No Letter, No Lunch

On friday, we will convene our final class at the Olympic Sculpture Park at 1:30.  I will bring more than enough food for everyone, so please arrive hungry.  I only ask that you bring something to drink and an end-of-semester letter.  Instructions are as follows:

At Semester’s End...

For your final assignment, please compose a letter that reflects upon your accomplishments over the past semester and year.  

Your letter should consist of four paragraphs:

1. A characterization of your overall performance this semester.  What are the topics and skills that you developed?
2. A consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of one of our major assignments (Avant Garde Pamphlet, Harlem Renaissance Wiki, and Retrospective Project).
3. Describe one topic of our discussion that continues to resonate with you.
4. Explain how you see your general education requirement fitting into your disciplinary work at Cornish over the next four years.

Write formally, but personally - between you and me [Dear Alex,].  It does go in your permanent file, but most importantly, I use your ideas to structure my own evaluation that is delivered to your department chair.  You should strive to be confident and convincing, but also honest about your learning process this semester.  Rather than describe what you did, think about how you did it.  What kind of effort did you put in?  What aspect of your work was most successful?  How can you improve upon it?  Feel free to discuss your work as a student more generally at Cornish, but focus most attention on this class.

Your letter is due on Friday at 1:30, with no exceptions.

Conference Schedule

Hi Everyone,
For your conference, make sure you bring a printed copy of your paper.
We also need to finalize the interview recordings.

April 30
Erida - 4:00
Evan - 4:30
Joe - 5:00
Kevin - 5:30
Violet - 6:00

May 1
Meranda - 2:00
Savannah - 2:30
Rachel - 3:00
Sean - 3:30
Joe - 4:00

In the Cafe

Evan Johnson(revised)

Portraiture through history was a way for artists to study form, and for the subjects to have a keepsake. At the turn of the century modernists came to realize that their existence was merely the result of happenstance and portraiture became a way for artists to study human psyche. Pablo Picasso studied himself through self portraiture to consider his own existence. Another of his fascinations was the women he used as subjects, sexualizing them in their portraits. The multitude of different females in his portraits made his personal feelings for the subjects perfectly clear. Les Mademoiselles d'Avignon shocked the world with the provacative depiction of the women in the picture plane, and thus sexuality became a major topic of expression through portraiture.

Frida Kahlo, female artist from Mexico immortalized her sexuality through her self portaits in which she presented herself as being as beautiful as she saw herself to be. She saw her natural state of being as perfect, she let her brow and hair on the upper lip grow just, and in her confidence and repitition she made physical traits thought to be masculine and unattractive for a women to posess sexual and gorgeous.

Andy Warhol expressed his sexuality very openly in his social life, during interviews, and in his art work. The 1964 film Blow Job is a self portrait in which Warhol is framed from the neck up and between the title and his actions, the viewer can only imagine that he is receiving oral sex just below the camera. 

https://vimeo.com/45258317 

Today on Modern Times

I would like to have a discussion about the reading I circulated on monday.  For those of you that were not in class, or challenged by keeping papers in order, the link is here:

How to Live Without Irony.

I would also like to spend some time discussing your submissions.  It occurred to me that you have all brought some very interesting ideas to the table, but we have not discussed how they might go together.
And finally, we'll talk about the schedule for the remainder of the semester, including time conferences, submitting your final papers and portfolio letters.  And of course dinner / lunch.  More on that later today.

