Monday, June 6, 2016

A Trip to the Hammer Museum

Desma Event #3:A Trip to the Hammer Museum

According to the worker at the front, not many people, especially students know about what the Hammer Museum has to offer. Many often think it costs money, it’s only art and exhibitions, and anything short of fun. However, I had an amazing experience. Apparently, most exhibitions are closed off for the wonderful renovation, building, and creation of Made in LA. This is fantastic book I actually had the chance to read -- so when I found out that they closed off half of the museum for this, I wasnt that upset. A series of more than one hundred contemporary exhibitions and installations featuring local, national, and international emerging artists.
However, I did get the chance to see the 45 minute long exhibition video The Desert People, 1974 by David Lamelas. This was the first work he produced in LA that calls attention to nature of meaning and truth. At first I was hesitant, but then later learned that David Lamelas began working as a sculptor in Argentina in the late 1960’s. About six years later, he showed his work “Office of Information about the Vietnam War at Three Levels: The Visual Image, Text and Audio, and installation dealing with the daily news reports about the escalating Vietnam War at the Finnish Pavilion of the Venice Biennale.” (Hammer Museum employee)
While watching this film, I realized that the setting was actually familiar to me. It was basically a car traveling through the desert with others traveling with him, a road trip is what we like to call it for a lack of a better term. But as soon as the narration begins, it is interrupted by documentary-style interviews.” Passing in this way from one film genre to another, Lamelas manages to blur the boundary between fact and fiction.” (Luxonline, 2005) I, unfortunately, did not get the chance to take pictures inside considering the theatre was almost full and dark.
Outside of the film, I experienced a place where art and artists test us to see the world though a new lens and think creatively and outside of the box. “The Hammer understands that art not only has the power to transport us through aesthetic experience but can also provide significant insight into some of the most pressing cultural, political, and social questions of our time.”(The Hammer Museum, 2016)A
However, what I found really fascinating was the theater's modern design by Michael Maltzan. The architecture portrays cinema's play of light and movement in real space. The theatre sat 294 surprisingly comfortable seats. When I walked in, I didn’t expect for it to be an actual seating theatre. It was pitch black, but the screen lit up the room. According to the Hammer Museum employee, “Billy Wilder fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s to become a master of Hollywood film language and a shrewd comic observer of the American scene.”

All in all, I  would definitely recommend going to the Hammer Museum. Even if it’s just to study or roam around. They have these incredibly fun, twirly chairs that actually very comfortable to sit in. There’s also a cafe where you can order food and a seating area to enjoy your meal, meet with friends, or study! It’s so peaceful. The sun hits gracefully in certain areas, but for the most part there is natural light that shines through and in almost every direction you see and feel art. It’s honestly an amazing experience.

References

"Alternative Projections." Outsiders Observe Los Angeles ». N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2016.

"Billy Wilder Theater | Michael Maltzan Architecture." Billy Wilder Theater | Michael Maltzan

Architecture. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2016.

"Contemporary Art Daily." Contemporary Art Daily RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2016.
"Home - Hammer Museum." The Hammer Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2016.
"The Desert People - Information, Clips and Stills | Luxonline." The Desert People
Information, Clips and Stills | Luxonline. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2016.

