Postmodern

1. Postmodern - Art that goes against the traditional art of earlier eras and rejects the rules that say why art is art. It is a focus by the artist to create art that they like as opposed to what the experts and media like. It is a way for the artist to say whatever they want in a piece of artwork.

2. Feminist art is rather similar to Postmodern art because it addresses many different issues. Feminist art also is an expression of the emotions that the artist is feeling as well as a representation of the events that has happened in the artist's life. Postmodern art is a similar expression and representation.

3. Cindy Sherman's artwork consists of female figures in various poses and outfits. I think that her artwork fits into the Post Modern era because she puts whatever she wants to into the photo and the subject matter is more than likely an expression of how she feels about events or issues that are fairly recent in her life.

4. The artist I chose from the drawing center is Jaanika Peerna. The reason I chose Jaanika is because the marks she makes are very detailed and purposeful.  The concept of her work is similar to mine in the sense that every mark is complete by itself but relies on all the other marks to be individually complete. Each drawing is a part and a complete whole at the same time. I am aware of every single mark that I make and can retrace the ways that I made the mark because of how familiar I grew of it. 

Formalism

a. Formalism - Art for the pure purpose of art. Formalism is more of a process instead of a genre. The subject matter isn't as important as the process of producing a piece of art just to produce a piece of art. 

b. Kandinsky fits my definition of formalism rather well, visually at least. It appears that he just uses whatever colors come to mind and just eventually makes a piece of art out of the marks that they have made.

c. Kandinsky's work appears like he just makes a mark with paint and just continues until the canvas eventually gets full and appears complete to the viewer. His work appears to have minimal planning and he was just doing art to do art. I don't know how many of his pieces could have actually been planned out since the marks and brush strokes are so free and flowing. If the edges of his colors were more crisp and less blended then his work wouldn't have fit into formalism near as well.

d. Katherine Sehr has a process that is very similar to mine in the fact that she wants her works to get a point across by the viewer realizing just how much time was invested in the piece. She used ink on a couple pieces and I am becoming very fond of using ink. She also grew intimate with her works because of the sheer amount of time that she spent on each piece at a rather close level.

Expressionism

a. Expressionism - the use of medium to express emotions of the artist through different media. The viewer of the art usually feels an emotional reaction to viewing the piece.

Cognitivism - based on knowledge. The viewer of the art basically decides their opinion on the piece because the piece usually expresses an opinion of the artist. The work makes the viewer take a side on the view the artist is expressing.

The difference between expressionism and cognitivism is fairly simple. Expressionism pretty much makes the decisions for you while cognitivism makes you decide. Expressionism puts everything out in front of you and doesn't allow you to really think all that much. Cognitivism is based on thought and knowledge because you make the decision about the piece since it is basically a view given to the viewer to decipher.

b. Tolstoy's definition of art focuses on how all elements of art interact with each other. Art to him has to have an experience where all the elements, such as the art, viewer, artist, etc. present certain facts or opinions and essentially educates the viewers.

c. In Collingwood's definition of art, the viewer completes the piece or even is the piece. The actual piece of art matters very little and the reaction to the piece by the viewer is essentially the entire piece in itself.

d. Louise used metaphors to express what has happened in her past and makes the viewers aware of certain events with her family while Kiki uses metaphors to literally represent something and made the viewer aware of issues that she thought needed to be emphasized.

e. Felice Grodin is an artist I found on the drawing center. The main link between my piece and Felice's works is visual. Felice's works look very similar to mine in the sense that there are a massive amount of lines and details. Basically the only link is visual and pretty interesting in the sense that it appears that Felice did something to the piece and then based the next move on the existing medium on the art already.

Realism

a. In my own words, realistic art is art that portrays reality to a ridiculous point of precision and accuracy. It captures every aspect of the subject as well as its surroundings on a piece of paper or canvas or whatever media is being used by using different marking tools.

b. Plato basically defined good art as ideal forms existing non-materialistically while being morally enlightening. Anything less than that would not be acceptable art in the incredibly confusing mind possessed by none other than  the great philosopher Plato.

c. Plato would probably say something along the lines of "I do not approve of this art because it is a disgrace to the ideal forms of objects in a non-materialistic existence." Basically they are an abstracted form and anything but the ideal form is not acceptable to Plato for some odd philosphical reason only know to Plato himself.

d. Aristotle would define good art as art that imitated certain aspects of life. These certain aspects would be anything from circles to leaves to dogs to trees.  Aristotle found realistic art to be very enjoyable to view and well developed.

e. In my personal philosophy "obscene art" is not a contradiction of terms because essentially art is in the eyes of the beholder.  Art is meant to provoke some type of emotion and the thought of something being obscene is an emotion. So art, according to my personal philosophy, cannot be obscence because obscenity is essentially an emotional opinion.

f. In my opinion, vivid sexual images in art is not obscene at all. Violence, poverty and things of the nature I find rather obscence because of the morbid nature or the content. If sexuality is portrayed in art then there is some type of love between the two, or more, subjects portrayed in the art, unless it is a scene of rape or a non-conscentual act.

g. An artist from The Drawing Center that relates to my art piece is Eduardo Stupia. His pieces all have a massive amount of detail and lines going every which way the show a type of movement. It relates to my concept in the sense that life is very hectic and it seems like every decision is crazy and makes your mind turn every which way while somehow coming out as a beautiful blurr. The detail of his peices amaze me and I applaud his ability to do such detailed pieces. 

Beauty vs Repulsion

Beauty

Repulsion

1. I feel like I should get the bad out of the way first so my opinion of bad art is rather simple.

Whenever an art piece doesn't really make me think or provoke a certain emotion, I dislike it. "Shy Glance" by Dawn Marie Jingagian is bad art because the subject just looks out from the canvas at nothing. There is no emotion in her eye or hair.  Good art on the other hand is a piece that makes me wonder why someone would create such a piece. Good art makes me look closer at the piece because I am intrigued.  I guess the oddity of a piece is appealing to me because you have to think about why their mind is working how it is. A great example of good art in my opinion is basically anything MC Escher does. Nearly all of his pieces make me think of how I could create something so interesting while staying sane.

2. Honorific art (according to me) is defined as art that you can respect the time an effort that someone put into by looking closely at every single aspect and detail of the piece.  If you don't respect the art then you aren't honoring it and it is no longer honorific art to you. It is all an opinion.

3. Classificatory definition of art (in my opinion) is when you define something as art when it is displayed in a gallery or an "art authority" (or historian or someone) claims something as art. I disagree with this. I disagree with the idea that, in order for something to be called art, someone has to call it art or it has to be displayed in a gallery.  In my opinion, art is in the eyes of the beholder.

4. I don't think that discussing many pieces of art or aesthetics makes me uncomfortable. I may be slightly offended by the piece but after a few seconds I remember that I didn't make the piece. Someone else is expressing their views and opinions through their art so I have to respect their decision to express them.

5. The artist I found from The Drawing Center that relates to this project of mine the best would be Peter Foucault. He has a couple pieces that appear very messy and gestural which is my slight view of repulsion. Many of his other pieces though have a great attention to detail and have many small lines that for a great picture when you look at it from a slight distance.