Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Art event # 1

Melisa Dean is the new art instructor at St Mary's. Her art concerns consumerism and she seems to mainly focus on items in stores Target and Ikea. Dean sort of criticizes the way that people buy too much stuff or that they buy items that they really don't need like the example she gave of the big contraption that boiled eggs that people were buying when all they had to do was boil water in a pot. Dean also made it clear that in some way it is okay to buy a lot because people seemed to be proud of the large amount of things they purchased just as people who bought very little were proud. She showed in her work through layering the items that people were buying that the more busy the layering and drawing got the more the person bought and obviously if they bought very little the items in the picture would be clearer to the eye and the drawing would be less busy. the layering is repetitious and she also sets up some bought items or even pictures of people as they buy in patterns. Her work to me plays upon psychological disorders such as agoraphobia and kleptomania. Agoraphobia is fear of the market place and kleptomania is compulsive shopping and Dean does watch people and their actions when shopping and how much they buy to use as an expressive or a commentary type of art form.

sculpture in relation to the body

All of the works were interesting. they each brought extention, new use or meaning to the body or a body part. the problem was the information on the sculptures was so brief that I do not feel like I completely understood what some of the works were about. I was very interested in Louise Bourgeoise's, Costume for a Banquet. I understood her story and events in her life but the costume in my eyes did not represent breasts, or eggs, or any falic form as the paragraph said it should. to me at first I thought it was supposed to be a types of food, and then I thought it looked like a large amount of tumors bundled together. Also I would have never known it was for a banquet without reading its title and I wonder why did she choose that color for the costume? I also thought that the work about floating in space was interesting where the artist is hung from hooks that have pierced his skin. I like the idea the there are no boundaries and that the skin can be a new and exciting canvas. when one cuts themselves or peirces their skin on purpose endorphins kick in and I was wondering does this finding have any relation to the artist or his work?