SKIDMORE’S ART REVIEW 7.3
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Presidents/Co-Editors Lena Bilik Shea Barnett Treasurer Liz Porfido Layout Editors/Design Gabby Carboni Rachel Port
DEAR ART LOVERS: We’re so excited to bring you the latest edition of LINE! LINE provides a wide range of perspectives on art from all parts of the Skidmore community. We’re so lucky to have so many talented artists and diverse exhibits at our disposal. Hopefully these articles will help inform your understanding of what art is available around you and what your fellow students are actively creating. Thank you to all the artists, designers, writers, photographers and editors for making this issue possible! If you or someone you know is interested in promoting the Skidmore art scene, get involved! Email us at lineartmag@gmail.com. We love hearing from you! Your Editors, Lena Bilik ‘14 Shea Barnett ‘15
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CONTENT
Postmodern Movement in Art and Dance Michelle Minick Photos by Arthur Evans Student Artist Profile Lisa Fierstein Photos by Rachelle Gage Terry Adkins’ “Recital” Lena Bilik Photos by Arthur Evans Skidmore’s Other Gallery Shea Barnett Photos by Shea Barnett Battles: Gloss Drop Caroline Smith & Max Weigel Photo: Album Cover Seeing Sound Hilary Knecht Photos by Arthur Evans Interview With Gabby Carboni Lena Bilik Photo by Gabby Carboni
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On entering the narrow hallway to the main exhibit of Dance/ Draw, one is greeted by a swirling together of music and visual art. All the pieces, from the bold and bright fabrics collecting in cozy, lush piles to the murmuring of audio and video recordings, set the tone of the collection. This exhibit in the Tang Museum presents nine videos and twenty-one pieces in various inventive and outlandish artistic mediums, ranging from knit sculptures, paintings, drawings and photographs of dances, dancers and dancing. The focus of the exhibit demonstrates metamorphic revolutions in dance and art. The creation of the Judson Dance Theater resulted from a 1960’s postmodern dance movement in which traditional artistic training shifted from nude artwork to the utilization of space and incorporation of the whole body. While there is a predominant focus in this exhibit on the groundbreaking alteration in art and dance approaches in the 1960’s, the exhibit covers work from the early 1960’s to 2012.
4 Up until the early twentieth century, visual art concentrated on the classic form of the nude body because these drawing and painting techniques were the foundation of artistic training. Artists then experimented with new ways of drawing and even used their own bodies in the artistic process. This new perspective produced eclectic and innovative works and featured the use of beauty products on the canvas, chalk drawing on a black stage, incorporation of hair, digital chromatograph print and lithography, and photography of the dancing itself. One of the artists featured, Janine Anotni, has two artworks on display. In one piece she is videotaped swirling her dyed black hair on the wooden floor of an art gallery. The performance artwork, “Loving Care, 1992,” blends choreography and art by replacing the artist’s hand with her body for the production of the art. This particular piece was particularly riveting because the audience is visible in the video. By breaking down the fourth wall, the performance becomes inclusive. Antoni’s other artwork, “Butterfly Kisses, 1996- 1999,” displays physical and bodily endurance and artistic exactitude. By continuously batting her eyelashes against a piece of paper she creates thin black waves that make the eye dance with every curve. Another intriguing piece of art-
work that breaks the boundaries of traditional drawing techniques and which uses the entire body to make art is Mona Hatoum’s “Live Work for the Black Room, 1981, 2004.” In this piece, Hatoum performed a repetitive collision between her body and a featureless black stage. Photographs document her performance and reveal her attempting to draw an outline of her body while on the stage. While it was an impossible feat trying to use white chalk to trace the outline of her active, writhing body, her struggles and movement are made clear by squiggles and outlines reminiscent of crimescene chalk outlines. Hatoum captured her performance artwork in sketchbook drawings and ten black and white prints. Through the creative use of space and incorporation of the whole body to generate drawings and artwork, the artists stretch their skills, minds and bodies in order to break free of timeworn traditions. The Judson Dance Theater is another example of artists transcending traditions rooted in ballet. Trisha Brown and her contemporaries,Yvonne Rainer, David Gordon, and Lucinda Childs, founded the Judson Dance Theater in 1962, during the postmodernist age of dance. Trisha and her fellow Judson dancers exhibited everyday movement, free- play, and improvisation in their dancing. They wore
