Gustave Klimt "the kiss"

The Kiss is arguably Klimts most famous work. Like alot of his work this painting signifies the erotic, romantic love between a man and a woman. They are locked in an embrace, a kiss and surrounded by an aura of gold light around them as they are encased in the shape of an erect phallus.

For my piece I wanted to play with the idea of taking one of the most recognizable works of erotic heterosexual love and turn it into that of same sex love. I tried to keep my cover as close to the original, making it so that the only apparent difference was that it was two women, instead of a woman and a man. I even tried to make the new woman appear similar to the original man by keeping her hair dark and her clothing with similar ornamental decor. I found the outcome to be intriguing. I am not sure if it is the expressions on their faces, or the position of their bodies or what, but when I look at my cover I question whether the love is that of romantic relations or of a nurturing, sisterly love. I question if this outcome is related to the similar reaction to those of same sex relationships. You question whether they are friends, sisters and then maybe lovers. I think something that does add to the ambiguity in my painting is that the kneeling woman has almost a sorrowful expression on her face (unintentional) which gives off the feeling that the other woman is merely comforting her. All in all, I found this project enjoyable and I liked being able to cover one of my favorite artists. I like how my piece turned out and feel like I should cover it again to see if the outcome differs from the first.

Working Through Objects reader response

Susan begins her article by introducing the Freud museum implying its rarity and importance by comparing it to other spaces that artists normally have to work in. She states that it has layers upon layers of meaning even in the present that is based on the collections that have been preserved in his actual family’s home that has been turn into the museum. Susan brings us into her experience working on an art installation in the museum introducing her first obstacle, the large vitrine. She then decided to limit herself to confining her installation to the oversized vitrine. She believed that the vitrine was actually a great opportunity to bring in the viewer and have them be more intimate with the work. From this set up she ended up with viewers that had detailed responses to each of her boxes present in the vitrine. She sums up that that a conscious configuration of objects tells a story. She says that there are at least two possible stories. The one of the story teller (the artist as narrator) or the other of the listeners understanding. Each box in the vitrine is set up in a process that is very dream like. She has a word with each box, an object and an image. These three things create a relationship and thus a story.
Working inside the museum she started to draw connections between herself and Freud, such as ethnicity. Besides personal connection she started drawing similarities between their collections. She concluded both dealt with mortality and death. Working within the context of the museum she started to theorize about collecting itself. She related it to dreams where as in a sense they both have nothing to do with the necessities of physical existence. She then talks about how collecting is a form of joy, like categorizing when you were young and even as you grow older. The accumulation of objects is what gives us meaning she concludes. For her, she found she was seeking immortality and meaning through objects.

I think it is key that there is such an importance placed on the fact that the place where her exhibition took place was in the Freud museum. I couldn’t imagine working in such a space without taking in the context. It is easy to understand that she would start to relate her work and even herself to that of the collections of Freud and even to Freud himself. I found her box titled Cowgirl really intriguing. I found her point about western culture getting away with a lot by pretending to not know what we are saying to be quite honest. I also thought it was interesting that she used words in foreign languages for her boxes to make the viewer feel outside of the discourse, unless they knew the language. I wonder what the outcome would have been if the words had been in one uniform language of the predominant viewer. Would the connection of the images, objects and texts been easier to make, too obvious or if the word in a different language gave it necessary depth and ambiguity…

