Art 21/ Artist II: Kara Walker

Art 21/ Artist II: Kara Walker 

                   When I first saw Kara Walker's artworks, those reminded me Michel Ocelot's silhouette animation. His animations and silhouette did not included his personal emotions or experience but made an interesting story line including romance. However, her artworks comprised her illusions about past events and complexity of her own life. She did not intended any romance of the story telling but she did put it in unexpectedly. She liked a history painting, thinking about characters and those characters on the stage. So she presented her feelings with those silhouettes but in a story. 

Kara Walker's silhouette artwork

Michel Ocelot's Princes et Princesses

   

               Moreover, Kara Walker expressed on her artworks about her hard times suffered by heroine. At that time, she had a mixed feeling of wanting the heroine and wanting to kill the heroine. So when you look into her work closely, you can actually see cruelty in character's actions. But I was impressed how she overcame a drug addiction with art. 

               During an interview, she commented that black people had never been treated equally as the white. Strong people rules weak people and she expressed this in her work. For example, a white woman deprives the baby of a black woman.  

 

                 After watching about her video from Art 21, I realized there is no limit in art. Although her works are only in black and white, she described each character so well that there is no need for any other detail. Her works are never motionless because every single figure carries vivid stories.

Art 21/ Artist I: James Turrell

Art 21/ Artist I: James Turrell 

             About two years ago, I visited a place called Museum San in South Korea. It was located on a huge plain in the middle of a mountain. And in order to reach the museum, I had to walk in side a forest which gave an exotic atmosphere. Some sculpture were placed with trees under a deep blue sky. On the right in front of the museum, there is an installation made by Ando Tadao, a Japanese architect. Like his nickname, an architect of light and water, his work were well merged with the surrounding nature. The museum had lots of visual entertainments; Paper Gallery, Cheong-jo Gallery, Stone Garden, and James Turrell's exhibition. Paper Gallery showed history of the production of paper in Korea. And Cheong-jo Gallery had lots of artworks made by Korean artist including Nam June Paik.  

            The last gallery about James Turrell was the highlight in this museum. As it was located in 275m height from the sea level, the only thing I could see from this spot was the surrounding mountains, trees and installations. Especially the James Turrell's Gallery was isolated from other galleries. The inside of the gallery was silent and calm. The first artwork was like a grey container box with a rectangular window on one side of its walls. I could only see the nature through a rectangular hole. And other installations placed downstairs were in a dark room. I had nothing but the light from his artworks to rely on. Like from the video Art 21, it created illusions only using a space and light. It made me feel as if I was in a fantasy story.

             James Turrell used light as the primary material in his work. And examples showed from Art 21 strongly supports this idea. Normally, when you look outside while airplane goes higher up to the sky, the sky becomes an uniform blue. But when you look at the sky lying down on the "Roden Crater", the sky shows no contrast like standing middle in the universe. I could see how much he sacrificed in order to see this astonishing effect by the nature. His magnificent project will evoke other future artist.  

A Visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art

A Visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art

              

              Almost all of the museums I had visited in the downtown of Chicago were squeezed by skyscrapers and busy roads. But on the way heading to the Museum of Contemporary Art(MCA), I could see the difference from those museums. There was a park in front of the MCA which made it stay in peace. 

               The exterior of the MCA seemed like a cold, stern structure like its surrounding buildings. But what made it look different from those was numerous windows in the middle of its exterior. The sky reflected on its windows was overwhelming. 

               There were lots of current exhibitions in the MCA; Body Doubles, Richard Hunt, Faheem Majeed, Alexander Calder and Doris Salcedo. 

               The first floor was having Body Doubles exhibition. The exhibition was mainly telling us about two parallel ideas about the relationship between the body and identity. Next exhibition showed Richard Hunt's artworks. His sculptures were all made of metals. What I was surprised from his artworks was how he expressed the flexibility of metal. I usually had prejudice about using a metal as an art material. But his works completely broke my prejudice. Even in his drawings showed metallic texture which is smooth and sharp. The second floor was about Faheem Majeed. His artworks were mostly made of wood and this gave a folksy atmosphere. 

               The next floor was about Alexander Calder's artworks. This should have been the most interesting theme. But I was so disappointed with how they placed his works. In Korea, I saw lots of his works and all of them were well displaced with a suitable brightness of light. I liked how shadows were made by the movements of his works. And their shadows and highlighted pigments made me to concentrate on them even more. However, in the MCA, his works were under the same light which was not even bright and the room was not dark enough to show me their shadows.

              Right next to the exhibition of Alexander Calder, there was a special exhibition by Doris Salcedo. This was the most interesting theme for me. And his work named Plegaria Muda was the most interesting artwork. It occupied the most space among all artworks, so it caught my eyes. Its label told that it was representing human coffins. But before reading an information about it, it seemed like telling that a life could exist even in a hard condition, like wars. In this section, I could feel miseries, sadness and pain from each displayed object. The additional source provided by our professor gave a deeper understanding to her works. It clearly showed that those gave the same emotional impression on me. Moreover, it gave an information about her purpose of making them and what she thought while presenting them. And I understood that she was not presenting her personal pain but the pain created by political powers. She wanted to share this emotion.

