Week 3 Learning to look at artworks - Ai Wei Wei

Week 3 – Learning to look at artworks

Article on reading artworks

https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-853055-dt-content-rid-1749601_1/courses/1309QCA_3141_SB/Suggestions%20on%20How%20to%20Read%20an%20Artwork.pdf

2) Ai Wei Wei

Dropping a Han dynasty urn 1995

This is a triptych of black and white photographs human scale in size. They depict an Asian man wearing non descript clothes standing in front of a wall before, during and after the process of dropping what appears to be a jug or urn. The photographs are shot front on and the man’s gaze is level in the photograph looking straight into the camera not at the object as he drops it.

Through the use of black and white images and therefore lack of colour Ai Weiwei has removed any sense of emotion and records this performed act in an objective historical documentary trope aligning with the emotionless gaze. This gaze meets that of the audience and challenges the potential outrage that people may feel as we read in the didactic that it is the artist himself performing the drop and that it is a Han dynasty urn from 206BC – 220 AD that is destroyed. In addition the fact that these are Gelatin silver prints – which despite the implied value due to the word ‘silver’ - are actually the most common/standard form of contemporary black and white printing methods (Keller, E 2003 Basic Glossary of Photographic Processes/ Terms) and this for me helps to bring into question the idea of value.

The didactic explores how these artifacts were treasured for their aesthetics as well as

their ‘unique cultural authority as evidence of one of the greatest epoch’s in China’s long history’.  Therefore Ai Wei wei’s documentation of this destruction of this object deemed highly valuable is a potent one and forcibly reminds us that this object is valuable because it has been declared so by collectors and the art market. Additionally   Ai Wei Wei has subverted this sense of culture and value as the object has now become part of a contemporary work of art in the very system that confers these values therefore completing the circle in a disruptive way and insightful way.

The use of photography aids this potency as we see the moment of destruction frozen in time whereas the use of video or life performance would have potentially undermined the power of that moment. In addition the large scale size of the work places it firmly within the realm of the gallery and there is a sense of resistance/defiance within the artist perhaps also expressing resistance to political and cultural values of late 20th Century capitalist China as expressing a separation from its ancient cultures.

Interestingly a Florida artist Maximo Carminero broke one of Ai Wei Wei’s painted on han dynasty urns held at the Miami museum as a protest against this museum only displaying works by international artists (Chen, A 2014 Ai Wei wei not amused by smashing of US 1 m vase) .

Image sourced from Ai-Weiwei-Dropping-a-Han-Dynasty-Urn-300x141.jpg

Bibliography

Chen, A 2014 Ai Wei wei not amused by smashing of US 1 m vase, South China Morning Post viewed 26 March 2014 http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1430515/ai-weiwei-not-amused-smashing-us1m-vase

Keller, E 2003 Basic Glossary of Photographic Processes/ Terms viewed 26 th March 2014 http://www.afterimagegallery.com/photoglossary.htm

week 3 Learning to look at artworks - Bruce Nauman

Week 3 – Learning to look at artworks

Article on reading artworks

https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-853055-dt-content-ri1749601_1/courses/1309QCA_3141_SB/Suggestions%20on%20How%20to%20Read%20an%20Artwork.pdf

My experience of this from GOMA Trace and its performances

1)Bruce Nauman

Art Makeup 1967-68

Visual analysis – signs – this is a video of a man painting himself white then makes a pink then a  green layer which causes the previous layers to go grey then finishes with a black layer. The colours are dulled however and the background is a non descript wall causing all the attention to rest upon the mans torso, upper body and head which is the main subject and viewpoint.  40 minutes long. There is a whirring noise in the background.