Vitrine - a glass cabinet or case

The Anthropology of Assemblage reader response

William Seitz first offered the definition of “assemblage” in 1961. It appeared that assemblage was the anti-art-art, made up of natural or manufactured materials, objects or fragments of materials not intended as art. The concept of assemblage had been made possible by the earlier twentieth-century cubist collages and constructions and the surrealist object. Assemblage challenged the theory of Art and the concept of art making by using materials that could be thought of as throwaways or simply put, trash. However, it can range from the “dirty” junk sculptures like artists Bruce Conner to the “cool conceptualism of Marcel Duchamp” (24). Assemblage is thought of as Collage’s cousin, both standing on grounds of anti-art. And so it was hard for it to be accepted into the world of high-modernist art. Now assemblage is widely accepted and is visible in museums. Jonathon Katz argues that assemblage has a special function of secrecy, “able to conceal meaning beneath and among its many layers and parts. Assemblage can appeal to the hand and the body, and other senses like smell and hearing, while strongly suggesting its own contingency” (25). These attributes make it easily relatable to non-western object. From assemblage also stems bricolage which Levi Strauss analysis states “is a collection of oddments left over from human endeavors” (26).
“The antiart function of found materials and their carefully chaotic combinations carried the potential to unravel the understanding of what art is for, becoming less an object of contemplation and poetic transfiguration than a tool for doing things, perhaps by roundabout and covert ways- a means of taking action via the apparently benign debris of everyday culture” (30).
When you think about how accepted assemblage is today as a form of art it is hard to contemplate that it has had to fight its way into existence. Thinking of how it started off on grounds as antiart-art and now it is readily accepted as an art form. Still I do believe it has a place as antiart because there are still existing notions of art being that of “high end.” It makes perfect sense that assemblage is related to the cubist and surrealist movement since they were all challenging what art was thought to be. I personally found the part on bricolage intriguing when Levi Strauss compared it to magic, “lying half way between scientific knowledge and mythical or magical thought” (29). He states that both are results of actions and manipulations, collections of activities. I think that it is pertinent to acknowledge the importance that assemblage has had in the history of art. Along with other movements it widened the spectrum, of acceptable art and pushed the boundaries of imagination and conceptualism.

manifesto

Lauren Dobbins
Art Manifesto
ART 112
I Am For an Art
I am for an art that is erotic.
An art that arouses thought.
That stimulates your fingertips as you imagine
Them tracing along the lines and texture,
Or if you’re lucky enough, actually get to meet.

I am for an art that speaks.
An art that has something to say.
Something to scream
Or something to whisper.
Something deep and abstract.
Something simple and concrete.
Even if it is only to say,
“The flowers in the spring are breathtaking.”

I for an art that hangs in public bathrooms.
An art that is put there simply because it looks good.
Not that is needed, and that is the joy of it.

I am for an art that is impractical.
I am for an art that is impertinent.
I am for an art that is impossible.

Because it can be.

I am for an art that expresses our freedom.
Our freedom to imagine.
To create.

To live in an alternative dream world.
Or to face the truth of our world.

I am for an art that is an escape.
For the artist.
For the viewer.

I am for an art created in the mind
And made with the hands.
Or the toes.
Ankles.
Elbows.
Knees.

I am for an art that exists for the sake of expression.
That is not needed to survive.
But needed to live.

I am for an art that evokes an emotion.
That keeps you coming back,
To feel, and feel again
Because these days,
Things are starting to feel routine.

Katy Asher & The M.O.S.T

I loved hearing from Katy Asher about The M.O.S.T. The whole "ministry" / "embassy" was fascinating. I think that the "Ministry of Small Things" is ingenious. I would love to have a group where we met regularly to talk about the "small" things in life and see what we have in common. I suppose that is what my friends and I do. Maybe we should turn ourselves into an official group. I can't believe that they got the project to go so far, stretching over years and being able to travel, even out of the continent on behalf of The M.O.S.T. All the maps were so detailed and really created a feeling of authenticity. The trading cards were great too. Everthing they did and created had so much effort and thought put into it. I can only imagine how much fun it mus have been to be able to create your own world in a sense, and actually having it be more than just yourself and your friends involved. I wish that I had been aware of them when they were still together and could have gone to one of their exhibitions. One thing that I personally enjoyed was their version of marriage in Mostlandia. That was so cute how you could rate it on how "gaga" you were for someone. And how they served ice cream and refreshments at all their events really added to the fantasy and fun of the whole thing. While on the other hand, what they were producing was this fanciful world, but everything that went into it and all the planning, work and behind the scene was very systematic with so many details envolved. The whole world seemed to be full of whimsy and fun but it is fascinating how much actual real hard work was put into creating it. It really seemed like they truely believed in this world. And really, for anyone to have taken it seriously, the members had to and it really showed how much time and effort and creativity went into the creation of The M.O.S.T. I find it inspiring that a typical group of people with things in common can establish themselves into an embassy, create a nation, get followers and sustain it for years.