              I realized that artists can represent their feeling and ideas not only with the shapes of an artwork, but also with art materials; The Body doubles used mainly photographs and videos; Richard Hunt used metals; Alexander Calder used wires and metal pieces; and Doris Salcedo used many different scales of materials. And cutaway posters and bookstores made the museum more interesting for young teenagers and kids. Overall, the MCA became an enjoyable place for the whole age groups. 

Museum Team Project on LUMA

Museum Team Project on LUMA

                In the beginning of a museum team project, my team members, Aron, Diven and Joel, and I were just looking for a museum which is close and comfortable to visit for free. But while I was researching about each museum, I found that it is quite difficult to get all merits to see an exhibition and to make a good presentation. After a long research, I finally found out some interesting exhibitions in Loyola University--The Shakers in Chicago and 

Francis W. Parker School: Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten. We scheduled our visit to the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) and planned out each member's duty. But on the day visiting LUMA, we were quite in a bad condition because we just had finished our mid-term exam last night and some had done till this morning. When we managed to reach the museum, I thought the scale of the museum was quite small than I thought. Its exterior was antique, but its inside was modern. Soon, we faced another problem. We couldn't take any picture of the exhibition! So I had no way but to write down just notes. 

                As soon as I entered the exhibition, a traditional Shaker music came into my ears smoothly. This made me to concentrate more on each pieces of the collection. The first section showed about Shaker drawings and musics. Those were all related to superstitions and Gods. The next section was about Shaker architecture. All chairs, shelves, tables etc. were made up of cherry, maple and pine. This made those look old but elegant. The last section was about Shaker lifestyle like cooking. It showed what they used in their kitchens. Their treads, cooking materials and other things looked more natural than today's ones. Those were also made up of the same trees as they used for making furniture. 

                 Like an old saying, it never rains but it pours, the second floor exhibition where we could take pictures, was not related to the Shakers. At that time, I thought we only had to present only one exhibition from a museum. The second floor was about the Collections of European art during the Renaissance and the Medieval. It also had some interesting artworks too. The one that caught my eye was the painting named Madonna and Child with Cherubs. It was shinning from a far distance. And it was the only outstanding painting among all. 

                 Viewing Francis W. Parker School: Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten Collection for the last, we took a picture in front of the museum and dismissed. It was fun, although we had gone through a lot of problems.

Madonna and Child with Cherubs

   

   

Archibald Motley's Exhibition Reflection

The Exhibition of Archibald Motley 

at the Cultural Center in Chicago

Barbecue, c. 1934. Oil on canvas, 39 x 44 inches (99.1 x 111.76 cm)

                 When I first entered the exhibition of Archibald Motley, variety of pigments came into my eyes, especially red and blue. Some classmates felt uncomfortable about his painting, because some of them included nudes. But I was amazed by how he arranged colors to create such a dreamlike atmosphere in the paintings. The information provided in the museum told most of his paintings were dealt with racial issues and jazz. The first thing came into my mind, when I saw the word 'racial', was a skin color. This was because skin colors give the very initial impression to drag the idea of people from different countries. Surprisingly, people in his paintings did not really emphasized on showing the differences of skin colors, but emotion and culture. In Gettin' Religion, as an example, one can see the culture and people's social statues at that time.

    Gettin' Religion, c. 1948. Oil on canvas

                     As blue pigment is all over in this painting, the only thing a viewer can recognize is the silhouette of people on the street. And the bright street light seems like the moon in the sky. When you divide the painting into a horizontally half, you can see the upper section is less crowded than the bottom. This is trying to make a viewer focus on the bottom more than the another. When you see the bottom section, you can see street musicians and people enjoying such night entertainments. I liked how he depicted every different motions of people containing their own stories. Moreover, I was impressed by the frame of it. The frame was in red with a wooden texture. Although red and blue are not direct complementary colors, it was enough to give a strong contrast between those two colors.

                     Under the heading of Paris Blues, I learned that Harlem Renaissance which affected Archibald Motley's paintings was come out from the Bohemian lifestyles. From 1929 to 1930, he not only depicted jazz but also expressed "a black cultural uproar." For example, a man playing the saxophone and a man singing on the street create a melancholy impression.

                      His paintings are significant because he well portrayed the atmosphere during the Harlem Renaissance. He tells the African-American history through only paintings, as those truly shows the excitement and the boom of the black culture. Breaking the prejudice of oppressed black culture makes his work even more important.

  

Image for Midterm Exam

For Question #9. Gustav Klimt's Kiss

Question #20. David Hockney's Bigger Trees Near Warter