Fabrizio Plessi

Fabrizio Plessi for me is one of those artists that when you see his work for the first time you say to yourself “I want to make work like that.” Of course that would not be the reaction for every on looker of his work, my opinions are biased in that he works with materials and concepts that I have worked with all along in making my are and though I would not want to incorporate my work in an exactness to that of Fabrizio Plessi, he has combined technology and nature in a beautiful harmony. His works are excellent in both execution and concept and I feel that I will be looking to his work quite a bit more If I so choose to work with nature again in the near future.

I have a parallel of history with Plessi, and I have no allusions of grandeur that I am only in my 20’s and feel that I have only begun to scrape the surface of what my art means to me, let a lone what I want it to say to others, all of my research is an attempt to get a better grasp on all of these issues. I sincerely feel that Plessi has it figured out. As a video artist with traditional art school training, his work balances primal elements (air, water, fire) and materials (stone and wood) with new technology to arouse irrational, elemental emotions.

Reading about Plessi’s work helps me to further my investigation as to why I currently have had such an affinity with the monitor as a choice of material. Plessi treats the video monitor as inner space. He makes it clear that the image of water Art (1990), exists inside the video monitor. The video monitor seems to generate it from its own inner space. That is, the rigid box contains the video tube the way the body contains the psyche that creates fluid art.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. Conversations on Sculpture. Hamilton, N. J.: Isc, 2007. Print.

Kuspit, Donald. "The Water Of Life." Artnet Magazine. 4 Apr. 2008. Web.

Richard Wentworth

Looking at Richar Wentworth’s work for me was similar to looking at the work of Liliana Porter, in that, I wanted to gain a better understanding of what it means to use the ‘ready made’ Wentworth attempts to draw objects out, uncovering their various selves and rerouting what and how they signify. His activities go beyond producing discrete objects or installations…He resists the temptation to pump up the size of his work or to substitute permanent materials for challengingly conceptual ones.

I’ll admit I cannot fully understand all that Wentworth has to say regarding his use of every day objects that he in some way manipulates and photographs. I think is work takes a certain type of contemplation, a space in which you have to let go of certain presumptions. Everything is so methodically planned out. In a BBC Interview he speaks of a piece with the use of a ping pong table and dinner plates, his observations on how we react to such situations as broken plates placed back together and stacked on the table, ready to be re-used for their original purpose, is outstanding. He says that “’as a general rule we’re anxious about eating off something that’s been mended, but then there are other things in our lives that we mend because we’d hate to lose them.” “The fact that they’re on a ping pong table, I’ve had dinner off ping pong tables, there’s nothing odd about that if you’ve got enough people coming to dinner why not!” “But it makes it a little bit tense because you have that feeling of opposition…”

In feeling a bit overwhelmed in trying to break down Wentworth’s observations, he even states himself that he is continually investigating the miracle of selecting what we look at–ideas about prior knowledge and how drenched we are in it and how un-innocent.” I think investigating Wentworth’s work for me personally was trying to identify with it in some way, it seemed like such a different use of the ready made and upon investigating the work and reading his interviews I find it even a bit more confusing, but this is not a bad thing, I learned that objects are not to be taken for granted, we as walkers and lookers about analyze everything, whether we realize it or not, what Wentworth does is further examines the moments of contemplation on an object that the average individual would only speak of inside the subconscious. He pulls that out and manipulates it further, pushes it to its limit and places out for the world to see.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. Conversations on Sculpture. Hamilton, N. J.: Isc, 2007. Print.

"Richard Wentworth @ Potteries Museum." Interview by Lisa Dawson. Richard Wentworth @ Potteries Museum. BBC. Stoke and Staffordshire, UK, Apr. 2006. Radio.

Liliana Porter

Untitled with Lamp, 2000, is my first encounter with the work of Liliana Porter, upon further investigation I found myself being engaged with her material choice and was instantly reminded of Nicolas Bouriaud’s The Radicant. Immediately there was a connection of her choice in materials stemming from what Bouriaud would call the “flea market-aesthetic.” He states that the lifespan of objects is becoming shorter and shorter, their turnover in the marketplace ceaselessly accelerated, their obsolescence carefully planned. It is this obsolescence that Porter thrives own, she takes home these objects and employs them. She comments saying they “already exist…already come with a history,” and by isolating them or situation them with unusual companions she gives them entirely new realities and interpretations. The power lies not in the individual toys, but in the relationship and the space she creates between them. Currently wanting to appropriate objects from the “flea marke aesthetic” myself and appropriate them for pieces of my own, looking at works like that of Liliana Porter is helpful in thinking about how things like placement will set up a certain relationship between objects. I can see a lot of opportunity to make works in this manner. Having obtained objects that both hold a personal history and a history of their own ex. Teddy Ruxpin or R2D2 for example symbols of my childhood, I can give them new meaning by placing them in certain situations/environments.