The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away" reader response

Ilya Kabakov, “The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away”
The article starts off with the story of a plumber who lived in an apartment. It had gotten exceptionally cold and it was necessary for the heat to be checked. Three grease covered men insisted to the chief tenant that they get into the plumber’s room. No one appeared to be there so they broke down the door and inside was piles and piles of trash. “The entire room, from floor to ceiling was filled with heaps of different types of garbage. But this wasn’t a disgusting, stinking junkyard like the one in our yard or in large bins near gates of our building, but rather a gigantic warehouse of the most varied things, arranged in a special, one might say carefully maintained, order” (32). The arrangement was quite spectacular and brings to mind the idea of what comprises “garbage.” Kabakov goes on to talk about how what may seem like trash to one person may not seem like trash to another because of the sentimental value it may possess. Or even still, how certain things may seem important, like post cards or old letters while common sense tells us other things are less important and therefore is trash and should be tossed out. Kabakov refutes this idea by saying, “Why should common sense be stronger than my memories, stronger than all the moments of my life which are attached to these scraps of paper which now seem funny and useless?” (33). He continues to theorize the importance of the “trash” in his life saying that it is the only true tangible artifacts that can confirm his existence by proving his past and that to which has shaped him. He concludes his piece by relating the whole world to a dump saying that “the whole world, everything which surrounds me here, is to me a boundless dump with no ends or borders, an inexhaustible, diverse sea of garbage. In this refuse of an enormous city one can feel the powerful breathing of its entire past. This whole dump is full of twinkling starts, reflections and fragments of culture…” (35). He states that we have lost the border of garbage and non-garbage and that everything in our world is cluttered in garbage. But on a positive note he ends by concluding that it is from this garbage that preserves and incites new projects, ideas and a “certain enthusiasm arises, hopes for the rebirth of something, though it is well known that all of this will be covered with new layers of garbage” (37).

The thing that really caught my attention most in this piece, that was touched on the least, but I thought most vital to the whole theory was the idea of time. I’m sure the thought has crossed my mind before, but I don’t think I had ever thought in depth about it until reading this article.
The concept of time is quite boggling. It exists only because we created it. And all we ever really have to prove the existence of time or even the existence of lives and life is through artifacts. I have a box in which I keep “trash” that I find valuable. Everything in the box has a memory for me that I want to keep safe and for forever. I never really thought before that perhaps the things I keep in my box are also for proof of my existence. Proof of the event and proof of time; of my past. And it is interesting, with this in mind, that our whole nation, society as we know it is based on tangible artifacts; things that represent the existence of our past. And how collectively people’s existence that exists only in tangible “trash” will, can, and has been buried under more and more accumulated trash. It’s not like we can gather all our trash or anything and just shoot it off our world into outer space. It is like saying that everything that was, still is. It’s almost comforting in a way, until you remember that after you die all your things will be sold in an estate sale and the person who bought your vase never knew your story or will soon forget. But perhaps your daughter kept your ring and gave it to your granddaughter and she passed it on and the memory of you travels along with it. Or maybe there is comfort simply in the thought that your vase and your ring still exist even after you cease to.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol Reader Response

