James Hoff

James Hoff at VI, VII

Like Andrea Fraser, James Hoff using something many people would not consider art and manipulated it into something that could be viewed as an art piece. While this is not a performance art like what we saw with Fraser in class, I feel it has the same bizarre effect. It makes the viewer agree to hat they see even if they are not 100% sure that it is right. 

The (Taco) Bell

Phase 2 by Eric Wesley at Bortolami

Eric Wesley transforms what was formerly known as a Taco Bell restaurant into a gallery space that holds his exhibition "The Bell." This piece is installed in four phases. Shown above is "Phase 2." In this addition there are steel ductwork sculpture suspended from the ceiling as well as color tinted glass and wood panels. These additions reflect what might be seen in the restaurant setting. This exhibitions criticizes the institution simply by its location. He is making the statement that it is not necessary to place artwork in a traditional gallery.

Eric Wesley at Bortolami

This exhibition "The Bell" by Eric Wesley goes with our class discussion this week about institutional critique. "Wesley has converted a former Taco Bell restaurant in Cahokia, Illinois... into “The Bell” which he will actively re-program throughout the year." By converting such a well known casual place used by a wide variety of people into an art exhibition Wesley critiques the way we view art and its accessibility. Showing that art doesn't always have to be viewed in such a large scale, regal frame like most art museums that were converted from old churches or government buildings. 

Videofreex at Treize

The institution is no longer seen as a big brick building containing the objects and ideas of culture, but rather as that culture itself. The use of electronics has become a major staple in modern culture, and therefore is part of the institution. This piece could be a criticism of our institution and our heavy reliance on technology and data.    

“✚” at 1857

“✚” at 1857

                         http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2015/03/%E2%9C%9A-at-1857/

       In this body of work, 8 swiss artists challenged the institution directly, channeling the ideas that the space in which a body of work is presented, should not be more important than the work itself. They also criticized the institutions role in labeling and representing works of art, so this rag tag group of swiss artist, curated their own show without the assistance and management of a museum or like minded institution. Directly relating to our discussion on the institutional critique.

Andrea Fraiser at the MUAC

Andrea Fraiser at the MUAC

Fraiser's Video

This is a Fraiser piece that is currently on view in Mexico.  This connects directly to what we have been learning in class this week as Fraiser talks a lot about institutional critique throughout the piece.  Within this video, Fraiser comments on the question "What do we ask of art?" as well as exploring the motivations of artists, collectors, galleries, patrons, and the viewers of the art.

Maria Anwander at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen

Maria Anwander at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen

Maria Anwander focuses on creating conceptual performances and small installations. Her work is primarily a commentary of institutional critique and the art system in general. The gradation of the world of art is challenged by Anwander's performances where she kisses walls in important art museums. 

Lena Henke at Kunstverein Braunschweig

In her exhibit 'Available light', Lena Henke utilizes the same use of scale and association that was discussed in Crimp Douglas's essay 'Pictures'. her opening piece for this exhibition is a bronze casting in the shape of the island of Manhattan which is intentionally made for the viewer to associate to the head of a horse. This piece utilizes a miniature skyline of the Manhattan cityscape which, as was described by Crimp, creates a sense of distance from the viewer that moving closer to could not change.

                                                              Artist: Videofreex

                                                             Venue: Treize, Paris

                                    Exhibition Title: Data Report : Processing Activist Images

                                                Date: January 11 – February 24, 2017

                    http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/02/videofreex-at-treize/#more-207768

                      Videofreex's work relates to the topic of appropriation art. They use activist images and data reports to make their work. They also use video clips of found footage.  By taking the documents and editing it out themselves they are changing the information that the viewer gets to see which ends with a new result thus appropriating it. 

Caroline Mesquita “The Ballad”

In a typical museum setting in the time of modernistic art one would not expect to see metal figures masquerading around as actual people. Caroline Mesquita creates her metallic manikins to not just be an object of art and performance but also shapes some of these figures to be much like the viewer. 

