Comments

Etop001 said: In response to Rory’s Blog on the text of Bruce Barber

I understand the artists intentions. However as a maker i felt a sense of sadness at the outcome of this award. This type of competition might scare off makers to enter this award in the future. When speaking to Ivan Anthony he commented that this years Venice Biennale was filled with painting and that it was a relief after years of video. We have gone through a time where ideas on 'Junk' within artistic practice was new, however viewers are sick of this. We want something that has intention, and is relevant to the world now. In years to come tradition mediums will again reign supreme.


Etop001 said: In response to Rory’s Blog on the text Thomas Hirschhorn

Agreed. Just because someone is seemly more qualified to comment on the work doesn't mean it should effect how people view the work. Rather a catalogue should provide an informative background of the artists in a language that is translatable for any viewer.


Etop001 said: In response to Rory’s Blog on Celia Lury

I agree with your comment 'branding is a form that is so familiar.' Due to era in which we live we are surrounded by Brands, and Markets. It is easy to see why an artist would want to explore the same ideas are they are relevant to all of us.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2009 5:52 PM

Etop001 said: In response to Libby’s Blog on Relational Aesthetic.

It is interesting to hear how your own work used the ideas of Social exchange in the creation of your recent artwork. When people donated money to the exhibition of drawing did it add more of an aura around the objects? or was the value placed more on the plaque that named the sponsor?
SEPTEMBER 21, 2009 6:37 PM

Etop001 said: In response to Melanie’s Blog on Theatre Country

The Zoe Leonard did not interest me at all at the DIA. However, the way you have tied this reading and that work together gives it a new level of interest. The writing that you have quoted from the text gives the work more substance and meaning and has made me rethink the importance of Leonard's intention.

And in futher response:

Etop001 said:

The fact that the postcards were readymades really bothered me for some reason. But when I think back an aspect of all of that work is readymade.


Etop001 said: In response to Melanie’s Blog on Falling asleep with books.

The ultimate question in life...then.. what am i doing?

Etop001 said: In response to Melanie’s Blog on Collecting

It is interesting to hear what others collect. Myself its Jewelry, I collect it as a signifier for a memory, of time, and place. It is interesting to see collections. Humans are obsessed with collecting, especially meaningless objects. Its what makes each of us different and unique. Shows such as Antiques Roadshow feed this obsession. I believe people collect objects that remind them of a time when things were simpler.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2009 5:38 PM

Etop001 said: On reply to Taart on my blog on Lyotard.
That is a interesting further link you have made Taart, I can see how the two link together. The above statement would be a great way to further development this discussion

Etop001 said: On reponse to others on my blog on Seth Price.
I agree with all that we are turing into 'jack of all trades' I think it relates to our Pioneering history we are a nation of DIYers and this is the same when it comes to learning.


Etop001 said: In reponse to Carolin’s comment on my Meg Cranston response.
Agreed. At the recent film festival on seeing the film 'Louise Bourgouis the mistress, the spider and the tangerine' she talks about her childhood and how all her work has come from her memories of this time. I found it interesting to hear a artist talk about her influences because for me also what has come before influences what is coming next.

Rubbish, a comment on society.

Thomas Hirschhorn interview with Hans Ulrich Orbist, Thomas Boutoux ed., Hans Ulrich Orbist: Interviews volume 1, Milan: Charta, 2003, pp.393-400

The opening text gives a short summary of Thomas Hirschhorn’s life and Practice. What follows is an interview between Hirschhorn and Hans Ulrich Orbist. The article discusses contemporary graffiti as a cultural reference, which, in the future may be seen as an historical art form. Hirschhorn state; ‘An excavation site is a place without hierarchy.’ (Page 394) So what in the past has been considered vandalism may now be considered a cultural record.

