art SMP talks

eligible for your blogs, if you attend the entire event:

1st studio talk: Wednesday, April 25, 4-6 pm, Boyden Galley
2nd studio talk: Tuesday, May 1, 2-4 pm, Boyden Gallery
Art History talk: Tuesday, May 1, 10 am-12 pm, MH 151

final deal

Monday 23 April
1:30 Clare
1:50 Joe
2:10 Heather
2:30 Jamie
2:50 Hannah
3:10 Anita

Wednesday 25 April
1:30 Matt
1:50 Nick
2:10 Kelly
2:30 Iain
3:50 Megan
3:10 Ya Haddy

CRITIQUE ORDER TBA, DETERMINED BY LOCATION.

Monday Apr 30: 1:15-5:15
Clare, Joe, Heather, Jamie, Hannah, Anita
++ Art SMP opening #2 is 4:30-6 pm today.

Monday May 7: 9-1
Matt, Nick, Kelly, Iain, Megan, Ya Haddy
++ followed by pizza party

grading rubric

Grading rubric is now posted for the final project. Please see the link to the pdf in the side bar under HANDOUTS.

last minute cultural events

April 5-7 and 12-14 at 8:00 p.m., April 7 and 15 at 2:00 p.m. - Bruce Davis Theater, Montgomery Hall - The Mandrake

*this costs $, as it's a benefit concert* Sat. April 14 - HSMC Visitor Center - concert by singer and songwriter David LaMotte. All proceeds from ticket sales benefit the Chesapeake Public Charter School. Tickets are $12 in advance, and $15 at the door. For more information, call 240-925-1888.

Sun. April 15, 1:00 - Good Water Store & Cafe, Lexington Park, MD - children's concert with David LaMotte and book signing with Carrie Patterson. LINK to the map.

Mon. April 16, 4:30 - Boyden Gallery - Artist Talk: David LaMotte, Musician
or I will also accept this event:
Mon., April 16, 4:30 pm - Cole Cinema - “Four Stages of Denial, or, My On-Again, Off-Again Affair with Feminism” Is Western Feminism Useful for Muslim Women and Men? Asma Barlas, Professor of Politics and Director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, Ithaca College, NY

Wed. April 18, 4:30 - Library 321 - Artist Talk: Shari Hersh, Mural Arts Corp Founder

Fri. April 20, 3:00 - Cole Cinema - Armand Cerbone, a Chicago-based psychologist, will speak on “Sex, Love, and Stigma in Same-Sex Relationships”

April 19-21, 8pm and April 22 at 2pm - DPC -
Proof Directed by Brian Sekinger. Email brsekinger@smcm.edu

April 19-22 Provisions Library, Washington DC (Dupont Circle) Multimediale Art Festival featuring FT's work, among other new media artists: http://www.multimedialedc.org

Don't forget that visiting AnnMarie Sculpture Garden where Lacey is artist-in-residence is also eligible for your blog.

link recommendation from Matt

Joshua Bell goes unappreciated on the streets of DC

Sol Lewitt, RIP

Read more here.

Who was Eadweard Muybridge?

Eadweard Muybridge

recent article on computational photography

Meat of Tomorrow

Thinking about Kelly's project, I found this:
The Meat of Tomorrow, by James King, explores the implications of an impending technology that will soon allow edible meat to be grown in vitro from a small sample of animal tissue, rendering the inefficiencies, cruelties, traditions, and livelihoods of livestock farming unnecessary.

No One Belongs Here More Than You

book promo by Miranda July, artist who made the film You, Me, and Everyone We Know
http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/

Iain is making a project using bike power

So I thought I'd post this video from my friend (he also made the bike record player that inspired Iain):

Two Upcoming Art Events

David LaMotte
Visiting Singer/Songwriter

Artist Talk: Art and Activism
When: 4:30pm, April 16, 2007
Where: Boyden Gallery

On Activism: “There’s a tragic tendency these days to equate cynicism with art, as though nothing hopeful has weight. I think that’s a narrow view. Activism is inherently hopeful- you have to believe that change is possible or you wouldn’t waste your time talking about it and working for it. The fact is that we’re all changing the world everyday whether we like it or not. The question is in which direction.

