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

Sexuality & Rebellion From China

REN HANG

Ren Hang is a young talented 26 year old photographer based out of Beijing, producing beautifully provocative work. As you can imagine being a radical artist in China can be a tricky. Recently the country just banned Katy Perry from their airwaves for being too vulgar. But this hasn't seemed to stop Ren Hang from flooding his website with erected penises, lactating breasts, and butt hole galore.

In China sex is a taboo. No one talks about sex in China, nudes are completely banned. Ren Hang asks, "Why can't we talk about sex?" "It's just part of life, like eating or sleeping." Something Americans don't even blink a eye at, sex has become just a part of our culture.

During shoots Hang just expects authorities will be called, dealing with harassment on a constant bases, and his website has been shut down multiple times. This is just something Hang has came to expect. But he continues to shoot in China, it's his homeland and he feels a great connection with the people there. Ren Hang is a true Chinese rebel and a great example of the tragic struggle of still living in a country with strong rules. It's a good thing too because his photos are beautiful, he desexualizes the human body and turns them into something beautiful, funny, hairy, human sculpture like, and real. Ren has a open mind when he is shooting, nothing is planned, and he creates stunning poses just on impulse. He thinks that the we came into this world naked, its our most purest form. His goal is to embrace this form and cherish it. Hang has been an inspiration for a whole group of uprising artist in China. With his homeland being extremely conservative and its codes for art and communication do not accept his work. He isn't even allowed to exhibit his work in China. What better way to introduce his work to the states by inviting him to come show his work at Cornish. Take a look at a photos, they speak for themselves.

Friday's Checklist

For tomorrow:

1. Meet in Moira Scott Payne's office on the 7th floor, 1:30 for tea.  Please see my email regarding topics.
2. Post your submissions for the Modernism Retrospective before class, including images and suggestions for further reading.
3. Prepare to describe your proposal and answer questions for ten minutes in class.
4. Update me about the status of the oral history interviews.

Sexuality and Black Feminism in Jazz
While sexual innuendos and sexual themes have been existent in jazz music since post-slavery blues, when female singers came into the picture of urban blues (1920's-1930's), they put a new, subversive light on sexuality and the image of the women in song. Most of the blues sung by women (and were usually autobiographical) were about the topics of no-good, two-timing men, alcohol, empowering advice to other women, abandonment, failed love, infidelity, not giving in to men, not supporting a poor man, homosexuality, and promiscuity, which women hadn't really sang openly about in popular music before. These blues singers include Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Gladys Bentley. Many of these women were lesbian, bisexual, or pansexual, but also, most of them were married to men. However, this aspect of their private lives sometimes slipped into their music, lyrics, and reputations (many of them being called "bulldaggers", or "dykes"), but still they received much popularity and appreciation from male, female, straight, gay, black, and white listeners. It was perfect timing for these issues to be sung about, right as the image of the "modern woman" was changing in the early 20th century and many women were seeking liberation from Victorian gender roles.

These singers approached the topic individually, but what they all had in common was immense strength,  talent, wit, and fearlessness, as well as very tragic lives, which is reflected in their music. Ma Rainey was one of the first women to be recognized in jazz and was a lesbian who used sexual/ homosexual imagery in her songs, with her her raspy contralto voice. She also is said to have been a major influence on Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues", who was married to a man, but was known for having sexual relationships with many of the women she worked with. She stood up for herself against her abusive husband, while being open about her love affairs in her music. Many of her songs revolve around the theme of the hardships of being a black woman.
 Gladys Bentley was also a very interesting figure in this era because she was a lesbian, male-impersonating performer who was very popular and well-received playing piano and singing in speakeasies in New York, until the McCarthy era, when she came back into the closet and left the New York scene. Gladys was the most outspoken about her sexuality and changing gender roles. She dressed as a man, had a deep voice when singing, would openly flirt with female audiences, and sang about love affairs with women. She was the most prominent "bulldagger" of them all.

