artsXpose #4

Title of Event: Art Institute of Chicago Visit

Date & Time of Event: Saturday 4/19 11:00am

Location of Event: Art Institute of Chicago = Chicago, IL.

Type of event (Only the events listed below fulfill the artsXpose requirement):
Please Bold and Underline the event attended:
Visiting Artist Lectures Exhibition* (non-course related)
Films** Plays
Arts Related Field Trips Recitals***
Poetry / Literary Readings Arts Related Conferences
Arts Related Symposia, discussion/reading groups or workshops
Attendance of Art Club Meeting****
*Exhibition visits must not be course-related (for example, if we visit an exhibition as a class you may not count this exhibition as an artsXpose event.
**Films must be part of a Univ. dept. sponsored film series—Not films sponsored by the Student Union.
***University Sponsored Recitals only.
****Clubs may only count as one event regardless of the number of clubs or the number of meetings attended during a term

1.) Provide a brief detail-oriented technical description or summary of the event you attended. This section should remain journalistic and should not be reflective of your opinion.
Tour and Visit of the Art Institute of Chicago and surrounding areas (Millennium Park)

2.) Use the section below to write a well-structured paragraph focusing on your personal critical insight / response to the event. How did you interpret or react to what was presented to you?
This was the by far the most influential and prestigious museum I've ever visited. I was able to actaully see up close works by Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Pablo Picasso. Not only this but it also had a huge impact on me since I've been learning about these works in class since I can remember. I also happened to see Monet's paintings that I just learned about in 2D class not a week before.

3.) What information, ideas, images, etc. most impressed you and why?
I was most influenced and stricken by the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist galleries. Mostly because they contained all the works I've previously mentioned, but also just because I enjoyed that type of work the most because I know what was behind their thinking and experimentation. On a side note, I was very disappointed because the Edward Hopper exhibit cost extra and I wasn't able to see it.

4.) Overall, how would you rate this event (10 being the most worthwhile)?
(10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 )

5.) Justify your rating in the question above:
Like I said in my last artsXpose, Visiting any museum is always a valuable and worthwhile experience for anyone who has the chance, not just art students. Also this museum has some of the most renown works of art in the world and I felt extremely privileged to have seen them.

artsXpose #3

Title of Event: Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art Visit

Date & Time of Event: Sunday 4/20 10:00am

Location of Event: Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art

Type of event (Only the events listed below fulfill the artsXpose requirement):
Please Bold and Underline the event attended:
Visiting Artist Lectures Exhibition* (non-course related)
Films** Plays
Arts Related Field Trips Recitals***
Poetry / Literary Readings Arts Related Conferences
Arts Related Symposia, discussion/reading groups or workshops
Attendance of Art Club Meeting****
*Exhibition visits must not be course-related (for example, if we visit an exhibition as a class you may not count this exhibition as an artsXpose event.
**Films must be part of a Univ. dept. sponsored film series—Not films sponsored by the Student Union.
***University Sponsored Recitals only.
****Clubs may only count as one event regardless of the number of clubs or the number of meetings attended during a term

1.) Provide a brief detail-oriented technical description or summary of the event you attended. This section should remain journalistic and should not be reflective of your opinion.
Visit and tour of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL.

2.) Use the section below to write a well-structured paragraph focusing on your personal critical insight / response to the event. How did you interpret or react to what was presented to you?
I really enjoyed this museum visit for many reasons. First of all, I love going to art museums in general, but most art museums have a rather small contemporary art gallery, so being in one that is entirely contemporary was very exciting. Also among many other artist's work, I was able to see the Alexander Calder exhibit which included many of his mobiles and stabiles as well as some 2-dimensional work.

3.) What information, ideas, images, etc. most impressed you and why?
There is no end to the amount of ideas and thought that was caused by looking through the galleries in this museum. It is always refreshing and thought-provoking to see any large collection of contemporary art. Mostly I liked it because it made me think about my own art from a different perspective and it gave me a lot of inspiration for new ideas th at Ican apply to my own work

4.) Overall, how would you rate this event (10 being the most worthwhile)?
(10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 )

5.) Justify your rating in the question above:
Visiting any museum is always a valuable and worthwhile experience for anyone who has the chance, not just art students. Not only that, but this is the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago where you can see work from such prestigious artists that it may even be the best art you could have seen to date.

Image Essay #10

After diverging into talking about Alex Ross in my last Image Essay, I then felt the need to make my last Image Essay about his work. This picture is one of my favorites of his, mostly because I love how he depicts the classic Justice League of America. However I also like this picture because of the powerful patriotic message to it. You have all of the greatest heroes that America has ever known and they are standing on what looks like the steps of a building in Washington D.C. (how ironic). There are obvious patriotic references with the Washington Monument in the background, the emphasis of Hawkman's and Hawkgirl's wings on top of the bright background, and the eagle perched on Suparman's arm, but what really stuck out to me is his use of color to further convey this patriotism. Although there is alot of green because of J'onn J'onzz, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow, but there is also an overwhelming amount of red and blue in the picture. The whole left side with Wonderwoman's hair, The Batman's suit, Black Canary's suit and Supermans suit is full of blue. Also the right side and background have alot of reddish color from the Flash, Red Tornado, and Elongated Man's suits. Also there is alot of blue and white in the background on the steps and the pillars and in the sky.