While she does not appropriate any specific artists or materials for these figurines, Mesquita certainly appropriates the actual viewer of an artistic piece. She presents the figure on the far left in particular as a person with their hands behind their back as they look on to the events happening in the group of metal manikins.

Rather than copying a specific style of art and using it as her own, she is copying the viewer. How someone may typically stand when they are trying to figure out conventional artistic pieces and if they belong in a museum which can relate to how many people think when approaching Fraser's essay when the public enters a museum space.

People acting on these ideologies that certain arts should be in a museum, how they should act, what the boundaries of an art museum art, and so on.

Laure Prouvost “GDM – Grand Dad’s Visitor Center” at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan

Laure Prouvost “GDM – Grand Dad’s Visitor Center” at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan

"GDM - Grand Dad's Visitor Center" is relevant to this week's discussion on institutional critique. In this exhibition, Prouvost creates a museum inside of a museum. The reference to visitor centers in the title directs viewers' thoughts to the structure of the museum itself. In addition, the organization and hierarchy of this museum is confusing and not how a typical museum would be organized. Rather than the subtle tricks museums often use to convey an overarching narrative, Prouvost is conspicuous in her organizational distortion in order to depict her personal narrative.

Simon Denny at T293

                                                         Simon Denny at T293

When looking at this installation by Simon Denny, one would see simple images of newsprint, magazines, and the like, along with the remastered versions made by the artist. In this installation, Denny is working to appropriate older media as a way of bringing attention to real diseases in the world that are less well known. Denny is making an example of something normally considered as a different sort of art entirely. When looking at Denny's installation with the knowledge that it is about something more, one can see a new take on the old images that otherwise don't seem to have much in common with one another. Denny is making use of the Institution  and it's system of social interation and speculation to give attention to important matters and is appropriating these news letters for the sake of grabbing one's eye.

Lina Viste Grønli on archeology

Line Viste Grønli has taken the concept of appropriation and covered the subjects in pebbles, transforming the objects into relics from the present in his exhibition, "Ygoloehcra"(Archaeology spelt backwards) as a commentary on the temporal nature of our existence.

Melanie Gilligan at Wattis

Melanie Gilligan at Wattis

Institutional art is, by definition, no longer the building that surrounds it but rather the social gathering that takes place. In this piece by Melanie Gilligan, the piece created is made out of photos of those who make up the institution, while simultaneously playing with the notion of a more traditional institution of the art museum, presenting it in a grandeous space with appropriate lighting, in a fashion to display it as "important" in an idealized sense. 

Gilligan is portraying the daily lives of the consumer, of those who would look upon this piece and determine it's value, while also playing with the notion of consumerism in the sense of televised media. The piece itself, which appears almost minimalist in nature of structural design, takes on an entirely new meaning when the human form is introduced onto the screen. 

                                 David Salle's new paintings at the galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

An upcoming show at the galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris showcases some of David Salle's newest paintings. When discussing krimp's and graw's writing on appropriation, David Salle is one of the first painters to come to mind. He was part of the "Pictures generation" which was a group of artists in the 70s/80s that appropriated images of pop culture from the influx of media at the time. Not only does his work take play in the themes of our current readings but also the death of the author was very important in backing the pictures generation which was critical to the development of postmodernism. Some of David Salles newer works still apply to his use of collage of appropriated images, while others take a more intuitive less image based approach.

Nicole Wermer's at Jessica Silverman

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/02/nicole-wermers-at-jessica-silverman/#more-207023

At first glance, Nicole Wermer's installations seem minimal and appropriated due to the obvious use of readymade, everyday objects like a baby changing station in a public bathroom, or a bookshelf. However upon further inspection, it is found that although they in fact are appropriated, she is pulled along by the objects for humorous, historical, and philosophical reasons. By bedazzling a baby changing station in a public restroom, Wermer is bringing to attention the history of why babies are put so high off the ground (other than for the comfort of the parent.) So by appropriating this everyday, readymade changing table, Wermer is actually bringing it back to it's original roots of elevating a baby to a height that puts the beloved child in a position that mirrors it's high importance with the decorative aspects of fancy Venetian tiles used in the 20th century for upscale homes. Also, by altering a readymade that would already be in a museum, she is poking fun at the institution by glorifying a not-so-sanitary object and bringing to mind the idea that everything in the museum is the art. 

