Thursday post 10/09/08

Thursday Entry:

Thoughts of interest – Week in review

- Answer the following questions:

* Did anyone critique your work this week? If so, what were their impressions?
NO, but someone will on later on today.
* What was the most motivational or creative moment of the past week?
I watched Tounges Untied by Marlon Riggs
* What do you want to achieve in next week's studio practice?
Keep shooting and maybe find a large bath tub 6ft long? Scout locations for 1 project
* What did you achieve in your studio this past week?
Did test shots for next project set up for interview exercise/possible project
* What has been an artistic failure this week?

* What was the most profound thought in relation to your practice this week?
That I may have something to say, an idea a storyboard….wow!
* If there was a visiting artist this week, what is your impression of their work and process in relation to your own?
NA
- Post 1 picture, video, etc. of your choice

Pitts Grad Research Assignment: Discussion Questions on Article or Essay

This is a text also taken from "The Friendliest Black Artist in America."
This article is by Kristine Stiles entitled "Thunderbird Immolation: Burning Racism."


Stiles, Kristine. William Pope. L : The Friendliest Black Artist in America. By Mark H. Bessire. New York: MIT P, 2002.


I have chosen this text in effort to reign in t some semblance of order my research regiem. I am genuinely interested in reading this text as I honestly believe it to inform my present direction and studio practice.

1. I find this a just one fascinating tale of a streets performer, William Pope L. I wonder at the courage to take "public art" to such a degree both with Thunderbird and the crawls and other such pieces. Where does this sort of art situate currently in the "art world?"
I do not really know where such a performative type of engagement finds a home in the art world right now. This is the discussion I would like to have. Are there any other artist who engage on the same sort of resonant levels or are they still fringe type artist.
2. How does the art of william Pope L. fit into the idea of institutional critique? Does it? What is your take on institutional criticism.
It seems like it does not if the term institutional critique is only looking at the art world. But does it, that's what I am asking. And also is William Pope L. also critiquing in this piece specificly the art world by staging it in fron of 420 west broadway? Is it a double stab? I think obviously so but when I read writers write about such a cult personality I begin to wonder if what I am reading is an aesthicization of the event. I don't know what do you think? My mind has not quite grown so large to grasp the yellow in the piece. I'm sure it is there for a reason. If anything that is the only thing I don't understand. The rest is just powerful.

Sunday post 10/05/2008

Jillian Mcdonald
- Artist Biography and brief explanation of work (can use quotes from critics or galleries)
Bio-
Jillian Mcdonald is a Canadian artist, currently living in New York. She is Associate Professor of Fine Art at Pace University, where she also curates and co-directs the Pace Digital Gallery. Originally from Winnipeg, she dreams of the snow-covered prairie.

Recent solo shows and projects include Moti Hasson Gallery and Jack the Pelican Presents in New York; Third Avenue Gallery in Vancouver; The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery; Third Avenue Gallery in Chicago; 1708 Gallery in Richmond, Virginia; vertexList Gallery and ArtMoving Projects in Brooklyn; TPW (presented at The Drake Hotel) and YYZ in Toronto; Video Pool in Winnipeg; and Edge Media in Newfoundland. Group exhibitions and festivals featuring her work include The Edith Russ Haus for Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany, The Krannert Museum in Illinois; MMOCA in Wisconsin, The Whitney Museum's Artport, Year Zero One in Toronto, Manifestation d'Art Internationale de Québec, 404 International Festival of Electronic Art in Argentina, La Sala Naranja in Spain, The Sundance Online Film Festival in Utah, The Cleveland International Performance Art Festival, La Biennale de Montréal, ISEA 2004 in Estonia, and the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie in France.

Mcdonald received grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, Soil New Media, Turbulence, The Gunk Foundation, NYSCA, The Experimental Television Center, Thirdplace.org, and Pace University. She lectures regularly in North America and Europe about her work and attends numerous residencies including The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace Program and Harvestworks in New York; DAIMON, Sagamie, and La Chambre Blanche in Québec; CFAT in Halifax; Em-Media in Calgary; and The Western Front in Vancouver. She is a 2008 resident at The Headlands Center for the Arts in California and a 2008 New York Foundation for the Arts Video Fellow.

Mcdonald's work is featured and reviewed in The New York Times, Flash Art, Art Papers, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and The Village Voice, among others. A discussion of Me and Billy Bob appears in Stalking, a book by Bran Nicol.

Recently she discovered playing keyboard, backpacking, rock climbing, cycling, and running half marathons with Beckley Roberts. In 2007 she ran her first marathon in Atlanta, GA. Some of her favourite people are strangers.

Artist statement-

My work in video, web art, and public intervention is often performative and relational.
In my recent videos, I am interested in the American cult of celebrity, the fantasy that buoys extreme fandom, and the mechanisms of fear as entertainment at work in horror films. I am interested in the ways in which film genres affect their audiences, and in the fan sub-cultures that fuel them. The presence of my image in this work serves not as a self-portrait, but as a projection of universal emotions such as desire or fear. Screen Kiss features romantic scenes from Hollywood films starring popular actors into which I insert my image and manipulate the existing narrative in a soft critique of celebrity obsession. In Screaming, I trespass digitally into popular horror films such as The Shining and Alien, screaming at the monsters to scare them away or blow them to smithereens. Zombie Loop is a two-channel video in which projections on two opposing walls position the viewer in the center of a visual loop, wherein a gruesome zombie endlessly pursues a running survivor. On screen, I play both zombie and survivor.

