An open discussion about your ISPO (Independent Studio Practice Objectives), reading assignments, and Thesis progress if applicable.
ISPO: Each of you should post one ISPO to which you continually add throughout the semester.
Reading assignments: I will post one topic per reading and you will each add your comments on the reading to that topic.
Thesis progress: If you are working on the written paper for your thesis, please post chapters for discussion.
Change and evolution of ideas will always change. People should learn to accept it. Things are going to change. It doesn't always mean the actual thing will change, sometimes it is just the way we talk about the "thing". Sculpture is no different....it is right behind art. Oh, that's right, it actually is included in art. I'm not sure how sculpture dodged the bullet of questioning as long as it did. The avant guard and modern art began to change and question everything....quite naturally I think. We are never comfortable with something, we always question and expand. Bottom line is that art (sculpture, painting, drawing, etc.) is subjective and left to the individual, things that are appreciated as art will be as varied as the people are. That being said, appreciate other viewpoints. This does not mean that you have to change your definition or what you think qualifies under your preconceived definitions. However, be aware that just because it is your idea, it doesn't always mean that you can defend it easily if you base your ideas on things that I feel have no merit. Of course, if you think that what I base my ideas on have none either, then it is likely that you won't really care what I think of you or your ideas. So what is sculpture again?
I also believe that it depends on the audience that you have. Don't you? You are striving to reach a certain audience with your current work- whether you want to or not. This audience, which for now is your thesis committee and the faculty here, has certain definitions of "what is what" in terms of the thesis. When you choose a gallery or residency to pursue you will be dealing with a crowd who will almost surely be familiar with "the expanded field." Do you think that your work lies in an expanded field of painting or printmaking or drawing?
There is a lot to chew on here. We now live in this never land of Postmodernism sculpture or should I say architecture or is it landscape.
Sculpture seem to be the last to become the target of the postmodern crowd, having been lost in the crowd of modern painters and the never ending battles over Formalism being the end of art only to give way to new conflicts and the lack of direction of the postmodern group, if there is one.
She is very diligent in building her case for the histrionics group. She has an uphill battle for in trying to push the word sculpture into a meat grinder and have the same word come out the other end just is not going to work.
She makes it clear in her first few pages just how engrained the word sculpture is in the minds of society, its form follows function, its place of honor, its long historical value to power. I don’t think a hole in the desert will replace the values held in the word sculpture.
Truly the 1960’s sent out shoots that left the core concepts of sculpture far behind. What came about was a group wandering in a wasteland producing work that is, I will use her word neutered.
This slow amalgamation of architecture and sculpture has points on both sides encroaching on the land next door will cause fights, confusion and chaos.
How do we look at what was presented? What cultural and social values do they establish? Is there any aesthetic rule we can apply to these new works? Is there any value in appropriating the idea of Indian burial mounds? Is there any aesthetic value in tearing up the environment to make a landscape? Usually in an isolated area no one will ever see.
All the charts are nice but they do not solve the problem, what are these works of art? Is it art?
If I were her I would simply give all these different directions a name, an umbrella that they could all exist in for now. I have a feeling it will be a few decades before the question can be answered, for all we know this type of work may be long gone.
I really saw this paper as more of a journey through history. It reminded me mostly of the Modern Art classes or surverys. As I was reading I really didn't have an opinion because I felt I was in class being taken through all these movements in history about sculpture. I may have gotten it all wrong...but thats what I got. It talking about the changes "sculpture" has gone through just like the other fields in art have gone through. That's it.
Did you re read it Alicia. She is talking a lot more than about changes in sculpture and what other fields are you referring to? Share the examples that you are thinking of.