"Ygoloeahcra" by Lina Viste Grønli

Located at Gaudel de Stampa, Paris

The title of the show "Ygoloeahcra" is simply the word "Archaeology" written backwards.  In this show, the artist Grønli takes every day objects embedded in western culture and covers them in small pebbles found on the banks of the Seine, a river that cuts through Paris and an important landmark in French culture.  The entire show speaks to the postmodern idea of appropriation within the institution of art.  The title of the show is a sort of foreshadowing to the work that is shown, as well as a kind of semiotic explanation.  By appropriating the every day objects, such as a Nike sneaker and a water bottle, and covering them in pebbles, Grønli attempts to represent these objects in a different context. By giving these contemporary items a feeling of "ancientness" or "primitiveness", she is reversing the general conception of how archaeology works, while also challenging the viewers concept of present, past, and future.

"Look, all this is fraud" @ Milieu, Bern

"Look, all this is fraud" @ Milieu, Bern

By Audrey Robidoux

Upon viewing this collection of work, one is struck by the overall strangeness of the pieces relations to installation. Pieces include a '3-D model' of a head, as pictured; actually two 2d images together, installed on a cheaply made chewed wood(?) and blatantly screwed into the wall, mounted at eye level. There are separate rooms of the installation, two traditional white cube environments with concrete floors, well lit, then another room, seemingly in a basement with unfinished walls and a singular, dramatic light source over a table of art pieces, specifically models made from what looks like natural fibers and material. The press release is short and concise, with the ending line: "We need to forget what which governmental self-discipline drills us to believe to be the authentic expression of self.' Most of the art pieces were different representations of identity and all still, strangely created with a range of poor quality materials, installed improperally according to museum standard (i.e. painting hang height), with seemingly little craft involved, reminiscent of an odd craft fair. All of these elements, from the art works, to the title, to the press release is a critique of what is considered art, by questioning through what conditions art become art. As art is created and considered it enters the realm of the institution of art, even if it is seemingly poorly created and hung.

Dan Attoe at Peres Projects

In his series Natural Selections, Dan Attoe explores the intimidating vastness of the natural world.  Many of the compositions feature small, detailed figures concerned with their own thoughts inside broad, impressionist landscapes.  The juxtaposition of of the figures and the landscape puts into perspective both the consuming nature of the thoughts expressed by the figures, and the fact that they are too wrapped up in themselves to experience the sublime environment they stand in.

Gregor Schneider at Bundes Kunsthalle

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/02/gregor-schneider-at-bundes-kunsthalle/

Gregor Schneider dealing with sensitive subjects in his art work, saw a similarity in the white wall museums with with cells at detainee camps. In regards to this he morphed the space into a place where people would die in; making his viewers very uncomfortable. He also installs rooms inside other rooms reconstructing their meaning.

Oscar Tuazon at Institute of Contemporary Art

Oscar Tuazon

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2010/08/oscar-tuazon-at-ica/

       In this work by Oscar Tuazon, he is utilizing the aspect of industry, which translate to the labor intensive atmosphere it gives off. The wooden beams are derived from the industrial nature we encounter daily and being forced to deal with this structural tension in the gallery, as if we are the laborers on the job, wandering through a seemingly unfinished project, with moments of tension created through this minimalist jungle.

Cathy Wilkes at Xavier Hufkens

In her installation, Cathy Wilkes shows the newest edition to her ongoing series of installations, in which she incorporates materials she has been collecting for over twenty five years.  In her pieces, Wilkes arranges her found materials to suggest small narratives, which together show the moments of vulnerability, transformation, and creation in an artist's process.  The found objects are inevitably stripped of their original purpose in their introduction to the series.  In her essay Ceramics and Painting: an Expanded Field of Inquiry, Veronika Horlik discusses a cross-section of modern ceramics she calls "pottery stripped of function."  Like may of the objects in Wilkes' installation, works that fall into this category typically use pottery as a means to an end, often stripping it of the ability to contain and be used in a traditional sense.

