New Sculpture

made with pipecleaners, is going to be a larger model of the little statue

Mason Gross Gallery Shows: WLCM BCK

The MFA and Faculty show, WLCM BCK, was a very interesting show to go through. I think in part this was due to the fact that there were such a variety of artists involved. The second year MFA students, some faculty (my own teachers included), a tribute, and a visiting artist’s work, fill the gallery with variety. I think its very interesting that all the works were hung at 60’’ in center, until that moment my I had only ever considered hanging things in galleries by lined up tops or bottoms. Needless to say mind my was momentarily blown, which is when I really began to see how interesting the whole evolution of this show from start to finish was through Caetlynn’s narration of her experience.  I think that its extremely helpful to learn about the different hurdles that are overcome in putting up a show, because its showing me things I’ve never thought about before.  On a more personal note, just from my perspective as a student and knowing the personalities of the artists behind these impressive works, I found it funny and wonderful that the one work which was the exception to the 60’’ rule was left out of place and not aligned later with the rest of the works on that wall. It unintentionally says something about the quirks of this art school, given that the artists making the show also make up part of the identity of our school. Plus its humorous by itself, even for someone who isn’t thinking philosophically about it because it looks out of place, and so it draws attention to that back wall.

In terms of the show itself, I focused particularly this time on the installations of the four video/media installations, that is, the works by Ardele Lister, Damien Catera who are faculty at Mason Gross and two other works by Jim Toia, the visiting artist. The installation in Jim Toia's "Dissolving Gardens"was very dream like for me, and I attribute this to the size of the room and the two screens relations to each other. I don’t know if they were intended as two individual works or one complete work called "Dissolving Gardens", but either way they really engaged the entire room, with the motion the works each displayed and the space that their screens occupied. Additionally each had unique attributes such as the left sides mushrooms, i.e. 3-dimensional sculptural elements, and the right side of the rooms large monitor and strange transparent wall surrounding it. A fellow viewer near me commented that she did not like that transparency; it made it feel lacking something. I thought it this was an interesting contrasting perspective to think about. It also cements for me that this structure plays an important role in how this piece is experienced.

The other room I wanted to specifically focus on was the video room in the far back, featuring the works of Ardele Lister and Damien Catera. Both these pieces have similar elements of video display, in size, in the relative space occupied in the room. Damien’s implements speakers and Ardele’s implements color, so both solidly occupy space in the room as solo works, while nicely complementing each other because of their similarities.

 

To get a better feel for how these videos played off of one another in their respective room spaces, play them two at a time together here and imagine that surrounding you in physical space. 

Animatronic Pipecleaner Sculptures

This is a video of a sculpture I made last spring, you press a button, the jaws chew and music plays. Its actually the body of a dancing dinosaur toy turned sideways, pipe cleaners and tissue paper make the skull. The video isn't so great, but it still gives you a general idea of what it does.

A Brief Moment of Inspiration

I came across this TED talk today, this is why I love working in video(especially with found youtube footage)!

New Video Experiments

Ok, so these mark my first combination of my own animated footage with found footage and layer, I'm playing with looping things, reanimating other film by taking it apart and making it loop:

original animated test footage from 2008:



combined versions with looped found footage:








new loop experiments with found footage for video installations:




for reference, here's some precursor samples from a while back:

Fall 2008





Fall 2007

Meet Masterful Melissa

Experimental painter and sculptor Melissa Torro seems wise beyond her years with her careful mastery and yet exciting, creative zest as a maker. It was refreshing to meet an artist of my age who asks herself the tough questions about her practice and really takes the time and effort to explore the limits of her media. The following is an excerpt from time I spent with Melissa, learning the secrets locked in this skillful mind:


Melissa: Some of my stuffs up here I'm going for a real physical cross between painting and sculpture, you know what I mean? Last year it was really hard because I was trying to follow the assignments and at the same time do what I wanted to do. This was my final project and now it’s a segway into thesis this year.

(For a visual of these “boxes” and the newest of Melissa’s works, please see the youtube video of our interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0vSYaC-_6I)

And so--its just repetitive boxes… I drew inspiration from the stuff at Dia Beacon, I don’t
know if you’ve ever been there, but they have stuff from Robert Smithson and other artists, and I always forget, who does those ellipses that you walk in?


(Richard Serra)

So then I became really interested in a person’s interaction with artwork, not just in “I'm looking at it” but in an “Ok this is in my space right now, not just against the wall" and how that changes looking at it. I’m going to start building nontraditional canvases that really interfere with your space. I'm planning on being really controversial and having it be the conflict of ‘No that not a painting, that’s a sculpture’-- but it is! I'm dealing with the same materials more or less, its still wood, its still canvas, I still have to consider color and composition, its just that it starts at an earlier phase with building as opposed to just a regular canvas. I took sculpture all last semester and it had a profound influence on me because I started to learn how much I like to build stuff. The painting that started it all is a big painting.

(See the picture “Torn Canvas”)

I got really bored last year, so I took strips of canvas, and I didn’t pay attention to whether they fit the stretchers or anything and I stretched three strips and left an empty space. I kid you not, the canvas sat like that for five months. But I would watch people walk through that space and I really didn’t want to paint anything on it. I was trying to figure out how to address what I had done, so then eventually what I decided to do was to roughly stretch another piece of canvas behind it and then paint there, so then I was paying attention to the part that I liked best, does that make sense? 

Stephanie: Yeah definitely. I think its really interesting that you were talking about expanding your work to be even more like these (Box sculpture/paintings on the wall), especially because of the artists you’ve been getting inspiration from and the experience of people interacting with that first unconventional canvas.

