"Performance Art"

Analysis of Performance Art by Kristine Stiles

From the reading, the essay discusses the beginning of Performance in the art world in Japan, Europe and the U.S. Sparked from World War II, artists attempted to use their bodies as subjects after a huge demolition of culture throughout the world. The Holocaust was one of the largest genocides in history and people needed heal after such an event. Different art movements embraced the act of using one's body in their art, such as Dada, Bauhaus, and Gutai. The history of performance also sparked from the Situationist and Fluxus movements. After World War II, artists attempted to reclaim their space in the art world. The Nazis took away many freedoms from creative types during the war, especially the destruction of art, literature, and other forms of expression. Another leading demolition of culture at the time included imperialist commercialization infiltrating different countries, especially America into Japan. The Situationists wanted to create happenings, in which viewers could experience art instead of statically viewing work in pretentious environments. The urban space became a transformational experience for artists at the time, resulting from a compression of time and space in busy cities. Futurists were also inspired by the change in pace, attempting to interpret this within there movement. Creating work that represented the feeling from rural to urban was the main drive for Futurists and Situationists. From the rise of performance art after World War II, the movement spread to many different countries. Artists picked up where other artists left off. Jackson Pollock was creating huge gestural murals that included the subject of his movements throughout his work. He attempted to represent his grand movements through his splattered and bold mark-making. Many performance artists create experiences for the viewer rather than a piece for someone to look at. The gesture of performance becomes a happening for "experiential immediacy".

Political Portrait

“I STAND WITH FORD”

Within a structure of systematic oppression, women have been objectified and inferior to men for all of America’s history. When women received the right to vote in 1919, Congress took initiative to balance gender equality. The Kavanaugh case showed an extreme lack of progress within our justice system. Watching the live Kavanaugh case reminded me of the horrors of not being believed. Reflecting on my own experiences, the case forced me to realize my own burdens living in a Patriarchal society. Staying up late at night, I spent countless hours thinking about the side of Christine Ford. She was ridiculed for telling her truth, to receive ‘attention’ for her sexual assault. I finally recalled an experience that I had three years ago. Lying in bed, I remember myself waking up on my friend’s couch, completely naked, with a used condom next to me on the nightstand. A million different thoughts raced through my head as I walked towards my friend’s room to question her about what happened the night before. I enter her room as her and her boyfriend were cuddling in bed. I bluntly ask her what happened, as she further describes my attraction to a random guy at the party. Not only do I not remember this guy, I do not recall talking to him or hooking up. She tells me we had sex on the couch. My mind is racing, questioning myself and my friend. Did my friend know I was black out drunk? Did the guy know I was black out drunk? I immediately decide to uber home, distraught from not knowing anything that happened to me. I quickly look the guy up on Facebook, message him to ask if he used a condom, closed my phone, and tried to piece the puzzle together. He messaged back so soon, and I looked at my phone in horror. He responded, “yeah, the first time, but I don’t know about the other times.” After that, I took a trip to Walgreens, took a Plan B, and pushed the memory out of my head. Three years later, I am lying in bed, horrified at myself. How could I forget about this experience of being used? I am dealing with it now and processing these questions. This drawing was a way to deal with this thing that happened to me. I don’t have any influences other than this experience and this burden that I hold every day now. It is extremely hard to talk about, but sharing this in critique made me realize I am lucky to have people that believe me and support me. Ford’s courage of sharing her story made me realize I am not crazy and neither is anyone who has been sexually assaulted.

Political Self

Political Self Project 

Sammy Keane

For this project, my overall goal was to place my self-portrait in a medical setting. My Mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer when I was 15. Because of her, I have always thought of different ways I can implement her into my work. I chose to seat myself in a medical chair and have an IV going into me (through a chest port, the same way she was given chemotherapy) the same way as any person who would be given chemotherapy. The political aspect of this project was discussing the insane prices for medical care, chemotherapy specifically. In 2018, an estimated 1,735,350 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and 609,640 people will die from the disease. Many of these people do not have the funds or insurance to get the care they desperately need. While including myself in the piece, I chose to have the words "The costs for chemotherapy can have estimates as high as $30,000 over an eight-week period. CHEMO SHOULD'NT = DEBT" written on the bottom. My goal was to not only connect myself in the setting but to also address the statistics of the price people going through chemotherapy will also have to pay. 

