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This class has made a huge impact on me and changed the way I look at the art world. The blog has encouraged me to stay focused and engaged in the subjects and ensures that I actually show up to class prepared. I also leave class wanting to keep researching. Before I attended this class I didn’t really have an opinion on the art world at all, I was more focused on working on my skills in relation to my studio. Now I’m a lot less ignorant of the art world and I also find myself questioning my place in this world and how my work fits into it. Two subjects that I really enjoyed was the class on public art and the class “tending” in the garden.

What I liked about public art was the relationship between the artist, the work and the community and the controversy which surrounded the situation. When an artist designs a specific piece for a public are, but does not research the culture or aesthetics of this community properly, the resulting work will inevitably offend the public and eventually be removed. Examples of this are Richard Serra’s and Hanshan Roeber’s works. Public Art is a type of art where the needs of the audience are the biggest priority.

Similarly I found the social aspect of Lucas and Diego’s garden intriguing. I’m referring to the obstacles that they had to overcome, that were created by people within SCA to actually set up something as harmless in a garden. In this case, they weren’t really creating their work in a public area and even so it the garden was intended to improve an unused part of SCA. It’s interesting to look at the feedback for the garden and compare it to the responses of the community to public art.

Plant a Tree in Israel

I went to a friend's brother's Bar Mitzvah and as a present a gave him a card and money. When I asked my friend what she had gotten her brother, she told me she paid for some trees in Israel to be donated in his name. While I don't really believe that a 13 year old boy would really like this kind of present that much, she told me that many of her jewish friends and family donate trees to Israel as gifts at birthdays.

This is organised by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) which was establish in 1901 and since then has planted over 240 million trees over Israel, thanks to donations from jews around the world. They were planting trees even before the creation of Israel. When Israel was established, they sold land to the JNF and by 2007 JNF owned about 13% percent of Israelie land.

The aim of JNF is to transform Israel's barren land into a lush forest. There are no natural forests in this country, all of the trees are planted by humans. The number of trees JNF has managed to plant has noticeably changed the country from the original desert-like land into something entirely different. It is obvious that JNF has done this for environmental reasons though I can't help but wonder if they are trying to transform it back into the land that was described in the bible.

When someone donates trees, they get a certificate that says "Donated in the name of...". If one went to Israel, to look at the trees that have been planted in their name, would there be a way to find them? Do they put plaques, on or near the trees to show who owns which trees? Somehow I think there are too many trees in planted to do this though...

I like the concept that jews all over the world can buy these trees and all own a little part of the country.

Aesthics and Politics

I have always more or less been aware of the link between art and politics but I had never really thought about how that relationship worked. After reading the article by Nikos Papastergiadis and Raunig's views on aesthetics and politics I believe that there is a struggle for art to remain critical of politics but not become a tool to be used as propaganda.

Raunig supports this as Papastergiadis states that, "the politics of art is not found in the depiction of political struggles." He believes that the two elements, art and politics rest on the same level, that art should not be inferior to politics. Raunig has a negative view on the avante guarde movements of 1910 and 1960's and in turn believes that they had a harmful effect on the connection between aesthetics and politics. He also argues that the context of politics should always be at the front of an artists mind, not just used as a stimulus for an artwork.

The point that interested me most in the article is when Papastergiadis stated that "commentaries on artistic collectives tend to gloss over mundane practicalities and produce hyperbolic claims in regards the social impact of their aesthetic gestures". With the struggle of the balance between politics and aesthetics I think it is important to note the social reaction to these "gestures" and how the artists perceive them.

Public Spaces

In her article Kwon presents three “distinct paradigms”:

• " Art-in-public-places”
• “Art-as-public-spaces”
• “Art-in-the-public-interest”

All obviously relate to the works that Kwon mentions, works that have been placed in the public eye. While it is true that placing artwork in public spaces means that a larger audience will be able to view it, does this serve the interests of the artist, or the public? I would assume that these works would fit more than one of these paradigms, for example, a work that was designed specifically to fit in an area as a decoration for a public space would also be relevant to the place where it will reside. Maybe something along the lines of a memorial relevant to the context of the area, or a work commemorating an important event relevant to the area. At the start of her article Kwon talks about two “failed public artworks”. These are presented as examples of art that is definitely not in the public interest. Or maybe artwork that was designed to be but didn’t really fulfil its purpose and became something more as something that just sat in a public space. Ultimately when one is designing a work for a particular area, two important ideas factor in; the place where it will sit and how the people who live in this place will react to it. I believe these works failed because they didn’t fulfil the needs of both of these concepts.