Image Essay #9

Okay so I'm sure it's pretty cliche of me to be using a picture of a samurai for an image essay but I really do like it and it has great examples of dominance with the foreground/middleground/background, definition, and use of color. With the dominance, you have the sword/blood in the foreground, the face in the middleground, and the hand in the background. Also there is obvious usage of definition with the dark shadows in the bottom left corner and the intense highlights in the upper right corner. However, the main reason I like this picture because it reminds me of what I like to refer to as the Frank Miller color technique. In almost all of Frank Miller's work (my favorite comic book artist behind Alex Ross - I recommend reading the DC Comic 'Justice'. It's a pretty epic Justice League story an has awesome artwork from Alex Ross. Anyway, I've sidetracked.) is the usage of almost all black and white. He uses extreme contrast to draw attention to some things, but at times he will use color, but only ONE color, which is always a very bright and bold color. Anywone, who has seen or read Sin City, will know what I'm talking about. Anyway, the reason I like this picture is because the artist uses that same technique. using one color on a black and white picture to draw all the attention to it and point out the theme to the picture - death.

artsXpose #2

Title of Event: Nano Suratno and Rita Tila - Traditional Javanese Indonesian Music Performance and Lecture

Date & Time of Event: Friday 4/4 1:00pm

Location of Event: BGSU Arts Village

Type of event (Only the events listed below fulfill the artsXpose requirement):
Please Bold and Underline the event attended:
Visiting Artist Lectures Exhibition* (non-course related)
Films** Plays
Arts Related Field Trips Recitals***
Poetry / Literary Readings Arts Related Conferences
Arts Related Symposia, discussion/reading groups or workshops
Attendance of Art Club Meeting****
*Exhibition visits must not be course-related (for example, if we visit an exhibition as a class you may not count this exhibition as an artsXpose event.
**Films must be part of a Univ. dept. sponsored film series—Not films sponsored by the Student Union.
***University Sponsored Recitals only.
****Clubs may only count as one event regardless of the number of clubs or the number of meetings attended during a term

1.) Provide a brief detail-oriented technical description or summary of the event you attended. This section should remain journalistic and should not be reflective of your opinion.
A performance by Nano Suratno (Nano S.) and Rita Tila of classical West Javanese music known as Tembang Sunda.

2.) Use the section below to write a well-structured paragraph focusing on your personal critical insight / response to the event. How did you interpret or react to what was presented to you?
I enjoyed this performance more than most of the other performances I've seen in the arts village because this was a type of music that I have absolutely no experience with and have heard maybe once or twice in my lifetime. I felt very privileged also, because Nano S is considered to be a master composer of that type of classical music and is also one of the most popular composers of Indonesian Pop Sunda music.

3.) What information, ideas, images, etc. most impressed you and why?
I enjoyed hearing the music of course but mostly learning about it and what the popular types of music are in Indonesia and about how the kacapi (stringed instrument he plays) is used in classical music as opposed to how it is relevant in their pop music.

4.) Overall, how would you rate this event (10 being the most worthwhile)?
(10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 )

5.) Justify your rating in the question above:
I consider this to be a very valuable learning experience for anyone who enjoys music. Mostly because it's great music that most people probably have never even heard of.

Image Essay #8

I really like this work entitled 'Shine Through', because I found it in the gallery of one of my favorite artists on deviantART. He usually does strictly graphite drawings, which I have a few image essays on already. This work however, is completely different because it is abstract and actually uses color. I really like how loose this one is, as opposed to his other work which is very precise and tedious looking. This one, on the other hand is very free and at the same time is full of these nostalgic and very melancholy emotions. I almost can't tell if that is due to the pattern which the light shines through the branches or if it is the color that causes those feelings.

Blog Essay #3

Art:21 - Place

1)Do we define a place or does a place define us?
Both. We define places because we make them what the are. Without us, a place is nothing. Also places define us as a person. Most of how a person's personality and demeanor develops in life is a direct result of their surroundings where the come from.

2)How is each of the featured artists influences by particular places? How is this influence reflected in the artist's work?
Every one of the artists were influenced by particular places because I think every artist is influences by the places they've come from and the places they've been. Sometimes it's in the form of taking pictures of those places, such as in Sally Mann's work, or sometimes it's actually taking familiar places and being inspired to make new ones through creating space like Richard Serra.

3) Which artist do you feel most connected to and why?
I felt most connected with both Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee because I agreed with their views that art is for the public. I also agree that graffiti art is no more garbage than billboards are, and that should be respected and looked at as art just as any other painting in a museum would be. Not only are they not garbage, but I believe that graffiti is infinitely more valuable that billboards and advertisements because graffiti is the art of the people - a commentary on the world by who matters most in it, it's everyday people.

4) When you were young, was there a place that interested you? A place that scared you? List five places from your childhood. Use one word to describe each of them.
Hospital - Ominous. Lake - Escape. Pleasant Ridge Creek - Private. Shingle Shack - Discovery. Basement at house in West Chester - Cave.

5) Pick one of those places. Try and remember it as well as you can. Answer these questions about it... What objects occupy that place? What are the textures and sizes of those objects? What was the lighting like? Was it a dark dreary place? or bright happy one?
The basement at my house in West Chester was actually a pretty nice one. It was a finished basement that my dad finished completely by hand on his own time. It was mostly like another family room/game room. It was a very comfortable place and all of my movies and video games were there. However during one particular summer, the one I remember most about that place, was a summer when I blacked out the windows and pretty much made myself a cave down there. I spent at least 80% of my summer there. I even slept on the couch most of the time. Looking back on it, it was definitely a dark and dreary place.