5 street clothes and performed outdoors and in other unconventional locations and spaces. They also rejected narrative structure, definitions of gender roles and were void of facial expression while they performed, opting instead for everyday gestures, free bodily movement and natural play. In this exhibit, the Judson philosophy is displayed in still photographs and video recordings. In terms of traditional definitions and the structure of ballet and contemporary dance, ballet focuses on the lines of the dancer, while contemporary dance highlights the shapes a dancer makes. Photographing dance is harder than it looks since dancers are always on the move and moving intriguingly about a space, it’s the spontaneity of the movement that befuddles the photographer. Spontaneity of movement is also the premise of the Judson Dance Theater. Babette Mangolte, an avant-garde photographer, was interested in the ephemeral and experimental approaches of the postmodernist dancers, Trisha Brown and Lucinda Childs. Mangolte captures the improvisation and matches the modular and systematic movement created in interacting with the surrounding space. In another video, Robbinschilds (Layla Childs and Sonya Robbins) presents “C.L.U.E.,” or Color Location Ultimate Experience, 2007, a collaborative dance project that features Layla and Sonya skipping, running, walking, falling and crawling as they dance through a variety of urban and natural landscapes
in Southern California and Upstate New York. Each scene reveals how the dancers are connected to one another through their environment, choreography, motion, costume and clothing color. The Judson Dance Theater dance and motion qualities are evident through falling, recovering, and task- based expressions. The different colored outfits and environments mixing together in the video, however, became an interwoven disarray and the rock and roll music in the film highlights this chaotic and disjointed movement. This exhibit, also demonstrates the intersection of drawing and dance, not just centering on the separate entities. One work that encompasses the meeting of dancing and drawing is Charles Gaines’s “Trisha Brown Dance, Set 5, 1980- 81.” In this piece he combines Trisha Brown’s dancing with drawings of her movements. Charles uses numbers to compose Trisha’s shadows in poses as they are layered in a thoughtful arrangement of blue, green, red and black pen ink. The bodily positions are ephemerally captured in a fluid, precise and systematic way, similar to the approaches of the Judson Dance Theater. The ink captures the repetitive numbers and colors, synonymous with Trisha Brown’s choreography and her repetitive nature, which exemplifies a connection between dancing and drawing. This intersection establishes how there is tension between definition and fluidity and yet the link represents both mediums in a
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harmonious mix. While dancing and drawing are two different types of art, it is in the intersection where there is a profound impact and the creation of a transcendent art. Through the various mediums and synthesis of visual and performing art, the eye dances and dashes around the exhibit in delight and curiosity. In turn, the works are all provocative and together they compose a whirligig of creative and progressive spirit. As a trained dancer, I was originally drawn to the dance pieces. However, I then became engrossed in the drawings and paintings that were inclusive of dance and yet distinctive in their own right through the materials. This exhibit made me venture outside of what I know and what I am comfortable with as a dancer into an unknown territory of artistic techniques extending beyond the traditional use of the hand. It is within the postmodern movement, featured in dance, art and the artistic revolution itself that brought forth a new mentality and way of viewing art.
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by Lisa Fierstein Directly following our “Writing About the Arts” class, I sat down with first-year student, Rachelle Gage, to discuss her personal connection to the arts that she has developed over the years. Rachelle clearly has a love for the arts, and speaks about various topics of art with confidence and exuberance. Ever since an early age, she has been interested in art and continues to pursue her passion in college. She enjoys experimenting with unusual art materials, and has recently taken to printmaking. Rachelle does not create art for simply aesthetic reasons; her mission is to dig past the surface and produce art that holds significant meaning and elicits powerful emotions.