Tris Vonna-Michell at T293

Tris Vonna-Michell exhibition at T293, titled 'Register' is a perfect example of how modern sculpture has allowed artists to seek freedom in materials and 'what counts as sculpture at all', as is discussed in Krauss's 'Sculpture in the Expanded Field'. This exhibition features projected films, distorted photographs, and ambiance sound. Specifically, it is the piece pictured above, titled 'Recording', that I find relates the most. This piece combines photographs and aquatic landscaping into one unit to achieve his idea of fluidity and "open-ended" thinking by the audience into his work. Krauss had discussed in his essay the re-convergence of landscape and architecture into modern sculpture, where once they had been considered incompatible in the same field. (However, he does include that non-western cultures have thought of landscape and sculpture as being one and the same, as is found in Japanese gardening). Besides this, is the implementation of photographs and 'flat work' into the sculpture, where once the inclusion of such material wouldn't be considered. I think the piece does an excellent job of showing the expended field of possibility available to modern sculpture.

                                                  David Adamo at the Finsbury Circus House

        This piece by David Adamo relates to "Sculpture in the Expanded Form" when Krauss discusses the relationship between sculpture and its base. When the traditional pedestal was abandoned, the base of a sculpture integrated with the sculpture itself. Krauss also talks about sculpture and architecture and the blending of the two, I think this piece relates to that in a way that square blocks of wood are societally used in an architectural way but the sculptural art form comes from the decay/carving of the wood.

John Miller at Studio for Propositional Cinema

"The Dark Ages"

John Miller's sculptural work at this gallery in Dusseldorf forces the viewer to take in the space of the gallery it is placed in, as well as the cultural context of this German gallery.  The small sculpture on the pedestal in the center of the room is a miniature depiction of old german architecture commonly found in old villages related to the dark ages.  Creating a work depicting a specific reference to the locations history is certainly relating to the cultural environment, while also sparking the conversation of the gallery location.  The shabby white brick, city style room that the sculpture is placed in the center in deserves a large part of the conversation of the piece, serving as a contemporary contrast to the historical specificity of the sculptures representation.  When looking at the expanded field of sculpture as discussed by Krauss, the entire piece may be viewed as incorporating a conversation of both architecture and not-architecture, or an "axiomatic structure".

Raquel Kogan and Lea van Steen, Danaus Plexippus, 2011

        This work relates to Krauss's essay in that the piece is not just that of painting or sculpture alone, but is a combination of using landscape and sculpture in their work. Unlike most modern artists, post modernists have made the realization that mediums can co-exist with one another and for some artists the environment is the entire purpose of the work.

Here Raquel Kogan and Lea van Steen have a sculpture with a picture inside the work resembling the background. Without the environment behind it the artists may view this work as incomplete or unsuccessful because it was taken out of its scene/environment.

The work becoming an example as how art and environment can coexist together instead of being made separately or not at all.

"

          "Trans Subjective Engagements" at Koenig and Clinton

"Trans Subjective Engagements" is a show taking place in New York and has seven different artists showing work in it.  On the wall were two plastic clogs hung on the wall, placed there by tyler Coburn. The two clogs placed there, required no human hand in there creation. This has context in economy and production. But these are two sculptural pieces that could be considered assisted ready mades placed on a wall so that they read as paintings in terms of there relationship to the wall. But it is in this that they can relate to Horlik's semiotic square of ceramics.  although these traditional objects are constructed with plastic rather than clay they would fall between three dimensional painting and non sculptural ceramics, being non traditional sculpture considering its being stripped of its function to be read as a painting. This is an example of the collapsing of mediums being more postmodern rather than modern.