For the show, I would like to have a room that plays selected recordings of the music of these women, with the lyrics projected onto a screen. The songs will be selected based on relevancy to the topic of speaking out about sexuality and oppression of women. There will also be photos, videos (if any), and biographies of these women and explanation of their contribution to the jazz world and the empowerment of women, specifically black women in America.

You've had your chance and proved unfaithful
So now I'm gonna be real mean and hateful
I used to be your sweet mama, sweet papa
But now I'm just as sour as can be.

--"I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama,"

I know women that don't like men The way they do is a crying sin. It's dirty but good, oh, yes, it's dirty but good There ain't much difference, it's just dirty but good. 

--"It's Dirty But Good" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSOYDm8ftIY&feature=kp

Rebellion and Sexuality in Modernist Theatre

During the modernist and post-modernist era, a large variety of expressionist theatre came out and became popular or known among larger audiences. This changed the way many people saw theatre, and introduced many new issues and pieces about social change and growth. Conflicts that needed to be addressed were finally becoming voiced and introduced to the larger social community by being expressed through the theatre arts. Many plays about women's oppression, sexuality, and rebellion began to become popular. Some of these plays include A Doll's House, Machinal, Hedda Gabler, Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Angels in America, Miss Julie, Top Girls, etc, by playwrights including Henrik Ibsen, Eugene O'Neill, August Strindberg, Carol Churchill, Bertolt Brecht, Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner, Sophie Treadwell, and many many more. 

For my performance piece, there will be a series of scenes in different gallery spaces that will address the themes of rebellion and sexuality from different plays. The focus of the pieces will be on the woman, and the woman's quest for freedom. One scene from each play will be performed at a different gallery space including art, or a performance space where a dance or musical piece is simultaneously happening. The actors will consist of a variety of people with different ethnic backgrounds to represent that the issues being addressed are universal. The actors have the freedom to improv within the scene whether it be interacting with the audience, repeating lines for emphasis, interacting with the other performers of other artistic abilities, or however else they might improv to put emphasis on a specific point in the scene. The scenes will be going on all day, so as the audience travels from space to space, not one audience member will receive the same experience as another. 

The plays will include (Play- Scene): 

A Doll's House (Scene 8: Nora leaves Torvald)

Machinal (Episode 6: Young has extra-marital affair)

Miss Julie (Part II- Miss Julie and Jean have an affair and Jean confesses his love to her; this happens soon after Julie has had a broken-off engagement. Julie is known as "sado-masochistic" towards men)

Hedda Gabler (Act 4, Part 2: Hedda Gabler learns that the police will most likely trace her crime and realize that she has killed her husband, and so she shoots herself)

Man Ray Representing the New Man/New Woman through Sexuality and Rebellion in the 1920s

As Dadaism came to an end and surrealism was at the forefront of art world, many of these new “Surrealists” explored the idea of joining the subconscious with the conscious realms of reality in relation to human nature and sexuality. Man Ray’s icon, Marquis de Sade, explored these taboos despite the consequences (and was later imprisoned for publishing obsessive sexual exploits involving women, go figure.) These writings gave Man Ray inspiration to explore eroticism and female imagery at the end of Dadaism, bringing women’s sexuality and the “new woman” to the public eye. “The new man” and queer repression was an idea also explored by Man Ray and is communicated through a few sets of “rayographs.”

Man Ray had to work against the conventions of the masculinist movement by examining the long repressed queer dimensions of the unconscious that even surrealism feared to unleash. This feminine man, proud and strong, with clearly still masculine features is a representation of “the new man.” of the 1920s, when queer is no longer a matter not to be discussed. Jean Cocteau hired Man Ray to take a set of photos of him as a female figure known as “Barbette.” Jean is in a stage transforming between average man and adding pieces to become the show girl  that completed Barbette as a character. Barbette’s wig is on and his face is made up, but his chest is bare and very obviously a man’s. Barbette becomes a metaphor of the new masculinity not only in being bisexual, but in giving the impression of being emasculated. The erotic spectacle enacted by Barbette cannot be separated from the physical traumas engendered by World War I.