What got you involved in art? Art has always been something that I’ve had an interest in since I was young. I started out with drawing on scrap paper and coloring books and as I grew older, I took classes. I remember in elementary school I loved doing arts and crafts with my friends. I recently spoke to an old friend and asked her if she wanted to pursue art in college. She said “Oh, that was just something I did in Kindergarten!” This was so strange for me because art was something that wasn’t just a school activity; it was something I really truly loved to do.
8 Primarily, what form of art do you most prefer to do? I draw and paint, but I’ve recently gotten really interested in printmaking. I started taking some classes and I’ve also tried a lot of different techniques. I love how you create your main plate and can make hundreds of prints and create a series with the one surface. You don’t really need to worry about messing up or making something you don’t like because you can keep printing. I like to play around by making a print and then printing it over a second time or another print upside down; I love how I can make a whole new picture from just one plate. Do you plan to professionally pursue a career in the arts? I definitely came [to college] wanting to be a studio art major. Art is something that is not just a hobby for me—it’s something I really want to keep with me. I want to find a major where I can use my creativity. I’m not really sure at this point career-wise because I have lots of interests, such as psychology. But, I find that I can incorporate all these other interests into my art because I see a connection to art in everything. Whatever my future field is, I’ll definitely be using my artistic ability. What are some of the challenges you feel professional artists face in their everyday lives? Generally when I say art is something I love, people ask, “How are you going to make money doing that?” Often if someone is a painter, (at least with the adults I’ve met) painting is not their main job. I had an art teacher who taught
at school and on the side she would have works commissioned; she created paintings that people could buy, and she would always talk about how she wished that that would be enough. I think that with any career if you really put your passion into it, you can find a job with which you’ll be able to sustain yourself while doing something you love. Describe your most favorite work of art that you’ve done and why was it your favorite? I have so many favorites, but one really interesting piece I’ve created that often comes up in conversations was a large scissor sculpture. I took a normal pair of scissors and measured every aspect of it, and I multiplied those measurements. With the new measurements, I created the piece with a material called “Pink Panther Wall Foam.” I cut out each shape and attached them with a dowel, so they’d be movable. Many people are reminded of [the artist]
9 Claes Oldenburg because of the scale. I think it’s so fun to be able to create a piece that breaks out from my normal limits. Do you think that Skidmore provides a good foundation for cultivating future artists? I am definitely satisfied with the arts at Skidmore. At the beginning of the college process, I was looking toward art schools but didn’t like any of them since I wanted the liberal arts experience. I knew I wanted a place that would have a good art program, so when I visited Skidmore, I saw all the arts facilities, and the many different classes and choices. Even with the introductory class, Visual Concepts, I saw that there were so many sections of that one class, and I think it’s great that you can start there and eventually go in a direction that you want by taking classes for specific media. What art classes, if any, are you taking this semester? I started with Visual Concepts. Normally you’d take more than one art class a semester, but since it is the first semester, it was recommended that I start with one. This is a foundation class and even though I’ve done other art classes before, I still think it’s a great class to take because you’re looking back at how you create something. Sometimes as you advance, you forget about the main elements that go into a piece and it’s a great refresher for people who have drawn already and also for people who have never even created art. What is one form of art that you admire but haven’t tried yet or would like to try in the future?
I love exploring with different media as I did with the giant scissor piece—I’ve never really created a piece with such strange materials; wall foam is something that you would normally buy at a hardware store for your house. I think I would like to continue creating with unconventional materials. Have you ever had your work exhibited publicly? If so, where? How did it make you feel to see people viewing your art? In the past couple of years, my [high] school gave me a lot of opportunities to have my pieces shown. The first time, I had a print in a student gallery at Pace University. The teacher could only choose four students out of the whole class, and it was a very proud moment to have my piece chosen. The second time, I had a different print put in a gallery exhibition called the “Young Artist Exhibition” at the Katonah Museum of Art. What was great about this time was that it was in a real museum, and when it was hung up, it had a sticker underneath it with the name of the artist, materials, and title. To walk into a museum gallery and see my art hanging up was very exciting. I went to the opening night and saw people staring at my piece. They didn’t know I was the artist and I came over and listened to them interpret the piece. That was really wonderful because when I create art, I hope to trigger an emotion—some kind of response. I like to create something that goes deeper instead of it just being aesthetic.