Sexuality and Rebellion: Marilyn Minter

 Painter and photographer Marilyn Minter (American, b.1948) is best known for her hyperrealistic paintings and richly-colored photographs, which feature close-up views the human body in examinations of what constitutes “glamour” and “beauty.”
Through the 1980s, she explored Pop-derived pictures often incorporating sexuality, receiving often bitter controversy when she began using imagery taken from porn magazines. Her infamy was exacerbated in 1990 when she produced her own TV ad, 100 Food Porn, which ran during late-night mainstream television shows. The 1990s and the early years of this decade saw her gradually refining her style and imagery so that,while still suggesting pornography, her photographs and paintings seem to breathe the atmosphere of high fashion and glamour.
Marilyn often takes aspects of fashion photography such as the fascination with fragile quail eggs or models with jewelry in their mouth and takes it a step further by painting the eggs breaking and drooling all over a woman's face, or a model throwing up a mouth full of pearls.
Besides her painting and photography work, Marilyn gained a lot of fame with some of her video work.She produced an eight minute high-definition video, Green Pink Caviar (2009) A lush and sensual voyeuristic hallucination.  Filmed with macro lenses, she captures the most minute movements of female mouths licking candy and cake decoration. This video was even played as an opening to Madonna's Sweet and Sticky Tour.
The most interesting part of Marilyn's work to me, is her attitude to the imagery she chooses to explore. In many interviews Marilyn expressed a very casual approach to themes of pornography and specifically females' sexual exploration. Marilyn rebels against the notions that these topics are often taboo and creates these massive glamorous works of art, presenting them on billboards (sometimes literally) as if they were everyday, popular, commercial culture.
I propose that besides exhibiting Minter's work in gallery spaces provided on campus, I would also urge Cornish to invite her for an artist talk at the Henry Art Gallery. Marilyn has a fresh look at themes of Sexuality and Rebellion that many current and upcoming artist would benefit from hearing.

Example artist talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBcO3btUtjE

Green Pink Caviar teaser:

http://www.marilynminter.net/video/greenpinkcaviar/

Artist website:
http://www.marilynminter.net/

Retrospective Project | Sexuality and Rebellion, Kevin Shields

What piece of modernist theatre better embodies the idea of rebellion and sexuality better than Frank Wedekind's "Spring Awakening"? A bold and daring play even for 2014, but especially so back in 1891 when it was written. Tackling teenage angst, rebellion, and blossoming sexuality amidst puritanical and tyrannical ideals with an expressionistic flair, this play still makes a compelling statement today. The play focuses mostly on two 14 year olds, Melchior Gabor and Wendla Bergman, as they experiment and discover their sexuality with one another. Wendla is very naïve about sex whereas Melchior has done his reading and is knowledgeable. Their relationship culminates in them having sex and Wendla becoming pregnant. At the end of the play Wendla dies of a forced abortion and leaves Melchior grief stricken.

Written in 2000, Naomi Wallace's "The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek" provides an modern day compliment to Wedekind's play. Similarly tackling ideas of sexuality, rebellion, and repression amidst a soul-crushing environment and era, and also presented in a somewhat expressionistic style. Set during the Dust Bowl in the American Mid-West, "Trestle" follows the tumultuous relationship between 15 year old Dalton and 17 year old tomboy Pace as they prepare to play a deadly game of chicken against an oncoming train. In "Trestle" their relationship is somewhat the inverse of Wendla and Melchior's in "Spring Awakening." Pace is older and more bleakly realistic about sex and the world they live in whereas Dalton is younger, naïve and still filled with optimism that he will go to college and lead a "normal" life. Dalton just wants a normal relationship with a girl, any girl, but Pace challenges his notions of normalcy and breaks them. Their relationship culminates in Pace guiding Dalton through masturbation with Dalton imagining he is in the receptive position and Pace imagining she is in the penetrative positions. Neither of them touch during this scene. The audience finds out near the end of the play that when Pace and Dalton finally played their game of chicken by running across the trestle towards the oncoming train, Pace tripped and jumped off the side of the track killing herself.

I propose that Cornish produce both plays in repertory together at the Cornish Playhouse Studio. Starring the same actor and actress in the two lead roles of both productions. Both of these plays explore ideas of submissive and dominant positions, who is the teacher and who is the student, both in harsh, restrictive environments. In "Spring Awakening" Melchior teaches Wendla about her body and sex, In "Trestle" Pace teaches Dalton about the bleak reality awaiting him and how to break out of it. Having the same two performers play the lead roles in each production would highlight these relationships to those who see both productions. As an audience they would see the actor who plays Melchior/Dalton play both a dominant role and a very submissive one, with the inverse for the actress playing Wendla/Pace.