Krauss covers the evolution of sculpture and identifies the difficulty in defining the field (or defining what isn't in the field). The author enforces the claim that sculpture is ambiguous by referring to the growth (or deconstruction) of sculpture and its defining characteristics through history, from commemorative monument, imbued with meaning from the place and symbolism, to a homeless or site-less work of art, and eventually to what sculpture is not. Sculpture in the post-modern era (and whatever era we are in, forgive my ignorance on era terminology), continues to push boundaries in infinite directions. Kristin is right when she states that art, and subcategories of art are continuing to break down boundaries and seek out new ones. Sculpture is not the only field that is expanding. Painting, ceramics, fiber arts, glass-making, jewelry, and others are continuing to evolve as our society does. In my own work I create paper casts, which are three dimensional, are suspended away from the walls, and are painted on. The casts are the children of two disciplines, not belonging solely to painting or sculpture. While separate disciplines break down boundaries, they eventually overlap one another, reflecting our own globalized society's indifference to artificial boundaries. The boundaries between disciplines become irrelevant and highly obscured or demolished, allowing for us to remain focused on purely creating and defining art and differentiating art from good art.
This article from R. Krauss seems to do what much post modern writing does which is it takes an entirely circuitous route to explain something rather simple in overly complex terms, using the hammer of verbiage to screw in the nail so to speak, arriving at more or less the same place one started but feeling somewhat satisfied with ones confusion. The article lays out an historicist opinion of the evolution of sculpture through the 20th century and yet somehow manages to avoid mentioning 'post modernism' until the final 3rd- a notable feat in itself. The author seeks to enlighten us as to how we went from marble statuary, and monuments to fallen heroes, to piles of rubbish and empty rooms underground, all falling under the purview of 'sculpture' or at least of 'art'. Here is where I find fault with much of the PMist rhetoric on the subject of art about art: after exhaustively explaining why something (in this case sculpture) is no longer sculpture (in this case because of the absence of historical context or formalist mirror gazing) it is determined that 'it' is an 'other' ( marked site, axiomatic structure, or site construction, which is neither architecture, nor landscape nor non-architecture or non-landscape)- to which I ask, what possible purpose does it serve?? If it refers to its medium it is Formalism, so she asserts that the reference is in perception, or political, cultural idiom, or some such tripe, which sounds an awful lot like 'theme', which is no great discovery. "My stars, this pile of rubbish in this hole in the ground is 'about' something! Eureka!"- She refers to this sort of 'thing' that is PM sculpture as being about 'the abstract conditions of of openness and closure', which is really the single best definition of PM sculpture I can think of. In the end I think she, and many other PMists must accept what legions of bakery enthusiasts have had to recently accept, or something similar to, which is that you can dress it up and complicate it all you like but in the end a cupcake is just cake in another form, and in the end no matter how we got here a 3d expression of an idea which serves no purpose beyond its own self reference, theme or no, is Art and more specifically it is sculpture. I can assure Ms. Krauss that no major museums are attempting to build some new wing to house all of this 'other' stuff which doesn't fit the 'sculpture' moniker. The Krauss essay therefore, albeit riddled with bits and pieces of interesting ideas, is nothing more than an explanation of new sculpture as ultimately, 'Art' since, I ask, what else could it possibly be?? It is like saying that the apple pie is not, or is not related to, the apple seed, and is therefore not fruit but something else within the expanded 'field' of fruit-ness. Ludicrous, obviously, but there it is.
Wow, I agree with Drew about having to chew through this one. From a left-brained standpoint, I found it very interesting that they developed the expanded field with which to determine where a piece of three-dimensional art falls within the realm of architectural or landscape-oriented creation. I'm a little confused, to be honest, that to be not-architectural and not-landscape it becomes "sculpture", yet any other combination between the complex and neuter becomes a different form of three-dimensional art that does not receive the title of "sculpture". The larger the final outcome (i.e., Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty"), almost seems to focus on the experience of actually viewing and interacting with the piece, while contemplating the scale and media, where the traditional sculpture-and-base is meant to be viewed from afar. The development of these new forms of three-dimensional art do rely on these snazzy classifications to more appropriately defend what they are doing, but, at least in relation to this article, it seemed like Krauss was just trying to justify them with the expanded field and their chronological location in the art world.