Later on in the text Hirschhorn states “ For me, art is a tool to learn about the world, a tool to engage with reality, and a tool to experience the time I live in.” he creates works out of everyday materials, for instance photocopies, as a way of cheaply reproducing information, tape, and newspaper. He uses materials that are readily available as part of consumer society and talks about Kiosks as a way of people viewing work. (399) This brings to mind the work of New Zealand Artist, Eve Armstrong. Her works revolve around forms of exchange. In 2007 as part of the Auckland Triennial, she set up Trading Tables, in public places, and invited people to exchange goods with each other, facilitated by the artist. Her sculptural work uses unwanted objects and resources to form piles, often in a semi-organized way.

Both artists use waste goods to comment on the consumerism. Waste being a by-product of life and of the consumer society. Through this material being used as an art material new presence is given to the objects. In the recent Waikato Art Awards, a pile of rubbish /art was conceptualized by artist Dane Mitchell. The awards judge Charlotte Huddleston comments on the winning work. “Dane's work responds well to his current situation, addressing, as is typical for him, the interplay of art, culture, anthropology, archaeology and his own situation within these systems.”

It seems that these ideas are very important to contemporary artists, as they are relevant to the time in which we live.

Lett, Michael. "Jacqueline Fraser Eve Armstrong." Http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0801/S00066.htm. 11 Jan. 2008. accessed 21 Sept. 2009.

Huddleston, Charlotte “Winner of Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award 2009 announced”. 4 Sept. 2009. accessed 21 Sept. 2009 http://www.waikatomuseum.co.nz/file/fileid/17306

Art, and its link with Society.

‘Art is one of the ways people communicate.’ (Dick Higgins) Within the time that we live the emergence of new technologies has affected what we perceive. Interactivity within art mediums is important as it makes artworks relevant and engaging. The Fluxus artist Robert Watts, believes that contemporary artists are are ‘utilizing discoveries’ from any discipline and adapting them for their own purpose. He believes that ‘this new movement of artists into new forms is directly parallel to the discovery of new forms in science. Ideas are cross-fertilized therefore many disciplines may be drawn into one work.’ As with the changing nature of the world artists are beginning to incorporate ideas that are not traditionally art based ideas as a response to these occurrences. It is thought that specialization does not allow for new ideas, where as through the collaboration of ideas through an inter-disciplinary practice, new solutions to problems are addressed. Intermedia or Interdisciplinary is encouraged within more Art Schools throughout the world as a way to discover and invent new ways of working.

Meg Cranston is one artist that works in an Interdisciplinary way. In the reading of ‘Running on light feet’ Cranston states, “ I don’t discredit artists that go deep, but I go broad. I prefer to go from flower to flower.” (Page 7) Cranston shows she is interested in a wide range of ideas and topics. She states that she goes broad, we can interpret this as an investigation into a wide range of information. In the reading ‘Dispersion’ by Seth Price, it is suggestive of how wide ranging scattered ideas are incorporated into one piece of writing. The ideas of Price are relevant to many art practitioners. Cranston works in a similar way, she is one person, yet works in many different style of art making. Most artists are trademarked to a style she is different. Working in a way that is cumulative. The ideas she forms influences what develops next. She comments, ‘someone told me that you should take the worst comment about your work and base your next show on that idea, so I took a playwright course and wrote a few plays.’ (Page 17) Many contemporary artists work within a similar way, incorporating and sifting through a ‘Wikipedia’ of knowledge to form new styles and ideas.

In the 1970s Joseph Beuys stated ‘everyone is an artist,’ I was not meant to suggest that everyone could be creators of art. Rather, he meant that anyone should use creative thinking in their own area of specialization. Edward de Bono, a Scholar in conceptual and creative thinking encourages this. He teaches lateral thinking through his the use of six thinking hats. The outcome causes people to view information differently, to break it down into sub areas of investigation. (Page 20) Interactivity is important within contemporary art as it creates linkages for the viewer and makes art relevant in today’s society.