Solange Pessoa at Mendes Wood DM

🔌
Solange Pessoa at Mendes Wood DM


In this piece by Solange Pessoa,  makes direct reference to, while still transcending, ancient pottery and early vessels.   The naturalistic substate of these forms imply stone and minerals,  that of which would be commonly seen as vessels, and yet the nature of the forms leaves this distinction unclear.  In Verinika Horlik's essay "Ceramics and Painting: an Expanded Field of Inquiry" she discusses the implementation of ceramics in the expanded field of contemporary art, specifically in regards to pottery stripped of function and ceramics blending with three dimensional painting.  This work exemplifies each of these as there function is entirely reduced to the mere ability to possibly hold something, but due to the shape even this use would be awkward and straining at best.  Secondly, the forms themselves are arranged in such a way as to converse in relation to one another in the lens of a three dimensional painting.  Without separation and practical functionality, these pieces offer nothing more than the void in which they hold, activating the space into a cohesive whole.

Sonia Kacem at Gregor Staiger

Sonia Kacem at Gregor Staiger

When looking at the work done by Sonia Kacem, in this day and age, you would think sculpture. The simple forms are made of light and thin material, some of which even being made of drapes hanging from the ceiling. When relating to Krauss' 'Sculpture in the Expanded Field', it is safe to say that he would disagree with the idea of these pieces being called sculpture.

Krauss' opinion is that sculpture is only sculpture if the piece functions in relation to where it is placed and the history behind it. For something like Sonia Kacem's work, which has no clear meaning or idea, it goes against Krauss' idea while still being recognized as sculpture in today's society.

Relating contemporary work to Krauss Sculpture in the Expanded Field

Manfred Pernice at Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

The work displayed in this photo is immediately relatable to several concepts discussed in Krauss' article. As an object it reads in architecturally. As a sculpture, it exhibits a clear cohesion of the concept of base or pedestal into its design. Not only does it acknowledge, activate, and interact with its context; it also references building materials. The set of spiral stairs which run central to the piece are left without an obvious physical function, and communicate with all other elements in the surrounding, working in contrast with the pre-existing architecture, and the audience. This action is comparable to that of the ladder and beam supports utilized in Mary Miss Parameters/Pavilions/Decoys, which is depicted at the beginning of Sculpture in the Expanded Field. 

Manfred Pernice

Manfred Pernice at Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

These sculptures relate to Krauss's essay of Sculpture in the Expanded field because of how the sculptures bases become one with the pieces. They are integrated into the art itself, instead of being a separate entity. While some are not site specific works, most are and would not work if they were displayed in different settings. They also combined multiple mediums which was starting to be encouraged at the time.

Nicole Wermers at Jessica Silverman

Nicole Wermers at Jessica Silverman

Grundstuck at first glance is an abstraction of a changing table. This piece is a lovely example of sculpture in the expanded field, due to its departure from the "monument." The monument inherently gives the sculpture a sitelessness, or homelessness. It can be transported. However, Grundstuck defies that principle in suggesting that it is part of a space. It also forces the viewer to have reservations about its uses. It transforms an everyday object associated with the labors of childcare into something beautiful.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles “Maintenance Art”

http://moussemagazine.it/mierle-laderman-ukeles-maintenance-art-queens-museum-new-york/

This particular piece from Mierle Ukeles' current show, "Maintenance Art," relates to her views on a women role in maintenance, which to her is the desire to take action to sustain rather than to create. Here, the artist has used debris and gloves from the now closed Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, a culmination of her desire to bring the workforce of maintenance to the forefront of society

Sam Durant at Blum and Poe

This piece connects in many ways with the viewpoints of Krauss, more specifically in how the functionality of sculpture is removed in order to better appreciate a piece as art. 

This piece stands as an example of two items that are identified as useful objects that would not necessarily be considered art in their own rights. However, they are combined in a way that removes all sense of use and therefore are made into sculpture. Krauss considers the topic of the term complex and how this functions as the correct term to use in context with that which exists outside landscape, architecture, or -in this case- commodity. 