Warhol starts off talking about how people should live in one large empty room, clear of all the clutter that people tend to collect. He says that everything should be locked away and stored somewhere else. That if you can't get rid of everything you should have a closet for your things, but a separate closet, "So you don't use it as a crutch too much."(31) He states an example that if you lived in New York you should keep your closet no closer than New Jersey. He uses that logic that nobody want to, "feel you're living next to your own dump."(31) Other people would be more bearable because you wouldn't know all of the exact contents, that knowing about everything that is in there and thinking about it too much could drive a person insane. He continues to say that everything in your closet should be thrown out at some point and expire like food. Warhol states that the best thing to do is to have a box for a month, put all your stuff in it, then lock it up and send it to your closet in New Jersey at the end of the month. Try to keep track of everything but if something gets lost, well then that’s just a little less clutter in your life. He started with trunks and such but soon found that he was looking around for better things so now he simply uses a cardboard box. He says that he hates to be nostalgic so he half hopes that everything will get lost anyway, never to be seen again. His other way of thinking is that he really wants to save some things because he might need them again sometime.
I thought that this article could be referring to a couple of things; first to the clutter of thoughts that fill our brain, and second to the clutter that fills our lives. He says that we should all have a big empty space, a clear mind without being crowded by all of the stuff we store in our minds and pour over and over, taking up brain space. He says that we should keep things while we need them, but that at some point they should be sent away to free up the space. Eventually though he says these things should all be thrown out. Sometimes he even wishes that things would just go away forever, and that he wouldn’t ever have to think about them again. At the end he contradicts this way of think though by saying that he does really want to keep some things there, to use later. There are things that you don’t want to forget. I think he could also be talking about the clutter that people tend to have, making our lives chaotic. Clutter made up of; everything from our work, our busy social schedules, the things that worry us, bills, and all the material possessions that one tends to accumulate in life. All of these things are taking up space in our lives, making them more hectic. And while the chaos can be overwhelming at times, even preventing us from progressing in life, sometimes it can be useful to tap into it and pull from it ideas, memories and new projects.

cover of "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt

PAM curators & 50/50 exhibition

Pam Curators and the 50/50 Exhibition
I really enjoyed the 50/50 exhibition at the Portland Art Museum. Not necessarily for the works of art in the exhibition themselves, although they too were appealing, but rather the story behind the exhibition. I found it endearing and refreshing that all the works belonged to a modest couple in New York who had been collecting for decades. They were able to collect over 4,500 works of art on a modest income and stored them all in their small apartment. Their personalities came through in their collection within the pieces that they had, and the similarities between them. Their collection also said a lot about them by having many of the pieces been given to them personally by the artists themselves. They developed relationships with the artists and a name for themselves as collectors. It was interesting looking at the exhibition from the stand point of the curator. It was decided that the collection would be split up and divided into 50 pieces for 50 states. The pieces were randomly selected, after DC got their picks and then sent to museums around America. As the curator it was their job to figure out a way to display the works in a cohesive manor. The exhibition flowed like this; the first works to be displayed were those of more well known artists. Then it moved on to technique and process of making the art. The voice that sang out most from the collection was those of the collectors and their personalities along with the thought that most of the pieces wouldn’t have had the chance to be shown in such a way if not for them as well.
When were able to have one on one time and learn about everything that goes on and all the work involved in making exhibits and how the Portland Art Museum operates I was astounded by all the efforts. I didn’t know the time, money and science that goes into making the Portland Art Museum what it is. They already have exhibitions planned two years in advance, and they cost millions to bring to actuality. There is science behind the lighting, the temperature and the wall color. And they even pay attention to tribe affiliation and wishes when it comes to Native American exhibitions. One thing that was said that really stuck with me was, “curators do more than just hang up art work with a hammer and a nail. The should be called preservers, because that’s what they do. They Preserve art.” I thought that was really neat and encapsulated all that a curator does.

