http://www.liquitex.com/awardprograms/eia/eia.cfm
Liquitex Excellence in Art Purchase Awards supports the artists with creativity in the use of color and concept and media (primarily acrylic paints). In order to enter, one must be resident of the United States and Canada except Puerto Rico and Quebec. The participants must fill out entry applications and also send four pictures of their artworks. One can win up to $15,000. This award is interesting because the winners are separated into professional and secondary, giving high school students a chance.
http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/Public/GrantsProgram/index.cfm
USA Fellows is a signature grant program from United States Artists (USA). The program supports divers array of visual, literary, performing, design, media, and crafts and traditional artists. The program distributes $50,000 to 150 artists. The interesting fact of this grant program is that the participants must be nominated before they get the actual chance of applying for it online. The USA Board of Directors will review them and the selected owns will be announced.
http://www.artisttrust.org/grants/GAP
Grants for Artist Projects (GAP) Program is from Artist Trust organization. The grant is open to artists of all disciplines and offers a maximum of $1,500 for projects. The participants are required to submit proposals along with resumes and samples of their works (digital images, audio samples, literature/theatre manuscripts, video samples) and budget tips. In order to participate, one must be 18 years of age or older and a resident of Washington State.
http://www.warholfoundation.org/
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts offer grants that support projects such as exhibitions, catalogues, and other organizational activities in order to originate innovative and scholarly presentations of contemporary visual arts. In order to apply, participants must submit a full proposal in the form of a letter of 3 pages, a project budget, and a copy of the organization’s 501(c)3 ruling from the IRS. No further information is contained in this website, but this grant was interesting because it is the only program that offered the installation art.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Saturday, June 7, 2008
What I think about art...
In their statements, Lewitt tries to define art based on his opinions and Oldenburg lists out kinds of art he is interested in. I basically see their statements as a long list of characteristics of contemporary art.
Art is a self portraiture of a specific era. Through a piece of artwork, we can tell the tecnological level, culture and lifestyles of the time period the piece was created in. Through numerous revolutions (social, industrial, scientific, etc), art was developed by many artists with different methods and approaches. As a result, art we encounter today is now taking different position than the past artworks. Until the early 20th century, only forms of arts appreciated were painting, sculpture, and maybe architecture.
Since Duchamp's 'Fountain' in 1917, artists started to exercise new approaches to art; creating arts solely based on concept alone. For example, Kosuth's 'One and Three Chairs' is composed of a chair, a picture of a chair, and a definition of the chair from a dictionary. Everyone could have collected all three things but what made Kosuth's work 'art' was the concept behind it. Kosuth highlighted the relationships among the image, language, and referent.
However, their are still stereotypes of art being always beautiful among people. The contemporary art, to me, is alienating artists from today's non-artistic communities. For example in ancient Greece, there are sculptures of gods of Olympus. The idea behind the sculpture was to show people the power of the deities. Normal people at that time probably understood the concept with no effort and at the same time appreciate the skill of the sculptor.
I really like artists thinking outside the box and trying to develop art with different experimentation. However, it is now hard to talk art with people who don't go through training as regular artists do. If I were to make statements on art like Lewitt or Oldenburg, I would say 'Contemporary art is only understandable to those who created it. No one is supposed to find out the concept behind it unless they read the statements or ask the artists. If not, it isn't art.
Art is a self portraiture of a specific era. Through a piece of artwork, we can tell the tecnological level, culture and lifestyles of the time period the piece was created in. Through numerous revolutions (social, industrial, scientific, etc), art was developed by many artists with different methods and approaches. As a result, art we encounter today is now taking different position than the past artworks. Until the early 20th century, only forms of arts appreciated were painting, sculpture, and maybe architecture.
Since Duchamp's 'Fountain' in 1917, artists started to exercise new approaches to art; creating arts solely based on concept alone. For example, Kosuth's 'One and Three Chairs' is composed of a chair, a picture of a chair, and a definition of the chair from a dictionary. Everyone could have collected all three things but what made Kosuth's work 'art' was the concept behind it. Kosuth highlighted the relationships among the image, language, and referent.
However, their are still stereotypes of art being always beautiful among people. The contemporary art, to me, is alienating artists from today's non-artistic communities. For example in ancient Greece, there are sculptures of gods of Olympus. The idea behind the sculpture was to show people the power of the deities. Normal people at that time probably understood the concept with no effort and at the same time appreciate the skill of the sculptor.