This situation happens once again when Marcel Duchamps asks Man Ray of the same thing, to take a set of photos of him dressed as a female figure. Marcel’s photos defy the violence or subjugation of the female body common to surrealism and presents femininity’s agency over the desires of the viewer. Man Ray achieves the vision of making the desire of the unconscious that knows nothing of the social prohibitions that would forbid this fusion of the male and female. Once again, these camp aesthetics still show masculine qualities beneath the wig.  Rrose Sélavy, like Barbette, plays with the notion of uncannily hiding one’s self beneath a “veil” of another gender. The exploration of “new” sexualities within men of the 1920s is a common topic for Man Ray in 1920s rayographs/photographs.

Man Ray was also inspired by his obsession with women and also began to explore female eroticism, evident in many of his photographs. Man Ray seeked certain docile women as a fetish for photographing, but bringing women’s sexuality into the mainstream photography eye and media brought about advancement in feminism through sexuality. This sexual woman, bare, with emphasis on natural curves and romantic lighting represented the “new woman.” In some of the photos, there are women in vulnerable positions or engaging in sexual activity, and this is rumored to cater to Man Ray’s sexual desires, but this documented sexual activity was revolutionary in early photography and feminism.

Man Ray’s lover, Lee Miller, was often photographed by Man Ray. Miller represented something new to Man Ray. "She was," according to Carolyn Burke, "the incarnation of that provocative French figure, the garconne, an independent young woman who plans to enjoy her freedom." She brought to the role a New World self-assurance. This was her appeal to Man Ray. She embodied the present woman. In one photo, Miller covers herself below the waist with a tightly draped cloth, an gesture of dignified protest against her objectification. Her mainly nude body is made androgynous by her pose. Androgyny is another quality of the “new woman” that Man Ray represents through some of his photos. Miller’s arms in this photo are behind her head in angular points to keep a distance. Miller’s gaze avoids  her spectators, like confrontation would melt her independence.

Man Ray’s photographs of Kiki, another lover, often use the outline of her body to represent other objects. A notable photo of Kiki is the one of her painted as a violin. The natural curves of a woman are compared to a useful playing instrument, and that’s how Man Ray saw women, but the way Kiki sits upright and proud doesn’t seem discouraging to women.

Jean Cocteau as "Barbette"

Le Violin De Ingres

(Kiki de Montparnasse)

Kiki de Montparnasse portrait

"Prayer"

(Meret Oppenheim)

Meret Oppenheim

Rose Selavy (Marcel Duchamps) portrait

(Self-portrait), dressed as female

Lee Miller and a painting of her lips

Lee Miller

Lee Miller

Identity Through Self Portraiture: Modernism Retrospective (EVAN)

Many modernists came to realize that their existence was merely the result of happenstance. They considered that they could be merely an amalgamation of earthly particles smaller than anything perceivable only several decades ago. In hopes of finding significance for their identity artists studied themselves through self portraiture.

This gallery will offer a look at how early modernists began to express personal identity before the expanse into a greater societal view. The space will be divided into the two categories of painting and photography mounted cleanly on white walls. The art work will be displayed chronologically within the two timelines of self portraiture in painting and self portraiture in photography. The two categories will be prefaced with text providing historical relevance and general introduction to the work.

Each piece of art will be accompanied by discourse written in the modernist stream of consciousness style based on the technical, conceptual, and historical qualities and context of the artwork. This discourse would exist in the zine pamphlet that will be dispensed near the entrance. This will incorporate a link between the study of one's self  in contemporary society as it relates to the artwork of the century past.

Preliminary choices of featured art work:
 Pablo Picasso self portrait 1901
Paul Gauguin self portrait 1888
 Man Ray self portrait 1942
Walker Evans self portrait 1927

Art Deco – Eduardo Garcia Benito (Sexuality and Rebellion Proposal) Erida

My proposal for this project is to incorporate art deco elements onto posters from Eduardo Garcia Benito that symbolize and really emphasis the basis of sexuality and rebellion. Art Deco is a visual arts design style that first appeared in France after World War I, it was popular throughout the world  in the 1920s- 1940s but after World War II it lost its spark. I would like to use the Art Deco stylization because it’s a vibrate style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. I researched Art deco to find a better description of Art Deco for all of you to understand. "The style is often characterized by rich colors, bold geometric shapes, and lavish ornamentation." I feel that this sort of style was different during the Modern Era and maybe not as accepted because it was an unusual combination of elements onto one, but of course it was popular during the dates I mentioned earlier.