collateral matters @MCC

Upon first entering the exhibit, my first instinct was to reach out and start touching and navigating through the paperwork that was neatly hanging in slip covers along the first two walls. It is a know fact, that in most museums, the displays and works are off limits to the curiosity of your fingers, and so I only quickly flipped through a few pages after noticing my fellow classmates were doing the same. After listening to Kate Bingaman and Clifton Burt speak about the exhibit that they collaborated on, everything made sense. The exhibit called for interaction. Everything was intentional from the way things were hung, to the time line on the far wall of the exhibit. They wanted the visitor to have a similar experience to the one they had when going through the paperwork and collateral trying to figure out how they were going to put together the exhibition. They thoughtfully picked out the most interesting pieces from each file and ordered them in chronological order and placed each individual paperwork in each individual case in a cover slip and then hung them together on a orange clip board. These hung all over two whole walls. Each one telling a story. On the far wall was a time line, spanning from the 1940’s to the 1980’s. Having the collateral from the different eras lined up in juxtaposition called attention to the changes that were taking place due to advancement in technology and society. In the 40’s the collateral was small, imageless and painstakingly hand written or typed on a typewriter. Further along the time line images start appearing, works start to get larger, there becomes a focus on the artist and color appears. The time line ends in the 80’s because collateral takes a turn as the world starts to get logged into the web. After Kate and Clifton finish speaking and give us free range to play and explore I tried out the type writer, making a spelling error in almost every sentence, while others practiced their penmanship at the stationary station and some read through the clips boards or other collateral story lines behind the glass panels. The fascinating thing about this exhibit is that it calls your attention to all the unseen work that goes on behind an exhibit that makes it actually happen. It shows the changes of our society, from single handedly writing every resume one did and snail mail to looking at where our society stands now with all our technological advances. The exhibit shows the hard work of the people behind the scenes and brings them into the foreground, who would have never guessed that what they were doing would be looked at as a form of art within itself. These collections of collateral should be appreciated for their stories and personalities, for the work and the time that is represented by all the many, many pieces of paperwork. They give a look into people’s lives and of our society’s past that is seemingly being replaced with e-mail, internet and monotone Times New Roman. It’s not that, how we do behind the scenes today is bad, indeed it’s quite quick and handy, but rather our past should be appreciated and thoughtfully perused.

5. Five images of five artworks by artists who use appropriation.

Artist:Aleksandra Mir

Title: Che Guevarra Collage

Media: Collage on paper

Year: 2006

Bio: Born 1967 Lubin, Poland. Citizen of Sweden. Lives in NYC, USA and Palermo, Sicily.

Artist: Barbara Kruger

Title: Untitled, Your Every Wish is Our Command

Media: Gelatin silver print

Year: 1982

Bio: Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black and white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique. The phrases in her works often include use of pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they".

Artist: Jeff Koons

Title: Balloon Flower

Media: High chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating

Year: 1995-2000

Bio: Jeff Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces.

 

Title: Clown Skull

Date: 1989

Media: Plastic

Description: Relics Series

Bio: Vik Muniz was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961. He is a visual artist who lives in New York City, USA. Muniz began his career as a sculptor in the late 1980s after relocating from Brazil to Chicago and later to New York. His early work grew out of a post-Fluxus aesthetic and often involved visual puns and jokes. His most famous work from this period is “Clown Skull”, a human skull augmented w/ a clown-nose shaped protuberance.

http://vimeo.com/2829416

Artist: Mark Tribe

Site specific public art project

Title: Carpark

Media: Film

Date:1994

Bio:Mark Tribe (born 1966, San Francisco, CA) is an artist and curator interested art, technology, and politics. He is focused on developing a critical understanding of the complex

and interdependent relationships between technology and culture.

Michael Reinsch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJvo3dKK3U0&feature=related :a link to Michael's video of Maypole located on YouTube. There are other videos of his performance art on YouTube as well.