I think a large difference between Liliana Porter and most artists is her ability to alter her work. She in fact creates with this in mind. In an interview with Pablo Baler she says: “I place my work in a neutral space, I do stage it in such a way as to not even allow the possibility of seeing it without re-creating it, without transforming it…I’m mostly interested in realizing and showing that almost everything lies inside that region where you are the one who endows things with a particular meaning.” I also find Porters arrival of her material as interesting as her portrayal. She says that she “got here not form the Pop side; it was more from the fact that toys are things of the past, and at the same time, they are metaphors, receptacles of meaning It is exactly the same with art.

In thinking of the appropriation of certain toys that I have collected and held on to with then intentions of using them as my art I feel that now that I have some insight from Liliana Porter’s point of view as the “toy” as a material, that I must investigate what the material is trying to say to me in terms of objects from the past that can be seen as metaphors.

Baker, Kenneth. "Waltz of the Figurines, Now on a Screen near You." San Francisco Chronicle. 26 Apr. 2008. Web.

Bourriaud, Nicolas. The Radicant. New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2009. Print.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. Conversations on Sculpture. Hamilton, N. J.: Isc, 2007. Print.

Tintori, Valentina. "Liliana Porter/Interview." Latina Art Journal (2011): 1. Latina Art Journal. 27 Mar. 2011. Web.

Miroslaw Balka

Often using his own body and his studio as a template or first point of reference, Balka’s work deals with both personal and collective memories, especially as they relate to his Catholic upbringing and the collective experience of Poland's fractured history. The majority of my experience with Miroslaw Balka’s work comes from conversations about his exhibition at London’s White Cube gallery. Titled “Karma,” Balka’s show featured sculptural installations expressing timelessness, repetitive cycles, continuity, and progress/lack of progress. I must admit my interest in Balka initially was more of a response to his aesthetic. Often using ordinary objects and simple materials to create his work, he has described his work in terms of releasing the energy contained in simple materials.

Feedback that I have received over the past few years in graduate school has stemmed conversations about the lack of seeing “me” in my work. With the exception of just a few works, I have yet to be able to convey myself in a light that can be understood by the viewers of my work. This is something I want to continue to explore. Exploring this in nearly all of his work, I would like to comment on Balka’s mentioning’s of his body in relation to his piece 354 x 58 x 79, 2004. In an interview with Robert Preece, Balka states that: “The medicine balls are related to my body in terms of the activity of my body–the imperfection. Everything in my work is about my body, but few aspect of the work relate to my body in that way. Instead, I aim to create the presence of my body.”

Perhaps not so much a comment on art practice but life, which in affect improves the ability to create, Balka makes a good point in saying that “I’m more skeptical of the world now that I was 20 years ago. I see my position within it better. I see the mechanisms of life better. I think my work is a shadow of this observation. It is not a direct reflection.” I think this poses an interesting discussion that I have to have with others and myself. Do I want to make work that is a direct relation to my life or a reflection?

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. Conversations on Sculpture. Hamilton, N. J.: Isc, 2007. Print.

Preece, Robert. "The Shadow of Life's Mechanisms." Sculpture Nov. 2004: 37-41. Web.

"White Cube — Miroslaw Balka." White Cube. Web. 09 May 2011. .

Tony Oursler

I once did a drawing in my sketchbook (I say drawing but I’m not very good at it); the drawing depicted figures that had combined the elements of my use of bamboo as a strong material existing as the limbs of a figure that exists in a fragile nature, as well as an amorphous figure cast as a hollow plastic body and containing a head that is a video screen. The screen would depict a confused human-like expression, questioning its existence and contemplating its place in the world. Whether the figure would be placed within its own narrative, or if it was a commentary on my fabricated idea that we as a culture would one day try to combine nature and technology and fail at it, resulting in a confusing race of amorphous forms. I had nearly forgot this drawing and at the time that I drew it I had no concept of how such a piece would be made. All thoughts came flooding back as I looked at the work of Tony Oursler, whom aesthetically and conceptually has increasingly become one of my favorite contemporary artists working today.

Oursler has remained interested in how technology makes individuals feel uneasy despite its commonplaceness and its penetrating impact on global society. He embraces technology as an artist tool not because it was hip or trendy, but because he saw it as a means of probing the inner self…This hits it spot on for me, I’ve often felt that my new interest in technology as a tool could easily be misguided and misunderstood, but I do feel like Oursler that it should be embraced as a tool to explore the inner self and our relationship with technology.

Oursler’s constructions cut across multiple media – sculpture, painting, photography, video drawing, video/digital projection, space, and CD-ROM. This is where I want to be and the goals that I strive to achieve dwell within a similar multifaceted practice. As I move forward and explore the work that I want to make, I want to be able to pick up whatever tool necessary to explore my ideas and I feel Oursler is an excellent source for inspiration.