Hollywood films and their fans also inspire my web-based artworks. Snow Stories is a data-driven story engine where visitors' written stories are translated into audio-visual stories culled rom a database of film clips; Me and Billy Bob documents an ongoing obsession with actor Billy Bob Thornton and sincerely participates in his online fan culture. Caitlin Jones, of Rhizome, wrote that my "work is distinct from many other artists also concerned with the cinematic. Not simply interested in issues of narrative, time, space, or the like, Mcdonald looks specifically at the genres romance and horror and how these constructions become a part of our own experiences" (Rhizome, Oct 8, 2007).

In public works, I engage an audience comprised of a very general public that is not necessarily expecting art or gathered in established arts venues. I interrupt the flow of daily public exchange, inviting strangers into momentary relationships. I engage with passersby as a means of orchestrating activities away from their usual context and my audience is made up of willing and chosen participants. Zombies in Condoland is an upcoming large-scale piece where passersby are invited to play a part in the spectacle of a horror film shoot: instantly cast as actors complete with makeup, costumes, lights, camera, and action scenes. In Horror Makeup, I apply makeup on a daily subway commute, transforming myself into a zombie rather than beautifying my face. With a base largely made up of strangers, I shampoo hair in a salon in Shampoo, offer free non-professional advice in Advice Lounge, radically transform clothing in Tailor Made, bring houseplants into private homes in House Plant, sew protective messages in participants' garments in Seams, and borrow personal objects for a month in Borrowed Things. Sylvie Fortin (Art Papers magazine, Sept / Oct 2005) writes of my practice, "relationships are her medium, fleeting encounters her material".
- 4 images and / or video/sound clips of artwork





- a link to an interview with the artist or a review
http://www.jillianmcdonald.net/press/kasprzak_transmedia.jpg
- link to gallery representing artist
http://csis.pace.edu/digitalgallery/index.html- curator
- artist website
http://www.jillianmcdonald.net/

Thursday post 10/02/08

Thoughts of interest – Week in review

- Answer the following questions:

* Did anyone critique your work this week? If so, what were their impressions?
No- no actually some one did. They felt like my installation experiment was interesting and I should keep testing sites and configurations. I should also investigate my symbols more rigorously.
* What was the most motivational or creative moment of the past week?
Finally getting to read something I've been waiting to read for a while. "The Friendliest Black Artist in America"
* What do you want to achieve in next week's studio practice?
Shoot a new segment and possibly more once I figure out some angles.
* What did you achieve in your studio this past week?
A new idea perhaps writing a lot, reading some....
* What has been an artistic failure this week?
not doing as much Work work as I want to
* What was the most profound thought in relation to your practice this week?
I need more time-I ned more control over my time, I need to read more.
* If there was a visiting artist this week, what is your impression of their work and process in relation to your own?
no
- Post 1 picture, video, etc. of your choice

Blog Entry Heading: Grad Research Artist Statement and New Semester Work Documentation

100 word artist statement:

The bases for my art practice are rooted around the concept of perpetual human struggle. I stage performative actions that give rise to issues of repetitive, restless tasking without distinct resolution. I have been using my naked body as a metaphor for the emotional alienation and struggle that occurs in life. Nakedness symbolizes the lack of protection both physically and psychologically that is afforded in each work.
Video is my primary tool. Motion and gesture when experienced fluidly intensifies the feelings of frustration and repetition. The addition of contrived sound is integral to this exaggerated sense of futility and awkwardness.

Hassan Grad Research Assignment: Discussion Questions on Article or Essay

Interview taken from "The Friendliest Black Artist in America"
William Pope L.
Interviewer: Lowery Stokes Sims

Sims, Lowery. William Pope. L : The Friendliest Black Artist in America. By Mark H. Bessire. New York: MIT P, 2002.

In his interview Pope L. talks about the Black African Male and the concept of presence/ versus lack. The idea that ideas of masculine is rooted in presence, that the idea of blackness is rooted in lack. How does this fit into your work as its image has both elements?

I do feel these words. Recently I have been asked to define my work in terms of why use myself as my model, and also what does race have to do with my work. I see the lack represented two fold. One that if a so-called white artis (read male) no one asks about race unless there is some other signifier present. So it is the lack of whiteness which prompts the question. I have found that sometimes people talk about masculinity and issues around that- but that begins to be an assumption placed upon the work and the artist without the question being asked. The second areana is of course my work and my need to do performative works with myself as the model. I feel like it is a need, an internal need to speak for myself to be heard and that certainly comes out of lack. It may stem from what Pope L. is talking about. I wrote some thoughts down for Sonali on race and work on race and while I did not use the word lack, I did use the word deficit. My desire is not to work out of deficit, or a sense of deficit.(in relation to race).

The theme of masculinity and blackness are running themes in this article. What is your sense of this negotiation of blackness seeing as how the two seem two be tethered as problematic- something to overcome?

Pope L. says that what it is to be black is a negotiation. The idea of a black race is at the same time a factual fiction in America. There is no black race as it is social construction based on power. He speaks of these masks of blackness. But on the other hand there is no solid heretige for black people in this country that extends past these borders- concretely anyway. So there is this “black race” the black diaspora I think is apart of this but also that there was a erasure of memory not just of geography. So there are nooks and cranies in which to negotiate what it means to be black and it keeps changing and must be changed, accepted and rejected. It is room to maneuver.

Complete

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