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11 If you could meet any artist − living or dead − who would it be, and what questions would you ask them? When I think of the famous surrealist artist, René Magritte, his piece of the man wearing the hat with the apple covering his face [The Son of Man] comes to mind. What’s so interesting about surrealism is that it’s a kind of mix of psychology and art. It depicts a dream-like state but at the same time, it has realistic objects placed in strange ways. I wonder what inspired them to do this and I’m curious about the message of the piece. When I look at an artwork, I often think of my own interpretation. If I met a surrealist artist, I’d ask: where did their idea come from? What emotion did they have? Is there a back-story? And, why did they decide to place things in a specific order? Do you find a blank canvas to be daunting or full of excitement and potential? I think it really depends. In the beginning, when I first started creating a piece on a larger canvas or larger sheet of paper, I used to be kind of intimidated. Having a blank canvas can spark an intimidating feeling because you’re starting with nothing and not really sure about the placement of something. You don’t want to start making something super detailed and then realize that it’s at the bottom of the page or in an awkward place. However, I’ve come to the point (especially with drawing) that I’ll start out with a gesture drawing, which is a very loose, quick, scribble-y way of getting everything on the page. I think that’s a great way to start.
If you could paint a sound, what sound would you paint? That’s very interesting because coming to Skidmore, I did the Tang pre-orientation which was based on the exhibit here about the visuals of sound. The group went into town and recorded different sounds based on certain emotions, and we collected objects and then created an installation based on that. I think it’s such a cool idea and it’s definitely something I would like to try as my own kind of art piece. It breaks that barrier between seeing and hearing something; sometimes people can’t connect those together. If I had to choose a specific sound, I would probably want to choose something that isn’t recognized easily, like a knock on the door. I like to put meaning in my work and choose something that really makes the viewer think. With a cricket chirping sound, for example, depending on the chirp or the tone of the specific sound, the type of line that I would draw might have a specific feel to it, as I have learned in my Visual Concepts class. You can have a “wet” line or something that uses more “muscle,” which is stronger. Even if it is a totally abstracted piece, I would play around with the type of line and shapes that I put in, which would help to remind the viewer of the sound of a chirp. Thank you, Rachelle, for taking the time to share your art background and passion with LINE Magazine readers. It will be exciting to see how you progress as an artist, the new art mediums that you will discover, and what impact you will have on the art community during your four years here at Skidmore.
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14 Entering Terry Adkins’ world in “Recital” is an experience akin to entering into airwaves. As an artist and musician, Adkins finds sounds crucial to his life and work. The very title of this exhibit speaks to this, as does the fact that Adkins calls his different bodies of works “recitals,” blurring the lines between visual art and music. Additionally, his concern with exploring the legacies of famous musicians and historical figures and their representations in history pushes this theme further. Hearsay, how we tell stories, how we listen to music, and how we compose music are all enacted in the medium of visual art in this multi-faceted exhibit with sculptures that seem to vibrate off of each other. What is mesmerizing about “Recital” is its music-like visual rhythm. The colors of all the pieces belong to the same family; we see nothing but glossy blacks, velvety reds, glowing whites, and shiny silvers in every piece. The edges of the different sculptures work with each other to create a pulsing beat. Upon entering, you are met with “Plinth,” a group of towering planks−almost like tapestries−arranged in a cramped circle and draped in velvet sashes. Its thick, lush, curtain-like shapes and textures evoke rich, deep sound. This was taken from “Black Beethoven,” a show that addresses the deafness as well as the possibly Moorish heritage of Ludwig Van Beethoven. “Plinth” is said to evoke the 9 symphonies, and the minute this connection was made I felt the surging notes pushing towards the sky of the symphonies reflected in the upward pushing
panels of the piece. This is what I found most impressive about “Recital”; Adkin’s ability to make his viewer hear as well as see his work. Beyond figuratively making sound, there is one piece that physically does make noise, and that is “Off Minor”, from the same Beethoven exhibit. “Off Minor” is said to address Beethoven’s loss of hearing and the irony of this affliction in one of the most talented composers of all time. The piece makes a jarring, violent sound, as metal grinds against metal springs and a wheel turns. The violence is the loss of hearing; the irony is the beautiful sounds that resulted from what should have been jarring and distorted. The irony is in what we don’t hear in the piece, but we know came from Beethoven’s mind. This beauty is echoed as a ghost of what we actually hear in “Off Minor.” The other most impressive pieces of the exhibit were the ones dealing with blues music and musicians. “Still” was one of these; a glass globe filled with whisky sitting precariously near an assortment of communion cups represents the tenuous lines between the religious and the sacred and the profane and the hedonistic in blues. “Single Bound,” perhaps the most memorable piece of the whole exhibit, deals with the history and sudden flowering of the blues movement. A stretch of empty chicken wire suddenly erupts into an elegant wing of glossy black feathers, as the theatricality, confidence, and utter swagger (like that of a rooster, Adkins says) of blues musicians came out of suffering and silence. This juxtaposition of destruction and glamour is seen in many
