GDAD final show

Today we had the opportunity to visited the GDAD student’s final show. There are a lot of impressed works for me. I have learned a lot new knowledge through these wonderful work. I would like to introduce one of them to describe.
“Universe” is a installation art work made by Puyu Dong. He used wooden frame, wooden board, nails, threads, barbed nets and tree trunk pieces to make a “Loom”(textile machine) to describe his own understanding or thinking of the universe. In the human history, people had different understanding for the universe in every defining moment. Even nowadays, we are not sure that our knowledge must be right. So he try to use this kind of “machine” to try to express human’s exploration of the universe and create several philosophical thinking for universe and life. Although the form was a little simple, probably because the time was not enough, in my opinion, his research process is very interesting. I also have researched similar concept before about life. Hope we can have the opportunity to discuss this topic.

Tate Modern Museum

On our last school trip, we visited the Tate Modern Museum in London. It was not very strange for Chinese students due to the famous Chinese “artist” Ai Weiwei has displayed a famous art work there. He putted a lot of sunflower seeds on the whole ground in that exhibition. However, there are also a huge number of other great art works such as the three “most influential artists” in 20th century---Picasso, Matisse and Dali.

That must be a precious chance for me to see these masters work in close way. Previously, I only saw them in books. Among them, Matisse is my favorite artist. He was the representative of the fauvism. His works had the feminine of impressionism and the rigorous of the cubism. In the later period of his career, he has used paper cut as the form of his works. He said that the paper cut is just like use the scissors to make a sculpture on the paper. Those kind of work including a lot of east philosophy consciousness. I also want to use paper cut as a main carrier of my future works, his works and concept has a deep reflection for me.

some ideas after watching the "Maker"

“Maker” is a movie which introduced several great contemporary designers. It shows a lot of brilliant ideas. All of these ideas have a deep relationship for our society,  they really opened my eyes. However, what impressed me most was a saying in this movie. A designer said: someone may think the my “art idea” is not useful for people’s daily life. But if you said art was created for someone. Every art might be useless.

I really agree with this opinion. To be honest I have been asked such question like “who did you design for?” when I was interviewed by some “famous” university. I really wonder that this kind of “concept” still exist today. Previously, artists had no choice due to they must create for the “noble”, “church” or “royal family”. A good example in the art history is Caravaggio’s two “Saint Matthew” oil painting. He must change the Saint Matthew more “beautiful” due to the church’s requirement, although the first one was much more vividly. So if we have still said art is used to service for others, it might be a little bit strange.

Project 3

Our group's name is called"J&C", which means our majors are Jewellery and Ceramics. We come from different countries including Taiwan, Thailand, Japan and China. I am so proud of our teammates that everyone worked so hard. We all known we got the responsibility for the team. We often took a long time meet after class although everybody was tired, no one complained. In this process, we have learned how to be strong and brave.

During this project, I got the responsibility to do the research for our project. The topic is "identity", I got our inspiration from these two concepts below.

Firstly,“Identity”means people survey themselves, people want to know who I am. It’s a kind of self-inspect. Our object aims to find people’s “consciousness” in spirit level. The concept inspiration is from Jacques Lacan’s Mirror Image Theory.It is considered about the first time that people started to survey themselves as a infant is when they saw the mirror image of themselves. It’s the origin of human’s consciousness, called “mirror image stage”. (after that the Freud’s “Oedipus stage” was appeared).

Secondly, During the art history, there is a similar concept called “introspective art”. We adopted the inspiration of Modigliani, who is called the greatest Italian artist in 20th. Throughout his painting career the eyes in Modigliani’s portraits are “remarkable”, often he represents them as blank.People can use their eyes to see the whole world, but we can’t see ourselves totally (without a mirror). So the target that people in the painting wanted to survey is themselves, like the artist only talked to himself.

Through this project, the most important thing for me is that we have learned how to cooperate with others. We helped each other, learned a lot of things from my teammates. I really appreciate this experience.

Art review of The Invisible Boundary

The work from Seyeon Park was attract me yesterday, it's called "The invisible Boundary".

Seyeon made a radio that she was "making up" in front a mirror, she was wearing flour in her face constantly. Through the artist statement by Seyeon, I recognise that she chose the flour to hide herself in the mirror, and then enable another eye's perspective. She wanted to see what's the reflection from people after they watched this "strange" action.

That makes me remember the "Mirror theory" from Jacaueo Lacan(one of the most famous psychologist in France). I am not very sure whether she has read this theory and got her concept from it before talked with her---in fact she did not know Lacan before. However, I can saw some Lacan's reflection in her work. In the Mirror theory, Lacan believe that there was a special phase called "Mirror Phase" during the babyhood of human, after which the Freud's "Oedipus Phase" was just appeared. Lacan said that there was a moment when people was a infant, they recognise themselves in mirror at first. At the beginning, they thought the mirror image was others, after that they found that were themselves. This process was the earliest consciousness of human. Later on, people can recognise others gradually. Seveon's idea is quite similar to Lacan's theory. Obviously she can recognize what does she look like in other's eyes through the mirror.

In my opinion, Seveon's work is quite conceptual and meaningful, this is the most crucial thing in art creation. To be honest, the content is a bit simple, maybe the main ideas couldn't be expressed enough, that's my suggestion.

Summary of my art review

I have visited all three museums, the Ashmolean museum and the Pitt River museum were very impressive for me.

First of all, to describe the exhibition called “God in colour” in Ashmolean. Professor Vinzenz Brinkman colour the replica of ancient Greek sculptures as much as beautiful.He wanted to show what did the disappeared sculptures look like in Olympia, because they only leave a host of bases there now.