Today when Michael walked into our class to present his manifesto, based on his appearance of a white button up, tie and black slacks, I would have never guessed he would have presented the performance that he did. All I could think, in between mentally acknowledging the truth in which he was speaking and literally laughing out loud, was this guy has balls. And, yes, I am speaking about more than just the one's visible through his long johns.
At first, when he started stripping I presumed that this guy was nutty, only to find out that he truly is, but in an interesting and intriguing way. Behind what may seem like insanity is actually a lot of thought and creativity that ultimately puts out a very understandable and relatable message.
When he brought up how he likes to use the Internet as a place for his art to exist and derive from, it related perfectly with what we have been spending so much time talking about in class. Especially with the last article we just read “Technical Reproduction and its Significance”. Michael is able to utilize the Internet to keep an archive of his visual work and also a way to spread it. However, watching the recordings of his work is immensely different than experiencing his work first hand in class today.
I found it incredibly intriguing that he accumulates other people's blogs that he finds online and meshes them together in a very well thought out monologue of sorts. I would have never thought of turning other people's blogs into art, (a story perhaps, however he is also doing that as well) but the way in which Michael has decided to truly bring them to life in an art performance, I find to be quite unique. I also really enjoy the irony that I have experienced in his work. Not only in his manifesto from class today where he was “for an art“ using blurbs from blogs about hating art, but even in watching his recorded pieces as well. For example, in the video link above of his performance in Salem, Maypole, having his setting look like a party with streamers while reciting commentary on the recession and work while physically being entangled and trapped in the streamers as he spins and becomes fatigued. Definitaly not a party.

Reading response for 13. Technical Reproduction and its Significance by Ruth Pelzer p197-213

Summary of main points:
 The woodcut from the early 1400's represents the earliest form of the reproducible image. Later came engravings, etchings in the sixteenth century and in the eighteenth century, the lithograph. Which for those times was a huge invention resulting in faster drawings and better quality of prints. Now of course there are many forms of technical produced images. There is photography, cinema films, television and most recently the Internet and web. All of these forms have had there affects on art, the world, culture and modernity. It may have been thought that with the next new invention of a way to create technical images would lead to an extinction of the previous ways. However, in art and the media, every creation still holds it's place in one way or another. For example, the television is a way for us to receive our news, however during the time of 9/11 newspaper sales went up because television doesn't do the same exact job as the newspaper and the photographs. As the article states, "Different media complement rather than replace one another. In the case of the current events, television gives the viewer as sense of participation almost as the events unfold, whereas the written word and printed photographic image provide relative permanence and hence carry more authority" (200). Today, because there are so many technically reproduced and produced images around us it has affected our notion of reality, into a state of 'hyperreality'. T.V and cinema largely affect this. T.V is such a hug part of American culture that we are incredibly and perhaps unknowingly greatly affected by it, thus concerning Baudrillards statement regarding 'the dissolution of TV into life and life into T.V'. Also in film and television we, the audience, are seeing everything repeated, similar ideas, story lines, plots, meaning etc. Everything is recycled, but everything is pushed further in order to keep up the viewers excitement. What may have seemed provocative 40 years ago, could be thought of as boring today, and culturally what we are viewing is setting the tone for our society.
Another aspect of 'hyperreality' is being able to experience something without actually experiencing it. You may feel you know Rome, because you have seen pictures or viewed it on T.V, but you have never been there, never smelled it, tasted the food, encountered the culture and history, but yet you feel you know Rome. This is very true about art in the same regards. Many people would say they know Michelangelo's The Sistine Chapel, yet few could say they have actual been physically there and witnessed it first hand. The reproduction of art through technological advances has its pluses and minuses. The artist's work because of this can have a greater audience then they ever imagined. The masses can be able to view such things even if they do not have the privilege of experiencing them first hand. But, it is true that the 'aura' of the work can be lost by not witnessing it firsthand. But what is worse, to never witness at all, or to witness reproduced? Also art can be reproduced in a different context. It can be turned into something completely different then attended. Art can be reproduced and brought into popular culture and then having a market value, where the 'aura' is actually intensified in terms of commodity fetishism.