Melissa: Its kind of crazy, but I like going back and remembering how it happened.  And another person I loved all last year was Robert Ryman. He did the white paintings, I mean who even thinks of that! You go to the exhibition—and again this is at Dia Beacon—and there’s just a whole bunch of different white paintings, but they're all unique. So I started looking at minimalism and now I see my work as a kind of combination of constructivism--the building aspect-- and minimalism--the abstract color fields. That’s pretty much it. 

Stephanie: Cool, very cool, I like it.  I want to make sure we show this one, because this is a work in progress right?

Melissa: Yeah that’s going to go up on the wall 

Stephanie: So it’s going to have a dip in it? The canvas is?

Melissa: This (the small end) is going to be against the wall, and then the canvas is going to go around the outside and then the center is going to remain empty. So it’s framing the wall more or less, the object, the shape itself, is going to be the painting.

Stephanie: I see what you’re saying, these are very interesting.

Melissa: We’ll see how it comes out, this is my first prototype, but I'm excited to see it when its finished. I’ll let you know how it goes.


Stephanie: Please do, so then in terms of thesis, this the first step of that?

Melissa: Yeah it’s my first chance to go all out with out caring about what the assignment is, that’s exciting stuff.


A Sampling of Melissa's Work: 

"Torn Canvas"

(One of Melissa's wood sculptures)

Water : The Zimmerli Review

Stephanie Salazar

Water: Zimmerli Museum
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First and foremost I liked the hanging sculpture of net in the beginning of the show. The glacier water inside the net sparked exactly the kind of conversation I would hope happens in any exhibit concerning the world’s water today. For me, the “Berg” water melted off a glacier and bottled in Canada brought me right to the issues of water bottles, plastic, environmentalism, over fishing/misuse of resources because of the nets, pollution of water (whether by the wasted plastic bottles, or by the connection of having purified replacement water in the first place that we only drink from plastic). All in all a great way to start the show, you come down the staircase and see the net, and it feel like you’re walking into some fun science exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. I think its very exciting for an art show to be able to give me that kind of a sensation; it didn’t feel like walking into a stuffy gallery and that makes all the difference for the visitor’s experience. Then you walk in the first room and find the Haacke and Lin sculptures. Excellent combination of sculptures, they’re things you have to work with to understand, they require visitor participation beyond sight alone, and this for me is the power of sculpture. The only two criticisms I have about that room is that the Lin sculpture (“ Dew Point 18”) wasn’t lit as well as it could have been, I think the floor in that room is negatively bland for such an eye catching piece, a patch of differentiated darker color floor or more distinct/reflective lighting would have made the droplets reflect like rain on the wall and look like pristine drops of water on the floor this way. The other criticism is for a sculpture & painting combination of shoes and clouds and their interaction with the blue walls. I think the shades of blue & green walls throughout the exhibit really enhance the show, but the pedestal and wall where the boots sat were exactly the same color as the sculpture itself. The Lin sculpture follow through to the next room was very nice, and I noticed that everyone round me was writing down Lin’s “Pin River: Hudson” as something they were taking note of, which I believe says a lot. That room was ok otherwise, the Edward Foley print/wood mounted painting was an interesting addition, but I felt overwhelmed by realist ocean paintings, and I wish that this show had had even more sculpture, videos and unconventional art. The transition from the rooms into the video screening areas had excellent color coordination and transition on the walls, but I think that for our show if those lights could be moving reflected on the walls, like moving water, they would be better and more enticing for viewers to explore. The Viola video was excellent; I noted that many people had also jotted that piece down in their notebooks. I believe the Mutu video’s greatest weakness was its sound. The piece is called “Amazing Grace” and plays the song after a few minutes, but the video with sound and the implied song association from the name alone would have been more than enough to express what this video does.

For my own curation of the show, I would start out with something eye-catching like the net piece again, something that engages the whole room. I would continue that theme throughout the exhibit, enhancing the entire rooms’ presences with sculptures and works that engage the space as well as the theme. Of these, would be the two Maya Lin sculptures, “Pin River: Hudson” and “Dew Point 18”, as well as Hans Haacke’s “Condensation Cube”. I would include videos like Antoni and Viola’s, but would make some changes to how they are displayed. I’ve seen a couple other videos by Janine Antoni that include oceans & water as elements and I’ve really enjoyed all of them, as are Viola’s other videos, especially ones concerning water. If the Viola video mesmerized people, the Antoni video made people sick to their stomachs (from the dizzying, constant water motion), but both did so in the same way. Both of these videos bring the people walking through the exhibit into a state of trance, which is very interesting to me.
I would still have, dispersed there in, a mix of paintings, since it is an important staple in visual arts to represent, however, I would have significantly less of them than the Zimmerli currently has on display. One example would be Hughie Lee-Smith’s “Three Girls”, which was displayed very nicely on a wall colored white to compliment its dark tones and intense emotional weight. I would want to showcase both 2d and 3d work in enhancing ways.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQmV8aPNao --Bill Viola (example of another video water work)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_n2kfqNmpY -- Janine Antoni (Art 21 spotlight of a water piece I heard her speak about once at a Mason Gross visiting artist lecture)

(the pictures I didnt take myself, nor are the videos the ones from the show, but the pictures show how nice the one Lin and Haacke piece can be installed as, the really amazing shadows of the pins, and the videos give you a better overall understanding of Bill Viola and Janine Antoni as artists...which is important for art appreciation & learning etc)

Hello New Blog/Artist Website

My videos can be seen at my youtube page(either click the link above under my name or click here) http://www.youtube.com/user/IlikeLucy?feature=mhum#p/u/13/0n6jirqPZjg