Charlotte Holper

Adrian Piper Retrospective

11/26/2018

The 1965-2018 Retrospective of Adrian Piper was very well curated and also quite informative of the artist’s progression of work. The entrance to the exhibition shows a wide variety of her mediums and techniques. Walking through the show, the viewer is able to walk up to sculptures, paintings, photographs, comparing the works in a chronological order. The show also incorporates installations that allow the viewer to walk around and through them, engaging the viewer further. The beginning and end of the show fascinated me the most, showing an adventurous and creative way to show her work. Walking into her exhibition, I really enjoyed a compilation of paintings that incorporated colorful and vibrant imagery. From 1965 to 1966, Piper created works inspired from LSD. These works were segmented like stained glass windows, creating an all-over pattern on the canvas. Two of the paintings in the compilation stood out the most, Self-Portrait with Tamika and Steve Shomstein. Piper painted these two portraits with acrylic paint in 1966.

Many of the pieces in the exhibition incorporated a small amount of color, but held more formal traits of grayscale. The time when Piper completed these two works was during a movement of drug-inspired artwork. Piper transparently shows great influences from past art movements, such as Impression, Minimalism, Surrealism, and Fluxus. The two portraits, Self-Portrait with Tamika and Steve Shomstein, both portray images of people. The canvas is broken up into carefully painted lines, breaking up the figures underneath. The paintings also reference religious iconography through the stained glass features and colorful segments. The paintings also share a similar color palette of purple, yellow, black and white. Throughout the paintings, the artist incorporates swirls and patterns to move the viewer through the piece, creating a complete composition.
The work shows a complete Retrospective of Adrian Piper's work and shows her skill set and many different mediums. The exhibition showed Pipers technique and unique behavior.

Inside-out Project

For this project, I decided to create a segmented drawing of my dad in a wheelchair. Inspired from a small-scale drawing I made in the past, I wanted to expand the idea of my dad’s health and progression of recovery. My dad recently had a hematoma on his spinal cord and was paralyzed from the chest down. I wanted to draw my dad with the the anatomy that was affected by his injury. Showing the anatomy of his body along with the tools to help him recover portrays his progression of recovery. I am specifically interested in how these tools able him to live properly. Over Thanksgiving break, me and my brother made a standing pull up bar for my dad to hoist himself out of bed. From living in the hospital for a month to moving back home, my dad has learned certain techniques to make his life easier. Accessible living is really difficult to find for handicapped people, but one only thinks about this when one is put in such a situation. The hematoma took out a huge nerve pathway in his spinal cord, which controlled his whole lower body. Such a tragic incident made us closer and more efficient as a family. With such an unknown future ahead, we feel more connected to take care of my dad. Through this project, I would like to document the process of recovery for my dad. Gifting him the small-scale drawing brought a smile to his face. I was initially unsure if he would enjoy it, since it showed his weaknesses, but he decided to hang it above his bed, as a memento. The inspiration for this project came from anatomical charts in my old science book from middle school. Visiting my dad in the hospital was really confusing to me. The doctors and nurses had different schedules and tools to aid my dad, yet I was lost in all the information. Making a tangible drawing of the tools he uses makes it less stressful to think about the problem. I also think that documenting tragic experiences can help one learn from their past.

small-scale drawing

reference pictures

Inside/Out Body

For this project, my goal was to make a connection between the outline of a body and the use of the shapes of flowers. I have recently become very infatuated with line drawings and how they connect and move the viewers eye all throughout the piece so I thought that would be a great way to combine the inner and outer body. For my collage aspect of this piece, I decided to use cutouts of flowers found on the internet and outdoors and combine that shape with fabrics from clothing found in magazines. I did not use the form on the girl as a self-portrait, however, the creation of flowers from clothing fabric is something that I am very connected too and found of. The "inner body" part of this piece is supposed to be the flowers that are meant to depict the hair, brain, and a few of the veins. The woman figure is made up of many female photographs in seated positions.

My hope is to have the viewers eye move peacefully throughout my work and notice how one simple line can great something both interesting and beautiful. The work describes both imagination and grounding. With the flowers and lines, I am trying to show the growth that a human goes through, similar to that of a flower. The use of fabric not only adds color and light into the work, but it relates personally to me and my interests nowadays.

For reference, I looked at Orlan's work and the use of layering upon a stable body. The symmetry and use of bold colors is very eye-catching. That is what I was trying to do when choosing what fabric to use to make the flower. I also chose to only use the upper half of a body just as Orlan did in this work. I chose to do this because I wanted to draw more attention to the head and chest space.

I also looked at works by Wangechi Mutu and her beautiful and wild line and brushwork. In the same way that she created her head of snacks and other creatures, I tried to depict a "busy-like" headspace. I have always thought the way she grounded her figures was amazing. 

Lastly, I looked at many different continuous line drawings and different techniques to help me successfully convey what I wanted without it looking too messy or busy. I also tried to find ways to connect the flowers and the face without it looking too childish or unintentionally layered. 

https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/39394/orlan/

https://chiaroscuromagazine.com/shows-and-exhibitions/fine-art-fine-craft/wangechi-mutu-fantastic-journey.html

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/94766

"The Body and Technology"

The essay is an analysis of the relationship between bodies and technology. Performance becomes a specific medium to explore these connections with technology. The Industrial Revolution forced the body to work as a machine through factories and assembly lines. After the Industrial Revolution, the New Knowledge Economy forced people to think of their bodies in a different way. Through performance art, individuals used their bodies to engage with this idea of the body as a machine. Through advancements in our society, the body interacts with the world on different levels. The invention of photography has changed the way we see the world. The body is placed behind a camera to visualize modernity and change. Humans find it necessary to remember the past through a visual context. Photographs have changed the way bodies interact. Instead of physically engaging with the world around us, we find images of certain aesthetics to relieve such tensions. For example, one may find an image of a painting online, instead of taking a trip to a museum or gallery to physically experience the piece. The Mona Lisa is one of the most reproduced images in the world. Many people know this image, yet do not have the privilege of taking a journey to the Louvre in Paris. Our technologies have compressed time and space to an extent of no return. Will we ever experience the world the same way? Will we ever return to physical experience?