Personal reflection:
I agree that different media complement rather than replace. If even their intentions are to do relatively the same thing, the outcome is different, therefore they both are needed or retain their importance. However, I feel that with the last decade's explosion of technology it is compromising other media forms. The Internet, could be used to replace nearly everything, beside the experience. You can watch movies on the web, watch T.V on the web, view art on the web, read articles, news, you can even create art on the computer. I just fear that the place for the artist will be lost. We have already explored the loss of the author and this is very true because of technical reproduction. Don't get me wrong, I love the availability, but in a way I do feel that technical reproduction and technical production is killing the old paint and canvas. It also helps to spread the revenue and audience but the demand for technological images is calling for flat copy of something multidimensional. Technical reproduction opens many doors and closes some windows. I feel it subtracts from the grittiness of the work, the fingerprints of the audience, but yet it is able to help the art commercially. In our daily lives I feel we are so bombarded by technological media that we are loosing authenticity and being emerged into a solely technical world.

What world views are brought together in the 2010 Murakami exhibition at versailles and what meaning do you think arises from the contact?

Murakami himself, as an artist is reaching iconic status. In 2008 he was on the list of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and was the only visual artist on the list. Murakami is a power house dominating in Japanese contemporary art. He is a master of Kawaii and Manga. Murakami started out doing traditional Japanese art, but found it to be irrelevant and switched to contemporary art with a focus on marketing. He has been deemed the “Andy Warhol of Japan” except he isn’t replicating already iconic images, he is creating his own. Murakami’s work is so popular it is on Louie Vuitton bags, key chains, T-shirts, mouse pads, dolls, blackberry cases and ranges from cheap to extremely expensive. He has even worked with Western Pop icons such as Britney Spears and Kanye West. His Paintings and Sculptures are bringing in upwards of 9 million each and his merchandise brings in a yearly turnover of 13 million.

By bringing his work into the Château de Versailles it is bringing together two dream worlds. The Château de Versailles is known for its extreme extravagance and seems like it could be the only place that make Murakami’s sculptures with a price tag of 9 million seem like no big thing. The Château de Versailles is one of Western History’s most lavish symbols and seemingly Murakami is turning into one of Japan’s most influential and recognizable symbols. When at first these two might seem like an odd pair, in fact go hand in hand when looked at from a the perspective of consumerism, consumption and cultural relevance.  

Movie Poster Images (In same order)

This poster represents the time because it demonstrates the classic illustrations of the era and does so with an image of a man representing the men of the industrial era, gritty colors and background.

This image also demonstrates the same illustration and shows the classic beauty as the man point with the two men on each side of her, showcasing the extra martial affairs dabbled in the film industry in these times and in the film.

 

 This posters uses the similar style of illustration, but brings in the focus of the love affair and really hones in on the western feeling.

This poster illustrates everything about the 80's. The Breakfast Club is a classic 80's film and the posters showcases that with the color scheme and the very recognizable style of the characters.

This poster showcases the era of the 70's. The background is of typical 70's psychedelic design. The actors are also wearing clothing and using a suggested behavior known for the 70's.



The other films I selected didn't have posters I believe showcased their era, but I am unable to delete them from the blog.

What are the similarites and differences between Courbet's project and Murakami's?

The Stonebreakers

Versailles Exhibition

Gustave Courbet's painting, The Stonebreakers, was done from direct observation of the rural laboring classes (Mulholland 118). The painting depicts two labor workers breaking rocks. Both however, are unsuited for the very physically demanding work. The boy on the left being too young to lift his basket and the man on the right being too old to wield his hammer (Mulholland 118).  Courbet painted directly what he saw to communicate a political message associated with that time. Courbet was focusing on urbanism which was relevant to that era. Courbet saw his subject matter and its 'truthful' depiction in radical political terms (Mulholland 118).  By painting a replica of what he saw he was able to display back an image of 'truth'. He sought to produce a new art, relevant to the masses flooding into huge cities engorged by the Industrial Revolution, dealing with complex contemporary issues of modern living in a direct, non-mythical fashion (Mulholland 118).