Neither are technically demanding pieces and both could be produced simply with minimal sets, props, and costumes. Dynamic lighting and sound design will aid the performers to tell the stories, but scenic elements will be kept to near nonexistent, instead utilizing the sheer size and blackness of the space. Doing so would highlight the emotional isolation the characters face but also allow the story and themes to come to the forefront of both pieces and hopefully spark dialogue between audience members who see both plays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Awakening_(play)

Unfortunately there is no neat and tidy summary of "Trestle" on the internet so here a few links to an analysis and some reviews of the piece.

Absence in Naomi Wallace's The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek

http://home.pon.net/kashimba/trestle.html

http://www.wbez.org/blog/onstagebackstage/2011-08-26/dueling-critics-get-tense-over-trestle-pope-lick-creek-91035

The Statement of a Curator

Why have you burdened me with this task?

1. It's a requirement of the course
2. Refining your ability to describe artistic works is a critical skill.  As an artist you will be called upon to not only describe pieces of work, but articulate how they go together.
3. At Cornish, you will be well served to develop an interdisciplinary arts vocabulary.

How long is a curator's statement?

They vary in length. For the purposes of our class, your document should be at least 850 words (see the curator's statement from the Victoria and Albert below)

What should my Statement contain?

• A Title.  Put some thought into this, as you would in titling an original composition
• A clear statement of focus and purpose
• A concise discussion of the subject and contents
• A description of the intended outcome. What will people experience?

What structure should I follow?

The first paragraph is critical.  What are the details people should know?  You are trying to immediately inform and capture the attention of a visitor.  Define the topic, the scope of your exhibition (years, regions, people, movements), and state the purpose.  That’s a lot to pack into one paragraph.  Be direct and efficient.

The following paragraphs are up to you, but my suggestion would be:  

• You might take 2 paragraphs to describe the importance of the topic.  Why should this interest someone?
• The body of the paper (5 or so paragraphs) should describe the contents of the show.  You might choose to lay out the different components of the program.  Alternatively, you might organize this section according to different themes that run throughout your retrospective.  
• A final paragraphs should state the goals and intentions of your retrospective.  This might also serve to conclude your proposal.  Importantly, be conscientious about your organization.  What do you need to say and how are you going to devote space to saying it?

What is included in this document?

You need to select three of the proposals from your colleagues, in addition to your own. Be conscientious about your selections. How will they go together? Do you want programs that are closely related or items that show contrasting ideas about sex and rebellion. The curator’s statement for the Gauguin show (linked below) is instructive as to content, voice, and level of detail.

Who is my audience?

You should address your proposal to an audience that is literate in the arts, but not necessarily fully informed about the individuals and artists you are discussing.  Your voice should be formal and confident.  Avoid the first person, “I.”  The whole document is a reflection of your ideas.  

Will you look over an outline, first paragraph, or draft?

Yes, gladly.  The writing center is also a great resource for a project like this.

Where can I read more suggestions?

Any flyer or playbill you receive at a professional show might provide a model for this kind of writing.  How does the curator, producer, choreographer, etc describe the selections they’ve chosen to put on display?  Here are a few examples, taken largely from realm of the visual arts.

Postmodern Exhibit at Victoria and Albert (this length is perfect)

Gauguin Retrospective @ SAM (describes the displays effectively)

Out (o) Fashion @ the Henry

Guidelines from the RISD writing center (they have a shorter length in mind, but the idea is there)

And Another Thing (a bit vague, but interesting content)

What are you looking for in a good curator's statement?

First, polish and completeness.  Second, a working knowledge of your topic and the contents (in your own words).  Third, I want to see you synthesize these pieces.  How do they go together?  Do they interact and speak to one another?  Perhaps they present a contrasting image of the same topic.  

When is it due?

Check the schedule