Eduardo Garcia Benito was a portrait artist turned into the lead illustrator for Vogues elite team known as the “Beaux Brummel’s of the Brush.” I believe that his Vogue covers are reverent to the topic of “sexuality and rebellion” because Eduardo always tried to empower the woman figure with his interpretation of the feminine beauty, it was not any sort of photography it was his solemn work of art. And of course his art deco stylized art work made the Vogue covers a the entire meaning of cubism an upper class feel that originally was not considered to be the tradition esthetic beauty everyone was commonly used to, which I think was a rebellious movement for Eduardo to do.

Ultimately I’d like to gather his most popular and talked about Vogue magazine covers that best describe sexuality and rebellion, display them in a gallery space in a timeline format. I’d like to basically talk about the deeper meaning of the way he used art deco, his colors, and the usage of space for each element he placed on paper and what events were occurring during the same time that may have inspired him to create his art work.

Vogue, 1926

-Erida

Retrospective Project II Sexuality and Rebellion...Welcome to Theatre of Cruelty

     

Leather, chains,handcuffs, ball gags, nudity, hot wax and zippers. If you do not think any of that is considered sexual or rebellious then you could have a problem, but if you do.Well let me introduce you to my proposal. I propose that Cornish celebrate its inner dark side, with a Theater of Cruelty one-act play festival preformed at different locations across the campus, allowing the performers to experiment with what is around them.

What is Theater of Cruelty well it all started when Antonin Artaud wanted to “abolish the stage and auditorium,” and to do away with sets and props. He envisioned the performance space as an empty room with the audience seated in the center and the actors performing all around them. The stage effects included overwhelming sounds and bright lights in order to stun the audience's sensibilities and completely immerse them in the theatrical experience. In his lifetime, Artaud only produced one play that put the theories of the Theater of Cruelty into practice. The play Les Censi was neither a commercial or critical success and ran for only 17 performances. Artaud, however, believed that, while he was forced to limit the scope of his vision due to financial constraints, Les Censi succeeded in exemplifying the tenants of the Theater of Cruelty.

 

 

Interview Schedule

Interviews:
Kathleen
Kim
John W.
John O.
Jarrad
Pat

Hal
Roger

Retrospective Project | Modernism and Propaganda

The idea for a modernist city was that it would create an ideal society. Modernists believed that the reason for social chaos was due to unplanned development and pieced together cities. Their cure for this epidemic was building cities from scratch and having full design control of every building. This, they thought, would rid society of social class, poverty, and greed. By building a perfect city, they would create perfect civilians.

Using the main gallery, this contribution to Modernism: The Age of Propaganda will install a collection of photographs, three dimensional models, and architectural drawings of various planned and utopic cities from the early to mid twentieth century.  The federal capital of Brazil, Brasilia, is the most obvious example.  Constructed in 1960, the giant city was supposed to demonstrate the awe and power of the modern Brazilian state.  Other examples include Le Corbusier's plan for Paris, Albert Speer's reconstruction of Nazi Berlin, Hundertwasser's projects in Austria, and Gaudi's Parque Guell.  

In addition to these visual pieces, we will invite Gary Hustwit, maker of the documentary, Urbanized, to talk about the modern global city and the newest innovative ideas in urban planning and design.

I hope this exhibit will display the use of propaganda through modernism.  One goal is to display the contrast between planned idealism and contemporary reality.  Another goal is to explicate what modernists thought a city should look like and display the pictures as reference.  The feel of the gallery space should match the aesthetic feel of the images.  Stark white rooms and sparse imagery on the walls will emphasize the feel of modern space.

Further reading:
Nathan Glazer, From a Cause to a Style
The Little Prince and Le Corbusier
Documentary : Urbanized
Benevolo, History of Modern Architecture (available in the library)