Watching my mother, along with four of my aunts and two of my cousins, go through the pain of chemotherapy for Breast Cancer has been some of the hardest moments of my life. The medical bills my family members have had to pay because of something they cannot control are even more disgusting. Cancer and the price that comes with it is something I have always been exposed to. I chose to place the text in my work at the bottom because I wanted to make it feel almost as if it was a propaganda piece. To make it as life-like and real as possible I used reference photos of medical chairs, Iv bags and stands, hats women wear, etc. I created my own additions and changes that would make more sense and were more specific to my personal project. 

I had my friend take a picture of me sitting in a similar way someone would be sitting in a medical chair and I also used that a reference while drawing. My feet are in the front are the largest part of my drawing. To make sure I got them as correct in value and proportion as possible I referred to my the picture of myself and the drawings shown below. Overall, I am very happy with the outcome of my drawing, I tried my best to have as much differentiating value as possible while also keeping the work of my pencil hatching rather than smoothing it out. For this project instead of referencing artists per say, I found different images through google and Pinterest that inspired me and would help this drawing in particular.

URL's for Reference Photos
https://www.medical-supplies-equipment-company.com/homehealth/product/medical-recliner-chair_23592.html
https://www.whatnext.com/blog/posts/30-ways-to-stay-positive-when-you-have-cancer
https://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/cold-cap-designed-to-help-chemo-patients-retain-hair/article_56fc986a-9dfa-59d1-9e8b-c941744b58bd.html
https://www.formfonts.com/3D-Model/2349/1/e1050-other-equipment/e1020-institutional-equipment/e10-equipment/equipment-furnishings/stand-with-plasma-bag/
https://www.pinterest.com/buffalochip47/artillustration-the-foot/?lp=true
https://www.pinterest.es/pin/831477149923291017/
https://www.behance.net/gallery/45907577/Life-Drawing

Analysis of "White Artist's Painting of Emmett Till at Whitney Biennial Draws Protests"

          From the New York Times, Randy Kennedy writes about the white artist, Dana Schutz, who was selected in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, to submit an abstract painting of Emmett Till's dead body. Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two horribly racist white men in 1955, remains a symbol for the civil rights movement to this day. Till's mother demanded for an open casket at her son's funeral to show people the brutality of police in our country towards innocent black people. Kennedy further explains the protest of Dana Schutz's painting. Parker Bright, an African-American artist, stood in front of the painting, with his t-shirt, stating "Black Death Spectacle"(1). The problem with this issue of the painting, does not fall in the artist's hand. I find that anyone has freedom of speech and is allowed to express what they believe is true, but for the curators of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, it is a huge responsibility to curate important voices internationally. To curate a white person's art to represent black mourning holds a deeply embedded issue in our country. Not only does this silence black culture even more, it symbolizes the superiority of white culture in America. Kennedy's article brings up an important issue of systematic racism in our country. It is so deeply rooted that most non-black people do not see, feel, or hear these prejudices. The systematic racism of Dana Schutz's painting is not that she wanted profit from an image that was not hers to claim, it was the fact that it was chosen out of so many diverse artists from the U.S. to be internationally representative of our country.

Analysis of "The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning"

           From the New York Times Magazine, Claudia Rankine writes about the precarious experience of being black in America. She introduces anecdotes of friends, beginning with a mother of a black son, who states, "The condition of black life in one of mourning"(1). This mother refers to a violent history of systematic racism in our country. America, "the land of the free, home of the brave", becomes a hypocritical stab in the back to groups of people that live in fear of prejudices and profiling. The author of this article also describes the normalizing of profiling people of color. She explains the history of killing black people in America, "Dying in ship hulls, tossed into the Atlantic, hanging from trees, beaten, shot in churches, gunned down by the police or warehoused in prisons..."(4). Black people are wrongfully profiled, imprisoned, and killed every day, and there is an absence of national mourning. In order to create equal civil rights in our country, society needs to respect black culture without prejudice and stereotypes. The author, later, brings up the movement, Black Lives Matter, that was started to demand equal rights for black people. Many critics contest the movement, stating, "All Lives Matter", arguing that it defeats the purpose of equal civil rights. The Black Lives Matter movement creates a national mourning for those dead black lives that went unrecognized. If this movement did not bring to light the massive amount of wrongfully killed black people that were not front-page material, there would be no discussion for these innocent people. From the language that is created in our justice system, this issue is more than surface-level. From the article, Rankine explains the history of our language, "The legacy of black bodies as property and subsequently three-fifths human continues to pollute the white imagination"(8). Creating new language that treats black people with the same respect as white culture can help the justice of our country. Eliminating the 'n' word or any other derogatory slander from white people's vocabulary would help stop the history of oppression with black people. In conclusion, white people are responsible for the oppression of black people throughout American history. As a culture, we can take steps towards a better country if we change the education and justice system to a more equal and humane future.