Additional Events:
Concert: Historic St. Mary’s Visitor Center
When: 7:00 pm Saturday, April 14, 2007
Kids Mini Concert: The Good Water Store Café
When: 1:00 pm April 15, 2007

Artist Biography
LaMotte’s tenth CD, Change, debuted at #11 on the national Fold-DJ chart for September 2006. Guest vocalists include Tom Kimmel, the Dreamsicles, and John Gorka. In the last year he has also published a children’s book based on his award-winning children’s song S.S. Bathtub, a new live concert DVD,One Night In North Carolina, and a retrospective peace and justice compilation called This is My Song. Over the course of his career he has shared stages with Buddy Miles, Arlo Guthrie, David Wilcox, America, Gillian Welch, Shawn Mullins, and others. http://www.davidlamotte.com



SHARI HERSH
Visiting Artist
Artist Talk: Public Art: Community Identity and Engagement
When: 4:30pm Wednesday April 18
Where: Library 321

Workshop with Art Teachers and Future Art Teachers:
When: 9:30 – 2pm Thursday April 19
Where: Boyden Art Gallery

Artist Biography
Shari Hersh is a veteran of the Mural Arts Program (MAP) having spent seven years with the organization developing art education programs. She created MAP’s first such program, Big Picture, in 1999, a model program from which numerous MAP programs are based on. She is currently the Coordinator of Mural Corps, a rigorous community arts program for high risk teens, she created in 2001. Before arriving at MAP, Ms. Hersh received her MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN). Among her numerous awards and honors, Ms. Hersh has received the Teaching Award from the College of General Studies at UPENN, the Residency Award from the Vermont Studio Center, and a B. H. Rockefeller full tuition scholarship to the New York Studio School, where she studied for her post-baccalaureate degree. In addition to her work for MAP, Ms. Hersh is the lead artist on the transformation of Chester A. Arthur School, and teaches a community arts and mural painting class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she has taught for the past four years.
http://www.muralarts.org

chocolate Jesus

LINK: "A planned Holy Week exhibition of a nude, anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ was canceled Friday amid complaints from Catholics, including Cardinal Edward Egan... Artist Cosimo Cavallaro is best known for his quirky work with food. Past efforts include repainting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella, spraying five tons of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home and festooning a four-poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham".

Tilted Arc

Link to an article about Richard Serra's Tilted Arc

your installation questions + answers from class

Q: How is it possible to make a large project, when materials could not be available?
A: If your ideal materials are unavailable, compromise! Find a way to accomplish the goal of your work with whatever is available to you. Limited materials are a great excuse for unusual art!

Q: Does the audience have to be able to interact/be involved in the piece for it to be an installation (besides just looking at it)?
A: Ideas and values of installation art reflect avant-garde innovations of the 20th century, which includes involvement between the viewer and art which results in activating the viewer to think or do something.

Q: I think that installation art deals with involvement of the viewer. How does art that does not involve the viewer but claims to be installation art work or why is it still installation art?
A: By involvement, do you mean direct interaction in a physical sense? All art involves the viewer, in the sense that it is being seen and considered. I don't believe that physical interaction in necessary to define a work as an "installation"... an object could easily fulfill this rule without being a space.

Q: Does installation art have to be something large, small, or something where the viewer has to use more than sight?
A: I think installation art can be those things (large, small, require more than sight) but I do not think that it is necessary for it to be one or the other to qualify as installation art.

Q: Can an installation take place in more than one place at a time?
A: Yes, video monitors or a series of installations can be found around a city. They are an installation as a whole.

Q: How do I make my project go along with the site?
A: The site and the project have to complement each other. The object, the event, and the position it occupies have to have a specific relationship. It could be made out of some material or the object being presented has something to do with the place or space.

Q:Does there need to be an object in an installation?
A: No, there does not need to be an object. Sometimes, an installation can consist of audio as a material, or projected light, or even just hot air.

Q: If you take a ready-made (found object) and put it in a space, is that an installation or does it still stay as a sculpture?
A: I thinik it is still a sculpture because there is not an intended exchange when sculpture is placed somewhere randomly.