15 of the other pieces as well, as metal sits beside wings and feathers. The way the pieces interact with each other is the strongest part of the show. The metal shines off of the nearby glossy black paint, the red velvet in one piece works in a familial way with the black feathers on another, the sharp corners of one piece leads the viewer’s eye to the protrusion of another. The space has a rhythm, a beat. This is not just a series of images, this exhibit vibrates and fills the space the way music does. It is, in fact, a “Recital” for the eyes.
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By Shea Barnett Amid the yellow-brown crunch underfoot, the crimson leaves dancing sprite-like in the wind, and the bare, wooden sentinels now disrobed and dormant for winter, the Skidmore water tower stands pretty. The tight band of color wrapping the foot of the tower features self-indulgent shoutouts, delicate whispers, pop-culture references, obligatory penis jokes and colorful profanity. The stencils and spray painted designs delineate the average reach of most of their creators--about 8 feet. Other, more nimble people were able to reach the precipice of the structure and spill a chromatic waterfall of paint over the side of the edifice drawing the eyes skyward. Although not exactly the first place one looks for art on campus, the water tower in Northwoods is something of a gallery and show space for a particularly controversial tradition. Although it can’t be proven that the marks are made by Skidmore students, it’s very likely that they are. This white cylinder painted in shades of blue, black, yellow and red just a couple
dozen paces into the woods is one of this school’s more secret monuments that holds a record of past and present Skidmore students’ creative and funloving nature. Like the chapel two minutes away, the water tower acts as a sanctuary. The tower is a space used by those itching to engage in an art often looked down upon in other contexts. Indeed, elsewhere on campus, the administration is in continual combat with the stenciled gnomes, owls and Totoros hiding in our halls. Some pieces are more difficult to scrub out and pose a particularly aggravating challenge. Such an effort to wipe out the marks has a monetary value too which is reflected in our student tuition. According to the Skidmore News, the charge to students for damage repair was over $26,000 for the 2010-2011 academic year and $16,000 for the 2011-2012 academic year. Nevertheless, the collaborative project in the woods continues to display the work of faceless artists passing through our institution, perhaps hoping to leave something of
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19 themselves behind. Informal in nature, the mural has a communal feel that speaks with a voice that is immature, sarcastic, excited, morose and belligerent all at once. In an environment that promotes maturity, studiousness, and even-tempered dialogue, the kid often gets shoved to the side. And so a space for self-expression creates itself when other venues are deemed inadequate or unwelcoming. From a distance, the structure clearly proclaims “DEKRD” and “johnny2x4” above all other voices. The throng of letters beneath the proclamation produces such a cacophony as to be incomprehensible unless under closer observation. While some messages scream, others murmur unknown remembrances such as one to “Boobarb 2012[,] never forget”. Like a tangle of worms, names and phrases bulge and jostle atop each other for representation though most end up in a knotted and illegible mess. Because of the layering of these multitudinous voices, each successive statement becomes that much meeker in comparison. However, the whole spontaneous mural has so many levels and dimensions that it keeps the viewer transfixed and caught up in the brawl. Both above and hidden among the splotchy reds, whites and purples are images. These pictures are built upon by many artists allowing a story to grow. For example, the flying pigs of one artist are leashed to a green soldier by a subsequent artist. Under
the sea of spray paint one might even find menacing orange-skinned girls crying ebony tears and red-headed, pupil-less skulls warning you not to look away. Pop culture references also abound, especially in the emptier real estate above the reach of most spray cans. Stencils of Snorlax, Lincoln, Ron Swanson, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie the Pooh bring some familiarity to the canvas as do references to Game of Thrones, American Dad, Hillary Swank, and reddit. With whimsical notes and more sinister undulations side by side, the piece as a whole presents a multifaceted view of our community. Although school life is so often fraught with stress, drama, class conflicts and bias incidents, the water tower remains a space open to inclusiveness, rebelliousness, creative thought and youthful expression.