Dialogal Art- Art for the Community

After reading "Conversation Pieces" I am pretty clear on one thing; that Dialogical Art exists to try and help the community, or is an artwork that involves the community. Through a bit of reading on the net I found that another term for Dialogical Art is "Community Art". This can include anything from murals, such as "The Great Wall of Los Angeles" by Judy Baca to "The Roof is on Fire" a performance piece by Suzanne Lacy, Annice Jacoby, and Chris Johnson featured in "Conversation Pieces".
This piece is a mural designed by Judy Baca who did not actually participate in the creation of the mural, rather she encouraged a group of youths to complete it. This group was comprised of artist and the youth of the community. Interesting enough the chosen location for this mural was not an area that is very popular, it was put on part of a drainage system. On the website, SPARC states that the wall is, “landmark pictorial representation of the history of ethnic peoples of California from prehistoric times to the 1950’s”. It is an artwork created by the community, about the community. Another part of this project is that the painting of the wall employed over 400 youths and their families from diverse social backgrounds. These people were brought together with artists, historians and many other different scholars to create the mural.
This work spanned over 27 years.
http://www.sparcmurals.org:16080/sparcone/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=53

Situationist International

I looked at the movement Situationist International and there are many elements to this group that I find interesting.
Looking first at its roots (Marxism, anarchism, lettrist International… and its connection to punk rock) and then its ideas on fulfilling primitive human desires and creating sort of “environments” in which to play these desires out sounds like a solution that is better in theory. The creation of this city “Unity Urbanism” is what they wanted to create, a sort of safe controlled place where these desires could take place.
One point that I do really like is the movement’s aversion to capitalism and the way people are controlled by consumerism. If their idea is to achieve happiness through fulfilling desires, it makes sense that they would eliminate all the material desires that bring fake happiness. This also goes back to the term “primitive desires” which focuses on the fulfilling wants of the body more than materiality.
Something I read on the internet is that they disbanded with only two people left in the group? I could understand wanting to disband with such low support but what I want to know is why they didn’t try to revive the group to its former glory. I have come to understand that the SI had a sort of infamy about it after the event of May 1968. This is where a student union approached the SI to write a critique of student life. The pamphlet was so extreme that it resulted in the student union itself being closed down, a riot and eventually a large-scale workers strike. This may have contributed to the SI being disbanded.

From my research I found this website to be the most helpful: http://www.barbelith.com/cgi-bin/articles/00000011.shtml

Institutional Art

One concept that intrigues me is the idea behind “The Institutional Theory” that is; the gallery is no longer a place that houses art, but rather a place that allows objects to become art. In the discussion, “The Institutional Theory of art” two well known examples are mentioned; Duchamp’s “Fountain” and Warhol’s “Brillo Boxes”. Questions are raised in the discussion such as; would Duchamp’s toilet still be an artwork if it were not shown in a gallery? I argue that it would not be, as taking it from the gallery means that it would lose its irony, and therefore its purpose as an artwork.
Keeping this in mind we also have artwork that is designed for either the gallery, or for a particular space. Above we have the work “I See What You Mean” by Lawrence Argent (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethomsen/148894381/). To take this work from the Colorado Convention Centre and place it against the wall of another building or in a park, the meaning of the work would be changed entirely. It could be moved; however it would need to be moved to a space that emulates the glass walls of the Colorado Convention Centre, which allows the audience to view the bear from inside of the building. It is the surroundings which ultimately bring the meaning to the artwork and make it effective. From examples such as this we can see that the space in which the work is placed in is almost as important as the artwork itself.
Could it be that readymades that have been placed in a gallery only become art when they are chosen to be there? I believe what separates readymade art from everyday objects is that the readymade has been selected by an artist for a reason and sits in a gallery for the purpose of being art. A non art object does not have this higher function.