Secondly, I saw a great sculpture called kouros(youth) also in Ashmolean.It is a replica of one of the ancient Greek brother sculptures.It was a milestone of the whole human art history,  Egypt artists had ever use their knowledge as the foundation of their art creation, however the Greek artists began to use their eyes.Finally, they were successful, and this success has still reflect the human art history so far.

Lastly,  I visited the Pitt Rivers museum and was attracted by a great art work called “Haida totem poles”.This totem pole is from the Haida community of Masset. It originally stood outside Star House, which belonged to the chief of the tribe.In the natives' eyes, it was a very solemn and serious work, they need several years to carve these huge poles, sometimes the whole village need to help to do this, because it's their chief's glory and honour. It's amazing. Their works are quite different from our contemporary society, making them was not for skills, it's due to the concept.

Interpretation and Evalution

In the primitive society of America，artist had already held some refined method to express the figures in the figures in the myth. Obviously, they were almost hunter, so they must know a lot about the shape of animals. However, they believe only a shape feature could be used to describe them. For example, it is so hard for ordinary people to understand what's the meaning of the Haida totem, but native American Indians understand those poles tell people a old legend.

"Once upon time, there was a young man in Gwais Kun, he lied in bed almost every day, his mother in law was very angry with him, so he left shamefacedly. At that time, there was a monster in the lake, always eating human and whale. So the young man decided to kill the monster, god's bird helped him, he use some tree trunks to be the fish pole, hanging two children to be the bait. Then the monster was killed, he dressed the monster's leather to catch fish, and then put the fish in front of his mother in law's home, she was proud and told everyone she was the witch who has supernatural power, after the young man told her the truth, she was ashamed to die."

All of the figures in this story were carved on the totem.

In the natives' eyes, it was a very solemn and serious work, they need several years to carve these huge poles, sometimes the whole village need to help to do this, because it's their chief's glory and honour. It's amazing. Their works are quite different from our contemporary society, making them was not for skills, it's due to the concept. These works are even earlier than the Egypt art, the latter was considered to be the source of art of human being and has more reflection for contemporary art. However, in my opinion, those kind of original art also leave us a great civilization to appreciate them, making us move.

Yves Klein

Thanks for our tutor to give us a wonderful lecture today. I would like to discuss about how Yves Klein lose himself when he was doing art creation.

 Yves Klein is the promoter of Neo realism, he was seen as one of the most important representatives of the POP art. In fact, I don’t quite agree with some of the viewpoints of POP art, (like another artist’s who was also mentioned in the lecture,Richard Long.) But I also prefer Klein’s creative method, especially for his art experience,Although he has already in the art atmosphere when he was a child, but Klein's childhood-ambition was to make a living on a business ship. In addition, he is also interested in judo,he opened a judo school when he returned to France from Japan. Hang a lot of his own paintings in the training hall. From these works people have already seen his future developed direction in art which was the well-known style later: He had already used a single color to paint at that time. To be honest, he might can’t achieve this success without the experiences of traveling, life and other attempt in enterprise.

The main topic is "getting lost in your trip", the words means when people are getting a trip, wandering somewhere must be better than making sure the destination at first. Similarly, when people do some art or design creation, process is more crucial than the result, try to lose yourself because the inspiration could be got from a bigger range. For example, this opinion makes me remember some words which I heard from a famous Chinese artist, he told me,"If I ask you to design a cup, you just can create a cup, because generally, there’s only one form of a cup. However, when I ask you to design a method of drinking, you can open your mind at once." 

In conclusion, try to find more ways to collect the inspirations must be the most important thing in art creation. 

Oxford funny trip

Last Friday, we went to Oxford and visited 3 museums, what impressed me most is the "Haida totem".

This Haida totem pole is from the Haida community of Masset. It originally stood outside Star House, which belonged to chief Anetlas(c.1816-1893) The pole came to the Pitt Rivers Museum IN 1901, Donated by Professor E.B. Tylor. It was purchased for $36 and shipped by rail and steamer.

There are a lot of similar totems in Haida with a large number of stories. Today, these stories are still part of Haida culture, it might be one of the earliest artistic form of the human being, it was created even earlier than the Egyptian art. From this totems, people can recognize that in the original society, artists had already created several refined method to performance the figures in the myth. These works reflect the worship from the original human to the supernatural energy richly.

Gods In Colour: Painted Sculpture in Antiquity

People may got the impress that the Ancient Greek sculptures were always made of marble, no eyes, and the color are almost white. It is a misunderstanding. Generally this kind of sculpture were copied by Ancient Roman. There's only few real sculptures from Ancient Greek was leaved in the world. They are always made of metal and the eyes are often inlaid diamonds. I only can see them in books before. So I really want to observe them in closed.

First time when I arrive to London...

This is the first time I've been abroad, so I'm finding this trip very exciting, when I just arrive to the airport of London(Hethrow Airport), unfortunately, after I looked around the visiting hall, I didn't find my name in any board, then I called our university, the receptionist told me that the driver was in a traffic jam, so I need to wait for him for about 15 minutes, she apologize to me and I said "that OK! Never mind about it. I will wait for him." After around 20 minutes, I saw the driver came to pick me up with a Chinese girl called Hilda, who will be my classmate. Just as I was wondering about whether this car had the enough capacity of three people and a host of luggage, The drive joke to me ,"maybe they(the university) want you to sit on your luggage." he said. "Why?" I asked. "Because, the driver who need to pick you up has completely forgot about you , and they called me turning around to pick you up although my car was almost full and have already driven on the highway."  lol. =..=!