It is good for me to see Oursler’s work in the sense that it can help me learn to break out of the boundaries of a flat surface and explore other ways to involve media in works. In May 2003 he introduced a new brand of mutants. Stepping inside, viewers could imagine that the toons from Roger Rabbit had taken up residence in the gallery. I like the layers that his creations contain and I think this is something that I have not put enough thought into my own work. Of course the viewers are always going to have their own interpretations of your work, but it is the careful choices you make when conducting a work that can help guide the viewer toward your intention. His poignantly fictitious inventions highlight states of loneliness, isolation, and miscommunication–despite the frequently comical look of the toon-like fabrications.

Oursler also introduces sound to his humanoid creations. They say phrases such as ‘No! No! No!’ or ‘Do it!’ He gives voice to the mortified, the lonely, the abandoned. Continually I become more and more increasingly interested in audio as a medium and Oursler’s use of audio is smart in that there is human interaction that occurs between the viewer and the work, giving a character that would be over looked the power to be contemplated.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture since 1980. Hamilton, NJ: ISC, 2006. Print.

Rebecchi, Llaria. ""Open Obscura": Tony Oursler's Exhibition in Milan." King's Road Magazine. 23 Mar. 2011. Web.

Rush, Michael. Video Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Print.

Nils-Udo

Through out my blog I have discussed my interest in many different mediums and subject matter. This is an attempt to better understand these materials and subjects and acquire some concrete evidence of contemporary artists using similar repertoire in their works. I found a close connection to the work of Nils-Udo when thinking of my love for nature. Nils-Udo works much like that of artist such as Andy Goldsworthy, in that the works are made in nature with the materials at hand and are a typically site-specific. Nils-Udo has also employed the use of bamboo for several of his works and I was visually interested in his use of that material, although I am not currently using bamboo in my own work , I am interested in new ways of manipulating it as a material in the knowledge that it is likely I will return to that material.

Nils-Udo’s nature constructions, plantings, and arrangements of found elements evidence a need to seize the tactile environmental reality and to build a language out of it–but nature remains an equal player. Nils-Udo states that turning nature into art does not interest him. He says that what counts for him is that his actions, Utopia-like, fuse life and art into each other. He says that Art does not interest him. His reaction to events that shape his existence is what interests him. Immediately, this through me for a loop at first read, but Nils-Udo’s further explanation of this way of working is quite informative and a new approach to my ears. He says for example, “We do not call a beaver’s hut art or architecture, yet the logs are tooth-carved and the hut is a built construction.” “The divide between humanity and nature has become so clearly delineated a conception that nature has become a foil used to describe artificiality.” “The billboard or screen image of a leaf or a caterpillar, for instance, is now used to sell product.” In Nils-Udo’s work however, he reminds us of the fragile balance between human activity and nature.

I would like to end this post by citing a comment by Nils-Udo on his use of nature as material that reeds like poetry and I feel is very touching.

Sketching with flowers. Painting with clouds. Writing with water. Tracing the May wind, the path of falling leaf. Working for a thunderstorm. Awaiting a glacier. The May-green call of the cuckoo and the invisible trace of its flight. Space…

–N.–U.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture since 1980. Hamilton, NJ: ISC, 2006. Print.

Rocca, Alessandro. Natural Architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural, 2007. Print.

Heide Fasnacht

What first drew me in to the work of Heidie Fasnacht, was her work Oculama, 1989. A work that is composed of Wood and masonite spheres arranged in a cluster. The work reminded me of my own fascination with spheres and through further investigation of her work I am excited to find out that imagination, is one of the soul resources of inspiration for her work. I have a strong affinity for works that involve the imagination and I feel that I have always had a vivid one. I find it difficult to articulate a way to invite viewers to participate in a visual experience or representation of my imagination.

Through my research I found a new perspective on attracting the viewer to a work versus letting the work be an attraction unto itself. Kathleen Whitney writes about this concerning Heide’s work. Her work is an amalgam of intelligence, humor, and craft (all things that I am currently interested in), representing nothing less than a grad attempt to give poetic form to knowledge. Her work is always handsome, elegant eve, yet it seems remote from its own appearance. This is work more engaged with itself than with the viewer; its appearance seems more a side effect of its subject matter than a strategic attempt to attract. I think the strategic attempt to attract is something that I often dwell on for far too long when trying to create work and I appreciate Heide Fasnacht’s approach to not concern herself with this aspect.

Fasnacht’s humor is both intriguing and interesting, and comes through her work through various ways; primarily through the use of scale. He recent works intimate scale and detailed surface invite fantasy, at the same time, the sense that the image was enlarged from a photograph makes it apparent that the object is not realistic. The forms are not only depictions of the subject that inspired them but it was surprising for me to find out that there is also a figurative element to the work that takes some observation to comprehend. Her work perceives the mechanics of nature as analogous to sensations experienced by the body i.e. the eruption of a volcano is associated with the force of orgasm; the propulsive force of a sneeze is akin to the centrifugal force exhibited by a tornado.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture since 1980. Hamilton, NJ: ISC, 2006. Print.

Carlock, Marty. “Heide Fasnacht.” Sculpture; Vol 25 No.7, Sept 2006.