Bourriaud, N. (2002). Relational Aesthetics. Dijon, Les Presses du Réel.

Higgins, Dick. "Statement on Intermedia." Web. 21 Sept. 2009. Published in: Wolf Vostell (ed.): Dé-coll/age (décollage) * 6, Typos Verlag, Frankfurt - Something Else Press, New York, July 1967

Hendricks, Geffory, ed. Critical mass : happenings, Fluxus, performance, Intermedia, and Rutgers University. London: Rutgers University Press, 2003. pp. 25-30

Israel Nico, Cranston Meg, Running on Light Feet in Hot pants in a Cold Cold World: Works 1987-2007, Artspace and Clouds, Auckland, 2008,

Seth Price, “Dispersion” (2001-2002), a document designed for the catalogue of the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Art 2003 curated by Christopher Cherix, printed as a book with Green Naftali 2003, available as a PDF (Dispersion2008.pdf) via the artist’s own website: http: //www.distributedhistory.com

Josephy Beuys : Rothfuss, Joan. "Walker Art Center/ Beuys Hyperessay/ Creativity." Web. 21 Sept. 2009.

De Bono, Edward. Serious Creativity. London: HarperCollins, 1995 pp.20

Artist as Activist

The relationship between these two articles is interesting as they both highlight the role art can have in politics.

In reading Campbell’s article it shows the effects the media has in relationship to social change. This is highlighted in the article on page 57. Where through the reproduction of images of Emmets Till in a black-owned newspaper caused an outcry within the black community, this anger helped became part of the force behind the lead-up to the civil rights movement in the late 1950’s. In this text Campbell highlights the power of public awareness for a cause. In this case public awareness was created through photographs that were of a graphic nature. As a way to highlight the horrors which some people were facing. The photographs, a mutilated body, bought the realities of slavery home for many people and inspired action and social change within a community. Campbell suggests that Images that are of social significance to a wide audience (whether they are pleasing or otherwise) should be displayed to a wide audience.

In contrast to Campbell’s style of highlighting the divisions between groups of people and their effects when certain events are highlighted through the media, through imagery and photography. Benjamin discusses the relationship of the camera is a tool to change the reaction of the masses towards art, (59) and how individual response is determined by the attitudes of a mass audience. This shows the importance that public awareness has in relation to an individual response. (59) Art is a form of self-expression and a way of expressing the frustrations of life. It is extremely important for artists to get involved with work of a political nature as it causes discussion and social change.


Campbell, David. “Horrific Blindness: Images of Death in Contemporary Media.” Journal of Cultural Research. Vol 8, Number 1, January 2004. Pp55-74

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Reprinted in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner eds, Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Pp. 48-70

The Artist as Trickster

‘The 10 Predicaments of Maui: Notes on Tricksters’, was written by Natalie Robertson, a photo media artist who is currently a senior lecturer in photography at Unitec in Auckland. In the reading she proposes that artists are a type of mythological trickster. The trickster is an archetype that crosses many cultures and appears in a wide variety of popular media such as a Coyote (1). She believes artists are “independent spirits that slip out from under domination and control, shaping and determining their own direction” (20). In elaboration on this she believes that the trickster is part of life as it has appeared all throughout history and she compares the artists to trickster because we have a way of pointing things out and showing them in a new way, this is explained by bring to light “new ways of seeing the world around us.” (20) Robertson links the artist with the trickster in their confrontation of culture, display of curiosity and by questioning standard practice, often through active investigation (20). As artists we challenge what is perceived though playful and humorous ways, changing the boundaries and creating new areas of investigation.


Robertson compares Francis Alys practice to that of a trickster as he makes works that have a specific narrative but explore the absurd, illogical and at times silly. Francis Alys has a multi- disciplinary practice in which he studies topics that are relevant to today’s world. His creative practice can be compared to that of the trickster. He aims not to show things for “ the ways things are,” (2) but to represent views, images, and representations in an way that contributes to our sense of who we are and our engagement with the world around us. This can be futher explained when we consider his work ‘The Ambassador’ at the Venice Biennale in 2001 where he sent a peacock to represent him as a way of removing focus from himself.