I really like artists thinking outside the box and trying to develop art with different experimentation. However, it is now hard to talk art with people who don't go through training as regular artists do. If I were to make statements on art like Lewitt or Oldenburg, I would say 'Contemporary art is only understandable to those who created it. No one is supposed to find out the concept behind it unless they read the statements or ask the artists. If not, it isn't art.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Recognize! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture
Recognize! has started in February 8th and goes on until October 26th of this year. The show is exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. The artists involved in the exhibit were influenced by the new hip hop culture and demonstrate its influence on arts of portraitures today.
The show starts with statements and a quote from LL Cool J’s song, Paradise, on the wall. As if that wasn’t enough to grab audiences’ attention, the main hallway is graffiti of Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp. The abstract typography of graffiti had been marked as the face of hip hop culture. However, to these artists, the graffiti are the portraitures of themselves. The graffiti is a self-portraiture of one through his/her chosen word, a tag, and ultimately this tag becomes who s/he is.
Among the pieces displayed, the one that left the biggest impression is the painting of Kehinde Wiley. His portraits are of young African-Americans with the latest hip hop street fashion. However, the objects and the theatrical poses in the scene came from earlier paintings created from seventeenth to nineteenth century. The floral patterns in the background are based on the Baroque style painting, and the throne with red cape and the golden staff are references to the European nobility. Wiley merges history and culture and portrays young black men in urban attire with power similar to European noble families.
Majority of people perceive hip hop as one genre of music. The visual artists, however, demonstrate how hip hop has its own toll on art community through different kinds of media such as photography, paintings, and films. The show is absolutely ‘tight.’ The lifestyle of hip hop was mostly viewed negatively due to the derogatory terms involved in rap music. However, hip hop, to these artists, is just another tool to find identity of themselves and others. This exhibit might change some of the general stereotypes against this new culture.
The show starts with statements and a quote from LL Cool J’s song, Paradise, on the wall. As if that wasn’t enough to grab audiences’ attention, the main hallway is graffiti of Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp. The abstract typography of graffiti had been marked as the face of hip hop culture. However, to these artists, the graffiti are the portraitures of themselves. The graffiti is a self-portraiture of one through his/her chosen word, a tag, and ultimately this tag becomes who s/he is.
Among the pieces displayed, the one that left the biggest impression is the painting of Kehinde Wiley. His portraits are of young African-Americans with the latest hip hop street fashion. However, the objects and the theatrical poses in the scene came from earlier paintings created from seventeenth to nineteenth century. The floral patterns in the background are based on the Baroque style painting, and the throne with red cape and the golden staff are references to the European nobility. Wiley merges history and culture and portrays young black men in urban attire with power similar to European noble families.
Majority of people perceive hip hop as one genre of music. The visual artists, however, demonstrate how hip hop has its own toll on art community through different kinds of media such as photography, paintings, and films. The show is absolutely ‘tight.’ The lifestyle of hip hop was mostly viewed negatively due to the derogatory terms involved in rap music. However, hip hop, to these artists, is just another tool to find identity of themselves and others. This exhibit might change some of the general stereotypes against this new culture.
Monday, May 26, 2008
About Blogs
The main function of the blogs is widely presenting the writers' opinions or thoughts on specific events or objects. The arts blogs can be used to critique somebody's artworks or promote exhibitions being held. Without any formal training or education, anyone can publish what they think and they can be heard online by anyone. On top of that, people can leave comments on each commentary. This would encourage intelligent conversations among bloggers. This also could turn into formation of some kind of networks where people from other parts of the world but with similar interests in art can share their thoughts.
After this course, i should continue to use blog. I think I could use it as a portfolio of some kind. I can upload my own works and get it critiqued and get some suggestions of better work. Being a member of some networks would be beneficial to me also. One concern is that it would be hard for me to keep my blog recent.
After this course, i should continue to use blog. I think I could use it as a portfolio of some kind. I can upload my own works and get it critiqued and get some suggestions of better work. Being a member of some networks would be beneficial to me also. One concern is that it would be hard for me to keep my blog recent.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
My Studio Practice
Even though my major is set to Graphic Design, my main interest resides in animation. I have taken two animation courses at Mason. I use Adobe AfterEffects for 2D animation and Maya for 3D animation. I do not try to point out any kind of issues through my animation. I just wanted to study it sometime after I watched Pixar Studio animation, Toy Story. I also do a little bit of character design by myself. The first two of the above images are screenshot of the 3D animation I made for my class project.
As for graphic design, I have no idea what kind of design I will be doing for my career. But, I like desiging with the letters. It is interesting to see how different organizations of the letters give viewers more meanings than the actual words do. Herb Lubalin is one of my favorite designers because of his skills in typography. The bottom two images are the projects I have done for my design classes. The first one is a book cover for Herb Lubalin's biography and the second one is a poster using simple quote.
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