Last Blog of Term 3: Grant Thompson + Auckland Art gallery

I was late again for class this week but I managed to get some good information on Grant Thompson seminar. The head of MSVA talk was predominantly focus on forms and function and how the two are inseparable from each other. Our class also visited the renew Auckland Art Gallery in town and was a great experience.

Thompson talked about the idea of "Form follows Function" explains that forms of shapes are somehow belong with a specific color form. In 1923, Russian theorist and painter Wassily Kandinsky claimed that there's correlation between the three basic shapes and three primary colors. Kandinsky added "Moving from hot to cold, light to dark and active to passive, the series is an elementary sentence in the language of vision". I did a little research and found out that Peter Leler 1923 "Bauhaus cradle" precisely follows Kandinsky's theory with a blue circle for rollers, red squares on the front and yellow triangles for the sides. Kandinsky is one of the originators and famous of modern abstract art.

His theory has been an influential stepping stones for some of todays practicing artist like Lindsay McClendon, graduated from the University of Tampa with BFA degree in 2007 explore and responded to Kandinsky theory with her own interpretation with her 2009 artwork series "Creativity" a three piece abstract painting pushing her ability and knowledge. She reference Kandinsky as her artist in connection with this specific series. She quoted "This painting was inspired by the famous abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky's unique artistic style".

As we visited the Auckland Art gallery later on the lesson I became more aware of the three basic shapes and three primary colors within the renew constructed art gallery. One area that stood out for me was the north atrium with South Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa "Flower Chandelier" large sculpture being displayed in a circular shape form with viewers getting a 360 degree look at the large scale artwork. I also realized that the atrium is in a square blocked and the ceiling shapes were triangular form as a response to Kandinsky's theory.

http://www.lindseymclendonart.com/gallery.html

http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/news/commissions-launched-in-celebration

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color4a.html

Emma McLellan and Xavier Meade

This week we had two special guest visitors. Our school lecturer and practicing artist Emma McLellan and Xavier Meade, Curator of Purakura (WINTEC). I really enjoyed and absorb both talks by both visitors especially Meade seminar which he put his sense of humor and personality into his talk made me happy, laughed and enjoyed the lesson.

McLellan approaches Printmaking in a decorative way to expand her creativity. Her works has mix painting and dominantly printmaking medium. she uses a chunk of layers within her work and told the class she just likes to play with her work and see what the outcome. I was more surprised when she told the class that she doesn't know when a artwork is finished and just loves to be decorate her work. I liked the way she plays with her work because I think most artist need to relax and not get precious about their work. I learned an important lesson from McLellan talk and thats is patience because when you get older you'll get at least 1-2 hours a day to work on your artwork because of your jobs, kids, bill e.t.c.

Xavier Meade in the other hand uses Printmaking for political mindset. Meade is heavily influenced by the Mexican Muralist art movement in the 1920-1960s with Diego Rivera as the most renown Mexican artist of the time. Didn't know much about the word "Mural" so I did a little research and found out that it means "an artwork painted or applied directly into the wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface". I realized that that these were the surfaces that Rivera and others used to protest and send messages against the government. Meade explains that they're group movements still running in Mexico and they changed their form of mural art to poster form to protest, and raise political issues through different color, shapes, figures and text to emphasis the meaning or message behind each work.

I tried to find another artist who has similarities to Meade work and I found California based artist Favianna Rodriguez Giannoni. A Printmaking artist and teacher who's renowned for her posters against political issues such as racism and war (Iraq and Afghanistan). She states that her posters reflect history, struggle and social justice through graphics and has collaborated with many other artist around the world.

Her work "Resist U.S Imperialism" in 2003 is a direct statement against the U.S War. Dominant three dull colors of red representing death/blood, orange representing ethnicity, white to give a clear text message and black to help with the text statement. Her use of a young mexican man with gun shell ammo tells me she is against U.S War because it takes away families love ones and doing the government job.

The general public of California and the world have become aware of the American justice and immigration system today because of Giannoni artwork. Another of her work that I really like was "Malcolm X", she used a stencil of Malcolm X and a famous quote Malcolm X made back in the years of the Civil rights movement as her reaction to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.

http://www.favianna.com/bio/ Favianna Rodriguez OFFICIAL WEBSITE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmIrI06IMUo an INTERVIEW with Favianna Rodriguez

http://inciteblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/take-action-against-state-violence-against-immigrant-families/ an insight into IMMAGRATION injustice in U.S.A

Bill Riley, Dion Hutchins and James Ormsby

Although I was late for class, Our class had three visitors, practicing artist and lecturers Dion Hutchins and Bill Riley and Waikato based Maori artist James Ormsby. All these three artist got together for about 6 months and held a collaboration exhibition called SEEK and have exhibited throughout numerous galleries around the country including Melbourne, Australia.

