Nazi regime and the pressures a political force can place on an artistic society.

Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpture of Spaces

The great sculptor Isamu Noguchi describes his object in life as a sculpture and every other reason comes out of it. Sculpture for him is something different than painting but it is a form of self-expression.

Stone gardens inspire him and prove to him evidence of sculpture in Japanese art.

He created his UNESCO garden in Paris as homage to the Japanese garden.

He felt isolated as a child and his sculpture gardens show evidence of him wanting to humanize space and sculpture. He says these gardens are youthful and very much a part of peoples lives.

To make a living as a poor ‘typical’ American he carved heads to make money. He got a fellowship to work in Paris with a great sculptor made this possible for him.

He was commissioned to redesign Miami’s Bayfront Park, which was perfect for his artistic vision and his creativity and versatility. He has already made a name for himself by this time with various sculptures or plaques on faces of buildings in Manhattan, gardens in California, and much more. He hopes this will be a place where all the people can come and will want to come. This was a big political issue, especially with the issue of money and Noguchi almost being forced to change his design. He insisted they tear down an old library to allow his vision to blossom.

He experiments with different mediums such as water to create a new approach to sculpture.

His playful side is shown in the Black Water Mantra. It also exemplifies his commitment to make something useful for people to use. It provides joy to children along with its aesthetic appeal.

With his Water Stone sculpture he proves that ‘nature is only perfect in its imperfections.’ It’s not about trying to make it perfect; it’s the imperfection that makes it important.

His sculptures in Jerusalem are culturally sensitive and perfect for their surroundings and society; it shows how versatile he is while still remaining himself. He makes his sculptures about the human experience.

The gardens that surround the artist’s home are what he calls ‘a celebration of life.’

He was never satisfied with what he had done. He always saw himself as ‘just beginning.’ His last work was a master plan for a 400-acre Moer Numa Park in Sapporo Japan. He was 80 when he began this but had no reservations about completing it. He worked with 3D models where he imagines himself in the park. He died before its completion but stands still as a monument of his tenacity and vision. People will look back and see that he was ahead of his time almost with his visions of land art and installation art. 

He valued solitude and quiet at his home in Mure, which was ironic with his creations being designed for public places and busy areas.

After his death his friends describe how they feel that he isn’t gone but only ‘traveling’ and will return home to this place he loves so much in the future.

I chose this film because the cover image showed a sculpture that I recognized from Manhattan but knew nothing about. I was hoping for more information on this sculpture and it’s artist and the whole movie was about him. I was impressed with the variety in this artist’s works and even more so with his vision. This film reminded me of the section of text where we read about land art and installation art. It was a very different kind of visual art and I do think that Noguchi was somewhat ahead of this time with this style that is now much more popular and certainly a favorite of mine.