I found Perimeters/ Pavilions/ Decoys by Mary Miss quiet interesting. Similar to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (questioning and helping to define art), I believe that Mary is challenging the nature of sculpture. Since a sculpture can be defined from many angles, I find it difficult to argue that Mary’s work is not a sculpture. To me, Perimeters/ Pavilions/ Decoys is more constructed like an installation. The viewer supposed to investigate and interact with the construction. But of course one can argue that this work is an environmental/land sculpture. So, I think that the definition of a sculpture depends on the angle of interpretation… culture, time period, location, and purpose are all key factors that come into play. For example, Stonehenge and Indian burial mounds where not intended to be sculptures… they have a specific purpose and meaning for a specific time period. I never considered Rodin’s The Gates of Hell a sculpture, but this certainly could be argued. To me, I would say that The Gates of Hell is more a high relief than anything else. It all depends on the interpretation of the viewer. Is the viewer/interpretation even important? I’m not sure if I’m qualified to answer this question, but to me the most important element is that each piece of work has it’s own reality and is able to exist without any interpretation. I think we live in a time period where many terms can be overlapped, stretched, transformed according to interpretation.
Janet’s Response to “Sculpture in the expanded field”
Krauss is saying that the expanded field of postmodernism occurred at a specific moment. She feels it is important to map the structure of postmodernism and the root cause of its development. I believe the article is looking at how one medium, sculpture has been expanded to include just about any material or subject, natural or man-made and that art is legitimized by its historical connections. Krauss refers back to Stonehenge, Indian burial grounds, etc…In the past the logic of sculpture was inseparable from the logic of the monument. Usually they are site specific and are symbolic about the meaning or use of that space. In the late nineteenth century the logic began to fade and what was once thought of as sculpture as monument is now a monument without a site, a monument with a loss of place. The monument is produced as abstraction. The sculpture is about itself and is autonomous. I am trying to define my art as well. It’s not easy to do. I am not really sure I am painting about an experience at a particular moment in time, at a particular place. I believe I may be more interested in the painting itself and the exploration of the material and the painting process. If art was easy to define there wouldn’t be so much debate on the topic. Maybe art doesn’t have to mirror its environment or relate to it?
Here is where you will post your comments about the reading.
ReplyDeleteChange and evolution of ideas will always change. People should learn to accept it. Things are going to change. It doesn't always mean the actual thing will change, sometimes it is just the way we talk about the "thing". Sculpture is no different....it is right behind art. Oh, that's right, it actually is included in art. I'm not sure how sculpture dodged the bullet of questioning as long as it did. The avant guard and modern art began to change and question everything....quite naturally I think. We are never comfortable with something, we always question and expand. Bottom line is that art (sculpture, painting, drawing, etc.) is subjective and left to the individual, things that are appreciated as art will be as varied as the people are. That being said, appreciate other viewpoints. This does not mean that you have to change your definition or what you think qualifies under your preconceived definitions. However, be aware that just because it is your idea, it doesn't always mean that you can defend it easily if you base your ideas on things that I feel have no merit. Of course, if you think that what I base my ideas on have none either, then it is likely that you won't really care what I think of you or your ideas. So what is sculpture again?
ReplyDeleteI also believe that it depends on the audience that you have. Don't you? You are striving to reach a certain audience with your current work- whether you want to or not. This audience, which for now is your thesis committee and the faculty here, has certain definitions of "what is what" in terms of the thesis. When you choose a gallery or residency to pursue you will be dealing with a crowd who will almost surely be familiar with "the expanded field." Do you think that your work lies in an expanded field of painting or printmaking or drawing?
Delete28 Jan. 2012
ReplyDeleteSculpture in the Expanded Field.
Rosalind Krauss
There is a lot to chew on here. We now live in this never land of Postmodernism sculpture or should I say architecture or is it landscape.
Sculpture seem to be the last to become the target of the postmodern crowd, having been lost in the crowd of modern painters and the never ending battles over Formalism being the end of art only to give way to new conflicts and the lack of direction of the postmodern group, if there is one.
She is very diligent in building her case for the histrionics group. She has an uphill battle for in trying to push the word sculpture into a meat grinder and have the same word come out the other end just is not going to work.
She makes it clear in her first few pages just how engrained the word sculpture is in the minds of society, its form follows function, its place of honor, its long historical value to power. I don’t think a hole in the desert will replace the values held in the word sculpture.
