Readings for this week were:
October text: 1945, 1955b, 1959b, 1960a, 1965, 1966a, 1966b, and from the reading packet: Louise Nevelson and David Smith.
Looking over the texts this week, I think it may be favorable for all of you to read the introductory chapters to the text, which discuss the methodologies and inclinations of various modes of critical theory and art history. Also, crack open the first text of Art Since 1900 and begin to read on Duchamp, Dada, Surrealism, Cubism, Futurism. Flip thru that first part of the text book, pick something of interest and read it. Don't read it cover to cover or by chapter, making the act of reading a creative one, where you follow your interests, this helps in actually acquiring the information because it was selected out of your own interests, and I find that we take in information or knowledge when we are ready and willing to.
As far as the readings on sculpture, wew have much to discuss. We need to understand the legacy of Marcel Duchamp. Why was he so important, and why are artists today still so inspired by his works and his manners for working?
To look up:
1) bricolage and the bricoleur. The concept of bricolage was discussed in the most useful way by a structural anthropologist named Claude Levi-Strauss, in his book The Savage Mind. The definition for bricolage in the text is rather informal and doesn't really get to the idea of bricolage.
2) Marcel Duchamp. Look at several projects of his: The Large Glass (or the Bride Stripped Bare By her Bachelors, Even), Fountain (and I will give anyone extra credit if they can decipher what 'R Mutt' means), then look up his rotoreliefs and compare them to the kineticist art.
3) gestalt
4) the notion of the spectacle and Guy Debord's book, 'The Society of the Spectacle'. Then...
5) the notions of detournement, recuperation, unitary urbanism, the derive and psychogeography again. These are terms used by Situationists, who are really proving to be some of the most influential artists of the 20th century. All of those terms will be used again and again to discuss all kinds of art, for all kinds of reasons. Why is the 'Spectacle' a bad thing to Debord, and a glorious thing to Yves Klein?
6) structuralist anthropology. the world in binaries, we have talked about this already, but it is going to begin to become very important to see how we define and use 'opposites' and 'similarities'.
7) collage and decollage, and when they become objects: Berman, Conner and Kienholz
8) Eccentirc abstraction, Freud and the notion of the 'Uncanny', think of all the cliche things people say in reference to Sigmund Freud and then apply those cliche statements to the work of Duchamp, Bourgeois, Kusama, and Hesse.
Be good and fight the darkness!
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Lecture # 3 Discussion Questions
1. In Louise Nevelson’s “Dawns & Dusks”, she presents us with her concept of space as “having an atmosphere”, or as being just as much alive as one would consider a human being. She explains that “what you put into your personal space will color your thinking and awareness. Do you agree with Nevelson’s sentiments about space? More importantly, how does the role of space impact us as artists in the creation and placement of our works?
2. David Smith centers his ideology around the concept of the dissolution of limiting old forms of artistic language. He says that their standards have condemned or otherwise impeded the progress of innovations to come. He believes also that to give something a name in order to establish a traditional understanding of it is to limit its potential for transformation. With this said, please discuss your personal reaction(s) to these ways of thought. Do you feel them to be a bit too radical in their approach to artistic change and interpretation? Please explain.
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