Diego Perrone “Self Portraits and Herbivorous Carnivorous” at Casey Kaplan, New York

Diego Perrone “Self Portraits and Herbivorous Carnivorous” at Casey Kaplan, New York

This exhibition, "Self Portrait and Herbivorous Carnivorous," is demonstrative of the Horlik reading from this week. In it, Horlik talks about the difference between two-dimensional art and three-dimensional art. While two-dimensional art creates an image projected between the surface and the eye, three-dimensional art is an object taking up literal space. In her section on Painting plus Ceramic Sculpture, she discusses how placing both dimensions together provides a new context for both works and widens our field of view. In the image above, The three-dimensional piece disrupts the image being created between the painting and our eye, giving us an entirely different view of the painting itself. The context changes based on where one stands in the exhibit and how they process this juxtaposition.

Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison at Various Small Fires

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/02/helen-mayer-harrison-and-newton-harrison-at-various-small-fires/

Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison at Various Small Fires on February 16, 2017. This husband and wife team embody perfectly the ideas of Rosalind Krauss and the practice and thoughts of Veronika Horlik. The Harrisons have collaborated with biologists, architects, engineers, and others to create a lot of their "social, political and ecological problem-solving" work. Pictured in this gallery is their piece, Composting in the Pentagon with Worms which has 2,000 worms in it that are composting waste into prime topsoil. Part of the significance of this piece in Krauss' eyes is that it is not only a minimalist sculpture that has architectural qualities to it, but it also encompasses nature and landscape qualities! Horlik would also appreciate this gallery and these artists because of all the different mediums being shown together as one.

Sam Durant at Blum & Poe

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/02/sam-durant-at-blum-poe/images_file_56268-2/

In this exhibition, Durant has referenced historical context resolving around the first freed African Americans. He includes pieces consisting of furniture, walls of a barn, text, and other real world objects in this show. Here, he is bringing non art objects into an art space and conjoining 'Art' and craft.

Manfred Pernice at Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

Manfred Pernice at Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

Manfred Pernice's installation depicts a visual representation of different world views and ideologies. What stood out to me most is the unconventional manor that he used to display a large collect of ceramic pieces. He displayed many different pieces, none of which seem to be cohesive with each other, all very clumped together. I felt this related back to Veronica Forlik's essay "Ceramics and Painting: and Expanded Feudal of Inquiry" as the installation shows an example of how to bring the media of ceramics into the contemporary world, which can be difficult as ceramics has been frequently pre-determined to be a mainly functional media. In Forlik's essay she writes, “Just as a fresco painting is inextricably linked to our experience of the architecture it inhabits, so too does painting play an important role in defining these works.” I felt that the variety of formal and surface work on these pieces was reassuring to Forlik's writing. 

Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison at Various Small Fires

Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison at Various Small Fires

This husband and wife duo are not only artists but also historians, diplomats, ecologists, investigators, emissaries and art activists. In the reading, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, Krauss discusses the artistic practices that were rising, where artists felt the need to compose their lives in the way of an artist, intertwining their lives with their works. He also talks about how the different disciplines in art can overlap and expand as artists experiment and push boundaries of what it means to make a sculpture or a painting. The Harrison's combine both of these values and the exhibit "Various Small Fires" illustrates that. Their exhibit is 'uniquely interdisciplinary' as they combine, within a variety of pieces, 'minimalist sculpture, land art, color field painting, cartography, and video', where none of the different pieces of art could fall under one category.

Mickalene Thomas "Do I Look Like a Lady?"at MOCA Los Angeles 

This piece blurs the lines between art and everyday objects. The cozy setup of chairs invites the viewer to engage with the installation. Although the artist had a clearly conceptualized motive behind the installation there is still room left for interpretation from the audience, which relates back to the ideas of "Death of the Author."