Truly the 1960’s sent out shoots that left the core concepts of sculpture far behind.
What came about was a group wandering in a wasteland producing work that is, I will use her word neutered.
This slow amalgamation of architecture and sculpture has points on both sides encroaching on the land next door will cause fights, confusion and chaos.
How do we look at what was presented?
What cultural and social values do they establish?
Is there any aesthetic rule we can apply to these new works?
Is there any value in appropriating the idea of Indian burial mounds?
Is there any aesthetic value in tearing up the environment to make a landscape? Usually in an isolated area no one will ever see.
All the charts are nice but they do not solve the problem, what are these works of art? Is it art?
If I were her I would simply give all these different directions a name,
an umbrella that they could all exist in for now.
I have a feeling it will be a few decades before the question can be answered, for all we know this type of work may be long gone.
Drew Cottril
I really saw this paper as more of a journey through history. It reminded me mostly of the Modern Art classes or surverys. As I was reading I really didn't have an opinion because I felt I was in class being taken through all these movements in history about sculpture. I may have gotten it all wrong...but thats what I got. It talking about the changes "sculpture" has gone through just like the other fields in art have gone through. That's it.
ReplyDeleteAlicia, You must have some opinion. Try reading the other blog posts or read it again next week. Dig deep.
DeleteDid you re read it Alicia. She is talking a lot more than about changes in sculpture and what other fields are you referring to? Share the examples that you are thinking of.
DeleteSculpture in the Expanded Field
ReplyDeleteRosalind Krauss
Krauss covers the evolution of sculpture and identifies the difficulty in defining the field (or defining what isn't in the field). The author enforces the claim that sculpture is ambiguous by referring to the growth (or deconstruction) of sculpture and its defining characteristics through history, from commemorative monument, imbued with meaning from the place and symbolism, to a homeless or site-less work of art, and eventually to what sculpture is not. Sculpture in the post-modern era (and whatever era we are in, forgive my ignorance on era terminology), continues to push boundaries in infinite directions. Kristin is right when she states that art, and subcategories of art are continuing to break down boundaries and seek out new ones. Sculpture is not the only field that is expanding. Painting, ceramics, fiber arts, glass-making, jewelry, and others are continuing to evolve as our society does. In my own work I create paper casts, which are three dimensional, are suspended away from the walls, and are painted on. The casts are the children of two disciplines, not belonging solely to painting or sculpture. While separate disciplines break down boundaries, they eventually overlap one another, reflecting our own globalized society's indifference to artificial boundaries. The boundaries between disciplines become irrelevant and highly obscured or demolished, allowing for us to remain focused on purely creating and defining art and differentiating art from good art.
This article from R. Krauss seems to do what much post modern writing does which is it takes an entirely circuitous route to explain something rather simple in overly complex terms, using the hammer of verbiage to screw in the nail so to speak, arriving at more or less the same place one started but feeling somewhat satisfied with ones confusion. The article lays out an historicist opinion of the evolution of sculpture through the 20th century and yet somehow manages to avoid mentioning 'post modernism' until the final 3rd- a notable feat in itself. The author seeks to enlighten us as to how we went from marble statuary, and monuments to fallen heroes, to piles of rubbish and empty rooms underground, all falling under the purview of 'sculpture' or at least of 'art'. Here is where I find fault with much of the PMist rhetoric on the subject of art about art: after exhaustively explaining why something (in this case sculpture) is no longer sculpture (in this case because of the absence of historical context or formalist mirror gazing) it is determined that
ReplyDelete'it' is an 'other' ( marked site, axiomatic structure, or site construction, which is neither architecture, nor landscape nor non-architecture or non-landscape)- to which I ask, what possible purpose does it serve?? If it refers to its medium it is Formalism, so she asserts that the reference is in perception, or political, cultural idiom, or some such tripe, which sounds an awful lot like 'theme', which is no great discovery. "My stars, this pile of rubbish in this hole in the ground is 'about' something! Eureka!"- She refers to this sort of 'thing' that is PM sculpture as being about 'the abstract conditions of of openness and closure', which is really the single best definition of PM sculpture I can think of. In the end I think she, and many other PMists must accept what legions of bakery enthusiasts have had to recently accept, or something similar to, which is that you can dress it up and complicate it all you like but in the end a cupcake is just cake in another form, and in the end no matter how we got here a 3d expression of an idea which serves no purpose beyond its own self reference, theme or no, is Art and more specifically it is sculpture. I can assure Ms. Krauss that no major museums are attempting to build some new wing to house all of this 'other' stuff which doesn't fit the 'sculpture' moniker. The Krauss essay therefore, albeit riddled with bits and pieces of interesting ideas, is nothing more than an explanation of new sculpture as ultimately, 'Art' since, I ask, what else could it possibly be?? It is like saying that the apple pie is not, or is not related to, the apple seed, and is therefore not fruit but something else within the expanded 'field' of fruit-ness. Ludicrous, obviously, but there it is.