Q: Can installation involve performance (live art)?
A: I think that it can, as long as it involves the viewer in some way. Nix the 4th wall. A good example might be living statue street performers.

artist portfolio links from Anita

Matthew Barney : www.cremaster.net
Lisa Scheer: www.smcm.edu/art/scheer.html
Annie Leibovitz: www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/leibovitz
Keith Haring: www.haring.com
Jamie Arneson: www.smcm.edu/aldiv/art/eportfolio/sp06/425sp06/arneson/index.html
Heather Starrett: www.squirlmunk.com
Lacey Volk: http://www.laceyvolk.com/
Lightbox JavaScript: what Lacey used to make her slideshows

Armenian genocide lecture and The Mandrake

More cultural events eligible for your blog

Prof Richard Hovannisian: Must We Still Remember? The Armenian Genocide as Prototype
Wednesday, March 28, Cole Cinema, 8pm
Richard Hovannisian is professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History at UCLA, California. Author of multiple books on the Armenian history and genocide, he has also recently served as consultant for the National Geographic Magazine on a feature article on Armenia. The talk will be accompanied by a short video selection.
=============================================
The Mandrake
by Niccolò Machiavelli
April 5-7 and 12-14 at 8:00 p.m.
April 7 and 15 at 2:00 p.m.
A robust, physical comedy in the style of the Italian commedia dell’arte.
For reservations, call the Theater Box Office at 240-895-4243 (ext. 4243) or e-mail boxoffice@smcm.edu. Reserve your tickets now!

the 2 readings

By now, you should have READ 2 articles on installation art:
1- The Museum Problem (you should make a post with a photo) - from Deconstructing Installation Art by Graham Coulter-Smith
2- But is it installation art? by Claire Bishop (she is also referenced in the above article)

projected schedule for the rest of the semester

W 28 March: Site-specific art, Nick Hayes. photocopy distributed in class on M 26 March. Look up some of the artists and writers mentioned to get a better understanding about the references. Post to blog and make a list of at least 3 questions to lead discussion... I will choose someone at random, so everyone must be prepared.
M 2 April: final project proposal due with sketches, posted to blog
W 4 April: proposal questions completed and sent to Chip Jackson. Please COPY me on the this email.
M 9 April: 1st in-progress crit
W 11 April: studio work day
M 16 April: 2nd in-progress crit
W 18 April: work day for installation
M 23 April: work day for installation
W 25 April: work day for installation
M 30 April: final critiques for installation... extra long class session?
M 7 May: documentation due to FT's box by 5 pm

19-28 March schedule

MON 19 MAR :: welding skillshare with Joe and Jamie
HW: reading and post to blog: But is it installation art? - Claire Bishop
Please dress appropriately. Here's message from Jamie about what to wear:
-a bandana or baseball cap
-boots
-jeans that cover your boots
-cotton t-shirt or a flannel long sleeved shirt

4:30 ARTIST LECTURE BY MARK COOLEY, LIBRARY 321
Here's his website: http://www.flawedart.net

TUES 12-1:
I will lecture in LIBRARY 321 about new media and my work. Also eligible for your blog.
If you all want to have a mini-reception for the box art, we need to do that on Tuesday at 4:30. Let's talk about it in class Monday.

WED 21 MAR :: LED skillshare with Matt, Nick, and Iain
HW: bring work to submit to the student show

THURS + FRI: MID-TERM REVIEWS - I have posted a sign-up sheet on my door which will serve for all of my students in all 3 of my classes. Please sign up for a time there.

MON 26 MAR :: live art skillshare with Clare and Megan
Fereshteh out for lecture in Chicago
HW: Using the "Creating and Researching Ideas" handout as your guide, do some research to generate ideas or your final project and post to your blog before class. See handout for details.

WED 28 MAR :: web portfolio skillshare with Anita, Ya Haddy, and Heather
HW: TBA

installation at Thomas Circle in DC

See more of these tape sculpture horses here: http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com/traffic-go-round.html

mid-atlantic art recommendations

While on spring break, here are some exhibits you should check out!
Remember, going to a show off-campus is always eligible for your blog.

Installation art is all over the Hirschhorn Museum: Check out light works and collaboration between Pae White and Virgil Marti.

Jasper Johns prints and paintings are at the National Gallery in DC

31 first-year candidates in Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)'s, master of fine arts (M.F.A) programs are featured in a parallel series of group exhibitions in Bunting Center’s Pinkard Gallery (1401 Mount Royal Avenue), in Baltimore. Runs Friday, March 16 through Sunday, March 25, with an opening reception on Friday, March 16, 5–7 p.m., and open studios on Friday, March 16, 7–9 p.m.