Oliver Payne at Overduin & Co

Oliver Payne at Overduin & Co

This piece, and the show at large, play with the ideas of interactivity in our modern age. Technology blends with nature to show how the elements can be displayed, both physically and digitally. As Gameboys and Youtube have become part of contemporary culture, the sight of decay by nature brings an intense urge to interact from curiosity. Does it still work? Will this technology survive? 

Louise Bourgeois "Holograms" at Cheim and Read, New York

Louise Bourgeois "Holograms" at  Cheim and Read, New York

The pieces dive into the possibility of three demential photographs. They are created by laser beams that track the light reflected off of the objects burned on a glass plate. This relates to The Death of the Author because every person will interact and view this piece differently. The piece is an image and an object that only occurs by visual light.

Shelly Nadashi at Dortmunder Kunstverein

        In this piece, artist Shelly Nadashi presents her creation of "a forest within a corporate environment" in direct relation to the process behind creating the installations.  The exhibition confronts the disconnect between the creation of art and art itself by displaying both aspects on equal platforms.  The molds and papier-mâché materials are lied out and placed in the same display cases as the finished nesting box, and the samples of the process of building the forrest are displayed in the exact same fashion as the final product.

Koki Tanaka at Centre d’Art Contemporain Passerelle

In this piece five pianists are forced to play on the same piano, while being projected for everyone to see. The art is not entirely the outcome of the song, but more so how an individual can break the uncomfortable task of sharing space sonically and psychically with the other 4 pianists. This diversified group and their inherent instinctual tendencies, start to play as one. Piano is naturally a lonesome instrument, but when forced to play with 10 hands and 5 minds the outcome is a remarkable form of performance art. The labor and art, in a pure form.

Kai Althoff at MoMA

Kai Althoff at MoMA

This piece is an installation work done by Kai Althoff at the Museum of Modern Art.  The work consists of pieces that Althoff created and curated and then left for others to organize and arrange.  This work connects to this weeks readings as well as previous readings, for example the work connects to The Death of The Author because Althoff is creating pieces in which the meaning and parts of the creation will be determined by those who interact with it.  This work also connects to the themes of labor discussed this week as well, because the labor and organization of the pieces is a crucial part of the artwork itself.  

Group Show at Misako & Rosen

December (playback 1)
Dean Sameshima

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/02/group-show-at-misako-rosen/images_file_54754/

This piece of art relates to Marx's idea of commodities, it is a record of human satisfaction from buying the items on the receipt. It also shows the labor that went into buying the items and the fact that these items were produced and made to be sold as consumer goods. It shows what the human valued enough to pay for. The fact that the receipt is made large also pushes forward the importance of consuming in our society today and how the action of shopping and buying is basically an art form in the modern day. People value the things they buy and it's showing the experience of buying those things. 

“Asdzáá nádleehé” at Andrea Rosen; Anne de Vries

“Asdzáá nádleehé” at Andrea Rosen

Anne de Vries

When looking at Anne de Vries work, Boids,  within the Asdzaa nadleehe exhibition, one can see how critical thought and contemplation would be needed. de Vries works to understand behaviors within populations and use sculpture to then depict patterns that have emerged amongst the people. The namesake for her work, boids, are a type of program that also creates simulated artificial life that acts similarly to the patterns of populations.

Compared with Molesworth's essay, one can see that the lack of more traditional art techniques, such as painting or drawing, alludes to Molesworth's ideas in regards to post WWII art being more about the idea and less about the actual piece. With de Vries art you get a simple tube of cloth with a pattern of people printed onto it, but the idea of simulating cultural patterns across the world is the real 'art'. 

Vanessa Billy “We Dissolve” at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen

Vanessa Billy’s exhibition of “We Dissolve” is based off of her own ideology that questions human existence and how we eventually we as people will no longer exist along with every that we have created. While her pieces relate particularly to the overwhelming amounts of technology that can both aid and cripple us at the same time, from Moleworth’s point of view, Billy could be scene as a modern day laborer making artwork as discourse to a capitalist society. Along with the fact that instead of using traditional mediums such a paint and canvas like a typical western artist before WWII, she is making soft casts, wires, cables, and other miscellaneous items.