Wow, I agree with Drew about having to chew through this one. From a left-brained standpoint, I found it very interesting that they developed the expanded field with which to determine where a piece of three-dimensional art falls within the realm of architectural or landscape-oriented creation. I'm a little confused, to be honest, that to be not-architectural and not-landscape it becomes "sculpture", yet any other combination between the complex and neuter becomes a different form of three-dimensional art that does not receive the title of "sculpture". The larger the final outcome (i.e., Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty"), almost seems to focus on the experience of actually viewing and interacting with the piece, while contemplating the scale and media, where the traditional sculpture-and-base is meant to be viewed from afar. The development of these new forms of three-dimensional art do rely on these snazzy classifications to more appropriately defend what they are doing, but, at least in relation to this article, it seemed like Krauss was just trying to justify them with the expanded field and their chronological location in the art world.
ReplyDeleteI found Perimeters/ Pavilions/ Decoys by Mary Miss quiet interesting. Similar to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (questioning and helping to define art), I believe that Mary is challenging the nature of sculpture. Since a sculpture can be defined from many angles, I find it difficult to argue that Mary’s work is not a sculpture. To me, Perimeters/ Pavilions/ Decoys is more constructed like an installation. The viewer supposed to investigate and interact with the construction. But of course one can argue that this work is an environmental/land sculpture. So, I think that the definition of a sculpture depends on the angle of interpretation… culture, time period, location, and purpose are all key factors that come into play. For example, Stonehenge and Indian burial mounds where not intended to be sculptures… they have a specific purpose and meaning for a specific time period. I never considered Rodin’s The Gates of Hell a sculpture, but this certainly could be argued. To me, I would say that The Gates of Hell is more a high relief than anything else. It all depends on the interpretation of the viewer. Is the viewer/interpretation even important? I’m not sure if I’m qualified to answer this question, but to me the most important element is that each piece of work has it’s own reality and is able to exist without any interpretation. I think we live in a time period where many terms can be overlapped, stretched, transformed according to interpretation.
ReplyDeleteJanet’s Response to “Sculpture in the expanded field”
ReplyDeleteKrauss is saying that the expanded field of postmodernism occurred at a specific moment. She feels it is important to map the structure of postmodernism and the root cause of its development. I believe the article is looking at how one medium, sculpture has been expanded to include just about any material or subject, natural or man-made and that art is legitimized by its historical connections. Krauss refers back to Stonehenge, Indian burial grounds, etc…In the past the logic of sculpture was inseparable from the logic of the monument. Usually they are site specific and are symbolic about the meaning or use of that space. In the late nineteenth century the logic began to fade and what was once thought of as sculpture as monument is now a monument without a site, a monument with a loss of place. The monument is produced as abstraction. The sculpture is about itself and is autonomous. I am trying to define my art as well. It’s not easy to do. I am not really sure I am painting about an experience at a particular moment in time, at a particular place. I believe I may be more interested in the painting itself and the exploration of the material and the painting process. If art was easy to define there wouldn’t be so much debate on the topic. Maybe art doesn’t have to mirror its environment or relate to it?