To me this spoke of a time based visually obvious and observable transformation of the artist himself as the didactic highlights thus his body is the subject and is also the object. He is the sole protagonist involved in his own transformation - in fact controlling it- and it is performed slowly and pensively yet determinedly. Due to the fact that this is a video the audience receives the full impact of the transformation if we are prepared to sit through it all. Further research shows that Nauman initially wanted to run it as a clip of each individual colour mask being painted on, therefore 4 clips, been shown simultaneously. Nauman’s use of the body as video performance also came at a time Lilian Haberer states ‘when art had to define anew its sum and substance, a phenomenon which was articulated in 1969 by Theodor W Adorno.’ (Haberer, L ,n.d, Bruce Nauman Art Make-up viewed 24 March 2014 http://www.newmedia-art.org/cgi-bin/show-oeu.asp?ID=ML000024&lg=GBR).

   The fact that Nauman has used video as the medium engages with the ritualistic repetitive actions as well as the thoughtful and perhaps uncomfortable feeling this creates in the audience as we have time to reflect upon what this means to us. For me it was an ambivalent sense of creating an identity – a mask –  yet also covering up an identity of vulnerability and nakedness. I thought perhaps there was a reference to colour and skin colour due to my history of living in Africa and the tensions of race. The use of video and the way it is deliberately set up with the paint accessible before hand also makes me think of Shakespeare’s ‘the world is a play and all men are actors’ from Hamlet – this sense of performing identity. As an American artist living during the times of second wave feminism which started in the 1960’s could Nauman have been influenced by Judith Butlers writing on identity as performance and Helaine Posner’s article on masculinity as a masquerade?

This fantastic paragraph of an article succinctly explains the influence of the times Nauman was living in :

“In the midst of Northern California’s macho art culture,* at the height of the Vietnam War, catching the drift of early feminist performance art, Bruce Nauman went into the studio in 1967 and made Art Make-Up, a 16mm color film to be projected onto four walls of a small room It is projected onto four walls simultaneously so that, standing in the center of the room in the bright white light as though on a stage, the viewer is surrounded by images of the artist actor. The sound of four projectors whirs overhead. In this dense sensory environment, the viewer becomes an actor in the artist’s performance.

Art Make-Up is composed of four one-reel sections designed as a loop to play continuously. It is Nauman’s first film environment. In the film, he uses his body as a sculptural material.

In front of a stationary camera, Nauman repeatedly paints his face and naked torso, first white, then pink, green and finally black. He is an Abstract Expressionist painting, a bronze sculpture, a performance artist taking poses from heroic classical sculpture and then from female and drag fashion.

In his existential performance, the artist-actor reveals himself naked before the camera as he systematically “makes himself up,” covers himself and withdraws from public view. In Art Make-Up, Nauman creates an end-game circumstance to reveal the contradictory human needs for communication as well as for withdrawal and disguise. The film addresses the mutability of the self, and the construction of identity, race and gender.”

Tanchelev, G 2007, Bruce Nauman the early films and videos, viewed 24 March 2014, http://www.stretcher.org/features/bruce_nauman_the_early_films_and_videos/

Film still, my own from visit, Bruce Nauman, Art Make-up 1967-68

Week 3 - visit to GOMA

Week 3 – GOMA Visit

Information obtained from the Goma website

http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/trace

In Week 3 we visited Goma as a class … I find it exhilarating going to Goma …. Knowing that I am going to leave with new perspectives and ideas for my own practice …. Trace was no exception …. I lifted the following from the Goma website as an overview but also to make visible the upcoming artist talks and events on 10 May which appear an amazing opportunity to interact with some of the artists and once again learn …. The emerging artist interaction towards the end of the day seeming particularly valuable for this interface.

Trace: Performance and its Documents

22 February -  27 July 2014
Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
Free Admission

Opening Hours
Daily: 10.00am – 5.00pm

It seems obvious when talking about performance that ‘you really have to be there’, to get the story right. While the experience of ‘being there’ adds something particular, it is still possible to experience the work at a remove, whether via a screen, photographic documentation, or even a third-hand retelling of the action. ‘Trace’ draws out relationships between performance and its documents, bringing together new commissions with historical and contemporary works from across the Gallery’s Collection. The exhibition includes works by John Baldessari; Brown Council; Rebecca Horn; Bruce Nauman, Mike Parr; Campbell Patterson; Qin Ga; Carolee Schneemann; Sriwhana Spong; Song Dong; Ai Weiwei; Gosia Wlodarczak; Erwin Wurm; Zhang Huan, and more.

