Untitled

Artist Statement

For this assignment I decides to keep things simply and simply explore what’s been on my mind lately. I’ve been thinking about childhood memories that are a mix of happy and unhappy memories. One’s childhood is a time for development, and when bad things happen during your childhood, that’ll affect your development. This idea of these memories both making us who we are and also just constantly on our minds is something I wanted to focus on for this project.

To express this idea, I had a teddy bear represent these memories. It supposed to seem sinister or up to no good and docile at the same time. I wake up from a dream, eat breakfast, take some pills, and go back to sleep. At the same time this bear seems to always be there.

Personal Notes

I’m not too happy with this project. I like this concept but I limited myself because of my lack of time. I hope to revisit this work one day.

The artist of the week is Ralph Lemon. Lemon dedicates to choreography, visual arts, writing, curating, and art directing for Cross Performance. Cross Performance being a company to create cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary performance. What caught my interest in his work is the collaborative and experimental aspect of his work. As an example, Scaffold Room, 2014, involved two physically present dancers, one on a video, and a DJ. Having this context alone make it sound interesting and different.

(Baby Blood, 1967)

(Endgame, 2016)

Robert Wilson. 

The artist I chose is Amalia Pica. Pica was born in Argentina, but works in London. Her work is described as focusing on metaphors, communication, and civic participation. I was initially drawn in by these geometric shapes with her sculptor works that reminded me of another assignment I have. Looking into her performance work, I found Asamble, which I related to our project 4 since it involves several people and in public. People brought their own chair and sat in a circle that was morphed into another circle as the initial one was about to be complete. Another notable work os (A intersect B intersects C). The original tittle has these upside u’s that I’m unsure how to type. This work involved large, colorful, and transparent geometric shapes. Dancers would manipulate how they overlap each other's shape they each hold.

https://youtu.be/3tvNnk3ojA4 

I can wear makeup out in public with less concern what others think. I can put on a ridiculous amount of eyeliner and eyeshadow, but still feel somewhat confident. Feeling insecure in public happens, but it’s at home when I feel the worst. Something about my family seeing me with my face full of makeup that creates this strong sense of guilt and embarrassment. I displayed this in the last project, but wanted to take it a step further in this one, and face this fear. I had my mother in the room as I applied lipstick. As I did this I talked about this guilt and embarrassment I feel. I began shivering and I struggled to say my words. I knew I was scared, but the feeling was a lot more intense than I imagined.

I then asked her to simply respond to what I did. She questioned why I apply makeup on me, and if there’s a message I was trying to send with it. The only thing I responded  was that it just brought me joy. Although the conversation turned into a little religious lecture, it did end on a positive note. She basically stated that I should do what makes me feel comfortable in my appearance. I’m unsure how to feel after this project. 

The artist of the week is William Pope.L. Pope.L is known more for his performance art, but he also does painting, photography and theater. A notable work include Eating the Wall Street Journal, 2000 which in response to an ad campaign about newspapers making you healthier. Another is Sweet Desire which involved burning himself up to his chest and having vanilla ice cream melt in front of him. He was hospitalized midway through it. My interest in this artist is the symbolism of his work. The meaning can be drastic depending on one’s context and that’s always a good element in art. I also like Pope.L for the topics he handles within his work. I wouldn’t call myself very political, but there is issues that need to be addressed.

Watching the film, I was thinking less about the performance and more on how people reacted. It was strange seeing people act similarly to the exaggerated silent film shown in various shots. I disliked how most of the audience reacted. I’d imagined a different response from the initial finding out of this performance and was upset to see people thinking this was real and still not batting an eye. Apart from that, I feel this project displayed the audience as part of the work well. It displayed social-based performance in a way I haven't seen before.

This project was aimed towards the idea of shame. Being male and wearing makeup came with a lot of backslash from my loved ones. Although the arguments have turned to silence, there’s still a feeling of shame of wearing it around them. A shame that follows me through out the day.

This project is about me wearing make-up and feeling embarrassed to be seen, even though a lot of the times it makes me stand out. This is projected trough me constantly looking at the door and hearing someone walking in. The site is my bedroom, but not entirely because I didn’t want to go outside. There was a lot of changes in my life, and one of them was moving here. Without getting into specifics, I was at a point in my life where I had no idea who I was as a person. Makeup became this fun thing I did to express myself, and the first time I wore it was within this home. Also the dark corner I video taped is the same one I use for makeup.

Taylor mac (who uses judy as a gender pronoun) works on playwright, acting, signing, songwriting, directing, producing and performance art. As i stated this multiple times, the line between a play or theater and performance art is of interest to me. This sort of background and experience is what drew me to see what this artist was about. What I enjoyed about the performance was how they hald elements of theater but still had that performance art feeling to it. Notable works include A 24-Decade History of Popular Music which was a 24 hour concert and Holiday Sauce which was a tribute to Mother Flawless Sabrina in a holiday show theme. These performances come across and energetic and theatrical, but they also tackle important topics in our modern world.

The artist of this week is Regina Jose Galindo. I was interested when her bio described focusing on social violence and injustices to gender and racial discrimination. It’s a topic that has been coming up in a lot of classes I have, so I had an interest. Some of the performances definitely get you thinking about the ideas they are trying to convey. Like No Perdemos Nada Con Nacer, 2000 where she is placed in a plastic bag and taken to the dump. Or even  Object, 2010 where she's nude in the middle of a room with sensors that trigger when people get close. I can’t list them all, but there’s so many different creative ideas when it comes to her performance.

I found the film interesting. Learning about the Asco group and their start was inspiring because of everything happening. From the Chicano movement to expressing their identity in a not so open-minded world, I admire this group. Challenging norms and fighting against the stereotypes is a thing relevant to this day.

A performance becomes site-specific when the location it’s performed is part of the performance. Though this site-specificity isn’t just physical, as it includes context, debate, audience, and community specific. If the performance can be performed elsewhere without losing it’s meaning, then the site-specificity loses its purpose. Usually works in a gallery don’t have any site-specific qualities because the site is blank to keep the focus on just the performance. Beyond just performance, other art forms can be site-specific as long as the work relies on the site.

I flatten out a chunk of clay then proceed to poke it with a pencil. The movement is generally calm, but with a slight disinterested facial expression. The process combines my art practice with that of a more sculptural one. Coming from a drawing practice, expressing my ideas in a three dimensional format was a struggle. I have a weaker control in sculptural kinds of work, and easily fall back into my old ways. Taking ceramic courses, I found myself making flater works with carvings and mark making. The majority of my work involved messy and bulky shapes with carving made with a thin tool. This performance was in reference to that experience. The sole purpose of this project was a form of reflection on my relationship with clay.

https://youtu.be/t29Ln6XbgYI 

The images include the clay on a table and infront of the window because of the way light shined through.