Contemporary Art ARH4470

Context: Social Housing Projects

The progressive values of early Modernism led to great experiments in social housing. Architects today are adopting, as they have before, the vision of their idealistic predecessors, but learning from the mistakes of post­World War II public projects. There is a growing insight that the best housing is integrated with social services as well as connected to the urban fabric and the wider community. Now there exists vastly different scales, contexts, and approaches to accommodating the needs of various populations around the world.

Form: Hyperrealism

Authorship & Form : Minjeong An: Diagramming her world.

An converts the world around her into symbols in order to be read like a floor plan or a mechanical drawing where everything is represented in a symbolic manner but using exact measurements. These diagrams are systematic and are meant to get everyday experiences and pull it apart to its bare elements in an anatomical manner and are shown represented in 2 dimensional way.

“The Power of a Kiss, digital print, 73.2x68.4cm, 2008

Based upon my personal memories where I would never go to school without my mom giving me a kiss good bye, in this piece, I tried to analyze what power a kiss can hold. It clearly shows that what moves the human mind is neither by the order of the brain or muscle movements nor is it by the energy generated from food. “

“ Self-Portrait, digital print, 88x210.3cm, 2007

Creating a portrait of my body in this piece, I employed signs and symbols, like those commonly used in blueprints or mechanical drawings, thus leading viewers to imagine someone whom they haven’t met and possibly to reconstruct a “new” person out of the complicated and yet clearly descriptive anatomy. Technically speaking, I first measure each body part, including the length, distance and angle, and then transfer the measured dimensions onto the paper. In the process, even small moles, scars and pimples on the skin are carefully observed and translated into symbols. In addition, I also try to quantify the aura of the figure in kilometers, which refers to an invisible spirit and soul, drawing halo-like curves around the head. ”

Authorship & Identity: Vanessa Beecroft -  Women and body perceptions

Vanessa Beecroft is a performance artist born in Genoa Italy in 1969 but currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Beecroft’s work provocative work, which combines elements of fashion and performance art, is tied to her obsession with her eating disorder, exercise bulimia. Although she has that obsession she is not ashamed, instead she wants to bring it to the fore front. The shame that she feels as a woman with an obsession with body shapes and food and eating and dieting and exercising; she wants others to feel that shame to impose that feeling on others through her work. Her exercise bulimia feeds her art. The women who appear in her performance pieces posses something robotic, grueling, and punitive that reflects issues with bulimia that Beecroft captures in the performances. 

Form: White

Authorship&Form: Charmaine Olivia: Silhuettes Series

Charmaine Olivia is a self taught artist that resides in San Francisco. Although she does not supply any personal information on her media sites, this silhouette series is very characteristic of her style at that moment. Her women are drawn as quaint and petite women. All of the women are in the same pose with the shoulders turned in and head turned up. This series is thematic such as an Indian silhouette and a sailor silhouette and so on. The interesting intricate detail lies in the white that exists in the silhouette which makes it an unordinary silhouette. The white is a detailing that is reinforcing the recurring theme that is presented. They are all named with names that are also pertinent to the theme.

Context & Identity: Collection of Movie Posters Designed by Cuban Artists after the Cuban Revolution.

The book is called:

Soy Cuba: el cartel de cine en Cuba después de la revolución -“I am Cuba: Cuban cinema posters from after the revolution”

Form & Authorship: Andrew Zuckerman - Portraiture removing the context of the object.

Minimalist in nature, Zuckerman aims to create atmospheres of clarity and neutrality to facilitate the viewer’s access to the material. His signature move is using a white background in order to divorce subjects from their context and equalizes the larger conversation between them. His work thus is an intimate display of differing objects and has accomplished this in several multi-media projects: CREATURE, WISDOM, BIRD, MUSIC, and FLOWER. Above is an image from each of his projects.

Zuckerman studied at the International Center of Photography before going on to receive is BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

Form & Context: Desert Modernism - Modern desert homes in Palm Springs California.

Desert Modernism was a mid-twentieth century approach to modernism that capitalized on the sunny skies and warm climate of southern California and American Southwest. With expansive glass and streamlined styling, Desert Modernism was a regional approach to International Style architecture. Rocks, trees, and other landscape features were often incorporated into the design.

Characteristics of Desert Modernism are the following:

• Expansive glass walls and windows
• Dramatic rooflines
• Wide overhangs
• Steel and plastic combined with wood and stone
• Open floor plans
• Outdoor living spaces incorporated into the overall design

Context & Identity: The Wrinkles of the City : Murals on distressed walls in Cuba depicting survivors of the Cuban Revolution.

Artists: JR and Jose Parla.

These set of murals is a project realized by JR, an anonymous artist that exhibits freely in the streets of the world, in order to catch the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. His work makes a point to arise questions. His art talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit. He began a project called The Wrinkles of the City, whereby those actions aim to show through their wrinkles, the inhabitants of a city, the history and the memory of a country. JR chose countries who have experienced changes, such as Cartagena, Spain, Shanghai,China, Los Angeles, USA, and La Havana, Cuba.

In this Cuban exhibition JR collaborated with Jose Parla, undertaken in May 2012 for the Havana Biennale, whereby JR and Parla photographed and recorded 25 senior citizens who had lived through the Cuban revolution, creating portraits which Parla - who is of Cuban descent - interlaced with his characteristic style of palimpsestic calligraphic writings and paintings. Parla’s marking echo the distressed surfaces of the walls he inscribes and offers a commentary on the lives of Cuba’s elders.

Parla’s identity interlaces itself with the seniors who where photographed, where they all have the same country of origin. Parla’s Cuban descent resonates particularly because of his heritage and his family experiencing the same struggles, although being generations apart from him. The form, with its large mural scale and textured deteriorating walls add layers to the mural as a map would. It is a visual map of the country/city, where the dilapidation exists as a reminder of a tormented history and the wrinkles of the textures between the wall as well as the wrinkles in peoples faces also resonates with age and history. Just as an old map would show creases and the small roads that are the wrinkles of the city these murals depict emotion as well. Personal experiences that surpass textual history.