Spanning an array of cultural contexts and varying sorts of performativity – feats of endurance, repetitive actions, shamanistic rituals, vaudevillian acts – the works also range wildly in tone: from sublime to icky to out and out funny. Whether images, texts or objects, ‘Trace’ gives presence to the residues that stop performance disappearing altogether. Alongside the works, this testifies to the continuing relevance of discussions around ephemeral work in the Gallery: it appears, disappears, then reappears in various guises.

Read more about 'Trace' on our blog | Trace: Performance and its Documents

Programs and Events

Special Event

International artist talk
Tehching Hsieh in conversation with Russell Storer
6.00pm Friday 2 May | GOMA Cinema
Join eminent New York-based performance artist Tehching Hsieh at GOMA in conversation with Russell Storer, Curatorial Manager, Asian Art, QAGOMA. Hsieh’s visit coincides with the display of the artist’s seminal One Year Performance 1980 – 1981 (Time Clock Piece) at Carriageworks, Sydney. Hseih will discuss this and other projects at this special event. Free, no bookings required.

Best known for a series of five year-long performances he undertook in New York in the 1980s, Tehching Hsieh makes work about time, life and being. His works are notable for their conceptual purity and physical extremity. Born in 1950 in Taiwan, Hsieh’s contribution to performance art has been widely recognised through major exhibitions at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013), São Paulo Biennial (2012), Liverpool Biennale (2010), Gwangju Biennale (2010), Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009), and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009).

TRACE LIVE

SATURDAY 10 MAY | GOMA
A day devoted to performance, with a range of events and talks taking place in and around GOMA, featuring Australian artists who explore site-specific, performative and ephemeral practices. All events are free, no bookings required.

TALKS

•   10.00am | Artist talk | Seminar Room
Join Agatha Gothe-Snape for an introduction to the history of visual scores, and the intersections between dance and visual art, with particular reference to her work Three Ways to Enter and Exit.


•   11.00am | Keynote artist talk | Cinema A
Australian artist Mike Parr reflects on his long history of making performance works since the 1970s. Parr will also present an excerpt of a new performance during the event.


•   1.00pm | Curator’s tour | Exhibition space
Join Bree Richards, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Australian Art, for a discussion of key works and ideas in the 'Trace: Performance and its Documents' exhibition.


•   1.30pm | Artist talk | Maiwar Green
Hear Kerrie Poliness speak about the large-scale drawing Field Drawing #1.


•   2.30pm | Artist talk | Exhibition space
Join members of Brown Council as they reflect on the life and work of fictional Australian performance artist Barbara Cleveland.

PERFORMANCES

•   All day | Kerrie Poliness | Maiwar Green
Over the weekend Kerrie Poliness will use sports field marker to make Field Drawing #1, a large scale drawing on the Maiwar Green outside GOMA.


•   12.30 – 4.30pm | Michaela Gleave | Cinema B and online
Streamed live from her studio in New York throughout the day, Michaela Gleave will undertake a simple endurance action.


•   3.00pm |Agatha Gothe-Snape | exhibition space
Agatha Gothe-Snape will collaborate with QUT dance students to create a one-off dance piece, Other Ways to Enter and Exit.

SPECIAL EVENT

•   3.30pm | Emerging Creatives networking | GOMA Lounge
Are you an emerging arts practitioner? Join us at this exclusive event offering an opportunity to meet ‘Trace Live’ artists in the surrounds of the ‘Trace Live’ pop up cash bar

Students receive a 10% discount at the Gallery’s food and beverage venues during ‘Trace Live’ on Saturday 10 May*.
* Valid student ID card required