Desma Event #2

Desma Event #2 : A Day at The Broad


One of my favorite event by far was attending The Broad, a new contemporary art museum founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. After waiting in line for an hour (which is apparently not long compared to the two-three hour wait many said they’ve waited in the past), it’s safe to say the wait in the beaming sun was worth it. The outside of The Broad is one of the most entailing and fascinating, eye-catching pieces of art amongst it all. This is because it withholds a “veil-and-vault” concept. According to the Broad museum worker, the museum is home to the 2,000 works of art in the Broad collection, which is among the most prominent holdings of postwar and contemporary art worldwide. Some of the artists I will be discussing throughout this blog are Ellsworth Kelly, Haring, Rauschenberg, Chuck, and Jeff Koons (my favorite).
When I first saw this piece light up “AMERICA”, I immediate thought rock and roll. Hence, the hair flip. I love any piece of art that involves blinking light. I feel like it adds more life to something. A young, wild, and free type feel.
According to The Broad Museum, “Haring developed his trademark style working on the black surfaces used to cover up old advertising logos in the New York subway. Haring became a recognizable figure in New York, attaining somewhat of a celebrity status that drew much attention to his gallery shows, public projects, and merchandising.” (The Broad Museum, 2016) Linda Dalrymple Henderson makes great points throughout her study about art techniques and science in relation to the theory of special and general relativity surfaced into the world of art, in which was influenced by the paradigm shift.
When Ellsworth Kelly arrived in New York in 1954 after six years of working in Europe. Initially Kelly’s approach and work were radically different from the abstract art being practiced in the city. Instead of abstracting from a figure or an image, Kelly was more interested in the experience of abstractions found in everyday life and nature. Abstraction was less something to be achieved then re-created. (The Broad Museum, 2016)
Rauschenberg’s combines are a hybrid between painting and sculpture. The Broad says, “An early manifestation of this mode and a key work in his career is Untitled, 1954. A collage of wood, newspaper, comics, sundry clothes, and old lace, Untitled is saturated with a thick sealing coat of paint. The surface is open to drips and chance combinations, not with an expressive intent as in abstract expressionism but instead with a field of unexpected juxtapositions and perceptual shifts.”(The Broad Museum, 2016) Juxtaposition of mathematics, industrialization, art and science actually becomes more simple and easier to understand as our perspective and society changes and develops. We can think back Bill Nye the Science Guy, an American TV show where he mixes the serious science of everyday things with fast-paced action and humor. Here we can see that science has been built into entertainment where education has altered and developed to teach and entertain this generation. It’s a “cool” way of learning.
Chuck Close is known as much for his detailed representation of the human face as for his subsequent deconstruction of it. “Close uses head-on portraits as his templates, exploring portraiture and his subjects through a variety of drawing and painterly techniques, as well as through printmaking, tapestry, and photography. John, one of Close’s earliest paintings, is described as photorealist. Indeed, Close refers to photographs to create his artworks, employing their inconsistencies of perspective as much as their verisimilitude”, says The Broad Museum.


Close works entirely from sight to achieve the details, sectioning off the reference photographs into grids and transferring each piece by hand onto his monumentally sized canvases. When it comes to the field of nanotechnology, the phrase “seeing is believing” is inapplicable. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter on a molecular or atomic level, a scale that is not visible to the naked eye.  Just as mentioned in lecture, the connection of science and art is through mathematics. We continue to move towards making math and art, art and science. Unlike many, I actually had amazing math and science teachers that initially made me love both subjects. The term de-geniuses by R. Buckminister Fuller comes to mind when he says that every person has an inner genius, but the education system tends to de-genius our perspective.
Jeff Koons is one of my absolute favorite artists. Koons’s artwork is intensely labored, in order to look like no human hand was ever actually involved. His eye is incredible, on a meticulous hunt for deviations from his vision. In 1979 Jeff Koons made Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White, Pink Bunny), the seed for so much of his future work. This piece of work features two vinyl inflatable toys. Jeff Koons is one of my favorites because of different and vibrant his work is. I became a fan of his work when I noticed a family friend had his art in her home. I proceeded to ask her about them because they were so different and she actually informed me of a lot of information that lead to me loving Koons' art work.


References
“Art in the Age of Nanotechnology.” Artabase. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.artabase.net/exhibition/2104-art-in-the-age-of-nanotechnology>.
"Earth’s Most Stunning Natural Fractal Patterns." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital. Web. 11
Apr. 2016.
Gimzewski, Jim, and Victoria Vesna. The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of Fact & Fiction in the
Construction of a New Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.
Miranda, Carolina A. "Weird Science: Biotechnology as Art Form." ARTnews. ARTNEWS, 6 May
2016. Web.


"The Broad." The Broad. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2016.

Vesna, Victoria. “5 bioart pt1" Lecture. YouTube. Uconlineprogram, 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 3 May. 2016.