Many contemporary artists such as Alys can be acknowledged as a form of trickster as they challenge our views of the world around us which are relevant to contemporary society.







1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster accessed Tuesday August 4, 2009

2 )Nichols,B Ideology and the image. Indiana University press, Bloomington pp 2-3

Robertson, N. (2008). ‘The 10 Predicaments of Maui: Notes on Tricksters’, in B. Butler (ed.) Artspace & Clouds. Auckland: Artspace, Vol. 1, pp. 48-70.

Branding within the artworld

Celia Lury, “‘Contemplating a Self-portrait as a Pharmacist’: A Trade Mark Style of Doing Art and Science”, Theory, Culture, Society, Vol.22(1), London: Sage, pp.93-110.

Branding is a topic that relates to contemporary culture in all facets of life it is a way we recognize a product, the quality of it is determined with our past experiences and our knowledge about the product . 'Brands are the express checkout for people living their lives at ever increasing speed.' Forming a strong brand helps the growth and development of a brand to make it more widely recognized within a highly saturated marketplace.

In advertising media are increasly meta-media to translate ideas into successful campaigns. Artists are have to network and meet the right connections in hope to achieve more people viewing their work. In the most recent canvas Magazine within the New Zealand Herald Emma Bugden notes “artists themselves are taking an increasingly independent approach to developing connections and networks, and in shaping their own careers”. As artists we have to be open to ourselves as brand, something that is consumable.

The Young British Artists formed in 1988 in an exhibition encouraged by their tutor Michael Craig-Martin who ‘encouraged and fostered not only the use of a conceptual visual language, but also the importance of selling the artist’. The exhibition was ‘at the time the economic climate was ‘on the cusp of the boom and bust of the late ‘80’.s’ The YBA’s exhibition created excitement for the dwindling art market.


Within the notion of branding, contemporary culture and the art world it led me to consider develop the diagram below:


It shows how art and life are linked. Art is seen as a product to be consumed by the mass market Andy Warhol’s trademark style was the ‘mass produced pictures of consumer goods such as Campbell’s soup’ pictures such as these would appeal to a mass market as it is an everyday item that has been made into an artwork through the reproduction of the image through the process of screenprinting. Recently released books; ‘The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art’ as well as ‘Seven Days in the Art World’ are recently released titles that explore the issues of art branding and the influence the market holds due to the power between artists, dealers, collectors and auction houses.

It is important to have art that reflects the values of a large proportion of people but sometimes I wonder who is the one benefiting. The viewer? Or the artist?


1) Armstrong, G, et al. Principals of Marketing. Australia, Pearson

2) http://www.allaboutbranding.com/index.lasso?article=22 accessed July 27th

3) Schaer, Cathrin. ‘Foreign Affairs’. NZ Herald, Auckland, July 25th Page 8
1) http://members.lycos.co.uk/exposuremagazine/yba.html accessed July 27th
2) Lucy, C. (2005). ‘Contemplating a Self-portrait as a Pharmacist’: A Trade Mark Style of Doing Art and Science.’ London, Sage

James Clifford, “On Collecting Art and Culture”, in 'The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art'.

James Clifford, “On Collecting Art and Culture”, in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 215-251.

James Clifford has been one of the most original, influential, and controversial scholars working in anthropology over the last 30 years . ‘His work has challenged the conventions of anthropology by offering new ways to understand the forces and interactions that shape cultures.’

Within the essay ‘On collecting art and culture’ the most interesting idea for me was that ‘what you collect defines you.’ I am interested in the personal significance an object has to a collector. Collecting is basically defined as the gathering of objects. For me, and many others, the objects we collect link to memories of the past, especially childhood. Collecting objects that have a past life gives the owner a sense of having an important piece of history this is discussed by Susan M Pearce who states that ‘individual objects accumulate meaning as time passes’ she talks about how objects are both active and passive and how meaning develops as an interactive process between thing and viewer.