In Murakami's project, he too, like Courbet, is trying to convey a "truth" that is relevant to him and Japanese art, but his commentary is done in a "mythical" sense in opposition to Courbet's "non-mythical" depiction. Although Murakami's art appears superficially innocent and escapist, it is an index of the cultural and social whirl of postmodern Tokyo (Mulholland 123). Murakami presents a political project which represents a cultural self consciousness. Murakami stresses the insurgence of consumer-driven subcultures, equating in generational Japanese rebelliousness with voyeuristic passive aggression, sexual fetishism and compositional dynamism (123). He does this through the doctrine of superflat “a cultural oxymoron, a ritualistic form of resistance against the perceived oppressiveness of the ritualistic behavior that dominates Japanese daily life” (123).

movie posters

Modern Times is a 1936 American comedy film by Charlie Chaplin that has his iconic Little Tramp character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in Chaplin's view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Stanley Sandford and Chester Conklin, and was written and directed by Chaplin.
Modern Times was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress in 1989, and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is an American drama film directed by John Ford. It was based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F. Zanuck.
The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California. The motion picture details their arduous journey across the United States as they travel to California in search for work and opportunities for the family members.
In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

The Philadelphia Story is a 1940 American romantic comedy film. It was directed by George Cukor, starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart. Based on the Broadway play of the same name by Philip Barry, with screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart and an uncredited Waldo Salt, the film is about a socialite whose wedding plans are complicated by the simultaneous arrival of her ex-husband and an attractive journalist. It is considered one of the best examples of a comedy of remarriage, a genre popular in the 1930s and 1940s, in which a couple divorce, flirt with outsiders and then remarry – a useful story-telling ploy at a time when the depiction of extramarital affairs was blocked by the Production Code.

Peter Shaffer's Amadeus is a 1984 drama biopic film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the 18th century.

American Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age comedy-drama film co-written and directed by George Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, Kathleen Quinlan and Harrison Ford. Set in Modesto, California, American Graffiti is a study of the cruising and rock and roll cultures popular among the Post-World War II baby boom generation. The film is a nostalgic portrait of teenage life in the early 1960s told in a series of vignettes, featuring a group of teenagers and their adventures in a single night in late August 1962.

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic romance-drama film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard. The epic film, set in the Old South in and around the time of the American Civil War, stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, and Hattie McDaniel. It tells a story of the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era from a white, Southern point of view.

The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American teen drama written and directed by John Hughes. The storyline follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school clique) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes.

Cold Mountain is a 2003 war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier. It stars Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger in lead roles as well as Natalie Portman, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Giovanni Ribisi.
The film tells the story of a wounded deserter from the Confederate army close to the end of the American Civil War who is on his way to return to the love of his life, Ada Monroe.

The Queen is a 2006 British-French drama film directed by Stephen Frears, written by Peter Morgan, and starring Helen Mirren as the title role, Queen Elizabeth II. Released almost a decade after the event, the film depicts a fictional account of the immediate events following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997.

Memoirs of a Geisha is a 2005 film adaptation of the novel of the same name.
Memoirs of a Geisha tells the story of a young girl, Chiyo Sakamoto, who is sold into slavery by her family. Her new family then sends her off to school to become a geisha. This movie is mainly about older Chiyo and her struggle as a geisha to find love, in the process making a lot of enemies before and after World War II.

Dazed and Confused is a 1993 coming of age comedy film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The film's large ensemble cast featured a number of future stars, including Matthew McConaughey, Jason London, Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Parker Posey, Anthony Rapp, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams, Nicky Katt, and Rory Cochrane. The film depicts a group of teenagers during the last day of school in 1976.

Pearl Harbor is a 2001 American action war film directed by Michael Bay and produced by Bay, long-time partner Jerry Bruckheimer and Randall Wallace. It features a large ensemble cast, including Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Alec Baldwin, Jon Voight, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Colm Feore, Mako, Tom Sizemore, Jaime King and Jennifer Garner.
Pearl Harbor is a dramatic reimagining of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent Doolittle Raid. Some of its scenes were among the last to be filmed in Technicolor.

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