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By Caroline Smith & Max Weigel
Instrumental rock trio, Battles is anything but a typical rock group. Utilizing the power trio format yet avoiding many of its pitfalls, they shy away from lead vocals, extensive solos or direct pop songs. They form their songs off of
process at the time, a shift in their music, and the album’s whole mood. Battles’ guitarist Dave Konopka sculptured the object, claiming “essentially it’s a big pink blob, of nothing.” He continues to detail its construc-
loops, improvisation, textured electronic sounds and scattershot rhythms. Each track they release straddles the line between an intricate composition and a jammy freak out. Their latest album Gloss Drop follows a four-year silence from the band, who had not released an album since 2007 due to their lead singer Tyondai Braxton’s departure from the group. One can only guess what happened in the process of Gloss Drop’s creation. The pink, amorphous sculpture photographed for the album’s cover, however, reflects their thought
tion, referencing the object’s organic, uncontrolled quality and how he had no set process or idea in mind for its design. This creative process mirrors the improvisational, irregular nature of the music itself which starts and stops with little warning as to when one section or instrumental line will begin or end. Just as the songs are not written or organized to fit any strict compositional format, the sculpture gathered volume randomly as Konopka gathered ideas about how to create his band’s new sound.
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Whether he intended it or not, Konopka’s sculpture evokes something both delectable and disgusting. At first glance, some might identify the object as the subject matter of the album’s second song, “Ice Cream;” on closer
beats. Their sharp, lightning-quick sound brings the imagery of a brain, well, to mind, as one hears noises shooting off in all directions much like neurons sparking synaptic connections. While heady, Battles never strays too far from
inspection, the ice cream melts into some kind of sticky, intestinal concoction straight out of a science fiction movie. Although gross, the object has an organic quality reminiscent of a brain. How the image combines the sweet and the sordid, the visceral and the intelligent, and the colorful and the metallic embodies the music well. Their tunes feel as if they could explode one moment as they congeal into a tight groove, and pound primal rhythms into your head while sounds in various polyrhythms integrate themselves into the
a saccharine, candy-coated, hyperactive sound that melts in your head like the aforementioned ice cream. Smart yet fun, Battles has crafted the perfect image to embody their new album’s enjoyable chaos.