The one thing that got my struck about their collaboration work SEEK was the differences they all had in Art views, ideas, culture and religious backgrounds that make each individual unique but somehow come forth with a conclusion and ideas they all agree and respect. I

really like the way their work reflects their culture and personality background. All three artist works are different in media, form and composition. The ideas behind their collaboration SEEK was engagement, community, interactive and authentic. All these principle are well established in their own unique way through their works. One of their collaborative artwork was through buying groceries. Visitors and the locals got engaged with the artwork by buying and adding more food and grocery and as a result, Hutchins, Riley and Ormsby idea of engagement and community were done.

http://paulnache.tumblr.com/post/6196497690/seek-aratoi

http://paulnache.com/exhibitions/2011/new-drawings.aspx

I did a little research on the word collaboration since I don't know much about the subject. Collaboration means in short terms means "working together to achieve a common goal, a process where two or more people or organization work together to realize shared goals".

I also found out that artist collaboration only started in the 1960's and remember that most artist in history worked individually. Another fact I found out was they're art groups/movement who are renown for their collaboration movement in the late 1950's called Fluxus. An English printer and early Fluxus artist Dick Higgins quoted "Fluxus means among other things. Fluxus moves out form its old center into many directions, and the path are not easy to recognize without lining up new pieces, middle pieces and old pieces." The group movement throughout the years have explore new directions and have dig into areas outside the Art world and still running today but in a more business negotiation between ideas and information. Fluxus in my opinion has changed from a fun collaborate between fellow artist into a more business sharing of ideas and information to gain incomes. In relation to Hutchins, Riley and Ormsby they collaborated to engage and connect with the community while Fluxus did start with an art collaboration movement that throughout time has adapted and changed into a business with a lot of arguments through its history.

http://www.fluxus.org/audiofile.html (Allen Bukoff and George Maciunas)

Going to Auckland Museum after the class seminar was a great experience for myself. The Pacific Masterpieces and Lifeways gallery section grabbed me the most because it was the first time I witnessed the materials, objects and artifacts of my origin background of Samoan and Tongan. The Pacific Island migration of language graph grabbed my interest a lot because I didn't know the origins of each different Pacific Island language was and how some are linked closely through early human history. The Austronesian language family originated from Taiwan was a surprise to me because I thought my language was of African origin. I did a little research on Formosan language and found out that the language still exists through the Indigenous people of Taiwan who holds 2% of the total population of the country.

http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian/research.php (more info)

AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGE FAMILY TREE AND MIGRATION

Eldon Booth

This week we had a visitor, a Moving Image tutor and graduated filmmaker Eldon Booth who shared to the class a bit about his works as a filmmaker. One of his methods he explains is his use of facts and fiction within his films, portraying families real-life photographs into a fiction story and interviews in an untrue documentary style film.

Eldon mention he got hold of his friend private family albums and was aloud by the family to put them into fiction film story. That's struck me with surprise because the privacy and precious photo-album are and the history content it holds for a family. I wouldn't ask or accept my friends photograph albums because of the history and events the photograph albums have. Eldon transforms these historic and memorable events into a fiction film content. I personally found offensive and disrespectful to his friend family even if he got the family consent because of the public viewing of sum films may upset the family and audiences.http://www.eldonbooth.com/

I found on a couple of true story films on the net that blurs the lines of fiction or facts but Sir Peter Jackson "Heavenly Creature" in 1994 movie, was based on the 1954 Parker/Hulmer murder case was the film that had a lot of real-life contents.The setting and location of the film were the location of the actual events and the selection of the cast were chosen primarily of their physical resemblance to the real-life characters.

Another mix of facts on the film was the scene of Pauline's room has a real picture of Juliet Hulme on the wall and all of voice over dialogue are truthful and directly from the real-life Pauline Parker Diary entries that Jackson used for the film and its the most truthful information he grasp about the Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulmer relationship.

The movie "Elephant" by Gus Van Sant has a mix of facts and fiction. The lighting and sound in the movie gives a realistic feeling and noise with less editing between shots because of the continuity footage with diegetic sound within the setting and location with barely any extra diegetic sound. After looking into the movie a bit more, I found that most of the cast are non-actors and were actual using their real names. In relation to Booth films, The cast in his films are mostly non actors with an exception, his main character. He gave advice about non actors quote "Do not give them much info" stating that its easier to explain by frame.

EXTRA: The film is based on the Columbine High School Massacre. As I watched the film on Thursday, the film remind me of a similar documentary I watched about 2 years ago that I couldn't recalled. As I research into the movie more, I found out that in 2005, three years after the movie was released. The Red Lake High School Massacre was heavily influenced and blamed on the film and the murderer Jeff Weise watched the film 17 days prior to the shooting and according to a friend of Weise, his favorite scene of the film was massacre scene. Some graphic violence in films are at times the pushing factor within someone and is influential in many ways, good or bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ_yluDQcMA&feature=related Alex and Eric Massacre scene

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4382087.stm

Leilani Kake

Today our class had another seminar with fellow lecturer and video installation artist Leilani Kake. They were two things about Kake works that interest me the most was her idea around identity and personality. Her works deals with ethnicity, culture and spirituality that are real factors behind all her work. I took note on her inspiration brainstorm and wanted to find out more about this people. She explained that she chose this specific people because of the concepts, ideas, techniques and personal issues her inspirational people possess.