In Words, curated by artist Lance Winn, will close March 21 at the University of DE Museum in Newark, DE.

The Contemporary in Baltimore has a show called CELL PHONE: Art and the Mobile Phone.

Speaking of cell phones, I have a piece featuring me, Kelly, and her daughter EmmaLee singing downloadable ringtones at Space 1026 in Philadelphia.

installation at Reed College

This is kind of like those anti-abortion lawn displays you might see at some churches. Each white flag represents six dead Iraqis since the beginning of the war, and each red flag represents a dead US serviceman. Statistics come from the Lancet survey of Iraqi mortality since 2003, published October 2006. Link to the photos here and panorama shots here.

Rauschenberg in the news

review of a Rauschenberg exhibit in the NY Times:
Images of Hubert H. Humphrey, Barry Goldwater, Malcolm X, the Apollo 7 astronauts, Army helicopters and civil rights protesters establish Mr. Rauschenberg’s interests: politics, the space race, the war in Vietnam, the plight of black Americans. Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, appears several times. Men in suits bespeak entrenched authority. President Richard M. Nixon lines up with the members of his cabinet; their wives cluster around his. Sprinkled at the margins of the group portraits are the faces of black and white football players (including O. J. Simpson) and the regimented rows of a high school yearbook.

mid-term reviews

THIS SCHEDULE HAS BEEN REVISED. PLEASE USE SIGN UP SHEET ON FT'S OFFICE DOOR FOR APPTS

Tuesday 20 March
1:00 Kelly
1:30 Matt
2:00 Iain
2:30 Anita
3:00 Clare

Thursday 22 March
12:30 Heather
1:00 NATE
1:30 Hannah
2:00 Ya Haddy
2:30 Jamie
3:00 Nick

TBA: Joe, Megan

WED homework

Reading for WED is from a book called Deconstructing Installation Art:
http://www.installationart.net/Chapter1Introduction/introduction01.html
Read the first part of the introduction of this book: "The Museum Problem", and then browse around the text. Choose one of the images of installation art that is discussed in the book and post an image of it to your blog, discussing how it fits the author's definition of installation art.

2nd half of the semester comments

Please leave your thoughts by writing a comment to this post.

The new proposed schedule calls for us to spend the month of March doing the skillshares and looking/talking about artists' work, which is something I want us to spend more time on so that the last project won't feel too rushed or uninformed.

DON'T FORGET that the SKILLSHARES also include a component where you share 2 artists who use the skill you are demonstrating, and that you will need to make sure Lacey and I know if you need us to get supplies for you. You are also encouraged to assign HW/readings if you want us to do something beforehand.

PLEASE RE-READ THE SKILLSHARE CRITERIA!
THE PDF CAN BE DOWNLOADED TO THE RIGHT, UNDER "HANDOUTS"

April would be spent working on your final project, which will be due on the 25th (this is the same as the original syllabus).

gay rights in the news

A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a suit by two families who wanted to stop a Massachusetts town and its public school system from teaching their children about gay marriage, court documents show. LINK.

Also:
There is some terrifying legislation that may soon be passed in Nigeria. Essentially it strips away all rights from homosexuals, and goes a step further to basically deny them the right to express themselves, congregate, and basically exist. Call/write your senators to let them know you are concerned about this. Unfortunately, discrimination against gays is still widely accepted (even promoted?) around the world (and here too). There are some pretty fundamental human rights being violated here. Read more: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=12180&sectionID=2

Marry Me

Tori Fixx has been called
"the Timbaland of gay hip hop".

Box Art

Just in case the class blog has been too much focused on the marriage side of things, I've posted some classic box art for you on my blog. Keep thinking about interior/exterior relations and what it means to be square...

box art

MEMENTO BOX by Cati Vaucelle: I designed this interactive box as an attractive passage from door to space . The door leads to my souvenirs and is always slightly opened . A bright light shines in the back of the box clarifying a few objects and pictures around it . However, whenever my hand tries to grab what captures the eye, the door closes onto my hand and all is dark again . Whenever I go away for a tiny bit, the door opens up and more lights shine into some parts of my souvenirs and I can travel though them from far away