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by Hilary Knecht The contradictory title of the Tang Museum’s exhibition Hearing Pictures captivates by demonstrating how seemingly disparate ideas can harmonize. An open call to Skidmore musicians brought varied musical groups and individuals to respond to the exhibition on Thursday September 27. Ordinarily, the show is open to interpretation with a microphone stand ready for viewers to record their reactions to a selected artwork. The exhibition features artworks spanning a range of moods and atmospheres. For example, Nicholas Monro’s “Green Figures” illustrates otherworldly forms screeching (archived visitor responses available on the Tang website), while W. Eugene Smith’s “Recording Artist” portrays a woman serenely playing the harp. The pictures are mounted on the wall like a musical composition—quiet, loud, louder, explosion of sounds, quieter, quiet, fade out…
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This event brought the Accents, Pulse, guitarists, pianists, and saxophonists to publicly interpret any or all artworks in the show. The musicians improvised and responded instinctively to the artworks, creating an evocative performance. An added dimension: at times you could hear the sound art overflowing from the elevator music installment, “Doug Van Nort: Constellate”. The unintentional (or possibly intentional) interaction of sounds heightened the experience of watching the performance. Although the exhibi-
tion is powerful on its own, the synergy of sound and sight produced a greater combined effect. The only aspect that obviously connects the works is that they prompt sonic images in the viewers’ minds. Otherwise, they range in style, time period, and media. As a whole, you “hear” the pictures like you might a song.Yet, you could also look at the pictures individually, as many of the musicians chose to do.You hear rushing water crashing against rocks in Walter Joseph Phillips’s tranquil “Above
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Lake Louise”; the arrangement reaches its crescendo in Heide Fasnacht’s “Blast”, the largest piece in the exhibition, depicting an explosion; Philip Guston’s “The Street” portrays the descent after the climax with metal pieces clanging as they fall; Smith’s subdued “New Mexico” indicates the waning composition with a lady peacefully sitting next to three flickering candles. This unconventional way of looking at art adds a complexity to viewing and interpreting art; it might encourage
viewers to consider artwork in this way in future exhibitions. Maybe viewers will think of a song when they see an artwork unrelated to music, notice the arrangement of the artwork to imagine a score, or imagine an artwork the next time they play the guitar. The exhibition is an exploration in hearing and seeing—sound unites the artworks, even though you cannot actually hear anything.
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Hearing Pictures is on display at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery until December 30, 2012.
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INTERVIEW WITH GABBY CARBONI By Lena Bilik
What inspired you to create this painting? It was my final assignment for painting class, and it could be about anything. At the time, I was having a lot of trouble processing my grandpa’s death, and I feel that I put a lot of how I’m feeling into my art, so I thought this would be a really good way of kind of dealing with it. And i found it very helpful. So, I went through all of these old photographs of him, and I used one photograph of him when he was in his 20’s and 30’s and also an image of my grandma, my mom, and my uncle at Christmas. I used the two images together to emphasize the idea of what we remember about people, and how.
Yeah, the painting is almost like a painted collage, with many images of the same man and different people, some in the background and some in the foreground.What made you decide to take this approach? I used the repetition of the image of him and overlaid the other figures. Originally I thought that the large figures were going to be more of a background, but as I started to paint them in I felt that it was really important to keep the large figures prevalent too, and have them be a major part of the piece. I figured out that I wanted to have it so that neither one was in the foreground. I didn’t want one to be dominating the other. I wanted them to sit in a space that was a little confusing, so the way they’re overlaid works with that, there is even one part where I blended my grandma’s legs into an image of my grandpa. I wanted the final result to be a visual representation of a compilation of memories, and to represent how a lot of different memories blend together to create one person in your mind.
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What kind of projects are you working on currently? How would you describe your working process and the formal aspects of your piece? What was interesting about this piece was that the idea started out very differently than how it ended up. I know that happens a lot in art, but I was still surprised that the final aesthetic of the piece was completely different than what I first wanted. I didn’t know that I was going to use such a limited color palette, which turned out to be very important. The palette I ended up choosing allows the layers to have some colors that unite them, but some differences too, that allow them to be connected but also apart. Also, physically working with it was really important and pretty involved. I spent just as much time painting as I did stepping back and looking at it. Every single mark I made made a huge difference in what the painting looked like that minute. It was funny; there were times I’d make a mark on one of the faces and the piece would instantly look so different, and that was kind of hard. I had to be very careful but it wasn’t something I could just have tight marks for, the lines were loose. So it was hard to get used to that balance because I don’t usually paint or draw like that.
Right now in figure drawing I’m working on drawings on craft paper, which is basically postage packaging. I’m working with the idea of hair as a central aspect of what our society considers “feminine beauty”, and how important it is. I also find it interesting that this is one of the few things that is important cross culturally. Another part of this assignment has to be some sort of installation, mixed media. So I am collecting hair from friends and a hairdresser in town and putting it in mason jars. For the final result I’ll have the drawings of woman and their hair hanging up beside the hair in the mason jars.
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