Kake draws inspiration from Merata Mita, an important figure in the progression of Maori in the NZ film industry. Mita has been around the industry for 30 years was the director behind the documentary film "1981 Springbok Tour of New Zealand" an important moment in NZ history of racial discrimination. She was also the first Maori women to write, direct and produce a film in NZ history with the 1988 Mauri. She referred to her mother, as one of her inspiration was great and identical to myself as I too see my mother as an inspiration behind my life and art. My thriving for success in art is all thanks to my mother who supported my change in personality from rugby to art and is a reason why I'm do something with art to make her proud.

Kake work that got my attention was "Kia Ora" because the idea and concept that she produced through her video installation was just simple and unique. She links her roots of being half Maori and half Cook Island through her ethnicity greeting language "Hello". Kia Ora is spelled and pronounced the same in both cultures because Maoris are descendants of Cook Islands which primarily makes them Polynesians but today society separate them from the rest of the Pacific Islands because the change of culture in New Zealand throughout the century being a develop European country.

I think Kake use the "Kia Ora" to bring the relationship between Maori and Cook Island closer and how closely related these two cultures are through art. Kake simple text of "Kia Ora" throughout her video is manipulating in size, width, length, mirroring, overlapping and repetition. These techniques that she has used on a simple text create patterns and shapes that are identical and relevant to the Pacific Island art patterns linking Maori culture to its very root of being in one with Polynesia.

http://ngahauewha.wordpress.com/artist-curator/

The "Rapid Change" exhibition @ the Te Tuhi Art Gallery in Pakuranga was very interesting and heart felting because the politics and society issues that impact on the urban household in specific cities around the globe. One work that was interesting was Gregory Holm & Matthew Radune "Ice House Detroit"(2010). A Photographer and Architect collaboration work dealing with the Detroit urban society problem with unemployment, debts and Unpaid mortgages due to the never stoping recession. Holm and Radune contribution work has gained local and global interest through the media and the art world. The chilled ice house was specifically staged and build around a suburban to symbolize homeowners house lost and wanted to help those homeless with their funding they got through the media coverage of their artwork.

http://www.tetuhi.org.nz/exhibitions/exhibitiondetails.php?id=100

Mary Curtis

On thursday the class had a special guest speaker, a tutor and practitioner jeweler Mary Curtis. Although I was late for her seminar I was able to get some notes down about herself and work. One thing That I took notice about her discussion was the importance of presentation and composition and something to be taken very seriously. Till now I didn't really payed attention to the presentation and composition until Curtis talk, It's now become an important aspect to me as an art student.

Decoration seems to an important tool within her artwork and it gives her work a different and creative look. Curtis uses sources and materials that don't associate with the jewelry world and uses them in her works to create a new meaning and idea in her work. Her influences of decoration comes form the traditionally portrait paintings and At her "Made in Waterview" exhibition in 2004 she quote "This new body of work challenges the way we relate to objects of utility by changing them into objects of decoration." Her work "Red Wallpaper Bow brooch"(2008) is an example of her unique and creative use of materials to give an ordinary brooch more unique style.

<http://www.objectspace.org.nz/programme/show.php?documentCode=2239>

Curtis likes to positioned and decorate her exhibition to give her artworks a more observing and unique setting and background. She uses the setting to engage and absorb the exhibitors and visitors more into the artwork. Did a little research and found about an Italian artist Enzo Cucchi collaboration work with architect and designer Italian Ettore Sottsass "Artwork 1" which is a human figure sculpture in clay but only the legs are present. The neon lights aren't part of the artwork but its a decoration of the sculpture to give it more appeal and notification.

<http://www.designboom.com/eng/funclub/cucchi.html>

Frances Hansen

Today we had a guest speaker Frances Hansen who did a seminar on her current and past work. Her area of expertise is ranged from Painting to mixed media and does a lot of installation works too. One of the main ideas behind her works is collection. She uses collection in different ways from the weeds project where she got the collaboration of MSVA students/Staff and Newcastle Art school to produce a respond artwork towards weeds. She gathered them all then carefully position each drawing on a very large and wide panels that is all linked together and becomes a collection of artwork frames.

I don't really collect objects or have some sort of collection but photo albums is a some sort of collection that's associated with everyone. My mother used to collect stamps and put them into a catalogue. I remember going over to cousin house and saw how he uses his collection of toy soldiers. He decorated and displayed them throughout his home because the importance of that specific object to his childhood life. I did have a collection of marbles from my childhood life. They were really important to me because most kids in the islands love to play marbles and like collecting them to show off because it showed others that you are really good marble player.

Another artist who works with collection of stuff is British Artist/Designer Stuart Haygarth quoted "My work is more about giving overlooked things a fresh significance by putting them in a new context." Haygarth collects numerous objects, man made scraps and materials that are ignored and uses them in his artwork. Haygarth work "Tide" 2004 is an example of his collection habit which he created a colorful chandelier out of man made scraps he collected from the Kent coastline in England. The scraps are in different shapes and sizes but he some how organizes and places them carefully to create overall a sphere that he intently did as a resemblance to the Moon which results the tides that washes up fragments and scraps.

http://www.stuarthaygarth.com/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=1080