With Antiquities the objects value is dependent on who once owned the item and the story behind the piece as much as the objects known value. Clifford talks about this on page 222 old objects have a sense of “depth” by their historically minded collectors.’ This is further discussed on page 231 he states that phenomena are ‘rescued’ to prevent decay or loss of a persons memory with that object, ‘The collection contains what “deserves” to be remembered, and treasured” personal experience with an object becomes important, only objects that signify memories that are of significance to the collector are cherished. The New Zealand Herald section ‘Canvas’ asks a person each week ‘What would you save if you house was on fire?’ the most common item something passed down from a family member. This example shows how we link memory through objects therefore Clifford is indeed correct in saying that gathering possessions helps a sense of identity and experience through objects.


http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/clifford_james.html accessed 18th July 20009

ibid

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/collecting accessed 17th July

Pearce, Susan, ed, et al. Interpreting Objects and Collections. London, Routledge Publishing, 1994 pp.19-23

Clifford, James. On Collecting Art and Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 218

Geoff Park “Theatre Country”, in Theatre Country: Essays on landscape and whenua, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006, pp. 113-127.

New Zealand scenery is one of beauty. The New Zealand tourism board markets our country as ‘100% pure.’ It has been said that New Zealand is the only country in the world in which nature and the environment are an integral part of the culture. ( NZ Herald) Being a tourist is about experiencing a place first hand.

Gray has been said to ‘make nature into a painting and turn it into a commodity,’ The idea of nature as an object has a large place in society, especially here in New Zealand where the landscape is a commodity. From young we are taught to protect the land we honour it and consider it an important part of our national identity. Artistic expression plays an important role in changing the way we perceive ourselves, in relation to work we live in. In our national Museum Te Papa, a whole floor is dedicated to the Art made by New Zealanders for New Zealanders. Most of which, is New Zealand landscape paintings. We are a nation obsessed with our scenery and the beauty the land holds.


Scenery is what many a tourist visits New Zealand for. The camera is a tool to capture ourselves within the landscape. Capturing our own unique experiences, it becomes ‘evidence that your eyes had been there.’ Through promotion such as Lord of the Rings, and the 100% Pure campaign, we are visited more frequently by tourists wanting to experience, for themselves our scenery. The reader states ‘To the picturesque traveller on the quest for the perfect scene, a Claude Glass was as indispensable as a camera or camcorder are to today’s tourists.’ Many of us in Western society seek to have our picture taken to have an image of our experience ‘made real’ by photography. Thomas Greys statement ‘making nature into a painting values it as a commodity.’ This is true of New Zealand, by having our landscapes in a film people can view the scenes, they then may want to come, and experience the place for themselves. Our picturesque landscape has become as what Gray described a commodity.



Sontag, Susan, On Photography, Picador 2001, pg.151

Gary Taylor: Collaboration called for on major environment issues. 15 June 2009. New Zealand Herald. 16 July 2009 .

What is Postmodernism?

Jean-François Lyotard, “Answering The Question: What Is Postmodernism?”, trans. Régis Durand, in The Post Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1984, pp.71-82.

I agree with Lyotards comment that ‘photography did not appear as a challenge to painting from the out side any more than industrial cinema did to narrative literature.’ Photography’s conception did not undermine painting or aim to supersede it; it simply became another way of capturing an original subject or providing evidence of its reality. Just like previous inventions before photography, for example, the printing press it did not destroy the need for writing it merely became another way to reproduce text.