Performing Body

Charlotte Holper
Performance Body Project
November 4, 2018
The Artist is Present
Marina Abramovic, a Serbian performance artist, was born on November 30, 1946. A daughter of two Yugoslav Partisans, Abramovic grew up in a very strict, uniform household. She was disciplined immensely by her parents, especially her mother, and was deeply affected by this. Abramovic explores the relationship between the artist and viewer in her work. Through her performance, she became a pioneer in engaging the viewer within her art. Beginning performance art in her 20s, Abramovic pushes herself to create experiences that strain her physical and emotional state. One of her performances, titled The Artist is Present, explores the experience between the viewer and artist. For three months, 736 hours and 30 minutes, Abramovic sat in her Retrospective in the Museum of Modern Art, surrounded by other performers re-performing her work. Her performance consisted of sitting in a chair, while observers could sit opposite of her for as long as they desired. She created a space in which viewers could freely gaze at her while individuals could come up and experience her performance one at a time. Documenting the whole performance, people had many different reactions to her silent, static behavior. Some began to weep as others would sit there for over an hour.  Her art became a personal experience of being able to spend time with the mastermind. Inspired by this performance, many artists traveled from far and wide to see her work and reacted in many different ways to her.
The Retrospective took many months to plan. During the performance, she planned to place a box in her chair to relieve herself when she needed to pee.  Abramovic also sat from the museum's opening to closing, 9-5, ending her performance every day by kneeling down and curling up into a ball. The strain of her body was noticed during her piece because of the knowledge that the goal was to sit there for three months. The curator of the show, Klaus Biesenbach, even had worries about her physical health and well-being. With the discipline of her parents, Abramovic carries that with her through her art. In a documentary about her art, Abramovic tells an anecdote about her mother waking her up in the middle of the night to fix her bed only because she was "sleeping messy". She plans her art in a way that exceeds her limits. She sat strong as her body felt the limitations. As her curator told her to stop, she was adamant about finishing what she started. The idea that Abramovic carries out her performances to the end gives inspiration to other developing artists. The performance became an introspective experience for the artist, but also her viewers. As people sat and gazed into her eyes, some silent and some verbal, many individuals projected their own lives and experiences onto the artist. She gave everyone time and attention, no more, no less.
The drawing that is inspired from The Artist is Present describes the experience of both, the artist and the viewer. Creating an intense environment, I portray Marina Abramovic sitting in a chair in the foreground while viewers are blurred in the background. Abramovic's body is completely still and static as the viewers are difficult to depict. The experience of her performance created a sensation of viewing Abramovic in person. The masses came to spectate and watch her from 9-5. Many people would fight to be first in line, while others would mirror her behavior, becoming calm and silent. The drawing portrays the stillness of the artist, while also depicting the great movement of MoMa visitors.

Performing Bodies

Sammy Keane
Cindy Rehm
Advanced Life Drawing
3 November 2018 

Performing Bodies Project

For this project, I chose to draw and write about Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh. These two performance artists collaborated and tied themselves together at the length of an eight-foot rope for one year, from 1983 to 1984. I came across this piece when reading the packet "Performance Art", written by Kristine Stiles, earlier this week. I was fascinated with this piece in particular because it was, and still is, something I could never imagine doing. Most performance pieces I have seen or learned about usually only last a day or even a few hours, so this piece was rather shocking to me. After doing further research I learned more about them as individual and collaborative artists. "Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950, Taiwan) is a NewYork-based performance artist whose career involved a continuous series of long durational performances. Art became for the artist a way of life, completely integrated in his daily routines" (culture trip). "Linda Montano is a seminal figure in contemporary feminist performance art and her work since the mid-1960s has been critical in the development of video by, for, and about women" (lindamontano). I found these two are both powerful and influential artists who would (and did) obviously go to great lengths to prove a point in not only the art world but in society itself. 

While looking on the internet about this performance piece, I found many possibly images that I could attempt to depict. I came across a photo of them both simply going on with their day, looking as if they are doing work or bills, sitting back to back. I was most interested in this photo because they seemed natural, as if they were not even tied to one another. The photo I chose to draw is placed below.

The role of Montano's and Hsieh's bodies in this photograph seem simply natural. If the rope tied around their waists was removed, it would look like they were working in any other office. It is not only shocking that they were able to spend an entire year at an 8-foot length, but it is also somewhat comforting to me. When learning about this piece, I was inspired and my imagination began to wonder about what other seemingly 'impossible' things could artists do. I think the bodies in this photo, and throughout the year, are neutral bodies rather than charged. The overall goal was to go on with their daily life. As I stated above, my personal reaction to this piece was basically disbelief. A year is a long time and I just could not stop thinking about moments such as sleeping, using the restroom, and even sitting at a table with another person for that long. Montano and Hsieh's performance pieces usually concentrated on the problems with duration, this one specifically.

Below are images I referenced when creating my drawing.

Photo Links

https://frieze.com/article/live-work
https://www.google.com/search?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_drawing
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/old-man-reading-1882-vincent-van-gogh.html
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/illustrations/old-man-sitting-in-chair-drawing
http://carolynchenart.com/sketches.html