Her own vision is something that many people would consider to be ‘an attack on society’ instead of an artist making an expression through their work. So while Billy may not be a laborer making discourse to capitalism, she is certainly putting out a broad view that many people that consider themselves as ‘above others’ in our society would attempt to make political waves with her art.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles “Maintenance Art” at Queens Museum, New York

Mierle Laderman Ukeles “Maintenance Art” at Queens Museum, New York

This exhibition, "Maintenance Art," speaks to this week's discussion on labor and the Molesworth reading through its use of nontraditional materials and techniques as well as its commentary on masculine and feminine labor. By using maintenance supplies such as gloves, gauges, springs, etc. in the piece pictured above, Ukeles is reflecting the post-WWII trend of artists distancing themselves from traditional artistic labor. By using mass-produced commodities, she is emphasizing mental labor of both the artist and the audience in the tradition of Duchamp. Ironically, the topic of mental labor in this case is actually physical labor. The focus of much of her work in the exhibition is this labor and the way that traditionally feminine labor is devalued. She makes a connection between that labor (care) and the maintenance profession, synthesizing the two into her work. Molesworth describes post-WWII artists seeing themselves as workers a capitalist society and creating art in discourse with that society. Here, Ukeles is very much working in that same line of thought.

General Idea at Jumex

This piece, part of a collection by General Idea, is a reflection of their collaborate works pertaining to mass production, and how it may relate to the concept of time and advertising. In the piece here, the significance of mass production indicates a uniform status of each part, therefore removing labor from the artist almost entirely from the traditional sense of the word. This relates to the writings of Marx, more specifically, in how industrial production removes consideration of human labor and replaces it with a commodity to be treasured independently of itself.

Similar to Duchamp's works, the defining act of labor is now blurred as the labor can now be found within the audience trying to decipher the piece, and not within the artist creating it. 

"Electrolux" by Jim Lambie and Shio Kusaka at The Modern Institute, Glasgow


This piece on exhibit in the UK relates to the Helen Molesworth discussions of this week. The reading discusses how avant-garde art after World War II has set out to blur the distinctions between art and life as the economy shifts from industrial to service. This piece speaks to Duchamp's ready-made objects by taking non-art items from everyday life and putting them in gallery settings. The objects in “Electrolux” become further dematerialized past the ideas of Duchamp by stripping away known recognizers of the object with color, becoming more of a non-object. The flat, matte colors speak more to plaster cast replicas than an actual realistic representation of the object, making the viewer engage more with how the object was made rather than the actual object itself.

Brendan Fowler's: New portraits at Richard Telles gallery in Los Angeles

New portraits, the self explanatory title for Brendan Fowlers latest solo show is a large collection of portraits of his friends and colleagues composed of fabric and paint. With this reference to textile and the classic genre of portraiture painting, Fowler takes a new look at composing a human face. Light washes of paint underneath sewn together fabrics on the canvas. These pieces have a blatant connection to marxist theories. He is implying a face on a blanket or some other form of garment that is a commodity. In Carl Marx's fetishism of the commodities he explains the relationship between commodities in capitalism and the lack of consideration for human labor. With the pieces in this show you can see the relationship of fabricated commodity being equivalent to the human labor being put in through the face being super imposed onto the known commodity.

Lena Henke at Kunstverein Braunschweig

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2017/02/lena-henke-at-kunstverein-braunschweig/

In Lena Henke's exhibition Available Light she uses the space given to her in ways that enhance, excite, and jumble the viewers perceptions. The show opens from the back entrance of the building with a sculpture in the courtyard depicting a surreal view of Manhattan during the mid 20th century. The viewer then has to enter through the back entrance along a brightly colored balcony that Henke added to interject with the viewer in order to make them see the building itself and the dynamic of the space inside in an altered way.

This show relates to Molesworth when she describes the history of economics changing in the mid 20th century which is baselined at the entrance. The show then moves right along with accessing the labor of the viewer when asking them to walk through the space backwards and thoughtfully.