Photography cannot destroy the beauty of painting, as they are completely different ways of picturing objects. The camera takes a direct impression of the world around us where as painting ‘even one that meets a photographic standard of representation is never more than the stating of an interpretation.’ In painting the subject and the style in which it is depeciated is due to the choice of the artist and the skills they posses. Susan Sontag brings up an interesting point in her essay ‘On Photography’ on the contrast between the image (copy) and thing depicted (original), the way an artist decides to picture a subject in their paintings from life may be far different from what a camera can produce. Artists from the Impressionists movement achieved this reality; their aim was to capture the changing effects of light on the landscape through colour and use of painterly brush strokes. The style captures the mood of the landscape through the artists’ impression of the space.

Walter Benjamin discusses in his essay the term “aura” in reference to how one feels when in the presence of a unique work of art. Through the use of ‘tools’ such as photography, painting and photoshop contemporary artists are able to piece together ideas from the world in different way to depict new realities that relate to the time in which we live to create works that are relevant to the time in which we life creating a new relevant ‘aura’. This proves the point that Lyotard was correct in saying that photography did not appear as a challenge to painting.



Sontag, Susan, On Photography, Picador 2001, pg.154

Seth Price "Dispersion" (2001-2002)

On first reading of Seth Price’s ‘Dispersion,’ the article can be viewed as a wide ranging observation of random topics as described in our tutorial as ‘sampling,’ like a combination of Wikipedia pages. This idea I can relate to as I have a broad range of knowledge but nothing specified. For me, the way Price groups a large seemingly random text as a form of sample bought back the ideas of Meg Cranston. “I don’t discredit artists whom go deep, but I go broad. I prefer to go from flower to flower. That was part of my education. We were taught not to trademark- that was unethical, to brand yourself” . This point is very relevant to all of us we are taught from an early age to study a wide range of subjects if an individual is not good at one area we are taught to try and try again where as back in history from an early age you would become an appretiance to a ‘master’ in a particular area. In this era with the access to technology the notion of knowlege has changed a lot. We view a range of information to be relevant, knowledge is part of success. As the world his developed we have needed to learn about a wide range of things, for me this is how Price’s article is relevant. At first the big picture in Prices essay is hard to grasp but once we break down the text into areas for example blocking off the source from the image we begin to see how the ambiguity is the authors intention, like Wikipedia we all take ideas from different places to help piece our knowledge together to form a varied relevant new language.


Israel Nico, Cranston Meg, Running on Light Feet in Hot pants in a Cold Cold World: Works 1987-2007, Artspace and Clouds, Auckland, 2008, pg.7

In ‘Hot Pants in a Cold Cold World: Works 1987- 2007, the article ‘Running on Light Feet is a casual discussion between artist Meg Cranston, and interviewer Nico Isreal for her show at Artspace 2008. This article talks about Cranston’s practise, Influences and works. The informal writing style suits this piece, as its aim is to give the viewer an understanding of Cranston. It gives a brief overview of her practice, to help the audience understand the context in which her art fits. In discussing her education at Cal Arts the term ‘trademark’ is addressed. Cranston does not see herself as an artist which has a trademark, however I would disagree. A trademark is definable as ‘a distinguishing characteristic or feature firmly associated with a person or thing’.[1] Cranston’s trademark is herself, as most of her art is based about her experiences or reaction to a subject. Her signature style is broad but considered. Tracey Emin is another contemporary artist where the art is based around person experience. As the viewer we are invited to voyeur into the life of the artist.



It is visible from the text that Cranston is interested in a wide range of information and this has influenced her practice. She has not developed a certain style of making instead one that is more of a ‘pick and mix’. In discussing the reading ‘Dispersion’ we talked about the idea of ourselves as a ‘wikipedia’ of knowledge this is how I see Cranston’s work. She incorporates her knowledge of a lot of other subjects and places herself as the subject. She is consistently learning, ‘Someone told me that you should take the worst comment about your work and base your next show on that idea so I took a playwright course and wrote a few plays.’ Her art has the same humorous nature to it, she is not afraid of poking fun of herself.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trademark